The Guide to FamilySearch Online now available on Amazon.com

Sales of The Guide to FamilySearch Online are increasing dramatically. The paper version of the book is now available on Amazon.com. Just do a search for the title of the book. There are several places where the book can be purchased, but for a paper version you might check at one of the genealogy conferences, Family Roots Publishing will be at the following conferences selling the book (and other books also):

• FGS Conference in Springfield, Illinois; 
• The Washington State Conference in Richland; 
• A seminar in Spokane,Washington; 
• The Family History Expo in San Mateo, California; 
• The Arkansas Genealogical Society Conference in Little Rock; 
• The Family History Expo in Atlanta, Georgia; 

and several additional exhibits at the Salt Lake Plaza Hotel.

Oh no! I'm First Cousins to William Shakespeare

I was guessing I could use my relationship to William Shakespeare to explain the overwhelming popularity of my blog (just kidding).  But, I doubt that the gene pool is sufficiently connected to account for the phenomena. Especially since Shakespeare would probably disown me. So how did I come to the startling knowledge of my 1st cousin (with a few generations removed) relationship to Willie Shakespeare (that's what we call him in the family)? It came as a results of my son's Relative Finder report on "European Royalty." So I decided to duplicate the results.

Relative Finder is a both a website and Facebook online program that access portions of your family tree from New.FamilySearch.org. Interestingly, my family information in New.FamilySearch.org (NFS) is rather less than reliable. Also, NFS has some really questionable inclusions, such as the "One Royal Line" by Albert F. Schmuhl. When I clicked on finding my ancestors, the program came back with 7008 of my "relatives." I can hardly wait to add all of these individuals into my genealogy program!

After selecting a famous relative, I chose Famous Writers and voila! I am a First Cousin to William Shakespeare 12 generations removed.  Hmm. I was not aware that there was any agreement on Willie's genealogy. In fact, there is discussion that the ancestor through whom I am supposedly related may not  be Willie's father at all but possibly his brother? See The Shakespeare Family History Site.

So I began to look at the so-called relationship chart. Everything looks pretty normal back to David Kenyon (1693 Rhode Island) and his wife Mary Sanford (1703 Rhode Island) but here the plot thickens. Mary Sanford is shown as the daughter of William Sanford (1676 Rhode Island) and then Samuel Sanford (1635 Rhode Island) Whoops! Looks like he was either a Narragansett Indian or the line has drifted off course. Roger Williams settled in what became Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1636. Although Williams was not the first European settler in the area, Samuel Sanford is not mentioned as one of the few possible settlers before Williams.

It is beginning to look mightily like this relationship thing is entirely bogus and it isn't even cleverly bogus. So now we get into a discussion about whether or not this (possibly fake) relationship calculator is a boon or a bane? My answer. Only if you actually believe that you are related to some of these famous people. It is possible that a relationship to someone less remote in time could be more accurate, but if the relationships are based on information in NFS I would have to reject the proposed relationship out of hand without adequate documentation.

Will I go along with the argument that anything that gets people interested in their family is justified under the umbrella of "it doesn't hurt anyone, anyway." It would be OK if the program came out and said that this supposed relationship was pure fabrication, but it purports to dispense accurate information without any obvious disclaimers and people accept it on its face as true.

Sorry, if this is a rehash of what everyone already knows, but I run into this problem of relationships of famous people regularly. How dare I cast aspersions on a BYU program. 

Contemplating Organization and Chaos

When I was in the Army stationed in Panama, one of the Majors in our office had a saying on the wall attributed to Gaius Petronius Arbiter (ca 27-66 AD) a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero. OK so I liked the quote, but it turns out to be fake. Apparently, Arbiter was real but the quote is not.  There is not any proven link to him and any of writings attributed to him. See Wikipedia:Petronius. Notwithstanding the lack of provenance, the quote was thought provoking.

 It said, "We trained hard - but it seemed every time we were beginning to form up into teams we were reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while actually producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization."

Where ever this quote came from, it applies to genealogy as much as it did to the Army. How many times do we spend our time "reorganizing our files" when what we really need to do is research? I have yet to meet a genealogist who thought their files were well organized, even those people with immaculate notebooks full of sheet protectors. No one will ever accuse me of being overly organized, especially when I see the notebook people and feel guilty because of the piles of stuff I have to go through.

Living on line with genealogy as a theme

I fully realize that I am what is known as "plugged-in." Of course, we have the traditional land line phone and the cable TV bundle of land line, cable and Internet access. But that is just the start. We actually have five different phone numbers because we also have two cell phones and separate work phones. The iPhone enables be to have 24/7 Internet with email and text as well as voice mail. Oh, don't forget our six email addresses and Google Talk and Google+ and Facebook and Twitter and Skype and Instant Messenger and iChat and, and, ummm? Maybe I have forgotten something.

