My Thoughts on Grammarly.com

Grammarly.com is a free/subscription web-based application that is described as "an online service that quickly and easily makes your writing better and makes you sound like a pro, or at least helps you avoid looking like a fool.” See Grammarly.com quote from Forbes. I signed up for the free version some time ago and it has been running on my Chrome browser for some time now. I guess since I write so much, that this app is now pretty much related to my genealogical efforts. I have had a long standing rule not to do "reviews" of programs but after considerable thought and lot of frustration, I decided to make an exception for Grammarly.com. So, this post could be construed as a product review. 

For me, the most obvious effect of having the program on my browser is that it automatically flags misspelled words and "incorrect" comma placement. It also occasionally finds "wrong" word usage. The program works in the background so once it is added as a browser app, you do not have to turn the program on or off. It does have some limits and will not work with text documents outside of typing in online programs. At this level, it is helpful in the sense that my wife does not make as many corrections to my posts as she did in the past. Some of the frustration also begins at this level, since I do make a lot of typos and comma mistakes and it is always coming up with interruptions to my train of thought. I have several times thought about dumping the program, but I realize its utility and keep it functioning. 

Now, to the heart of the issue: the program does not recognize a large percentage of my perfectly good sentence constructions. In short, its level of English grammar is very limited. I would guess that I ignore almost as many suggested "corrections" as I use. This most likely comes from my expansive definition as to what is and what is not grammatical in the English language. More simply put, my narrative style is not considered grammatically acceptable by the program. It is impossible for me to give an example because I do not think the same way the program is designed to correct. The program seems to have a very limited corpus of English usage. If you used every suggested correction, you would sound like you were writing a Freshman English paper. 

Considering what I see online, I would suggest that many online contributors need the program. On the other hand, I would strongly suggest that using any "grammar" type program will inevitably end up being frustrating if you have been writing for some time. By the way, the program could probably use a shot from corpus.byu.edu. 

USA.gov and Genealogy

Perhaps you didn't know what the United States government has an official website that talks about genealogy. For the United States government, genealogy falls between "Family Legal Issues" and "Lawyers and Legal Advice." USA.gov is described as follows:

USA.gov is an interagency product administered by USAGov (formerly the Federal Citizen Information Center), a division of the U.S. General Services Administration's Technology Transformation Service. It got its start when Internet entrepreneur Eric Brewer, whose early research was funded by the Department of Defense, offered to donate a powerful search engine to government. That gift helped accelerate the government's earlier work to create a government-wide portal. 

In June 2000, President Clinton announced the gift from the Federal Search Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by Brewer, and instructed that an official U.S. web portal be launched within 90 days. USA.gov went online on September 22, 2000 under the name FirstGov.gov. The GSA and 22 federal agencies funded the initiative in 2001 and 2002. 

USA.gov was legislatively mandated through Section 204 of the E-Government Act of 2002. Since 2002, USA.gov has received an annual appropriation from the U.S. Congress. In January 2007, FirstGov.gov officially changed its name to USA.gov.

One interesting link on the website is to a guide to tracing your Native American heritage from the U.S.  Department of the Interior.

This particular publication brings up an interesting question concerning enrollment in a Native American tribe in the United States. This particular issue is being discussed in conjunction with the insurgence of DNA testing for genealogical purposes. I thought this a good topic and will be writing about it in the future.

New Additions to The Family History Guide

Several major additions to The Family History Guide have been posted in the last week. You can go to the What's New section in the "More" tab at the top of the page to see all the new additions and changes.

Here is a screenshot of the newly added features list:

You can see the major addition above in the first screenshot; the new Families Section. Here is the list of the new features added in August and so far in September 2017:

2017—September

• Added a new Family Activities section in the Misc. menu. Now you can find fun and educational family history activities for Family, Singles, Youth, and Children, all in one convenient place. See http://www.thefhguide.com/act-family.html to get started.
• Updated the top menus on each page, replacing the Projects menu with individual Partner menus: FS=FamilySearch, AN=Ancestry, MH=MyHeritag, and FMP=Findmypast. Now you can find Projects for any Partner directly from its menu, without having to switch contexts at the bottom of the menus.

2017—August

• Updated many of the Partner pages for Ancestry, MyHeritage, and Findmypast. New Goals and Choices were added or filled in. Work is ongoing towards the end of the Beta period, on Nov. 15.
• Added links to YouTube videos on the following topics: Adoption (U.S. Research); African-American Research; Court Records (U.S.); City Directories (U.S.); Descendancy Research (LDS); Divorce Records (U.S.); DNA Testing; Emigration & Immigration (U.S. and England); Genealogy Societies (Project 6); Jewish Research; Land Records (U.S.); Military Records (U.S.); Obituaries (U.S.); Probate Records (U.S.); Revolutionary War Records (U.S.); Social Security Death Index (U.S.); World War I and II Records (U.S.)
• Added Partner pages for Ancestry, MyHeritage, and Findmypast. These include Projects, Goals, and Choices, similar to the approach used for the FamilySearch content.
• Added Learning Paths to the Home Page and revised the Projects menu to provide easy access to the Partner pages.
• Updated the Topics page to include categories for Ancestry, MyHeritage, and Findmypast.
• Created a "Favorites" section on the Home Page, featuring "About the FHG" and "For Beginners".
• Reorganized the Intro menu for easier navigation.
• Set up a Beta program lasting until Nov. 15 for the Partner Pages and added them to the Content Review form.

