James Tanner's Blog

What happened to the card catalog?

In years past when I lived in libraries (not literally), I spent huge amounts of time doing research. One of the most useful tools was to

read the card catalog. To do this, you needed the skill of flipping

through the cards very fast and also being able to read the information

in the split second the card was visible. The advantage of this type of

research was an overview of the target subject, with the result that I

often found…

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Added by James Tanner on February 8, 2010 at 9:09am — No Comments

Record Search Update England, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Colombia, and Spain FamilySearch Record Search continues to add huge collections of records from around the world. As of February 6, 2010, the …

Record Search Update England, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Colombia, and Spain

FamilySearch Record Search

continues to add huge collections of records from around the world. As

of February 6, 2010, the… Continue

Added by James Tanner on February 6, 2010 at 5:30pm — No Comments

More about Personal Ancestral File and Backup

Personal Ancestral File (PAF) is one of the most widely used lineage-linked genealogical database programs. I have not been able to find any statistics on the number of

actual users, but personal experience indicates that most of the

genealogists who have a program at all are using PAF.

Even if the genealogists have moved on to a commercially available

program, it is possible that their attitudes concerning files may have

been formed…

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Added by James Tanner on February 5, 2010 at 7:00pm — No Comments

The genealogists' ubiquitous flash drives

Wearing a flash drive around your neck on a strap has become the badge of the genealogist researcher. It is obvious that with ample storage space for most research needs in a conveniently small and light package, the flash drive is almost indispensable. But how reliable are they? Should flash drives be used for "long term" storage of data? What should I be using to archive my valuable digital files?
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Added by James Tanner on February 4, 2010 at 9:06am — 1 Comment

For Genealogists -- an illusion of security

During the past few days at the Mesa Regional Family History Center, we have had some lively discussions about transferring our genealogy files to work on a computer other than our own, particularly, bringing files to the Center for research purposes. This discussion brought up another old bugaboo, the illusion of security for backed up files.

The origin of this problem dates back into computer antiquity with the early versions of Personal Ancestral File. Primarily because of storage… Continue

Added by James Tanner on February 3, 2010 at 8:47am — No Comments

Family ChArtist, a new addition to the FamilySearch Affiliates Family

Even if you have not had the opportunity to login to New FamilySearch, you may be interested in several new products that stand well on their own merits, irrespective of their affiliation with New FamilySearch. At the Family History Expo in Mesa, Arizona, I had a personal tour of the pre-release Family ChArtist program from Generation Maps from Janet Hovorka. I also enjoyed her presentation on New FamilySearch certified genealogy software.…

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Added by James Tanner on February 2, 2010 at 12:01pm — No Comments

The future of FamilySearch

FamilySearch, the genealogical organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is well known for its Website, FamilySearch.org. However, the Website for the actual organization is that of The Genealogical Society of Utah, the previous name of the organization. In answering the question, "What is FamilySearch?' the Website says:

FamilySearch, historically known as the Genealogical Society of Utah, is dedicated to the discovery and preservation of a record of the… Continue

Added by James Tanner on January 30, 2010 at 8:21pm — No Comments

The end of the Family Tree Project

For the past few years, if you have been watching the FamilySearch Labs Web page, you are likely aware of the application called Family Tree. In an announcement made in the FamilySearch Labs Blog, Dan Lawyer notes that "The time has come to retire the very popular Family Tree project from FamilySearch Labs." Many users of the New FamilySearch program became acquainted with the Family Tree version of the program and used it to show a more developed pedigree view of the data and also to provide… Continue

Added by James Tanner on January 29, 2010 at 5:05pm — No Comments

Recursos de Historia Familiar -- Hispanic Family History Resources

FamilySearch announced new Hispanic Family History Resources for its popular FamilySearch Website. The resources are available both in English and Spanish and link to the Hispanic Family History Resources Portal of the FamilySearch Wiki. Interestingly, our own Mesa Regional Family History Center is featured as a related Website. For the past few months, I have been helping translate the Center's Website and organize the materials at the Center for use by Spanish speaking patrons. There is also… Continue

Added by James Tanner on January 28, 2010 at 8:16am — No Comments

The Full Wiki revisited

A comment by a reader (See comment by John) on my last post on The Full Wiki, got me back to look a little more deeply at the Website. First of all, John is right, it is not technically a wiki, it would be better characterized as a wiki search program. It seems to compile information from the underlying Wikipedia, among others and present it in a different format. By clicking enough times, you can sometimes get down to the original Wikipedia article.…

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Added by James Tanner on January 27, 2010 at 8:28pm — No Comments

The Full Wiki -- another valuable tool for genealogists

It seems like there is a never-ending stream of new vastly large Websites that add functionality to the Internet. The Full Wiki came online in January of 2010 claiming to build the largest collection of free licensed work on the Internet. Apparently, they have already brought together the collective works of Wikipedia, Wikiquote, WikiTravell, Wiktionary and for nostalgia, the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911.
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Added by James Tanner on January 27, 2010 at 8:44am — No Comments

How would being deaf affect your genealogical research?

