Before Family History Expos (formerly My Ancestors Found) started doing conferences in 2005, the two main options were attending a national conference or one sponsored by a local or regional genealogical society.  Over the last few years, FHExpos has organized conferences in an increasing number of locations including, Utah, California, Colorado, and Arizona.  This year they will also host conferences in Missouri and Georgia.

Their model is to find interesting presenters that are willing to share their family history knowledge in exchange for admission to the conference.  This keeps the price of the 2-day conference to around $70 dollars which is a bargain for the approximately 1000 attendees that register for each conference.  In addition to two full days of presentations with multiple sessions each hour, there is a top-notched exhibit hall that is free to the public.

I must disclose at this point that I have attended 3 of these expos as a presenter and at this last conference hosted a Scouting heritage booth with space donated by another vendor.  I feel that this has given me an inside view at these conferences and how Holly Hansen & crew are able to put on a quality expo.

The use of technology in connection with these expos is the main reason for awarding the Innovator award to Family History Expos.  You can connect with FHExpos through their website, Facebook fan page, Twitter account, LinkedIn, and on GenealogyWise.  Before the expo, a handful of bloggers are asked to help promote the conference and to tweet and blog about the conference as it is happening.  For the Arizona Family History Expo held last month, I was was asked to be one of these “Bloggers of Honor” and was asked to attend a dinner so that I could answer questions from those at my table about what blogging is all about.  At no time was I told what to write about or expected to present anything from a viewpoint other than my own.  There is a also a Twitter Cafe where these bloggers can connect to the internet and write about the conference.  There is a projection screen setup so that any tweets about the conference can be seen by attendees.

FHExpos is a good example to other conferences.  Maybe one of the best ways this is shown is through their Twitter & Social Networking policy.  Many presenters are concerned about attendees recording their presentations or posting their handouts online.  This concern has grown with the popularity of blogs and Twitter.  Other conferences that I have attended do not have a clear policy of what is acceptable.

Before a Family History Expo, the presenters are notified of the conference’s policy on recording,  blogging, Twitter, and social networking.  For some presenters, this is an opportunity to learn about the advantages of attendees using these technologies and to be reassured that their content will be protected.  This same policy is available on the FHExpos website and in the conference materials passed out to each attendee.  Before each class, the person introducing the speaker reminds the attendees about the policy.  This goes a long way to set expectations so that everyone knows what is acceptable and what is not.  I had an experience at one conference where no guidelines were given and I kept notes via Twitter.  It didn’t occur to me until after the conference, that I was probably too verbose in my coverage of the presentations. 

Here is copy of the policy used by Family History Expos:

Recording, Twitter, Blogging, and Social Networking Policy

Recording
Family History Expos does not allow recording of presentations under any circumstances. When sessions are professionally recorded you will be able to purchase a copy from Family History Expos or a designated vendor.

Twitter
Family History Expos encourages the use of Twitter at Expos. Please tweet the highlights of classes attended; however it is not appropriate to give full details of class materials presented.
When beginning a session of tweets give credit and use Expo hashtag “#fhexpo” within each tweet. Example of appropriate tweeting:
1.    Arizona Family History Expo sponsored by Family History Expos, Inc. and others. #fhexpo #genealogy #familyhistory
2.    Presenter name, class title  #fhexpo
3.    Information on a point being made   #fhexpo
4.    Helpful or new URL being discussed   #fhexpo
5.    Questions or comments made by attendees in class #fhexpo

Blogging
Family History Expos invites bloggers to take time to give thoughtful insights, meaningful descriptions, and exercise professional courtesy when blogging about specific presentations. Please give proper citation to presentations you attend and cover in your blog. 

Social Networking
The use of social networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and GenealogyWise, is fun and exciting. We enjoy using them and hope that you do too. However, it is important to remember that our presenters invest tremendous amounts of time developing their presentations, strategies, methodologies, and research guidance. They spend years gaining education and expertise on the subjects they teach.

We request that the intellectual and real property developed by Family History Expos and our presenters be respected and credit be appropriately given. 

Copyright to all class presentations, recordings, and syllabus materials belong to Family History Expos and its presenters by agreement of said parties.

I look forward to additional innovation by Family History Expos and expect that other conferences will soon define their own policies on the use of social networking.

For the benefit of those attending (and those who happen by), here is my complete slide presentation:

How do you go about finding people to follow on Twitter?  What tools can I use?  How do I find others interested in genealogy?

In this 10 minute video we will explore ways to find and follow genealogists on twitter.

The video shows a list of 12 people and 12 companies/organizations on Twitter that genealogists might be interested in following. 

