Facebook

In my first GenPerfect post I mentioned that you could add living members to your database via Facebook. Lately my third cousin has added me to two closed Facebook groups for common ancestors: Thomas Tucker Family & William Henry Dollar Family

Members of these groups include living descendants of a common ancestor. Messages include the lineage of members back to the common ancestor as well as photos and digitized documents. What if GenPerfect could be pointed to these groups? You could see the list of your messages inside your genealogy software on the dashboard. The messages could be parsed and the mini-lineage added to your database citing Facebook as the source. Any photos added to the group would be imported as part of your media collection. GenPerfect would even allow you to update your Facebook status without leaving the application. You could configure the software to automatically prompt you for a Facebook status update at key moment such as when you add a photo or document or when you enter a conclusion and close out a research project. You could choose to post these to a group or your wall.

Twitter

Similar to updating your Facebook status, you could also choose to tweet from inside GenPerfect. When prompted to update your status, you could choose to also post to Twitter.

Blogs

By selecting a photo, some information in a database, or a research project and clicking a “Quick Post” link, a blog post would be assembled ready for you to edit and post to your blog. All without leaving GenPerfect.

RSS

On your dashboard or elsewhere in GenPerfect you could display blog postings by registering from a site’s RSS feed. Maybe GenPerfect would expose appropriate public information via its own RSS feed.

Mailing Lists

GenPerfect would have its own associated e-mail address. This way it could be used to register for family history mailing lists and the messages would appear inside GenPerfect.

Correspondence & Media

One of the lists I was always taught to keep as a correspondence log. Whenever I sent a letter, I was to include the date, who it was sent to, a summary of the letter’s contents as well as a date when a response was received.

In my experience, I send many more e-mails than letters by post, so an e-mail correspondence log would be beneficial to me. If GenPerfect had its own e-mail address, then any message that I send to a relative or family history collaborator I could CC this e-mail address and the entry would be auto-added to the log. If I receive an e-mail that I think would be important to my research, I would just forward it the GenPerfect e-mail.

If an e-mail included images and I forwarded it GenPerfect, the application would be smart enough to add the images to my media library.

Maybe I could include a tag as part of the subject line (ex: [PROJECT: WORTH TUCKER BIRTH]) and the log entry or image would be associated with a specific research project. If an e-mail sent to GenPerfect could not be auto-assigned to a specific project, then it would appear in a list so that later I could associate it with the correct project in the database.

Online Databases & Family Trees

There are so many more possibilities than these. I can think of genealogy-specific sites that might be useful to link to GenPerfect: Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, World Vital Records, Archives.com, Geni, FamilySearch Wiki, plus many, many more. One concern that I have is connecting GenPerfect (which is all about research in progress) with online trees that are concerned with just showing results. It would be helpful to be able to update the online trees from GenPerfect once a conclusion has been researched for a project.

What are some of your ideas?

Other than social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, what other software and ways should GenPerfect connect to social media sites?

How else could GenPerfect’s dedicated e-mail address be used?

In December 2008, I wrote a blog post titled 9 Genealogy Predictions for 2009.  It is now time to review that list and see how well the predictions matched reality.

1.  Two more desktop genealogy applications will support source citation templates from Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained. Currently Legacy 7 and RootsMagic 4 support this. The other two might likely be Family Tree Maker and The Master Genealogist.

Family Tree Maker 2009 now supports source citation templates following Evidence Explained.  To my knowledge, no other desktop genealogy applications have announced this support.

2.  One major online database (Ancestry, WorldVitalRecords, FamilySearch, Footnote) will announce upcoming support for Evidence Explained source citations.  Other sites will soon follow with their own announcements.

I am disappointed that none of the mentioned online databases support Evidence Explained source citations.  Please correct me if I am mistaken.  If GenSeek is released in 2010, maybe it will be the first.

