So, if you can’t tell from my previous post, I’m back at it – I’ve decided to get into genealogy again. Many of you know that I majored in genealogy (family history) at BYU, and I have always enjoyed researching our ancestors. But one thing I have found over the years is that when I get involved in genealogy it is so interesting to me that I put all of my time into it (ok, when you have 5 little kids it’s impossible to put all of your time into anything other than the kids, but I put a lot more time into genealogy than anything else that’s not absolutely necessary for me to get done each day). So, what usually ends up happening is that I try to find every spare minute here and there, sometimes staying up late into the night, to try to work on it. And with all the other things I have to (and want to) get done in life, I just can’t keep that up forever. So I often put a lot of time into my genealogy work for a month or so at a time, and then I take a break and don’t work on it much (if at all) for a month or so, and this pattern continues as I try to keep up with the research that I love, and balance the rest of my life. So, my past break from genealogy lasted a little longer than usual – I haven’t done more than glance at an occasional e-mail about genealogy since before Courtland was born, and he’s seven months old. But I’m back.
One of the reasons for this long break was the release of a new website by the church, new.familysearch.org. This website has great potential to make genealogy and temple work a lot easier, and also to collaborate with other people also doing their genealogy, but they are also still working out some pretty big bugs, I think. They have been gradually releasing access to this website to different areas of the world – and learning and trying to correct bugs as they go. Not long before we left Milwaukee, the site was released in our area and I was so excited to see what it had to offer. As I browsed around the site and watched the demo videos, I could see that it was going to be a big improvement in some areas, but I also had some questions. I got excited to contribute the research that I had compiled to the site, but then was very disappointed to learn that they do not recommend that people to submit files with more than 100 individuals in them, and they will not allow files with more than 1,000 individuals to be submitted to the new site. The reasoning for this makes sense – that there are already many names in the database on the website, and they don’t want duplicates to occur, so when you want to add an individual to their site you need to first check to see if that individual is already on the site before adding them. The only problem is, my genealogy file has about 37,000 names in it. (Not that I did all that research myself – it is a combination of my own research, my Grandma Faun’s file, a file from Michael’s parents, and various research that has been sent to me by other relatives). But it is a very large file, and I knew that there would be no way for me to work through the entire file, adding the information for one person at a time, without losing information here and there just because of the massive size of the file and my inability to keep track of what info had and hadn’t been added from my file to the site. So, I kid of gave up on it all and took a long break.
But last week I decided to start working on genealogy again. I ended up calling the support line for the new familysearch website, and someone suggested some 3rd party software that could help me to synchronize my genealogy file with the new familysearch website – meaning that it would add info from my file to the site, add info from the site to my file, and keep track of what had and had not yet been synced throughout the entire process. I’m really glad that I got this suggestion. So, I downloaded a free trial version of FamilyInsight from the Ohana Software website (I had purchased their PAF Insight software in the past, so I trusted the site), and started working. It’s gone pretty smoothly so far. There are a few things that they’re still working on with the program, since the new familysearch site is still new and has only recently given permission to the certified programs to do things such as syncing sources, but they are working on the things like that, and I’ve started syncing my file. It will be a long process, but it’s kind of fun (if you’re a geek like me and you kind of like data entry and stuff like that that most people would consider boring). But anyways, I was so glad when I figured out this way that I can start contributing my family’s information too. And I’m excited to get back into the other aspects of genealogy also, if I can find the time. I have a lot of files on my computer that need to be added to my genealogy file – mostly e-mails and documents that have been sent to me by relatives, and some things that I’ve come across in my research but didn’t have time to add to my file at the time. That will be a rather time consuming process too. But like all good things, it sure will feel nice when I’m done (ok, I’ll probably never be ‘done’ with genealogy, but at least I can eventually catch up on stuff like that).
Anyways, it feels good to be back. Maybe I’ll try posting some genealogy photos and info here every once in a while, just for fun. We’ll see.
One of the reasons for this long break was the release of a new website by the church, new.familysearch.org. This website has great potential to make genealogy and temple work a lot easier, and also to collaborate with other people also doing their genealogy, but they are also still working out some pretty big bugs, I think. They have been gradually releasing access to this website to different areas of the world – and learning and trying to correct bugs as they go. Not long before we left Milwaukee, the site was released in our area and I was so excited to see what it had to offer. As I browsed around the site and watched the demo videos, I could see that it was going to be a big improvement in some areas, but I also had some questions. I got excited to contribute the research that I had compiled to the site, but then was very disappointed to learn that they do not recommend that people to submit files with more than 100 individuals in them, and they will not allow files with more than 1,000 individuals to be submitted to the new site. The reasoning for this makes sense – that there are already many names in the database on the website, and they don’t want duplicates to occur, so when you want to add an individual to their site you need to first check to see if that individual is already on the site before adding them. The only problem is, my genealogy file has about 37,000 names in it. (Not that I did all that research myself – it is a combination of my own research, my Grandma Faun’s file, a file from Michael’s parents, and various research that has been sent to me by other relatives). But it is a very large file, and I knew that there would be no way for me to work through the entire file, adding the information for one person at a time, without losing information here and there just because of the massive size of the file and my inability to keep track of what info had and hadn’t been added from my file to the site. So, I kid of gave up on it all and took a long break.
But last week I decided to start working on genealogy again. I ended up calling the support line for the new familysearch website, and someone suggested some 3rd party software that could help me to synchronize my genealogy file with the new familysearch website – meaning that it would add info from my file to the site, add info from the site to my file, and keep track of what had and had not yet been synced throughout the entire process. I’m really glad that I got this suggestion. So, I downloaded a free trial version of FamilyInsight from the Ohana Software website (I had purchased their PAF Insight software in the past, so I trusted the site), and started working. It’s gone pretty smoothly so far. There are a few things that they’re still working on with the program, since the new familysearch site is still new and has only recently given permission to the certified programs to do things such as syncing sources, but they are working on the things like that, and I’ve started syncing my file. It will be a long process, but it’s kind of fun (if you’re a geek like me and you kind of like data entry and stuff like that that most people would consider boring). But anyways, I was so glad when I figured out this way that I can start contributing my family’s information too. And I’m excited to get back into the other aspects of genealogy also, if I can find the time. I have a lot of files on my computer that need to be added to my genealogy file – mostly e-mails and documents that have been sent to me by relatives, and some things that I’ve come across in my research but didn’t have time to add to my file at the time. That will be a rather time consuming process too. But like all good things, it sure will feel nice when I’m done (ok, I’ll probably never be ‘done’ with genealogy, but at least I can eventually catch up on stuff like that).
Anyways, it feels good to be back. Maybe I’ll try posting some genealogy photos and info here every once in a while, just for fun. We’ll see.
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