Here is that list:

People

1. AncestryInsider
2. danlynch
3. DearMYRTLE
4. dickeastman
5. footnoteMaven
6. LisaCooke
7. Lmeitzler
8. lovegenealogy
9. megansmolenyak
10. rjseaver
11. TamuraJones
12. TheGenealogue

Companies/Organizations

1. Ancestrydotcom
2. familylink
3. familypursuit
4. FamilyTreeMag
5. FHExpos
6. footnote
7. geneabloggers
8. geni
9. genseek
10. legacyfamily
11. rootsmagic
12. rootstelevision

The video also shows how to use the following tools:

• wefollow – genealogy
• Twitter Groups – genealogy
• Twitter Groups – surnames
• Twitter Search

What other genealogists or genealogy organizations would you recommend that people follow on Twitter?  What other tools or strategies do you use to find people to follow?  How can you tell if someone would be good to follow?  Any warning signs that would indicate that you shouldn’t follow someone?  What confuses you about following on Twitter?

For best viewing, click on the video while it is playing to view a larger version on the YouTube site & click the HD button to see it in high definition:

Did you find this video helpful? Do you have any other tips for setting up an account for a genealogist? What do you find most confusing about Twitter? If you are not signed up for Twitter now, are you going to sign up after watching the video?

I would love to hear your comments.  If you would like to follow me on Twitter, my username is marktucker.

For this post, I am putting up the challenge but it is you that will provide the real value. Go back through your sent tweets, those sent by friends, the public timeline, or do a search. When you find a tweet that you think deserves to be on the list with the best, post a comment with the web address for that specific tweet.

 
To get the tweet address, click on the date link for the tweet.

 
This will take you to another page that is just for that tweet.

Copy the text from the browser’s address box.

http://twitter.com/marktucker/status/5020583884

Here is a collection of my tweets from the BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy:

Keynote by David Rencher, AG, CG, Chief Genealogical Officer, BYU grad, past Pres FGS, plus much more
In overflow room. Too bad half of the slides are cut off.
Hard to give up what we are used to. Card catalog to microfiche to computer.
Goal of FamilySearch is to remove barriers to family history in their own products.
FamilySearch Labs is a workshop. Good use and feedback might lead to a finished product.
Updated Research Guidance will move to FamilySearch Wiki
Silver microfilm for original capture is still available. The diazo & vesicular film stock only supplied by Kodak. Expensive.
Short. Microfilm is going away.
Miracle. See how long church has made DOS work. Needed for Scottish Church records.
Didn’t know some were still using Universal Data Entry program for extraction. Replaced with FamilySearch Indexing.
FamilyTree feature of FamilySearch. Replacement of TempleReady
Even mistakes in NFS for the CGO (Chief Genealogical Officer)
Elder Brough – Members spend too much time reorganizing information on those whose temple work is already done
My question is: If you don’t have a firm foundation, how can you go do quality research? I do see Elder Brough’s point.
RecordSearch Pilot. 2.5 million rolls of film in Granite Mtn Records Vault. Plus still capturing images in the field
RecordSearch (RS) is serving areas not viable by for-profit companies.
Need to solve issue of how to know what you have already seen in Family History. Want to be a gazillionaire?
Over 250M names indexed in FamilySearch Indexing. Projecting 250M names a year.
FamilySearch Book Scanning partnership w/ BYU Family History Archives. 41.1 thousand volumes published. Available on BYU site.
My thought: What about home scanning to help with FamilySearch Book Scanning? Maybe through GenSeek?
FamilyHistory Support doing a great job!
FamilySearch resources spent to get information into homes. From Genealogical Society of Utah in 1894 to FHL, then FHC, Internet
Still doing research in a microfilm mindset. Need to think differently.

Karen Clifford, AG, FUGA – “Becoming & Remaining Focused”
How do you know that your ancestor is (or not) the same as someone else with the same name?
13 ways to stay focused – 1 Focus on the Goal
Goal setting – knowledge, research skills, organization abilities. Research Planner.
What is complete identity? name, variations. Research Planner is done in advance. Includes goal, your name, locality.
Separate planner for each goal. Jot down record groups that might solve the problem.
2 – Focus on Documentation
Record sufficient detail. Documentation tames chaos. What to record? complete names, dates, locations, family, associates.
3 – Focus on Organization
Things worth recording – Exactly what entry stated, names of associates & neighbors
4 – Focus on Sorting
Sort by YEAR, EVENT: location (largest to smallest)
Let children/grandchildren help with filing. Have system be that easy. Gets them involved.
5 – Focus on Facts vs. Traditions
6 – Focus on Recording All Clues. Make image, but transcribe everything or you will miss the clue.
3 Elements to Recording Clues – citation, transcription, analysis
7 – Focus on transcribed records, Don’t just cite sources.
8 – Focus on the territory. Evolving jurisdictions & locality clues.
AniMap, Wikipedia, gazateers, FamilySearch Wiki
9 – Become acquianted with the Historic Past
10 – Focus on the success of others
11 – Use charts & forms
12 – Focus on a filing system
13 – Focus on a report to yourself. That’s if for that presentation.

