Changes in the World of Unanswered Questions: Still no answers

Back in 2012, I wrote a short blog post entitled, "Unanswered Questions." Then, in 2017, I wrote a blog post entitled, "More Unanswered Questions."  As I mentioned in the 2012 post, when I do a presentation, I usually ask everyone before I start whether or not they have any questions about the known or unknown universe. Occasionally, I will get a question or two but usually, everyone just sits there and stares. I have lots of questions and I know some of them are unanswerable. Now it is time to again look at some of the questions and topics I wrote about in the two previous blog posts and discuss why they are still unanswerable.

Back in 2012, I asked the question: "Which of Adam's children are you descended from? Can you document your sources?" That was a little over seven years ago. Has any progress been made in documenting sources? Is the genealogical concept of "back to Adam" still a current issue? The intent of both of the parts to that question was to point out the futility of accepting any of the commonly circulating pedigrees that purport to take you line "back to Adam."

In 2012, I did a search on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree for a person named "Adam" who lived in a place called "Eden" and had a wife named "Eve." There were quite a number of responses. From time to time, I have made the same search with the same results. Here is a screenshot of the current results of about the same search:

If I add in a wife named Eve, here are a few of the results from the new search:

I was interested in the one entry placing the Garden of Eden in Utah and in a specific county. Since Grand County was founded in 1890 and is the county where both Moab and Arches National Park are located, I can understand why you might think Eden was associated with that county but historically, I think that locating Eden in or near Moab lacks historical support. I am also intrigued by the entries that place Eden in the Marshall Islands. This is likely just another editorial and promotional reference that ignores the difficulty a 4000 BC Adam and his descendants might have had in crossing the Pacific Ocean.

The real questions here should be: How long are we going to put up with bogus, imaginary genealogical entries in online family trees? Who in the real world of academic-level research will take us seriously when we have entries such as these in our online. collaborative family trees?

My next question is from the 2017 blog post and asks: How many genealogists does it take to change a lightbulb? This question is really a commentary on the technological changes confronting all of the world's genealogists. As I pointed out in my comment in that blog post, our descendants may not understand this question because they have never seen a lightbulb replaced. That day may still be in the future but this question opens up a lot of other questions about the impact of technology on both research in general and specifically genealogical research.

The light bulb question is really a follow up to my earlier question about how long it would be until I no longer heard the statement: "I don't have any computer skills." I am currently teaching a series of classes on mobile apps, including those directed at family history and genealogy. The main challenge I observe so far for most of the decidedly older people who are attending my classes is that they cannot operate their smartphones at all and they have no idea how to avoid the problem. This is the so-called "Digital Divide." The impact of technology on genealogy will only become more extreme with the addition of DNA testing and the tools being developed for analyzing those DNA tests.

Some of my questions were aimed at the issue raised by genealogy companies promoting their products and genealogy in general as easy, fun, simple, and similar terms. See the first question back in 2012: "If genealogy can be learned in five minutes, why are there 25 five-minute-episodes so far in FamilySearch.org's Learning Center?"

By the way, those 15-minute lessons are no longer on FamilySearch.org but there are a lot of other websites that have picked up on the idea of spending only 15 minutes a day and are emphasizing how easy it is to do genealogy. Granted, there are things you can do in 5 or 15 minutes, but most genealogical research is time-intensive.

My 2017 question about attendance at genealogy conferences is still a concern. I am seeing some conferences disappear, but other new ones being established. The issue is still valid and current, but so far despite some discontinuances and consolidations, conferences are still alive if not particularly well.

I will still keep asking questions and writing, for the time being, but one serious question is how long with blogs be relevant and viable. I am still seeing a dramatic drop off in direct blog readership. But when you add in all of the social networking outlets, readership is holding stable. Maybe it is me that is becoming irrelevant and not blogs in general? Now, that question needs to be added to the list.

