Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Some RootsTech sessions available to watch on demand

By 2 Comments

If you weren’t able to attend RootsTech or watch the Live Stream of certain RootsTech sessions, you now have the chance to watch most of those sessions on demand (and a few more). I was disappointed to see that LeVar Burton’s Friday keynote isn’t available. It was a terrific speech that was very moving.

RootsTech has made it easy to click and watch the videos. Here’s the list. (Click on the day name to get access to the videos for that day.) There are a few I wasn’t able to attend that I plan to watch!

Wednesday, February 8

Innovator Summit General Session (Full session or individual speeches)
Speakers: Steve Rockwood, Liz Wiseman

Industry Trends and Outlook panel
Speakers: Ben Bennett; Craig Bott, Grow Utah; Heather Holmes, TapGenes; Nick Jones, JRNL, Inc.; Robert Kehrer, FamilySearch

Innovation—Best Practices and Applications
Speaker: Cydni Tetro

Innovator Showdown Semi-Final
Speakers: Innovator Showdown Semi-Finalists

Metadata—Writing on the Back of Digital Photos
Speaker: Alison Taylor, Pictures and Stories

Thursday, February 9

RootsTech General Session (full session and individual keynotes)
Speakers: Steve Rockwood, Jonathan and Drew Scott, Steve Rockwood & MyHeritage

Getting Started in Genealogy
Speaker: Kelli Bergheimer

DNA: The Glue That Holds Families Together
Speaker: Diahan Southard, Your DNA Guide

DNA Matching on MyHeritage
Speaker: Dana Drutman

Jewish Genealogy: Where to Look and What’s Available
Speaker: Lara Diamond

My Ancestors are in My DNA!
Speaker: Angie Bush

Family History Is Anything but Boring
Speakers: Crystal Farish and Rhonna Farrer

Friday, February 10

RootsTech General Session: African Heritage presentations
Speakers: Kenyatta Berry, Sherri Camp, Melvin Collier

Innovator Showdown Finals
Speakers: Jason Hewlett & Innovator Showdown Finalists

Mothers, Daughters, Wives: Tracing Female Lines
Speaker: Judy G. Russell

Censational Census Strategies
Speaker: Mary Kircher Roddy

Next Steps in British Research
Speaker: Amy Harris

Big 4: Comparing Ancestry, findmypast, FamilySearch, and MyHeritage
Speaker: Sunny Morton

You Found It Where? Unusual Records
Speakers: Rorey Cathcart, D. Joshua Taylor, Rich Venezia

Cross the Atlantic with Religious Records
Speaker: Jen Baldwin

How to Preserve Your Family Heirlooms
Speakers: Anna Graff, Jennifer Hadley, Katie Smith, Andrew Thomas, Tyler Thorsted

Saturday, February 11

RootsTech General Session (full session and individual keynotes)
Speakers: Cece Moore, Buddy Valastro

Journaling Principles That Work
Speaker: Steve Reed, JRNL, Inc.

Don’t Just Be a Searcher, Be a Researcher
Speaker: Crista Cowan, Ancestry

Creating Google Alerts for Your Genealogy
Speaker: Katherine R. Willson

Making good use of my time at the Family History Library

By 10 Comments

An aisle of microfilm at the Family History Library

I leave for Salt Lake City on Wednesday, to attend the RootsTech conference. I arrive noonish and have decided to spend the afternoon and early evening at the Family History Library. I’m finding myself wishing I’d opted to go a day early to research, but I didn’t, so I’m trying to make good use of the fairly narrow window of time at the library.

I’m really fortunate because professional genealogist and Organize Your Family History reader Maria Tello has offered to meet me at the library and get me oriented and off to the right start. Thank you, Maria!

I’m looking to keep myself focused on one nuclear family; I have some questions I’d like to get answered. But I don’t want to have such tunnel vision that I might miss out on opportunities to learn about other families.

I’m wondering if any of my readers have any advice for me. I bet I’ll be there five hours or so. I’ll have my laptop. Is there anything you think I should bring along? Anything at the library that is not to be missed? Any pitfalls to try to avoid? I’ve been there once before, when I attended RootsTech in 2014. I remember being unfocused and overwhelmed and hope it will be different this time!

