RootsTech 2018: Connect. Belong.

#RootsTech 2018

Even though here in the West it seems like Summer is still in force, it is time to start thinking about RootsTech 2018.There is a change in the time and date for the conference to begin. Here is the announcement:

RootsTech to Begin on Wednesday 

We’re thrilled to announce that RootsTech 2018 will officially begin a day earlier than our prior conferences, on Wednesday, February 28, 2018. Join us for class sessions beginning on Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m. MST. Classes will also be offered at 11:00 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 3:00 p.m. 

Following these class sessions, the General Session will begin at 4:30 p.m., featuring popular speaker Steve Rockwood, CEO of FamilySearch International.

In the past years, RootsTech has been held on Thursday through Saturday. This change extends the conference for an additional day. There is also a change in the previously titled Innovator Summit and Innovator Showdown. Here is that announcement:

Innovation Showcase 

At RootsTech, we believe that the future of family history lies in technology and innovation. The 2018 conference will see the evolution of the Innovator Summit and Innovator Showdown, which will become the all-new Innovation Showcase. The Showcase will highlight leading technologies and products within the genealogy industry from around the world. The Showcase will be featured in the session following Rockwood’s general session address. 

“The Showcase will feature the best new technology in the industry that we can find from around the globe,” said Steve Rockwood. “It’s a great opportunity for us to give a number of companies; from small startups to large organizations; the opportunity to present their ideas on stage for a chance to be heralded as one of the ‘Best Family History Innovations in 2018’ as awarded by RootsTech.” 

Beginning in the fall of 2017, RootsTech will launch a worldwide search for the best industry technology and innovation to be showcased on the main stage and to thousands of online viewers. Winners will receive recognition from in-person and virtual attendees, the media, and the genealogical industry. 

Please be advised that the Innovator Summit will no longer be a pass option; instead, the RootsTech pass will now include Wednesday sessions. Innovator Showdown is transitioning to the Innovation Showcase as described above.

It sounds like the previous Innovator Summit with its cash prizes has been discontinued. Another new feature added is the Expo Hall Preview Night. Here is the announcement:

Following Wednesday’s General Session and Innovation Showcase, the Expo Hall will be open from 6-8 p.m. MST. Take advantage of this uninterrupted time on the show floor perusing booths, visiting with exhibitors, and getting your hands on the latest family history technology.

This essentially means that the exhibitors will be up and running a day early. I suggest that with these changes you will need to make some adjustments to your schedule if you are planning to attend.

Another change. Check-in will begin on Tuesday. There is that announcement:

Come early to avoid long lines! Check-in will now open on Tuesday, February 27th at noon. Remember, you should always plan on arriving at least 90 minutes prior to the first event you hope to attend. This time will allow for parking (which is always longer than you think), receiving your badge, and finding a seat 30 minutes before the event/session begins.

You just might want to look at the RootsTech.org website to keep up with all the changes. Here is another change:

Don’t Forget your Badge 

In order to provide more data and information to RootsTech organizers, each classroom will have a scanner that will scan your badge upon entry. The scanner will blink green if your pass type allows entry into the particular class or scan red if your pass does not allow entry into the particular class. As always, seats in each session are first come, first served.

Genealogy from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

https://www.uscis.gov/genealogy

Yes, the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is in the business of providing genealogy services. They even have a brochure explaining what they do.

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/History%20and%20Genealogy/Genealogy/genealogy_brochure.pdf

Before you get too interested, however, you need to keep reading to find out that the searches only go back to 1906 when the Federal Government took over all immigration and naturalization proceedings.  Nevertheless, there are millions of Americans who have ancestors in this time frame.

Here is a description of the information required for a search:

The USCIS Genealogy program can only fulfill record requests that include a valid file number, such as a naturalization certificate number. Most researchers will receive the necessary file numbers from their USCIS Genealogy Program index search results. However, researchers who have located file numbers independently may use them to make a record copy request. 

If your ancestor was born less than 100 years ago you will also need to provide proof of his/her death. 

If you do not have a file number, or you are unsure whether or not USCIS maintains a file for your ancestor, please submit an index search request.

There is a fee for the service depending on the record format: $20 for an Index Search, and either $20 or $35 for a Record Copy Request.

We have recorded five videos at the Brigham Young University (BYU) Family History Library with instructions about finding your immigrant ancestors, all posted on the BYU Family History Library YouTube Channel.  Here is the most recent video:

Understanding Immigration for Genealogists - James Tanner

Genealogy from the U.S. Census Bureau

https://www.census.gov/history/www/genealogy/

The U.S. Census Bureau officially pays token attention to genealogy, but in fact, has a wealth of information that is useful in genealogical research. I find myself using the website from time to time. By the way, the current U.S. population was 325,797,000 while I was writing, but the indicator changes about every few seconds.

