In her blog "For Your Family Story" last October, genealogist Caroline Pointer offered the following post about the changing face of genealogy today. I'm sharing this because it offers very valid points about how the culture of Family History is changing.
It’s time to throw away the genealogy rule book.
No more of having to be retired or having to be over a certain age to look for who begat you.
No more of reading and memorizing a 300-page tome of “More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About Genealogy” before you ever think about “doing” genealogy.
No more spending all day in a library (unless you really want to, of course).
No more making fun of other people’s family trees located online or offline. After all, right or wrong, they are at least trying.
No more dry and boring genealogical and historical society meetings where younger people are not only made to feel unwelcome but discouraged to visit, join, or, heaven forbid, make a suggestion .
No more scheduling genealogy-related or family history-related meetings and conferences when those who are employed full-time cannot possibly attend.
Basically, no more doing things the same old way just because that’s the way it has always been done.
The key to lessening the disparity between those who want to know who their ancestors were and those who actually take steps to learn who their ancestors were is through a combination of education and allowing people to do it on their own terms. It should be goal-based. Perhaps a person’s goal is to learn the medical history of their ancestors. Perhaps another person’s goal is to memorialize a loved one’s life, and yet another person’s goal is to have a complete genealogy that is perfectly sourced.
All are equally valuable in their own right as well as possibly valuable to the other. For example, perhaps the person who researches their medical history unknowingly stumbles upon something of value to someone else, and in blogging about it on their non-genealogy or non-family history blog, they unwittingly share it with a family history researcher who needed that information to solve a “brick wall” problem?
Likewise, what if the person who memorializes a loved one’s life on say, 1000Memories.com, shares a story of their loved one, and in that story were clues that the genealogical researcher needed to complete their genealogy?
Moreover, while a fundamental change is very helpful from the “top down”, it is more practical at a community level. It is important to remove the stigma that genealogy is only for those who are retired. Below are just a few ideas that community groups and organizations should at least take into consideration:
None of the above will matter, though, if we don’t incorporate modern technology into everything we do. It’s the game-changer. Technology can allow younger groups to participate like never before. Just imagine a program where younger people were unleashed in a retirement home, and they captured family stories on Smartphones? How about if they were unleashed in an old forgotten cemetery and with their Smartphones, they captured and uploaded all the photos of and information from the tombstones to an online site?
Further, what about all those descendants who have moved from the area that the ancestors once lived in? Are genealogical and historical societies in those areas thinking about programs for these people when they schedule programs? Could they learn how to use webinars and other online tools to reach out to these descendants as well as to the local community?
The point is that the genealogy world needs to meet people where they are, assess what those people need, and provide a platform that is inviting and relevant to them. It can’t afford not to do it. Do we really want our descendants sitting around wondering who we were and wondering why we didn’t capture what we could with the technology we had?
Do you want to participate in the conversation? 1000Memories invites and encourages you to blog and/or tweet about it. Please send the link tomike@1000memories.com or tweet what you think and use the hashtag #familyhistorymonth in the tweet. Next Saturday, 1000memories will publish a summary of all the perspectives and ideas shared.
~Caroline
When she’s not suggesting crazy ideas like putting Smartphones into the hands of the young and unleashing them in retirement communities to record family stories, Caroline M. Pointer is recording her own family stories with every tool that she can think of on her personal family history blog, Family Stories. Caroline is a professional genealogist and family historian who enjoys sharing what she’s learned when technology and genealogy collide on her blog, 4YourFamilyStory.com. She has a new blog for beginners and professionals alike launching soon, BloggingGenealogy.com, where she will share about getting more out of genealogy and blogging. Also, she is the In2Genealogy columnist for the E-magazine, Shades of the Departed. Caroline can be reached at CMPointer [AT] gmail [DOT] com. However, most often she can be found on that newfangled social media blue bird site called Twitter at @FamilyStories.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Looking Ahead at the 1940 Census
Dick Eastman writes a daily genealogy newsletter. Today he offered a good article about what we need to do to prepare to use the 1940 census, particularly focusing on Enumeration Districts, since the Census will not be indexed until late 2012. You can read the article here.
While you're at the site of Dick's newsletter, you might consider subscribing...it comes daily to your email and is free.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
New Printing Options at Ancestry.com
An article posted today in the Ancestry.com blog explains that it is now possible to print just the current view of images there. This is especially helpful if you want to print just a portion of a census image, for example. Click on the photo above to go to the article by Ancestry.com and learn more about this important feature.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Using Feed Readers
Denise Barrett Olson has written a very good article at TechTips that explains what Feed Readers are and how to use them. I follow many blogs and news articles related to genealogy. I don't have time to search them out on the internet each day, so I subscribe to the ones I want to read and they're brought into my Google Reader each day. I can read what I want, or just browse the headlines. You can read her article by clicking on the photo above. Check it out.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Social Security Numbers Disappearing
Friday, December 9, 2011
Create a Colorful Fan Chart
As Consultants, we're encouraged to create our own fan chart so we can help our ward members create one for themselves. To learn how to do it, watch the short video posted on THIS page where it says "see a demo" toward the bottom of the page.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
New Consultant's Guide
On the"Church News and Events" page of the lds.org site, it was announced today that a new leader's guide to temple and family history work has been published and is available for a free download here. The training guide "To Turn the Hearts" is a resource for Family History Consultants. The print version of the guide is accompanied by a DVD that contains videos which can be seen here.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
New Family Search is Moving
Renee Zamora is on the board of the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group and writes a blog called Renee's Genealogy Blog. Today Renee reported on the UVTAGG meeting of Dec 3, where the guest speaker was Ron Tanner of FamilySearch. She reports that Ron Tanner gave a private presentation on what's happening with FamilySearch. New.FamilySearch is being redesigned for placement into www.familysearch.org. Currently, the new design is live, but has limited functionality and access. In her blog she gives instructions how YOU can access the new site. Her post has pictures that accompany her comments and is worth looking at and studying. Please go to this link to access her blog post: http://rzamor1.blogspot.com/2011/12/nfs-migrating-over-to.html. This information is vital for us to know, as we continue to work on our family trees and submit names for temple work through familysearch.org.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Video Lessons from Ancestry.com
We've added a new element to the sidebar on this blog. Look to the right sidebar for this "widget" from Ancestry.com. There's quite a selection of videos that offer lessons, classes and interesting talks on the subject of genealogy. They vary in length, so you can catch one that you have time to watch. Check it out and enjoy some of the live streaming that Ancestry.com brings us.
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