The amount of information and help for genealogists being added to the website is extraordinary. Click here to visit The Family History Guide.

In addition, The Family History Guide is now being supported by a new blog entitled "Using the Family History Guide."

The End of FamilySearch Microfilm Rentals

With the one week extension, to 7 September 2017, this day becomes the last day to order microfilm through the FamilySearch.org rental program. For genealogy, this is a milestone event. But for the vast majority of family historians and genealogists, it will pass unnoticed. I have been continuing my ad hoc polls about microfilm usage and I find that very few of the people who volunteer or visit the BYU Family History Library have used microfilm for research during the past year.

There are a number of articles and blog posts on the subject of the discontinuance of the microfilm shipments. You might want to read a few if you are interested.

• Why FamilySearch Is Ending Microfilm Rental & How to Get Genealogy Records Now
• FamilySearch Digital Records Access Replacing Microfilm
• UPDATE: FamilySearch Digital Records Access Replacing Microfilm

Here is a summary of the current situation as of the 7th of September 2017 from FamilySearch:

• Patrons can still order microfilms online until Thursday, September 7, 2017.
• After film ordering ends, if customers need access to a particular film yet to be digitized, they can express interest to have it added to the priority digitization list by contacting FamilySearch Support (Toll Free: 1-866-406-1830).
• All of the microfilm rented by patrons in the past 5 years have now been digitized by FamilySearch—over 1.5 million microfilms (ca. 1.5 billion images).
• The remaining microfilms are being digitally scanned at a rate of 1,000 films per day and are projected to be complete by 2020.
• New digital images are available as they are scanned in the FamilySearch.org Catalog.
• Films currently on loan in family history centers and affiliate libraries are automatically granted extended loan status.
• Affiliate libraries now have access to nearly all of the restricted image collections as family history centers.
• Visitors to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City will still be able to order needed microfilms to use during their research visits.

I am on my way to the BYU Family History Library to view a microfilm that is only available for viewing in a Family History Center or Affiliated Library. 

Ancestry Reduces Features on RootsWeb

RootsWeb.ancestry.com has been a fixture of genealogical research since the earliest days of online access. I simply cannot remember a time when I was not using RootsWeb and its vast interconnected web of user contributed genealogical data. Here's a description of RootsWeb from the Ancestry.com wiki:

RootsWeb is like a forest that has grown up without much pruning or thinning. It has been and continues to be created by a worldwide community of online and mostly amateur genealogists. It contains huge and tiny databases (including more than 465 million names in family trees), libraries, articles, how-to tips, personal websites (more than 30,000 independently authored websites containing about 9 million pages), archives, and all sorts of surprising treasures and tools tucked into its nooks and crannies. RootsWeb also provides numerous vehicles for the free exchange of information pertaining to family research—such as 30,000 mailing lists—and it sponsors many of the largest volunteer genealogy projects on the Web. Many genealogical and historical societies call RootsWeb home, as do various family associations, special-interest groups, and projects you might never have heard about. Most of the different areas of RootsWeb are built and maintained by dedicated volunteers who are avid, friendly genealogists often willing to go out of their way to help you.

I recently spotted the following announcement at the top of the RootsWeb startup page:

We will be discontinuing the Guestbook and Calendar features on Friday Oct 13, 2017. RootsWeb users who use Guestbooks or Calendars on their Freepages, WWW, Virts, or Homepages web sites should remove Guestbook and Calendar references from those pages.

I certainly hope that this does not presage an erosion and possible discontinuance of the RootsWeb community. RootsWeb is probably not a significant revenue source for Ancestry.com and may go on the chopping block along with Ancestry.com's previous discontinuance of Family Tree Maker.  This would be a significant loss to the genealogical community.

Discover Your Family Story with GenealogyBank.com

GenalogyBank.com is one of many large online digital newspaper subscription websites. It is maintained by NewsBank, Inc., a major supplier of research tools to libraries in colleges and universities, government libraries, community college libraries, public libraries, K-12 school libraries, and content publishers. To help you understand the website, GenealogyBank.com has a YouTube Channel. Here are two of the videos that explain the website:

Every Obituary Tells a Story. Dig In. Discover Your Family Story Today.

How to Search GenealogyBank.com Video Tutorial

GenealogyBank.com currently charges $5.83 a month with an annual subscription billed with one payment of $69.95 for a monthly charge of $19.95. There is a 30 day trial subscription for $9.95.

When I looked, every microfilm had been digitized

For many years now, I have been making lists of the microfilm rolls I need for my research from the FamilySearch.org Catalog. Once the list got long enough, I made a trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and spent some time, actually days, looking at microfilm. Recently, I have been ploughing my way through microfilm at the BYU Family History Library in Provo, Utah. I have been consistently ordering microfilm from Salt Lake to have the rolls available at BYU.

The recent announcement by FamilySearch that microfilm rentals would be the discontinued put me into high gear in ordering microfilm. When FamilySearch extended the ordering period for an extra week, I reviewed my list to see if there was anything missing. I also randomly began looking at some of the microfilm I needed in the catalog. To my surprise, I found that the microfilm I had ordered was now digitized. I started looking at the rest of the microfilm on my list and quickly discovered that all of it had been digitized except for one roll. Yes, all of it had been digitized.

I would suggest that if you are waiting for a microfilm shipment that you check the catalog on FamilySearch.org to see whether or not the microfilm you ordered has already been digitized. You might be surprised like I was that the microfilm has already been digitized.