One of the challenges of the U.S. Census is to maintain data on people while not creating privacy issues. Here is a statement from the Genealogy portion of the website:

Although censuses are a source of genealogical information, the Census Bureau does not provide these data. The Census Bureau is not able to locate missing persons, or provide recent information on individuals. 

By law, personally identifiable information collected for a decennial census is released to the public after 72 years. The National Archives released the 1940 census on April 2, 2012. Learn more about your family history from census records.

Actually, the records supplied by the census record do exactly what they say they do not do. They enable us to find our missing relatives even though the information is more than 72 years old. But obviously, the historical information is more valuable to genealogists.

One section of the U.S. Census Bureau website that is interesting is the Factfinder for the Nation: Availability of Census Records About Individuals. Here is the description:

The United States population census records contain a wealth of information about people. They are useful in learning about one’s family and local social and economic conditions at various times in history. For more recent years especially, they are official documents for persons who need to prove their age (in the absence of a birth certificate), relationship, citizenship, residence, and other facts in order to qualify for pensions; get jobs, naturalization papers, passports, or insurance policies; establish an inheritance; or trace ancestry. There was a population census taken in 1790 and every tenth year after that. (Page 3 lists the items covered in the existing censuses for each year.) The U.S. Census Bureau publication, Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000(Washington, DC, 2002) provides a history of each census and reproduces the questionnaires and instructions given to enumerators for taking each census. You can download this publication at <www.census.gov/library/publications/2002/dec/pol_02-ma.html>. 

This Factfinder explains what census materials are available and how to obtain them and also lists the sources for some other useful records about individuals.

 The basic information outlined in this short publication should be common knowledge to genealogists in the United States.

The U.S. Census Bureau website is consistent with most U.S. government websites in that contains a huge amount of information but is organized so poorly that finding anything you need is difficult. If you need to learn about the content of each of the Decennial Censuses from 1790 to 2000, there is a specific publication to help. See "Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000."

https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2002/dec/pol_02-ma.pdf

This publication contains all of the questions for each of the censuses and the instructions to the Enumerators and other valuable information. Part of becoming a genealogist is learning how to find and use this kind of information.

Microfilm vs. Digital Images: Who wins the battle?

Microfilm viewers at BYU Family History Library, Provo, Utah

I thought I might be through with writing about microfilm, but the comments to my series of posts on the subject have convinced me otherwise. Microfilm is film. Many years ago, filmstrips were quite commonly used to teach classes and sell products. Some of us still have filmstrip projectors stashed away in some storage area. Microfilm and filmstrips are both analog methods of information storage. They also store information linearly. Using a microfilm for information extraction is a complicated process.

Microfilm Storage Container

Digital information storage is the opposite of analog storage. Access to the information can be random and easily accomplished. However, both analog and digital information storage devices are machines and can be complicated to use.

Microfilm Roll

Microfilm is a series of photographs of historical records (or about anything else) on a piece of continuous photographic film. The film is stored on plastic (originally metal) holders commonly referred to as "rolls." The size of the film has been standardized to 35 millimeters and 16 millimeters. The length of the rolls varies with the number of record images stored. The images are viewed, one at a time, by using a microfilm projector, a large box with a light source that projects the image onto a flat surface. The image can also be projected onto an upright screen. [Just a note, it is extremely difficult to find a photo of a microfilm reader or any of the associated media or equipment online and I ended up taking my own photos at the Brigham Young University Family History Library. Copyright protection has evolved from a method to protect authors and works into a system that impedes communication.] Eventually and more recently, electronic microfilm viewing options have been available at some libraries and archives. This is a photo of a ScranPro 3000 setup at the BYU Family History Library. These machines allow the user to make digital copies of the microfilm images.

ScanPro 3000 with computer

Microfiche images are also photographic film but rather than storing the images in a linear roll, the images are stored on a flat sheet of film.

Microfiche

In the past, the microfilm that genealogists have been using comes primarily as rentals from the archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its subsidiaries including FamilySearch, although there are also other historical microfilm collections that make rentals available, such as those from the U.S. Library of Congress and the U.S. National Archives.

Microfiche Carrousel

Here is an important point. In all the years that microfilm has been available, most recently from FamilySearch, the film had to be rented and viewed either at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah or more recently, at one of the Family History Centers scattered around the world. Until quite recently, if you wanted to view a particular roll of microfilm (or microfiche), you had to go to the Family History Center, order the film and pay the rental fee, wait until you were notified that the film had arrived, travel back to the Family History Center to view the film and then start the process all over again with another roll of microfilm. Some of the Family History Centers could also store the film "permanently" at the Center for future use for an additional fee. Recently, renting the film had been moved online, but viewing and storing were still necessarily done at a Family History Center.