3.  FamilySearch Research Wiki will grow to over 30,000 content pages (excluding talk and stub pages) by the end of the year. As of 28 December 2008, there were 12,573 content pages.

On December 28, 2009 there were a total of 20,298 content pages on the FamilySearch Research Wiki.

4.  FamilySearch will announce a replacement for GEDCOM. GEDCOM will still be supported for many years as software will support it as well as the newer format. Reasons for the new format will be to better support source citations and media.

This did not happen in 2009, but it might happen in 2010.

5.  I hope I am wrong about this one, but with the current economic downturn we could see financial pressure force one of the more-recently-started genealogy companies to merge with or be acquired by another company.  Worse case scenario, it could go bankrupt.

To my knowledge this did not happen.  In fact, Ancestry went public in 2009.

6.  Many more genealogy societies will join the social networking site, Facebook, by adding a group page. Searching groups today for “genealogical society | genealogy society” (the pipe symbol “|” means “OR”) returns 80 results. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of 2009 the total was over 200.

Finally a correct prediction! Doing a group search on Facebook resulted in 286 results for genealogy societies.

7.  More genealogy applications will be available for the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Currently the iTunes App Store only lists three applications: MobileFamilyTree, FamViewer, and Shrubs.  This last holiday season, the iPod Touch was a hot item.  I wonder how many genealogists own one now.

This one was easy to predict as even one more app would have fulfilled the prediction.  There are currently 7 applications listed in the App Store:

MobileFamily Tree – $4.99

Reunion – $14.99

GedView – $3.99

FamViewer – $14.99

Mobile Tree – $4.99

Shrubs – $9.99

iCensus – $3.99

To learn more about some of these apps, check out the blog post titled, Genealogy Apps for iPhone, by Joan Miller. 

8.  Through blogs and podcasts, genealogists will hear more about the benefits of Web 3.0 (also called the Semantic Web) and how it applies to genealogy.

Web 3.0?  What is that?  You can find discussions about microformats and full fledged ontologies, but not much applied to genealogy in 2009.

9.  Genealogists are puzzle solvers when it comes to researching their family history, but do they play games?  I expect to see a genealogy-related game released in 2009.  It could be a casual game for Facebook or something more interactive for the Wii.  How about a Mii Familii Trii?  The game might teach research-related concepts (citation, transcription, etc) or (via GEDCOM import) put your ancestors in the game.

There is still so much opportunity in this area without much action.  I did find a casual game called Family Mystery: The Story of Amy where genealogy is used as the theme for the game but not much else.

So out of 9 predictions, I give myself a score of 3.5 which is about as often as I was correct when as a teenager I operated the “guess your age or weight” game at an amusement park.  After a few days, I was moved to the skee ball games which fit my talents much better.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2010 full of genealogy innovation and hopefully some surprises!

Between the script and the detailed description of the demo, you should be in a good position to answer the survey questions without the need to see the video.

Take the Survey!

Please take a few minutes to complete a survey about citing online genealogy sources.

• Click Here to take survey for individual genealogists or family historians
• Click Here to take survey for companies and organizations that provide genealogy software or services

SCRIPT:

Sooner or later anyone doing genealogy or family history research will meet up with the challenge of source citations. Some will immediately dismiss the topic and move on. Others will find the topic too big of a challenge to even try. Still others will set out with the best of intentions but will get bogged down in the complexity. The numbers that face the learning curve of source citations and conquer its intimidating slope are relatively few.

This has lead many to believe that citing sources is only for the professional genealogist. You may hear them say: “I’m just a personal family historian, no need to cite my sources.” The last time most of us were asked to create a bibliography or cite a source was for a paper we wrote in high school or college.

Researchers at every level should seek for credibility in their research. How else will we be able to separate fact from fiction? Citations are a minimum for our work to be considered as credible. The question is not “do we need to cite sources?” its “how do we make citing sources achievable by all?”

Currently citing sources is just too difficult. In recent years this is getting easier with the creation of genealogy citation guides, quick sheets, and software. But it needs to be even easier still.