Expanded Commentary on the Rules of Genealogy: Rule Six

I have slowly been going back to the list of the Rules of Genealogy and writing about each individual rule. There are presently 12 Rules. Here is the current list from my blog post of 19 July 2019.

• 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

In this post, I am expanding on Rule Six: Records move.

Upon reflection, it is quite easy for even experienced genealogical researchers to find themselves in a situation where they ignore and are trapped by one of these rules. One of the common situations where this rule applies in the United States involves the so-called "burned counties." See "Burned Counties Research." As the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki article points out, "The phrase "burned counties" was first used for research in Virginia where many county records were destroyed in courthouse fires, or during the Civil War."

It is indisputable that records are destroyed by fires and other causes. What is meant by Rule Six is a simple fact, the records you are searching for may have been kept in some other location rather than the particular building, usually a courthouse, which burned down. Record loss is a real problem, but it is not an excuse for failing to do systematic and careful research. In almost every case where someone has told me that their ancestors' records were lost in a courthouse fire, the person making this statement has not verified what, if any, records are still available. There is a statement on the FamilySearch Research Wiki page that summarizes what our reaction should be to "burned counties" in particular. The quote is "This is not magic. We cannot make missing records re-appear, but we CAN learn to make progress without them."

Another interpretation of Rule Six refers to the simple fact that records can be moved from their original location and could be found far away and even in a country different than that of their origin. I am writing here about "paper" records. The actual, physical recording of events. This commonly occurs when records are gathered to a "centralized" repository or when people immigrate from country to country or place to place. A good example of this rule is the entire United States Archives and Records Administration. This federal agency has vast warehouses of records parodied in the movie starring Harrison Ford called Raiders of the Lost Ark. Where is the warehouse and how do you gain access to the records?

Jurisdictional boundaries change, people move from place to place, governments rise and fall, all of these and many more conditions can cause specific records to be physically stored in places far removed from their original location. Genealogical research is part art and part science. Finding where records are located is more than simply looking online or referring to an excellent source such as the FamilySearch Research Wiki. Another example. Let's suppose you are looking for an ancestor that worked for a railroad in the United States. Where would you go to find his or her records? The Research Wiki has over 1,500 listings for railroad records. Where are all these records located? They are certainly not all in the same place. How many places do you think you might have to search?

It is true that records move, and this rule is one that needs to be taught and emphasized continually.

All of the MyHeritage LIVE 2019 Lectures Now Online

https://blog.myheritage.com/2019/09/myheritage-live-2019-lectures-now-online/

The September 24, 2019 MyHeritage Blog post contains links to all of the presentations from the MyHeritage LIVE Conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands held on September 6th through the 8th. Here is a video with some brief highlights of the conference.

See this link https://youtu.be/CZ26ADQYmzk

I am not sure, but I think that this may be only the second time that an entire genealogy conference has been made available for free online with videos. The first time was from the MyHeritage LIVE 2018 Conference. See this post:

https://blog.myheritage.com/2018/11/myheritage-live-2018-lectures-now-online/

Not only were both of these Conferences broadcast live during the conference, but you can also review the entire conferences at your leisure.

Genealogy and Genealogical Records in South Africa

Here is a short history of South Africa from Wikipedia: History of South Africa:

Following the defeat of the Boers in the Anglo-Boer or South African War (1899–1902), the Union of South Africa was created as a self-governing dominion of the British Empire on 31 May 1910 in terms of the South Africa Act 1909, which amalgamated the four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony, Colony of Natal, Transvaal Colony, and Orange River Colony. The country became a fully sovereign nation state within the British Empire, in 1934 following enactment of the Status of the Union Act. The monarchy came to an end on 31 May 1961, replaced by a republic as the consequence of a 1960 referendum, which legitimized the country becoming the Republic of South Africa.