Microfilm return shelf

I have reviewed this process in detail because I don't think too many people today understand how long and involved the process really is and was. Once you obtained the microfilm, you had to physically load the roll into the reader, turn on the light and then turn a physical crank on the side of the machine to view each image. Some viewer had motor-drive cranking options. Oh, and there was a selection of lenses for viewing the film at magnification. Unless you went through this process frequently, you had to relearn every step each time you ordered and used microfilm. Threading the microfilm onto the viewer was always a challenge.

Microfilm Viewer

Viewing microfilm was a labor intensive activity unless you were lucky enough to have one with a motor-drive. Until the advent of digital copy devices, reproduction of any one of the images was expensive and time-consuming. You either had to take another photo of the image with varying degrees of quality or copy the information down by hand. To view any one image, you had to crank your way through hundreds or thousands of other images. When you finished using a roll, you had to physically crank all the way back to the beginning of the roll and start all over again with another roll.

Microfiche Viewer

OK, so that gives you an idea of what it took to read one roll of microfilm. Microfiche viewers were even more complicated and viewing a particular image took manual dexterity as well as learning how to use the machine.

At this point, I could then conclude that using digital images is much less complicated than using microfilm, but that would be an oversimplification. Digital images of the microfilm have to be viewed on your computer and you have to know how to use a computer, how to access the internet, how to use the FamilySearch.org program (or find other digital images of historical records) and understand how to search and view the individual images. But here are the main differences:

• The FamilySearch.org images of the microfilm are no longer subject to rental fees; they are freely viewable online.
• The waiting time for receiving a film has been eliminated and all of the images remain online for viewing at any time of day or night.
• Billions of images are now available to be viewed from any computer or device that can access the internet.
• No more complicated microfilm or microfiche viewers. The images can be rotated, magnified, and enhanced by your computer.
• You can easily capture images from the microfilm for later use or to act as sources for supporting genealogical research.
• The online digital images can be randomly accessed. 
• Those digital images that are only viewable in a Family History Center or at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah are the exception rather than the rule. Viewing them in a Family History Center or at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah is no different than viewing microfilm but the vast majority of the online images are freely available online.

The age of microfilm has now passed. Some of it will be around for a long time, but as genealogists become more comfortable with digital images and those images become more readily available, then using microfilm will become a lost art. Digital images will inevitably win the battle. 

Virginia Genealogical Resources

As I help people with their genealogical research, I get the opportunity to do research in countries all around the world. But not surprisingly, most of the research that I do is in the United States. There is a direct relationship between the difficulty of finding information and the time depth involved. Most of the sticky research problems end up being with ancestors who lived in the earliest part of the 1800s or back into the 1700s or even earlier. I was recently asked about doing research in Virginia in the 1600s. Rather than looking for the person myself, I was asked to provide a list of resources and places to look. I spent some time compiling the list and I thought I would pass those along.

Here is my list of Virginia resources. By no means is this complete but it is a good place to get started. You might notice that the list includes a lot of university special collections libraries.

Here are some websites for starters:

http://www.virginiamemory.com/

http://www.vahistorical.org/

https://grivagenealogy.wordpress.com/

https://alexlibraryva.org/client/en_US/home

See the list on

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flpcgs/Virginia.html

Here are some libraries and archives;

Library of Virginia

800 East Broad Street

Richmond, Virginia 23219-8000

http://www.lva.virginia.gov/

University of Virginia

Alderman Library

160 McCormick Road

Charlottesville, VA 22903

https://www.library.virginia.edu/

Albert and Shirley Small

Special Collections Library

http://small.library.virginia.edu/

Virginia Military Institute

319 Letcher Avenue

Lexington, Virginia 24450

http://www.vmi.edu/

http://www.vmi.edu/archives/

Virginia Commonwealth University

Richmond, Virginia 23284

(804) 828-0100

https://www.library.vcu.edu/

University Libraries (0434)

Carol M. Newman Library, Virginia Tech

560 Drillfield Drive

Blacksburg, VA 24061

(540) 231-9232

https://www.lib.vt.edu/

Special Collections,

University Libraries (0434)