Although none of my immediate family members have been completely deaf, many of us have moderate to severe hearing loss. I recently wrote about the challenges of disability to participating in genealogical research. Since we just finished the Family History Expo here in Mesa, Arizona, it reminded me of the difficulty of functioning in that environment if you were totally deaf. I had a hard enough time with my hearing aids and being only partially deaf. Very, very few of the presentations would… Continue

Added by James Tanner on January 26, 2010 at 8:58am — 1 Comment

A great experience at the Arizona Family History Expo

Despite a huge rainstorm and actual tornado warnings, the Arizona Family History Expo was a huge success. I was invited to attend as a Blogger and had a excellent time meeting other Bloggers and talking to the exhibitors and attendees. Although I have not heard any official attendance figures, I would assume there were at least twice as many people there, than last year. I hope they didn't come expecting the usual Mesa, Arizona really nice weather in January because we had a very large rain… Continue

Added by James Tanner on January 24, 2010 at 5:48pm — No Comments

The Challenges of Genealogy for the Disabled

A short time ago, we had a patron at the Mesa Regional Family History Center who was deaf. I had the opportunity to work with him in doing research for quite a while. We communicated by writing our questions and answers on slips of paper. I am afraid I don't write very quickly, and tried to convince him to use the computer, so I could write more quickly, but I did not seem to get that concept across to him very well. Then in response to my last post about attending genealogical conferences, I… Continue

Added by James Tanner on January 20, 2010 at 6:59pm — No Comments

Why should I go to a genealogical conference?

Genealogy can be a very solitary activity. Although you may have contact with your family and with other researchers, most of the work you do is done by yourself. Even though you may read journals, magazine articles and online resources about the work of doing genealogy, there are few places you can go to get feedback from knowledgeable people. Genealogical conferences provide the motivation to re-energize and re-think methods, procedures and sources. The social atmosphere of the conference… Continue

Added by James Tanner on January 19, 2010 at 10:36pm — 1 Comment

Record Search update for New Zealand and Argentina

FamilySearch's Record Search has just published the New Zealand, Immigration Passenger Lists from 1871 to 1915. The records contain images only and are further described in the FamilySearch Wiki as follows:
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Added by James Tanner on January 18, 2010 at 9:12am — No Comments

WorldCat, RedLaser, Google Books and much more

In my last post, I mentioned a new iPhone called RedLaser. I guess I need to be a little more specific. RedLaser is an app that reads UPC barcodes. If you read a barcode from a product in a store (or elsewhere) it will look up the product and search for a price on the Internet. The app has recently been expanded to read UPC barcodes on books. In addition to looking up the book and a price on the Internet, the program also looks in WorldCat to find a copies of the book in libraries, starting… Continue

Added by James Tanner on January 17, 2010 at 3:45pm — No Comments

Now if I could just think of some use for it...

The latest from WorldCat and RedLaser, an iPhone app that looks up books in libraries:
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Added by James Tanner on January 15, 2010 at 5:45pm — No Comments

Do Wikis really work for genealogy?

Before we get into any controversy over the question in the title to this post, I believe the answer to be yes, collaborative shared information sites, like the FamilySearch Wiki or the family tree Website, Werelate.org, certainly have a large role to play in genealogical world of the near future. But, is genealogy really about consensus? Just because I can get all of relatives to agree with me where my great-grandfather was born in California, does that really change the fact that I may be… Continue

Added by James Tanner on January 13, 2010 at 3:03pm — No Comments

Back to Adam?

Recently, I have had several people brag to me about their extensive pedigrees. It seems that they have completed some of their lines back to Adam! I am always grateful to find out we are related, but I do have several comments about these old extended genealogies, some of which are apparently showing up on New FamilySearch.

Before getting into a discussion about the validity of these ancient records, it would be a good idea to get a feel for the types of records that survive. One… Continue

Added by James Tanner on January 12, 2010 at 9:00am — No Comments

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