There is another problem when it comes to online genealogy database websites like FamilySearch, Ancestry, Footnote, WorldVitalRecords, GenSeek and others. Similar sources on each of these websites have different citation formats or even no citations at all.

The amount of genealogy information currently on the internet is like a swimming pool full and in just a few years that will grow to an ocean full. To avoid adding more confusion to an already confusing situation, there needs to be standardized citations across these genealogy database websites.

In this demonstration I would like to show how easy it can be to cite online sources in your desktop genealogy software. What I am showing is prototype code. I am using RootsMagic 4 because of its support for citation templates from Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained. Other desktop genealogy applications that support these templates are: Legacy Family Tree 7 and Family Tree Maker 2009.

First I will create a new database in RootsMagic and will go ahead and close it. Now I will visit a sample genealogy website that contains some information on my ancestor, Worth Tucker. This website represents one of the larger online genealogy database sites mentioned earlier or could be a site containing someone’s personal research. On this site we find information about Worth Tucker’s property ownership in Elmo, Emery County, Utah. There is an extract from the book, A History of Emery County, as well as images of the book’s cover, title page, copyright page, and page 179. Notice also that there is a source citation for the book following a format in Evidence Explained.

Because the website contains the citation and supporting documents, I could use my desktop software to create a person entry for Worth and a fact or event entry for property ownership. I would then create a source and detail entry for the citation and link it to the event. I could also download the images to my computer and associate them to the source. But that is even more complicated than it needs to be.

This website supports a “Quick Cite” feature that allows easy import of the citation and associated files into my desktop genealogy software. When I click the button, the information is downloaded to my computer and the import begins. Since I have other genealogy software installed on my computer, I will be asked to select which program to use. In just a few seconds the information will be imported into my software and when I open my database then I will be able to see all the information properly cited.

Here is my entry for Worth Tucker showing the property fact. This fact has one source following the “Book, Basic format” template from Evidence Explained. The template fields are filled out correctly. Also imported was the source media. Here you find the three images for the source and here the image for the page that was cited. It even imported the extracted text from the source.

Now that is the way that citation of online sources should be done!

Is this a feature that interests you?

The technology to do this exists right now.

What is needed is for us to speak up and let the creators of our genealogy software and the online database websites know that this is a feature that we want. When the genealogy community unites to petition for records preservation and access, numbers count. The same is true when we want solutions to difficult challenges like source citation.

Contact the companies and organizations whose products and services you use. Let them know what you want. Send them a link to this video. Share this with friends and associates via e-mail, social networking sites or blogs.

Another way to participate is to complete a 5-minute survey that describes your level of interest in such a feature. The results will be shared with any individual, organization or company that completes the survey.

There is one point of clarification that I would like to make: although the technology exists today to do this type of “one click” citation it has not been implemented. What I showed was a prototype proving that it was possible. What needs to happen next is for online organizations (like Ancestry, FamilySearch, World Vital Records, Footnote, GenSeek, etc.) and genealogy software companies (like the makers of RootsMagic, Legacy, and Family Tree Maker) to agree on a file format and implement it. The online organizations would need to start providing a file with a download link for each source on their site and the genealogy database applications would need to support importing of the files. One could view the video as a tutorial of how things could be. That is precisely why it is so important to get the word out.

This is a grassroots effort from the genealogy community to let genealogy software and service providers know what we want. Citing sources is important to us. There are inconsistencies and other problems that need to be solved. Let’s find a way to get together and solve them. I am just one voice trying to spotlight an issue and provide a way for others to get their voices heard. We have had 200 respondents to the individual survey with
83% classifying themselves as non-professional genealogists.