Virginia Tech

560 Drillfield Drive

Blacksburg, VA 24061

https://spec.lib.vt.edu/

Arlington Public Library

Center for Local History Community Archives

Central Library - Main Floor

1015 N. Quincy St.

Arlington, VA 22201

Phone: (703) 228-5956

http://libraryarchives.arlingtonva.us/About/Index

Albermarle Charlottesville Historical Society

McIntire Building

200 Second St., NE

Charlottesville, VA 22902-5245

http://albemarlehistory.org/index.php

College of William and Mary Library

Earl Gregg Swem Library

The College of William & Mary

400 Landrum Drive

Williamsburg, VA 23185

http://libraries.wm.edu/node/60

John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library

313 First Street

Williamsburg, VA 23185

http://research.history.org/contact/library/

The Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections Research Center

Purdue University Library

Stewart Center, 4th floor of HSSE library

504 W. State Street

West Lafayette, IN 47907

https://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol

Old Dominion University

3023 Patricia W. and J. Douglas Perry Library

Norfolk, VA 23529

757-683-5350 (phone)

https://www.odu.edu/library/special-collections

Virginia State University Special Collections and Archives

Johnston Memorial Library

1 Hayden Drive

Petersburg, Virginia 23806

(804) 524-5040

http://libguides.vsu.edu/specialcollections

James Madison University

Libraries and Educational Technologies

Special Collections

800 South Main Street

Harrisonburg, Virginia  22807

https://www.lib.jmu.edu/special/

Virginia Union University

Archives and Special Collections

1500 N. Lombardy Street

Richmond, VA 23220

https://www.vuu.edu/library/archives-special-collections

Hampton Public Library

Special Collections

4207 Victoria Blvd.

Hampton, VA 23669

http://www.hampton.gov/100/Libraries

Norfolk Public Library

Sargeant Memorial Collection

Norfolk’s Local History and Genealogy Collection

Slover Library

235 E. Plume Street

Norfolk, VA 23510

(757) 664-7323

http://www.norfolkpubliclibrary.org/about-npl/hours-locations

Here are a few books on Virginia genealogical research

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Family and Church History Department. United States and Canada Reference Unit. Virginia Research Outline. Salt Lake City, Utah: Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1988.

———. West Virginia Research Outline. Salt Lake City, Utah: Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1988.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Family History Library. Research Outline: Virginia. Salt Lake City, UT: Family History Library, 1988.

Clay, Robert Young. Virginia Genealogical Resources. Detroit, Mich. (c/o Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library, 5201 Woodward Ave., Detroit 48202): Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, 1980.

Curtis, Oscar F. Research File: Teague--Farr and Allied Families. Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1989.

Dodd, Jordan R, and Inc Liahona Research. Virginia Marriages, Early to 1800. North Salt Lake, Utah: Heritage Quest, 2001.

Elliott, Wendy L. Research in Virginia. Bountiful, Utah: American Genealogical Lending Library, 1987.

Grundset, Eric, Barbara Vines Little, and National Genealogical Society. Research in Virginia, 2014.

Humling, Virginia. U.S. Catholic Sources: A Diocesan Research Guide. Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry, 1995.

Library of Virginia. Genealogical Research at the Library of Virginia: A Guide to Resources. Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1997.

———. Genealogical Research at the Library of Virginia: An Informational Pamphlet. Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1994.

Lowder, Dott Virginia. Lowder Genealogy. Place of publication not identified: s.n.

McGinnis, Carol. Virginia Genealogy Research, 2012.

Roberts, Virginia P. Virginia Porter Roberts Genealogical Research Records/documents. Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 2000.

Rodes, Adeline Virginia, and Karl Frederick Steinhauer. A Guide to Research on Rodes Genealogy,. Kansas City, Mo.: Steinhauer Press, 1933.

Rose, Ben Lacy. Report of Research on the Lea Family in Virginia & North Carolina before 1800. Decorah, Iowa: Anundsen Pub. Co., 1995.

Schweitzer, George Keene. Virginia Genealogical Research. Knoxville, TN (407 Ascot Court, Knoxville 37923): G.K. Schweitzer, 2005.

Southern California Genealogical Society. Genealogical Research in West Virginia. Burbank, CA: Southern California Genealogical Society, 1986.

Virginia Genealogical Society. Virginia Genealogical Society. Richmond Va.: Virginia Genealogical Society, 1997. http://www.vgs.org/.

———. Virginia Marriages in Rev. John Cameron’s Register and Bath Parish Register. Richmond, Va.: Virginia Genealogical Society, 1963.

Virginia, General Assembly, and Joint Committee on the State Library. Colonial Records of Virginia. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1977.

Virginia State Library. Genealogical Research in the Virginia State Library. Richmond, 1973.

———. Genealogical Research in the Virginia State Library. Richmond: The Library, 1980.

———. Provisional List of Works on Genealogy and Works Helpful in Genealogical Research in the Virginia State Library ... Richmond, Va., 1908.

If you're interested at all in doing genealogical research in Virginia, this list should get you started.

You might notice that the large online database websites for genealogy are conspicuously missing. I assume that if you've done any genealogical research at all, you would start by looking at the major genealogical database websites and many of the online digital book websites.