Gearing up for RootsTech 2012

I notices that there were several additions to the RootsTech 2012 Website. These include copies of each syllabus and a lot of other information. But it is now time for me to hit the dusty (or not so dusty, depending on the weather) road for Salt Lake City, Utah. It will take us a while to get there as we have a tendency to stop and visit along the way. Hopefully, I will get some time to sit and write.

RootsTech Will Broadcast Select Sessions Free Online

The title of this post is self-explanatory. You will be able to listen in to live broadcasts from the RootsTech Conference on February 2, 3 and 4, 2012. Here is a schedule of the broadcasts:
Thursday, February 2

8:30-10:00 am, Inventing the Future, as a Community (Keynote Address) by Jay L. Verkler
11:00 am-12:00 pm, Do I Trust the Cloud? by D. Joshua Taylor 
1:45-2:45 pm, Effective Database Search Tactics by Kory Meyerink    
3:00-4:00 pm, Twitter – It’s Not Just “What I Had for Breakfast” Anymore by Thomas MacEntee 
4:15-5:15 pm, Eleven Layers of Online Searches by Barbara Renick    

Friday, February 3
8:30-9:30 am, Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities (Keynote Address) by Josh Coates
9:45-10:45 am, Publish Your Genealogy Online by Laura G. Prescott    
11:00 am-12:00 pm, Optimize Your Site for Search Engines by Robert Gardner   
1:45-2:45 pm, Genealogists “Go Mobile” by Sandra Crowly 
3:00-4:00 pm, Google’s Toolbar and Genealogy by Dave Barney     

Saturday, February 4
8:30-9:30 am, Making the Most of Technology to Further the Family History Industry (Keynote Address) by Tim Sullivan and Ancestry.com Panel
9:45-10:45 am Genealogy Podcasts and Blogs 101 by Lisa Louise Cooke   
11:00 am-12:00 pm, Future of FamilySearch Family Tree by Ron Tanner
1:45-2:45 pm, Privacy in a Collaborative Environment by Noah Tatuk   

Webinar on Books Online

Here is a 15 preview of the Webinar I did with Geoff Rasmussen of Legacy Family Tree. You can get the entire presentation from Legacy. Here is the direct link and here is the video:

Privacy back in the news

Privacy is back in the news with a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the use of GPS devices attached to vehicles by the police without a search warrant. Whether we like it or not, as genealogists, just like the police, we are all in the privacy business. The case, if you are interested, is United States v. Jones. Beware, this is a pdf download. Anyway, the issues in that case was whether or not the Government’s attachment of the GPS device to the vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court held that it did and that attaching GPS device requires a court issued search warrant.

The part of the ruling that has an effect beyond the narrow area of GPS tracking devices is found in the wording, "Our later cases have applied the analysis of Justice Harlan’s concurrence in that case,which said that a violation occurs when government officers violate a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy,” id., at 360. See, e.g., Bond v. United States, 529 U. S. 334 (2000); California v. Ciraolo, 476 U. S. 207 (1986); Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735 (1979)."

Admittedly, the case is couched in terms of the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure, and is limited to government action, but the discussion in the media subsequent to the case pointed out that the issue could arise in the context of a Facebook account or Google Latitude. There are several other social networking applications that essentially broadcast a user's geographic position to the world. There is also a possible issue with GPS photographs, but that is likely a stretch.

Genealogy on the run

 One day we were in Utah visiting relatives and one of the relatives unexpectedly hauled out a huge scrapbook of letters and photos of the family. I got my camera out of the car and set the book up at an angle on the front porch where there was sufficient light and had my wife turn the pages as I photocopied each page of the scrapbook. The pages were in plastic page protectors and were standard U.S. Letter size, 8 1/2 x 11. The pages were in a three-ring binder and I took two page spreads at a time. The scrapbook had almost 200 pages and I am going to guess that it took me, at most, ten minutes to copy the entire book.

The image above is a page of the text at 400% in Photoshop. To put it short, the pages are entirely readable and usable. The photos in the scrapbook were mostly photocopies of original photos and so the quality did not matter. By being able to take high quality images on a moment's notice, I saved the aggravation of finding a nearby copy machine and the cost of the copies. Today, if I had needed to use my iPhone, I could have taken a photo of each page, spent a little more time and gotten similar copies.  With a camera, I can easily take pictures as fast as someone can comfortably turn the pages.

So what does this mean? It means that the whole concept of taking notes, transcribing texts and other tedious tasks are things of the past. With the exception of those few repositories that will not allow any type of reproduction of their collections, it is tremendously more effective to take photos of the pages rather than try to take notes.

Another example, I was again in Salt Lake and had an hour or two free before a meeting. I popped into the Family History Library and began taking photos of books from Rhode Island that I needed for my genealogical research. In a matter of minutes, I gave myself a few pages from several books to go through when I had more leisure time, which, by the way, has never materialized. If you do this, make sure you take a photo of the title page first so you can remember which book the material came from. Is there a copyright issue? There certainly would be if I took photos of an entire copyrighted book. I will not reproduce anything I obtained here in this post or anywhere else. The rule for copyright is called the Fair Use Doctrine and it is summarized as follows:

In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a
commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted
work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted
work.

As you can see, that doesn't help much. Use good sense, don't copy an entire article or book. Try to be judicious in what you take as "notes." Do not use the images for any purpose other than your own private research and certainly do not use them for any further publication purpose unless they are clearly out of copyright. 

Checking out the RootsTech App

Last year at RootsTech 2011, I carried around the huge syllabus almost two inches thick. This year I have the RootsTech 2012 iPhone App (also for Android). I downloaded the App and found maps, schedules, blogs, news, a way to schedule which classes you want to attend, a photo gallery, a video gallery, a Twitter link and more. It is impressive and it is always nice to see your own name in print even if it is tiny little print on an iPhone.

The App can be downloaded from the App Store or the Android Market and it is free. Good idea and a good substitute for the huge syllabus.

My Mystery Photo

I have started a series of photos of people I cannot identify from my collection. If I do one a week, I have enough photos to last for at least 191 years or so. Oh, well. I have to start somewhere. This is the second one in the series.

The photo was likely taken around 1920. It could have been taken in St. Johns, Apache, Arizona or in another town in the area. It was taken by my great-grandmother, Margaret Godfrey Jarvis Overson with a large format view camera. It is what is referred to as a quarter plate glass negative. Who is he?