Oh, what about the three active and four inactive blogs, plus TechTalk and GenealogyWise. Don't forget the LinkedIn account and all of the blogs on my Google Reader. I try to keep that to something reasonable but the number of blogs just keeps growing. Once and while, I actually talk to some one in person, think of that.

I was working at the Mesa Regional Family History Center today when a patron came in and started a conversation at the reference desk. She characterized herself as totally a non-computer person. The other reference desk person looked and me as if to say, you probably don't need to talk to this person, I will handle it. Guess what? Anything I would have said would likely be inappropriate. Is there such a thing as too much? Yep, and I passed that point a long time ago. One of my acquaintances was introducing me and referred to me as one of the most computer-aware old people he had met.  Later, I told him about a few of my online activities and he was very embarrassed at having referred to me as a older person.

Guess what? I am in no way unique. I have a whole circle of friends and some family members who live online at the same rate that I do.


So what's the point? I spend a lot of time explaining technology to people new to genealogy and computers. But more than that, I spend a lot of time helping people who already know a lot about computers and online resources learn more. If you haven't noticed we are a long way into what is commonly called the information age or information revolution and genealogy is squarely centered on the explosion of both communication technology and information availability. Even though the list of online connections seems confusing, it is really quite manageable. When you deal in information, writing blogs, writing books, providing online support, editing and maintaining the FamilySearch Research Wiki, and all of my other related activities, the tools of your trade are streams of information coming from a huge spectrum of sources. No one would think me excessive if, as an attorney, I spent 10 or more hours a day in court or writing briefs and motions. When I shifted my emphasis from law to genealogy, I naturally adopted the same work pattern and kept at it ten or more hours a day.

I also look at some of my contemporaries, the blogging folks, and wonder how they spend so much time and produce so much content. I am no where near the likes of a Dick Eastman or a Randy Seaver or any other of a dozen or more bloggers I could name. I find that having a selection of electronic devices and methods of connecting allows me the flexibility to keep working all day, instead of wasting time waiting in lines, and other such activities. When I was first practicing law, I was literally chained to the desk. If I went anywhere, I was out of touch and losing time. Once I got wired in, I could word from the supermarket or eating hot dog at Costco. Having that connection freed me from sitting at my desk all the time. Now, it allows me to do a lot more with my time than I could otherwise. When I am at the computer, I can write, do research, investigate and still carry on all of those activities to some extent no matter where I am physically located.

Genealogy is now high tech. Just keeping up with a some of the changes is almost a full-time job. Electronics allow me to do other things and still make progress in genealogy.

Another Brush with Identity Theft?

Underlying a lot of the contact I have with genealogists is an often unspoken concern about privacy caused by a fear of the so-called Identity Theft issue. We recently had another instance where a credit card was compromised with unauthorized purchases. Did that have anything to do with my genealogy online or anywhere else? No, as a matter of fact, it didn't. There are plenty of ways for a credit card and its security number to be compromised, none of which have anything to do with Identity Theft or genealogy. In this case, the most like culprit was a store clerk who copied down the numbers and either used them or sold them online.

We were alerted to the problem by an email from the credit card company. After a short investigation, essentially a few minutes on the phone, we have a new card on its way. Someone may lose some money, but it won't be us.

So, why is this called Identity Theft with capital letters? In my opinion, it is simply because identity theft sounds much more ominous than credit card theft and can be used to scare people into buying all sorts of insurance and other products. The commercials on TV make it sound like someone is impersonating you and buying a house or a car or worse. So the question becomes how prevalent is the real identity theft? It has been a while since I wrote about this problem, so I decided to check into the statistics again.

The first step in investigating the seriousness of identity theft is to wade through the huge number of companies that are trying to sell you something. Any statistics from a company whose business is to sell you protection, will likely be unreliable as to the true scope of the problem. The first thing I found was that overall identity fraud incidents decreased in the United States in 2010. So where to go to get accurate (as possible) statistics? How about the U.S. Department of Justice? Yep, that is where you go, the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

First thing we find out is that the term "identity theft" refers to three types of incidents:

• unauthorized use or attempted use of existing credit cards
• unauthorized use or attempted use of other existing accounts, such as checking accounts
• misuse of personal information to obtain new accounts or loans, or to commit other crimes.