Settlement of the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of the African continent began with a Dutch East India Company trading post in 1652. The British invaded the Cape in 1785 and the Dutch settlers moved inland in what is known as the Great Trek and established Boer settlements in the interior. The population of the entire area including the present countries is a mixture of the original African population, Portuguese,  Dutch, French, German, and British immigrants and enslaved people imported from the north of Africa and from the Dutch Colonies in Asia. South Africa also has the largest population of immigrants from India on the African continent. Obviously, the history of South Africa and the surrounding countries is much more complicated than this short summary. To do adequate genealogy, you will need to start with understanding the history of the countries where your ancestors lived as well as the countries from which they immigrated.

Two good places to start your research are the short summary of sources in Rosemary Dixon-Smith's website page entitled, "A Research Guide for Beginners" and the South African Genealogy Page. A more complete list of sources is available from the South Africa pages of The Family History Guide. Each of the major genealogical websites has a collection of records linked from The Family History Guide page. Another good place to start is with the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki page for South Africa Genealogy. You will need to remember to look for records in the country of origin of your ancestors and also remember the time periods when South Africa was under the control of the different European nations. For example, records of British South Africa may be located in Great Britain.

Once you begin to realize that genealogical records all fall into the same categories, you will find it much easier to do research in different countries. The initial orientation should always include the history but it is also important to begin with a survey of the types of records that are reasonably available and the records' location.

Here is a list of useful books about South African Genealogy and History.

Dutch Reformed Church Archives (Stellenbosch, South Africa). South Africa, Cape Province, Beaconsfield, Church Records. Salt Lake City, Utah: Digital capture by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 2007.

———. South Africa, Transvaal, Krugersdorp, Church Records. Salt Lake City, Utah: Digital capture by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 2007.

———. South Africa, Transvaal, Mara, Church Records. Salt Lake City, Utah: Digital capture by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 2007.

Finkelman, Paul. Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-First Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Genealogical Society of South Africa. An Abridged Guide to Genealogical Research in South Africa. Houghton [Johannesburg: Genealogical Society of South Africa (PO Box 2119, Houghton, Johannesburg 2041), 1995.

Genealogical Society of South Africa, South Africa, Directorate State Archives and Heraldic Services, and National Archives of South Africa. Alphabetical Guide to Gravestones in Smaller Cemeteries in South Africa. Pretoria? State Archives Service, 1989.

Genealogical Society of South Africa, and Southern Transvaal Branch. Intermediate Guide to Genealogical Research in South Africa. Saxonwold, South Africa: Southern Transvaal Branch of the Genealogical Society of South Africa, 1996.

Genealogical Society of South Africa, and State Archives Service (South Africa). Alphabetical Guide to Gravestones in Smaller Cemeteries in South Africa. Pretoria: State Archives Service, 1988.

Malan, Hercules M. Guide to the Malans of South Africa, History and Genealogy. Place of publication not identified: publisher not identified, 1998.

Natal Inland Family History Society, Genealogical Society of South Africa, and Natal Midlands Branch. “GNUS: The Quarterly Newsletter of the Natal Inland Family History Society and Natal Midlands Branch of the Genealogical Society of South Africa.” GNUS : The Quarterly Newsletter of the Natal Inland Family History Society and Natal Midlands Branch of the Genealogical Society of South Africa.

Pama, C. Genealogy in South Africa. S.pl.

Reaman, George Elmore. The Trail of the Huguenots in Europe, the United States, South Africa, and Canada. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2000.

South Africa, and Department of Justice and Constitutional Development. South Africa, Eastern Cape, Estate Files,. Salt Lake City, Utah: Digital capture by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 2013.

Quantum Computers, Artificial Intelligence, and Genealogy

Here is a quote from an article on TheVerge.com website entitled, "Google may have just ushered in an era of ‘quantum supremacy.’

Google’s quantum computer was reportedly able to solve a calculation — proving the randomness of numbers produced by a random number generator — in 3 minutes and 20 seconds that would take the world’s fastest traditional supercomputer, Summit, around 10,000 years. This effectively means that the calculation cannot be performed by a traditional computer, making Google the first to demonstrate quantum supremacy. 

