Organize Your Family History

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Free access to Fold3’s Civil War records through April 15

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Free access to Fold3's Civil War collectionTo commemorate the start of the Civil War in 1861, Fold3 is making its Civil War collection available at no cost until April 15. The Civil War collection has 50 titles and 91 million records. Click here to learn more about it and get started.

Included in the collection are both Union and Confederate records. Titles available at no cost until the 15th include:

  • Civil War “Widow’s Pension” Files
  • Civil War Pensions Index
  • Confederate Service Records
  • Confederate Amnesty Papers
  • Southern Claims Commissions

As Fold3 points out in in its blog post about the free access, even if you can’t find your own ancestor at Fold3 you can use the collection to learn more about what his service might have been like.

If you don’t already subscribe to Fold3 and you have Civil War ancestors, this is a great opportunity to check out their plentiful holdings!

Have you seen Relative Race?

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When I was at RootsTech, I enjoyed a brief presentation about the BYUtv show Relative Race. I’d never seen it before, but was enticed enough by the clips I saw in the presentation to give it a look. So far I’ve seen just one episode, but I enjoyed it.

Relative Race brings together four teams of two people (the current season has two married couples, two sisters, and a father and son) who have taken DNA tests. The couples compete against each other to find (living) relatives they’ve never met before. They’re given clues to find their DNA matches, who might be located anywhere in the US. They’re given two challenges a day, and they’re allowed only the paper map, loaner car, and flip phone they’ve been supplied with to aid them. Then they spend the night each night in the home of their new relative. Teams are eliminated along the way and the last team standing at the end of the ten-day journey wins $50,000.

It reminds me of a less-exotic Amazing Race, with a genealogy twist. The introductions of the contestants with their heretofore unknown cousins makes the show especially fun for genealogists.

The third season began March 4. The current season, along with the episodes from previous seasons, are available to watch at this link. (You can read more about the show in this press release.)

If you watch it, I’d love to know what you think!

My RootsTech in pictures

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I had a great time at RootsTech and returned home to a lot of catching up to do (as well as client appointments for my organizing business), so I thought today I’d share some photos of my RootsTech experience, rather than writing a long post. I promise at least one substantive blog post on the content of some of the sessions I attended.

Being at a conference with tens of thousands of other people isn’t exactly my cup of tea. But the educational offerings make it worth it for me.

I created a collage of some representative photos. Explanations will appear below the collage.

 

Here are some of the highlights:

The good

My dear friend, Shannon Wilkinson, who has been getting into genealogy research over the last couple of years, joined me at RootsTech, which made the whole event even more fun for me. We shared a lovely room at The Peery Hotel, two blocks from the convention center. It was a fraction of the price of the conference hotels! Before the first general session, the awesome emcee, Jason Hewlett, asked us all to snap a selfie with the person next to us and make a funny face, then post it on social media. The top center photo is the selfie Shannon and I made. It’s one of many photos of the two of laughing that we’ve taken over the years.

A genius at Family Search created an app that allowed attendees to see how many cousins they had who were also attending RootsTech, based on the Family Search family tree. With one simple login and a touch of the button, I was able to see that I had 300 cousins (the closest being a sixth cousin) in attendance! The photo on the bottom left shows the stats on that project conference-wide.

All the keynotes were fantastic. On Thursday we heard Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York who had an inspirational message about listening to others and about following your dreams. Shannon snapped the great picture on the  middle left. The large photo he’s standing in front of is the first photo he took of strangers. On Friday, we heard the inspirational words of former Olympic figure skater Scott Hamilton. His positivity is absolutely contagious. (No photo because the person sitting in front of me had big hair.)

On Saturday, we heard Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University and the TV show Finding Your Roots, who did not disappoint. (That’s him in the center right of the collage.) His eloquence and enthusiasm for genealogy, DNA, and teaching young people about DNA and genealogy (in his Finding Your Roots: The Seedlings program) was motivating and inspiring. Also on Saturday, we also had the opportunity to hear the beautiful Mexican singer Natalia Lafourcade perform. It was a special treat to hear her perform the Oscar-winning song, “Remember Me,” (from the movie Coco) for the first time in front of a live audience. The next night she performed it (albeit in a different way) on the Oscar broadcast! Note: All the keynote talks, as well as some major sessions, were recorded and are available to watch at this link.

I am so happy I was able to take advantage of the conference being in Salt Lake City to spend a few hours looking at microfilm at the Family History Library. The bottom center photo in the collage is just one of the many aisles of microfilm storage. Amazing!

The bad

The aforementioned crowds definitely took the luster off the event for me. I snapped the photo on the top left from above as people streamed toward lunch after a session. This year, our name tags were scanned before we could enter a session. That led to long, tedious lines and difficulties passing through hallways. I hope they reconsider that. Many people had difficulty getting into talks–they stood in line for more than an hour in some cases, only to be turned away. I didn’t experience that, but I wasn’t trying to attend the popular DNA sessions. I also had no problems registering (I literally had a wait of about 30 seconds) while others waited in line up to three hours.

The ugly?

On my way out of a restaurant the day I was leaving, I encountered this gentleman who explained me that he was part of an Urban Chariot Race team called Disney Princesses. I asked him if I could take a picture of him (I couldn’t resist!) and he struck a pose. There he is on the bottom right of the collage.

Seriously, if you have a chance to attend RootsTech next year and you’re not completely opposed to crowds, I heartily recommend it!

Poll: What genealogy software do you use?

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I’m curious, what software do you use to keep track of your family tree? I use Reunion, the software I started out with six years ago, and I really like it. But I don’t have any point of comparison.

I put together this poll to learn what my readers use, so I can figure out which software I should learn more about. I’d appreciate it if you’d take a moment and fill it out. I’d love to hear in the comments what you like and dislike about the software you use. Thanks!

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