Also, if you’re attending RootsTech and would like to meet up, please comment here or send me a note from the Contact page. I’ve always had such a great time meeting readers!

A final note: Tuesday I’ll be posting my next installment of my How They Do It series. Keep an eye out!

RootsTech’s livestream schedule

By 2 Comments

RootsTech has announced its schedule of sessions being streamed from next week’s conference. If you can’t make it to Salt Lake City, you can at least watch some of the keynotes and breakout sessions. (Alas, my session on Friday morning, Go Paperless: Digitize & Streamline Your Research, isn’t one of them.)

Here’s the schedule. The sessions will be streamed live on the RootsTech homepage and then afterward recordings will be posted on the website for a limited time.

Visit the Sessions page on the RootsTech website for descriptions of each of these sessions.

Wednesday, February 8

9:00 a.m.–10:00 a.m. | Innovator Summit General Session
Speakers: Steve Rockwood, Liz Wiseman

10:15 a.m.–11:15 a.m. | Industry Trends and Outlook
Speakers: Craig Bott and Guest Panel

11:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m. | Innovation—Best Practices and Applications
Speaker: Cydni Tetro

Thursday, February 9

8:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m. | RootsTech General Session
Speakers: Steve Rockwood, Jonathan and Drew Scott

11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. | Getting Started in Genealogy
Speaker: Kelli Bergheimer

12:15 p.m.–1:15 p.m. | DNA: The Glue That Holds Families Together
Speaker: Diahan Southard

1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m. | DNA Matching on MyHeritage
Speaker: Dana Drutman

3:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. | Jewish Genealogy: Where to Look and What’s Available
Speaker: Lara Diamond

4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. | Family History Is Anything but Boring
Speakers: Crystal Farish and Rhonna Farrer

Friday, February 10

8:30 a.m.–10:00 a.m. | RootsTech General Session
Speakers: Levar Burton, Special Guest Panel

10:30 a.m.–11:30 a.m. | RootsTech Innovator Showdown Finals

12:15 p.m.–1:15 p.m. | Mothers, Daughters, Wives: tracing Female Lines
Speaker: Judy Russell

1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m. | Censational Census Strategies
Speaker: Mary Kircher Roddy

3:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. | Big 4: Comparing Ancestry, findmypast, FamilySearch, and MyHeritage
Speaker: Sunny Morton

4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. | Cross the Atlantic with Religious Records
Speaker: Jen Baldwin

Saturday, February 11

8:30 a.m.–10:00 a.m. | RootsTech General Session
Speakers: Cece Moore, Buddy Valastro

11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. | Journaling Principles That Work
Speaker: Steve Reed

1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m. | Don’t Just Be a Searcher, Be a Researcher
Speaker: Crista Cowan

3:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. | Creating Google Alerts for Your Genealogy
Speaker: Katherine R. Wilson

That’s a lot of free information! I hope you can take advantage of it.

How important are formal citations?

By 30 Comments

I may be opening up a can of worms here, but a conversation in the comments of my post about accountability for research logs has me pondering the question again.

How important is it for the hobbyist genealogist to use properly formatted citations?

(Please understand that my question is about the format of source citations, not about whether we should cite sources. I absolutely believe every fact should be backed up by at least one source.)

I think many folks would agree that Elizabeth Shown Mills’ book Evidence Explained is the gold standard source citations. I own Evidence Explained and I do consult it occasionally. But generally I relax the rules for myself. I make sure that my citations would allow me to find the source again and I typically use the citation templates found in my Reunion software.

Basically, I want to make sure that it’s easy to cite sources so that I always cite them. If I’m hung on doing it right, I may put off citing the source, which does not do me any good.  So, for example, I used templates in Reunion to create this census citation, associated with a fact in the record of my 3d great grandparents, Joseph and Mary Price:

“1870 U.S. Census,” Pleasant Gap, Bates, Missouri, 25 Jun 1870, Ancestry.com, 4 April 2014.

The 1870 date is the date the census was taken, and the 2014 date is the date I first viewed it. If I needed to find it again, I think I could.

So I’m curious: what do you do? Do you use formal citations are are you more casual? If you don’t use Evidence Explained, do you have another source you swear by?

If you think I’m making a mistake by not being more formal, feel free to tell me!

Join the mailing list!

When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.