Despite hitting the milestone, it’s likely that quantum computers capable of tackling practical tasks are still years away. However, once developed, the computers are expected to have huge implications for areas as diverse as cryptography, chemistry, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Google expects the power of quantum computers to expand at a “double exponential rate,” whereas traditional computers have long been pegged to Moore’s Law, which saw power double every 18 months or so.

It might be some time before we see the impact of this new technology. If you want to learn about quantum computers, here is a link to an article from the MIT Technology Review entitled "What is a quantum computer."

What does this have to do with genealogy? Sorting through and organizing the data for billions of people takes a lot of computer power. When you think of all the information about just one person, including DNA tests and etc., you can imagine that faster computers will always be useful. This also brings us to artificial intelligence or AI. Some of the problems being addressed with AI include handwriting recognition and transcription. A rudimentary form of AI is used to create the record hints implemented in the large online genealogical database websites. See my previous post entitled, "Thoughts on the Creation of a Universal Family Tree."

As I point out in my previous post, the ultimate product of massive genealogical data and the ability to organize and validate the data would be a universal family tree. Of course, from our limited perspective the major issues today are duplication and accuracy. But given a massive amount of data and the ability to review all of it quickly, it is conceivable that a universal tree is possible.

Of course, the idea of using AI for genealogical research is not new. For example, here is an article entitled, "AI-created family trees confirm 18th and 19th century class divisions in Finland." This article points out the following:

It would take 100 person-years for a genealogist to map and find all the parents for five million people – with a rate of one person per minute. The AncestryAI algorithm can do the same work in an hour using 50 parallel computers and with a success rate of 65 per cent. The algorithm can also measure the level of uncertainty for each connection so that unreliable results can be ignored. Genealogists and demographers can use the algorithm to shed light on societal change and history.

This work is being done by researchers at the Aalto University in Finland. See "Ancestryai Algorithm Traces Your Family Tree Back More Than 300 Years." See also "AncestryAI: A Tool for Exploring Computationally Inferred Family Trees." Here is a description of the program.

Many people are excited to discover their ancestors and thus decide to take up genealogy. However, the process of finding the ancestors is often very laborious since it involves comparing a large number of historical birth records and trying to manually match the people mentioned in them. We have developed AncestryAI, an open-source tool for automatically linking historical records and exploring the resulting family trees. We introduce a record-linkage method for computing the probabilities of the candidate matches, which allows the users to either directly identify the next ancestor or narrow down the search. We also propose an efficient layout algorithm for drawing and navigating genealogical graphs. The tool is additionally used to crowdsource training and evaluation data so as to improve the matching algorithm. Our objective is to build a large genealogical graph, which could be used to resolve various interesting questions in the areas of computational social science, genetics, and evolutionary studies. The tool is openly available at: http://emalmi.kapsi.fi/ancestryai/.

If these researchers had access to a quantum computer their computational time would probably be a matter of minutes rather than an hour even with an exponentially larger database.

Despite this potential capability, I don't think that any of the world's genealogical researchers need to worry that a quantum computer will put them out of business very soon but what about the future?

The Ultimate Digital Preservation Guide, Part Fourteen: Remediating the Damage

By US gov - US gov, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3939739

As genealogists, we may come in contact with documents and records that are clearly damaged from water, mold, natural deterioration, fire or many other causes. It is important to understand that our efforts to curate this damage may do more harm than good.

One common reaction to preservation is putting records and other documents in "protective" plastic sheets. In the past, it was also common to mount photos and other documents in albums or scrapbooks with a variety of methods from glue to photo corners. Often times, the plastic page holders and the mounting materials for scrapbooks does more damage than simply putting the documents in a book. The process of preservation is often referred to as curation. Curation is the action or process of selecting, organizing, and looking after the items in a collection or exhibition. Preservation is part of the curation process.