Mary Slawson “Tips for Making a Family History Interview Better”
She worked as a Forensic Accountant and did 100s of interviews a year.
Oral history – systematic collection of living people’s testimony of their own experiences. Not folklore, gossip, hearsey, rumor.
Prep – questionanaire, equipment,10:03 AM Jul 30th from web
Get written agreement of interview rights before the interview.
Pre-interview meetings could intensify anxiety, send questionnaire instead.
Brings 3 digital recorders, all running during interview from different locations. If use cassette no longer than 30min each side
Learn equipment well enough that you can use it in the dark. Try it.
Checklist:financial agreement, interview agreement, questionnaire, research, interview quesitons, address, archival pens, etc.
Items the invoke memories: pictures, music, smells (scent bag – cotton ball w/ pine scent, etc.), a favorite recipe, objects.
Ask questions about present before past or future
Attire plays a supportive role – not too casual or too formal. Grooming & cleanliness should be impeccable
Setup interview at right angle, keep table clear to show maps and objects. Also good for video, so interviewer is not on tape
Do your background research before the interview. Create timeline of events and take to interview.
Mix up order of questions. Short questions. Ask follow-up questions. Its OK to ask: beliefs,feelings,customs,religion,politics…
Interview the whole person. Think FBI profile. Motivations, attitudes, relationships, character, background, skills.
Timeline includes: wars,tech,depression,natural disasters,news,current events,music,fashion,movie,sports,etc.
Become a great interviewer: draw interviewee out,ask question,refrain from talking,develop listening skills,remain neutral,…
… ask clarification, but don’t correct; look for the full story (not just list of details) Sit on edge of chair, complete engaged
End on time, schedule next interview, send thank you card.
All field notes should be completed before you leave interview location. Your observations about the interview.
Preservation. Make back-ups. Transcribe from back-up. Safely store originals. No interview complete until in some repository..
QA – Counter on recorders to mark sections; levelier mic is a must; uses software that converts speech to text(review & correct)
Contract includes location where archive copy will go: LDS Church, Holocaust Museum, etc.
Limit use of scent bag to 3-4 scents per interview.
That’s it. Great job Mary!

Time for lunch, Wilkinson center, BYU Bookstore

Get ready for 2 hours with Mary E.V. Hill – “Organizing Your Paper Files In a Computer Day and Age”
Handout: Pedigree chart with circles 1-5, 8-9,16-19 blue circle; 10-11,20-23 green; 6-7,12-13,24-27 red; 14-15,28-31 yellow
Have been teaching this since 1996; saw need through teaching class at BYU
Links: http://bit.ly/K5XvT , Look for articles beginning with Organize http://bit.ly/3Gb1GD
Organize so you can pick it up, put it down, pick it up, put it down…
Simple organization is key. Setup a genealogy corner. Still need paper files-originals (certs, pictures, letters, maps, logs, etc)
Setup box with you + 4 generations. Checklist: http://www.familyrootsorganizer.com/tips/check.htm