Here are a few more statistics:

88% of respondents say that citing sources is very important with the remaining 12% saying it is important. 77% say they find citing sources difficult or very difficult. When asked if there should be one standard citation style for genealogy, 90% responded in the affirmative. Respondents used Evidence Explained the most (62%) as a guide for genealogy research. The two most used online genealogy sites are Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. It would be great if one of those would join in support of this effort. When asked “Does the ability to click a link on a website and have the source citation imported into your genealogy software interest you?” 84% said they were very interested with an additional 10% saying they were interested. Instead of 1100 views of the YouTube video, I would like to see 10,000 with at least 1000 filling out the survey. Maybe at that point this effort will have enough momentum to really get moving.  Is that too much to ask from the genealogy community?

One surprising and disappointing statistic is the low numbers taking the company and organization survey; only 4.  All 4 felt that citing sources were very important and all would be willing to participate in the cause.

Once again I want to thank Dick Eastman for his contributions to the genealogy community on this and many other issues.

Keep spreading the word and let your voice be heard.

Today company CEO, Paul Allen, tweeted (posted on Twitter) that he is beginning the definition phase of a new Chief Genealogy Officer (CGO) position.  One of the main responsibilities of this new position will be to “help manage GenSeek–[a] directory of all the world’s genealogy sources.” 

Yesterday Mr. Allen confirmed the speculation that GenSeek is the realization of the partnership between FamilyLink.com and FamilySearch to update the Family History Library catalog with Web 2.0 features.  These features include community contributed catalog entries and digitized sources. The release is planned for the next 2 months or so and I would expect to see a job posting before then.

The fact that FamilyLink.com is creating this position must mean that it expects GenSeek to be a big part of its service offering and  a key element to the company’s success. 

Only one company that I know has a similar C-level genealogy position.  It is Ancestry.com which in January 2007 appointed Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak as its Chief Family Historian.

Predictions anyone? 

• Elizabeth Shown Mills?
• Loretto Dennis Szucs?
• Kory Meyerink?
• Geoff Rasmussen?

What do you mean you have never heard of it before?  You must not be on Twitter. 

What is Twitter you ask?

The quick explanation of Twitter is that it is like blogging, but you only have 140 characters to get your message across.  Some call it micro blogging.  What do you twitter about?  You answer the question: “What are you doing?”  Some take it literally and some just share what they are thinking about at the time.  It is a great way to connect with others you may never meet in person.  It is also a great way to get the inside scoop on things that are happening in the genealogy world.

Twitter Detective

When I joined twitter on 19 December 2008, one of the first people that I “followed” was Paul Allen, the CEO of FamilyLink.com.  What that means is that any “tweet” that Paul posts, I would see as well.  I was able to follow Paul on his recent trip to Auckland, New Zealand.  And that is where I first heard about GenSeek.

There are only a few tweets that mention GenSeek, so all we have right now is a name and its goal to be the “world’s gateway to family history content.”

Here is a snapshot of my TweetDeck pane that shows a Twitter search for “genseek” with the most recent tweets on top:

Transcript of Twitter search for “genseek”:

 Dave_Whittle: @paulballen Hi, Paul. So what will set GenSeek apart from the crowd?
Mon 19 Jan 15:34

 paulballen: @marktucker GenSeek.com will be coming out in the next 2 months or so. Until then, we could email you a powerpoint, but that’s about it.
Mon 19 Jan 15:31

 TamuraJones: @paulballen FamilyLink has the genseek.com domain. Australians probably think of Jenny’s genseek.net first. Will that return on genseek.com?
Mon 19 Jan 02:49

 marktucker: @paulballen – Where can I find out more information about GenSeek?
Sun 18 Jan 19:53

 paulballen: Nearly all the genealogists we meet are enthusiastic about GenSeek and want to help us make it the world’s gateway to family history content
Sun 18 Jan 18:51

 paulballen: 7:30 am in Auckland. Getting ready for day 4 of genealogy conference. Will show GenSeek, WorldHistory.com and WorldVitalRecords.com today.
Sun 18 Jan 11:29

GenSeek Speculation

I wonder if this has anything to do with an announcement that was made in May 2008 about a partnership between FamilySearch and FamilyLink.com to produce what Paul called, the Family History Library Catalog 2.0.   What could be a better “gateway” than a library catalog?  Here is a quote from the May 2008 post:

“The new catalog …may become the single best starting point for family history searches”

This blog post and the corresponding FamilySearch announcement promise big things for FHLC 2.0 and I haven’t heard much about it since then.  So maybe this is it.

