Thoughts on online and in-person consultations

For the past ten years or so, I have been consulting online with a variety of people around the world. Presently, as a Church Service Missionary, I serve at the BYU Library Family History Center where we have a Virtual Help Desk. 

https://familyhistory.lib.byu.edu/get-help

Over the years, I have volunteered to help with a variety of genealogical topics, but because I speak Spanish fluently, many of my consultations both online and in person are Spanish speaking and mostly are immigration questions and most come from Latin America. This has been true for the past twenty years especially when I was living in Arizona. 

One thing I have learned is there is an overwhelming interest in obtaining dual-citizenship for either Spain or Italy. The main challenge being a lack of knowledge of the place of origin of the immigrant. I have developed a “standard” response even though the response is not very promising. The answer for all immigrant questions is that research for an immigrant begins in the country of arrival, not the country of departure. 

The second issue that has become clear is that those coming online from Latin America are usually more computer and smartphone literate than those people coming on from the United States. Another lesson, was that a very high percentage of all the requests came from people using a smartphone as their main contact device. 

Another very interesting and challenging issue was that I learned that many (most) of the Latin American records on the FamilySearch.org website are restricted to viewing in a FamilySearch Center. This was true mainly in South America. I have also learned that Spanish language records, depending on the country, can be hard to find online and I end up telling people to contact the Catholic church directly or also, to directly contact civil registration offices. 

I also experienced a basic fact that all the people who were interested enough to come online were very friendly and thankful for the help. I have had hundreds, (perhaps thousands) of special experiences talking to people all over the world. It is probably a good idea to note here that Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world after Chinese. 

My next learning experience has been how limited the genealogically valuable records are in almost all the Spanish speaking countries of the world. There are only two main categories of records: church records and civil registration records. It was also interesting to learn that FamilySearch.org has almost no civil registration records from Argentina. 

The majority of people needing help ultimately come from Latin America with a few from Spain and Italy. I should probably note that I do not speak Portuguese so I haven't helped much with inquiries about Brazil or Portugal. 

I guess another interesting observation is that the lack of awareness of record sources for genealogical research is about the same no matter the language spoken although English speaking patrons are more likely to have a developed a family tree online. 

I have also learned a lot about genealogical records in every Latin American country as well as in Spain and Italy. 

AI turned out to be extremely helpful in identifying Catholic parishes and diocese.

The experience of one-on-one consultations has been priceless.  

A new rule of genealogy for 2025

 

It has been quite a while since I discovered a new Rule of Genealogy. Here are the previous Rules. 

Rule One: When the baby was born, the mother was there.

Rule Two: Absence of an obituary or death record does not mean the person is still alive.

Rule Three: Every person who ever lived has a unique birth order and a unique set of biological parents.

Rule Four: There are always more records.

Rule Five: You cannot get blood out of a turnip.

Rule Six: Records move.

Rule Seven: Water and genealogical information flow downhill.

Rule Eight: Everything in genealogy is connected (butterfly).

Rule Nine: There are patterns everywhere.

Rule Ten: Read the fine print.

Rule Eleven: Even a perfect fit can be wrong.

Rule Twelve: The end is always there.

Rule Thirteen: Genealogists abhor a blank field.

Rule Fourteen: You are not responsible for what you find.

Rule Fifteen: A fact is not a fact unless you have a record to prove it. 

I was beginning to think that there were no more rules. I guess I was wrong. Here is another rule. 

Rule Sixteen: Gravity always wins 

This rule is fairly simple. Famous people or those who have genealogically active family members generate most, if not all, the attention and thereby have their lives more completely documented. Just like gravity, they are bigger objects and therefore always attract the most activity. For example, take George Washington, the first president of the United States.  it's estimated that thousands of books have been written about George Washington, with some sources citing figures over 10,000 over the past 200 years and a 2019 estimate of around 900 books specifically for scholarly works. See Washington's Legacy. 

Some people garner a huge amount of interest simply because they have huge families. My sixth great-grandfather, because of the size of his immediate family has tens of thousands of descendants and because I live in Utah, I am frequently asked if I am a relative and I usually am. Another constant reminder of this rule is the constant changes on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree to the Mayflower passengers. 

Perhaps it is partially because of this constant gravitational pull, that I spend most of my time researching my grandmother's lines and those of ordinary people. What is the real benefit of add one more source or document to a person who is already fully documented unless you intend to write a book about the person or have some other research goal? You can easily tell if a person has a high level of gravity by looking at the All Changes of a person such as Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7 who changes almost daily. 

Let's try to defy gravity.