Box setup. 4 steps.
1)Gather docs, 2)Do pedigree chart w/ parents, gp, 3) Divide docs by 4 surnames of your grandparents, 4) Fill in rest of ped chart
13 Steps to fill in the File System
FamilySearch has 12 steps at http://bit.ly/3bokMi Later added 13th step
Picture of what box will look like: http://bit.ly/iTSLa
1 – Go shopping. Gather supplies for your filing system: 2 boxes, hanging file folders in 4 colors, oliver hanging file folders…
… manilla folders 1/3 cut, permanent ultra fine black in pens, book highlighters, labels for file folders, Colored dots,
About $80 for supplies
2-Put copy of your 5 gen pedigree chart in the front of the box in an olive colored folder. Circle numbers as shown in handout
3- Print 5 gen chart from computer program
4- Separate the lines of your 4 grandparents by color.
5-Put 16 colored hanging folders (4 of each color)
6-Label colored hanging files (left-hand labels) with surnames Alphabetize surnames within each color.
7-Print 16 more pedigree charts, highlight separate surname lines and put 1 in each of the colored folders.
8-Setup a manila folder (tab on right) for each family. For multiple marriages, use a separate folder.
Don’t need left hand manila folders, so turn inside out.
Each manila has a colored label tab w/ LASTNAME, First + birth year of each spouse. More than 1 marriage, add marriage number.
PAF and Legacy prints color coded family group sheet. How about RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker & others?
Need to make a decision for where to put docs of people that are more than one color.
As needed add colored handing folders behind ones with surnames when you run out of space for manila folders.
9-File the manila family folders. Sort by color, then surname, then husband first name.
10-Put documents, family group sheet, to do list, research log, timeline, maps, research notes, etc. in each family folder.
Collateral lines? Make center tabbed manila folders for brothers & sisters.
11-Setup holding & locality files. Pure gold!
Holding files: One for each surname & put behind the surname folder. Put docs not sure where to put them. Others with same surname.
Locality Files: Folder for each location, sub location, record type.
12-Expand boxes as needed.
13-Keep the system updated and useful. Temporary inbox, then later in computer system and in person, location, surname holding file.
If you can find info in 3 min or less, system is working for you.
For digitized photos: has folder “images to sort”
Think about Heritage Collector for digitized file.
A box of descendants .
Wow. Lots to think about.

“Establishing Your Own Migration Trail” by Michael John Neill
What moved your ancestor? Economics, politics, family, acquaintances, friends, religion.
Migration chains – groups of people that moved over time.
Your ancestors are in an area for a reason. Not likely that a UFO just dropped your ancestor in Kentucky.
Look at who was involved in estate: witnesses, appraisers, buyers of property at auction, bondsmen
Land records: from whom was the first land purchase made? Might be a relative.
Bonds: marriage – bondsmen knew bride & group and put up money saying no issue legally to getting married.
last post should have been groom, not group
Other types of bonds – executor, estate, guardian. Bondsman different than a witness. Bondsman has legal responsibility
Tax lists – get names of neighbors. Easier to avoid census enumerator than the tax man.
Census records – look at others in same township; look in the cemetery;
Check pension records. Best pension record is when husband died and wife lost marriage record. Must contain affidavits.
Try searching database without names. Just include location of birth and death of ancestor and see if it might identify clusters
Database example using RootsWeb’s WorldConnect and Census on Ancestry
Church records – check sponsor’s of godparents of baptized children. Good chance they are related.
Done with the conference for today.

Outside Observations
Just noticed that search on #byugen only returns 99 of the 129 tweets from yesterday with that tag. Complete list at http://bit.ly/ratUX
Not sure how much I will be able to tweet today.
Less than an hour to go til my presentation. Room seats about 90 people. Wonder how many will attend?
My presentation went great! Wonderful group of people in the class.

“Hanging Out a Shingle?” by Crista Cowan
Lot’s of info on marketing from “Professional Genealogy” by Mills
Need to determine why you want to go into business and what you want to accomplish.
How do we get there? Budget 30-35% on marketing.
“You are a marketer who does genealogy NOT a genealogist who needs to market.” Not a bad thing if you are making a business.
She works full time at Ancestry and full time as a professional researcher.
Ready, Fire, Aim. Don’t spend too much time being a perfectionist.
Know your ideal client so that you can focus your marketing.
Ancestry identifies 4 typical client profiles.
APG – dues paying organization, agree to code of ethics; apgen.org, member directory, forum, magazine, APG-L, TGF-L, conf,networking
Check to see if there is a local APG chapter in your area: http://bit.ly/ihSOg
Check out subcontracting to get experience or exposure. Make friends w/ local librarians.
Mentions of Ancestry Expert Connect, Genealogy Freelancers, and other listing services.
Great way to market – speaking & writing. Google: “Call for Papers” genealogy
ezinearticles.com article aggregator
Should I be on the web? Depends on your target audience. Don’t have to do it yourself.
@cristacowan. Hello. Great presentation
Use social media: blogs, twitter, facebook
Easier to keep current clients: keep commitments, always provide next steps, follow up, keep in contact, ask for referrals
The Law of the Harvest. You have to plan BEFORE you can harvest. Set aside a portion of your time & $
The conference is complete.

On Twitter, you can find other tweets from the conference by searching for #byugen.

WeFollow allows Twitter users to specify 3 tags that describe them best.  It then ranks the most popular Twitter users for each tag based on the number of Twitter followers.

I was surprised to find myself in the top 10 for #genealogy.

So in case it doesn’t last long, I took a screen capture:

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.