Even if GenSeek doesn’t turn out to be FHLC 2.0, something exciting is happening at FamilyLink.com and within weeks we should know what it is.

And about that Twitter thing?  If you do decide to join the Twittering masses, you are welcome to follow me if you like.

As 2008 closes, we stop to ponder what awaits genealogy in 2009.  In coming up with this list, I have no insider information.  I simply looked at the information publically available and tried to determine what is possible or likely for the upcoming year. 

So here is my list of 9 genealogy predictions for 2009:

1. Two more desktop genealogy applications will support source citation templates from Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained. Currently Legacy 7 and RootsMagic 4 support this. The other two might likely be Family Tree Maker and The Master Genealogist.
2. One major online database (Ancestry, WorldVitalRecords, FamilySearch, Footnote) will announce upcoming support for Evidence Explained source citations.  Other sites will soon follow with their own announcements.
3. FamilySearch Research Wiki will grow to over 30,000 content pages (excluding talk and stub pages) by the end of the year. As of 28 December 2008, there were 12,573 content pages.
4. FamilySearch will announce a replacement for GEDCOM. GEDCOM will still be supported for many years as software will support it as well as the newer format. Reasons for the new format will be to better support source citations and media.
5. I hope I am wrong about this one, but with the current economic downturn we could see financial pressure force one of the more-recently-started genealogy companies to merge with or be acquired by another company.  Worse case scenario, it could go bankrupt.
6. Many more genealogy societies will join the social networking site, Facebook, by adding a group page. Searching groups today for “genealogical society | genealogy society” (the pipe symbol “|” means “OR”) returns 80 results. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of 2009 the total was over 200.
7. More genealogy applications will be available for the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Currently the iTunes App Store only lists three applications: MobileFamilyTree, FamViewer, and Shrubs.  This last holiday season, the iPod Touch was a hot item.  I wonder how many genealogists own one now.
8. Through blogs and podcasts, genealogists will hear more about the benefits of Web 3.0 (also called the Semantic Web) and how it applies to genealogy.
9. Genealogists are puzzle solvers when it comes to researching their family history, but do they play games?  I expect to see a genealogy-related game released in 2009.  It could be a casual game for Facebook or something more interactive for the Wii.  How about a Mii Familii Trii?  The game might teach research-related concepts (citation, transcription, etc) or (via GEDCOM import) put your ancestors in the game. 

How about you?  What do you think genealogy will be like in 2009?  Don’t be shy about posting a comment.

This time next year we will revisit this list and see how well the predictions compare with reality.

One point that I brought up in today’s visit that is an issue with not just Footnote, but also FamilySearch, Ancestry, World Vital Records, and other online database/document sites is that there is a lack of consistency with source citations.  For example, the same census document could have different citations on different sites and none of the citations follow the format in either of Elizabeth Shown Mills’ works: Evidence! or Evidence Explained.  When I download an image from one of these sites, I should get automatic source citation in my desktop genealogy application as well as additional details such as source provenance.  It should be very easy.  To modify a phrase from an action movie: “With great source repositories, comes great responsibility.”

 It is very encouraging to see companies like Footnote take an interest in what its members and potential members care about.  I was impressed by the Footnote team and site and get the feeling that the innovation hasn’t stopped yet.

As an added bonus, I got to meet Dick Eastman.  Overall, what a great experience!

GeneTree – Family Tree Builder

FamilySearch Labs – Pedigree Viewer

Is this the first commercial release of a FamilySearch Labs project?