Unfortunately, adequate curation is usually beyond the resources and means of the average genealogist. Especially when there is water damage, the process can be lengthy and costly. Here is a summary of the process from the Northeast Document Conservation Center entitled, "Emergency Management, 3.6 Emergency Salvage of Wet Books and Records." If you take the time to review the instructions in this article, you will see that the process may be entirely beyond the resources of an individual.

One of the most commonly referenced major document losses occurred with the 1890 U.S. Federal Census. I have referred to the situation that resulted in the loss of these census records several times previously. The common explanation for the lack of records is attributed to a fire. But the fire did not cause the loss of most of the records. A more complete explanation of the loss is found in the following:

The Fate of the 1890 Population Census," Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 64-81 (Spring 1996), Part 1 and Part 2.

The loss was only partially caused by the fire. The real loss was caused by the failure of the bureaucratic government agencies to take the proper steps to ameliorate the damage. Here is a summary statement from the second part of the above article:

More than 150 years passed between the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the establishment of a U.S. National Archives, however, and the nation paid a high price for this delay. Critical records succumbed to war, fire, flood, theft, moves, agency reorganization, administrative error, improper filming, ignorance, apathy, and the ravages of time. It is really quite remarkable that so many valuable records are extant and available for research. The tragedy of the 1890 census remains a constant reminder of the necessity for a vigorous National Archives and unrelenting vigilance about the historical record.

The worst response to document damage is that taken by the U.S. Government: delay and ultimate lack of action ending up with the destruction of the damaged documents. There is no question that a great of the 1890 U.S. Federal Census could have been saved by proper action. It is probably the case that more genealogically important documents and records are lost through being intentionally thrown away than are physically damaged by all of the other possible damage methods combined. It is very likely that every day some library or archive destroys genealogically valuable records. Of course, this fact indicates that, as genealogists, we should be more knowledgeable and more actively involved in document and record preservation.

Part of the reason for this series is to raise awareness of the need for preservation and curation in the genealogical community.

Part One: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide.html
Part Two: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide_10.html
Part Three: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide_14.html
Part Four: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide.html
Part Five: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide_10.html
Part Six: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide_25.html
Part Seven: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide_29.html
Part Eight: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide.html
Part Nine: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide_13.html
Part Ten: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide_16.html
Part Eleven:https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide_25.html
Part Twelve: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide.html
Part Thirteen: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-ultimate-digital-preservation-guide_13.html

Early Bird Registration Opens for RootsTech 2020

https://media.familysearch.org/rootstech-2020-slc-opens-registration/?fbclid=IwAR2xN-P9cOm8BK3Uba0un-u7_Rwcfa1uuFqYEhEEtL-uCpNSAwzLMH9iecg

#RootsTech 2020 is just around the corner. It is time to begin the Early Bird Registration. Early bird discount pricing is available for a limited time on 4-day passes at just $169 (a $130 discount on regularly priced passes). Single-day RootsTech passes are also available for $99. Both one-day and full conference passes include access to the popular expo hall and keynote sessions. Early bird pricing ends October 11, 2019.

Here is more about the announcement from the news release:

FamilySearch International has announced that registration for RootsTech 2020 Salt Lake City is now open. RootsTech is a popular 4-day annual family history and technology conference where individuals and families are inspired to discover, share, and preserve their family roots, heritage, and stories. The 2020 conference will be held February 26–29, 2020, at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

For more information, visit rootstech.org/salt-lake. Discounts are available for early registrations. 

In 2019, RootsTech attracted over 20,000 attendees from 38 different countries and all 50 states. 

RootsTech 2020 will celebrate its 10th anniversary and the distinguished honor that it is the largest genealogy conference of its kind in the world. The conference will feature a full lineup of inspiring and well-known keynote speakers, over 300 informative sessions, including hands-on computer workshops taught by industry professionals; interactive activities and helpful exhibitors in the expo hall; and entertaining events—all designed to inspire and empower personal family discoveries.