Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Friday, March 22, 2024

RootsTech 2024 is still online and available

 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/

My wife and I have been enjoying some of the presentations from RootsTech 2024 that we missed while being so busy doing other things. Here is a list of some of the current attractions. 

www.familysearch.org/en/connect

www.familysearch.org/discovery/famousrelatives

www.familysearch.org/campaign/lookalike

www.familysearch.org/campaign/photocollage

www.rootstech.org

You might want to look at the huge collection of videos also. There are 1,500 sessions on 185 topics in over 30 languages. The video collection is a marvelous resource for learning about almost everything genealogical. 




Wednesday, March 20, 2024

MyHeritage introduces All-New Profile Pages with Hints

 

https://blog.myheritage.com/2024/02/introducing-all-new-profile-pages-with-hints/

Qouting from a recent blog post:

The profile page is among the most visited pages on MyHeritage, and is one of the most valuable ones for genealogists. Many users requested that we add additional capabilities to the page. You asked, and we listened! Today we are proud to release the result: the all-new profile pages. This is a whole new experience that is more than just a single page; it’s a centralized hub for everything known about a person.

This major enhancement includes a more organized layout and cool features to help you maximize your discoveries about your ancestors and relatives. We’ve also added Hints, which are a unique, highly useful way of presenting new details from your matches within the context of an individual profile. The profile pages remain free and are now more useful than ever!

The new profile pages are available on the MyHeritage website on desktop. We will soon add Hints to the MyHeritage mobile app as well.

From my perspective, this reorganization of the profile pages is a very welcome change. I find the newly designed pages to be much easier to navigate. You can read more about the page changes in this blog post, Introducing All-New Profile Pages With Hints


Saturday, March 16, 2024

Come learn about your Central and East European Ancestors!

 

https://feefhs.org/

The 2024 FEEFHS Annual Conference will be an in-person event held at the Plaza Hotel in Salt Lake City, August 6-9. Prior to the conference there will be a hands-on workshop day (as an optional add-on), followed by the conference with four days of instruction with three instruction tracks taught in parallel. 

Conference topics will encompass countries and regions of Central and Eastern Europe, including areas of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, German Empire, Russian Empire/USSR and more. Other topics will include DNA, minority research, resources, and technology. A preliminary conference schedule is posted (just class titles or with class summaries). 

At the conference you will have the opportunity to talk with presenters between sessions and in one-on-one consultations. In the evenings you can do research at the world famous FamilySearch Library—right next door to the conference hotel. The library has access to many resources that are not available online or at other libraries. 

I have attended and presented at this conference several times and will be presenting three classes this year. Their website is a valuable resource for Eastern European genealogy research and the those presenting at the conference are experts in their area. You can find out more by clicking Here with links to the registration. 

Hope to see you there!

Friday, March 15, 2024

MyHeritage opens OldNews.com website

 

https://www.oldnews.com/en

Here is the introductory video to the OldNews.com website. 

https://youtu.be/U_z9EEF9t8c?si=scwYwnWgmxM8Esat

Quoting from the MyHeritage Blog post about the new website:

We’re delighted to announce the release of OldNews.com, an innovative website for historical newspapers, by MyHeritage. OldNews.com enables genealogists, researchers, and history enthusiasts to search, save, and share articles about people and events throughout history. At launch, OldNews.com includes a huge repository of hundreds of millions of historical newspaper pages from around the world, with millions more added monthly. The website features easy navigation and consists of a diverse range of high-quality publications, from major international newspapers to small-town journals and gazettes.

At launch, OldNews.com more than doubles the amount of historical newspaper content that was previously available on MyHeritage. The website includes all the historical newspapers from MyHeritage, plus new, unique content.

 More as we get a chance to use the new website.

Friday, March 8, 2024

MyHeritage Tree Collaboration with FamilyTree DNA

 

MyHeritage Tree Collaboration with FamilyTree DNA

At RootsTech 2024, Aaron Godfrey, MyHeritage Vice President of Marketing, announced the following as quoted by Robeta Estes in her blog post on DNAeXplained - Genetic Genealogy, as follows:
I don’t have specific details about how it works, as this won’t happen for a few months yet, but FamilyTreeDNA customers will port their trees to MyHeritage which allows them to take advantage of MyHeritage’s record collections and such. Existing MyHeritage customers will simply connect their FamilyTreeDNA test to their MyHeritage tree.

You can read the details on the linked blog post. At the RootsTech conference I also talked to both MyHeritage and to Katy Rowe-Schurwanz, Product Owner at FamilyTree DNA and she confirmed that the connection at an unspecified time in the future. I am sure there will be more about this at the appropriate time. I suggest you watch Aaron Godfrey's presentation at RootsTech to hear the announcement for yourself. 

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Introducing he FamilySearch Profile Quality Score


RootsTech 2024 was the forum for announcing a valuablefeature that helps with the FamilySearch.org Family Tree accuracy. FamilySearch announced the Profile Quality Score which is featured in the FamilySearch.org/Labs website. When this feature is activated by turning it on, it appears on Profile Page of entries in the Family Tree and when clicked on, it gives a break down of the accuracy and reliability of an entry. Here is an example from my own part of the Family Tree. 


The sidebar can be expanded to view additional evaluations. 


You do not see anything unless this app is turned on using the FamilySearch.org/Labs page. I couldn't see any pattern to when the information appeared on an individual. 

Monday, March 4, 2024

Impressive New Updates and Releases from MyHeritage

 

https://youtu.be/kLi65EnnKxk?si=a-jmyQKWC0LyV1hY

There is a long list of impressive new releases and updates from MyHeritage.com. Here is Aaron Godfrey on the main stage at RootsTech.org to give you a short insight into the latest news. 

Here is a hopefully complete list of the updates and releases mentioned with links to the blog posts about the new products. 

Historical Records Added in February 2024

Introducing OldNews.com, A New Website for Exploring Historical Newspapers

Introducing All-New Profile Pages with Hints

New: AI Record Finder™Chat History

AI Biographer™

MyHeritage Documentary Part 1: The Early Years - A Dream Takes Root This is the first of a six-part series made for the 20th anniversary of the founding of MyHeritage.com. The series will continue with links to the remaining videos. 

Please take a few minutes to watch Aaron's information packed video above.