Reading further we find out that about 53% of all the incidents were in the first category. Unfortunately, they lump attempts in with actual incidents, but it looks like over half of the incidents involved use of a credit card number.  Only about 1/4 of the victims of identity theft suffered any actual out-of-pocket loss. Only 30% of the victims reported that the perpetrator obtained more than $500 in goods or services. But guess what? All of the statistics are from 2008! Even though the study date is in December of 2010. Why aren't more recent figures available? Let's just say that if you sort through all of the data, you soon begin to realize that what the largest percentage of the cases they are calling identity theft involve physically stealing a wallet or purse or credit card. The longer you look at the statistics, the smaller the number of "identity thefts" appears that involves taking a person's identity rather than a credit card.

So what about all the people out there living in fear that some one will steal their identity and empty out their bank account? It could happen but the incidence is very low except for credit card theft.

So what does this mean to genealogists. It still makes sense not to put compromising personal information in online genealogy files. Follow the maxim to never put information online about living persons and you will be fairly safe.

Update on Google+

I am finding Google+ to be much more useful and interesting than Facebook especially for genealogists. I am still somewhat amazed at the extensive participation of the genealogical community in this relatively new site. It seems to have the potential of unifying the genealogical community in a way that has not happened before. I am also finding that my general (outside of genealogy) friends and associates have not jumped into Google+ nearly as fast.

For example, as of the date of this post, I have added 370 people to my circles. Only 26 of those are in my category of friends and only paltry 14 are in my family circle, although I have sent out blanket invitations. All of the rest are in my Genealogy circle, 338 at last count. Of those 338, 263 have added me to their circles.

How does this compare to Facebook? Well, I can't do a direct comparison because I didn't ever have a "genealogy" only Facebook group, but after years on Facebook, I have a total of 252 "friends." Only a very few of those would be the same as those in my Google+ Genealogy Circle.

I must say about the so-called Facebook "Friends" that most of the people really are friends and family members (except those who have de-friended me, of course). As I scan down through the posts on Facebook, I really can't see anything of genealogical interest. I must admit that most of the posts on Facebook drive me crazy. They are so petty and self-indulgent.

Contrast. Google+. Nearly every single post on my Google+ stream is relevant to genealogy and if I click on the Genealogy Circle, they all are. I love it. Keep it up. Just think if most (a large number whatever) of the genealogists were actually connected? What an interesting phenomena.

Looking ahead to RootsTech 2012 - Blogging and Presenting

Earlier this year in February, 2011, the genealogical community experienced a whole new dimension in conferences. RootsTech 2011 exceeded all expectations. Over 3000 attendees almost doubled the expected turn-out. Mild February weather and a huge vendor area transformed just another conference into a spectacular and memorable event. The excitement and interest were palpable. Now, we are looking forward to another fabulous time in Salt Lake City, Utah and I am looking forward to attending this next year both as an official Blogger and for the first time as a presenter. I received notice of being selected as an official Blogger yesterday afternoon and had already been notified about teaching a class before that.

RootsTech 2012 will be held in the same venue, the Salt Palace, a huge conference complex right downtown and only three blocks from the Family History Library. Of course, some of the events of last year cannot be duplicated, but now that the conference organizers have a feel for the numbers and the interests of the attendees, I am sure that this next conference will be even better than the last. Last year we got the royal treatment as Bloggers and this year I am interested to see how the experience will compare. Of course, I will be right there sending out posts about the conference for those of you who are unfortunate enough not to be able to be there in person.

In addition, I am much more interested in meeting people this year. RootsTech 2011 was my first experience with a really big genealogy conference from start to finish and I think I was more involved in the experience than I was involved with people. This next conference, I plan to focus on the people at the conference. I am looking forward to making new friends and renewing older ones. I want to do a better job of interacting with the Bloggers and other conference attendees.

Last year there were a number of "first announcements" at the Conference. Now that the genealogical community has a better idea what to expect, I would think that there would be many more such announcements given the media coverage of the Conference.

FamilySearch was a big participant in the Conference and I expect they will be this next one also. I have had the opportunity to talk informally with some of the Conference directors and I expect plans are well underway to make this next Conference spectacular.

By the way, reservations are already available at a discount at two of the closest hotels. I would expect the hotels to fill up long before the Conference. Downtown Salt Lake is always a mass of new construction and a couple of weeks ago when I was there was no exception. A huge section of downtown Salt Lake has been the subject of a $1.5 billion mixed-use development that will transform downtown Salt Lake City known as the City Creek Center. Construction is planned to be completed in the Spring of 2012 but parts of the development are already complete and open to the public. I just hope the development doesn't sit empty like much of the office space and retail space in Phoenix.

Salt Lake is an interesting place to be any time, but come to RootsTech 2012 and see for yourself.