18 TB Hard Drives drop in price

 

During the past year or so, I have seeen the hard drive industry jump from 8 Terabyte (TB) hard drives to double that number at 18TB. You can now buy an 18TB drive for around $350 to about $400. There are additional 18TB drives for a lot more because the price hasn't stabilized yet. You can also buy a 1TB Flash Drive (SSD) for about $150 however, a 2TB SSD jumps up to almost the cost of an 18 TB hard drive. Just think about how much information you can lose if one of those 18 TB drives bites the dust. 

OK, so some people estimate that you could store almost 86 million pages of Word documents on a 1TB. So multiply that by 18 and you get over 1.5 trillion pages. I have been working on computers solidly for the past 40 years or so and I have accumulated just a bit over 3TBs of stored documents that include tens of thousands of digital images. But I don't store full-length movies or hours of music in that number. 

What about genealogists? Well, a 1TB hard drive costs about $50. Now, if you think about this, most people can get by with a 1 TB drive but if you multiply that by 18 you are paying the equivalent of $900 for the storage in an 18TB hard drive. So which size drive is the most economical? The 18TB drive is about $20 a Terabyte which is about the same price as a 10TB hard drive. An 8TB hard drive is slightly less at about $144 or $18 a Terabyte. What happens here is that $20 per Terabyte becomes the default figure but smaller capacity drives actually cost a bit more than larger storage drives. If price is your only consideration and you can't believe you will fill up a 1TB hard drive, then spring for $50 and buy one online or at the nearest store that sells hard drives but realistically, I would buy a minimum of a 4TB hard drive for four times the capacity for about $90. 

The moral of this story is simple. Failure to backup your years of genealogy on an external hard drive is inexcusable. If you have all your genealogy on the hard drive in your computer, go out today and or go online today and buy an external hard drive and start backing up your data. Oh, by the way, it takes me about 4 full days running day and night to back up one of my hard drives. 

MyHeritage Adds Millions of Lithuanian-Jewish Records From LitvakSIG

 

MyHeritage.com has announced the release of a new collection of historical records: Lithuanian-Jewish Records from LitvakSIG, 1795–1940. Quoting from the email announcement:

The records in this collection were originally translated and indexed by LitvakSIG, and represent almost the entire corpus of LitvakSIG's work over more than twenty years. These records have tremendous genealogical value, and together with MyHeritage's search and matching technologies including Record Matching and Global Name Translation™, which overcome language barriers and provide matches to family trees in English, Russian, and Hebrew, among other languages, will open a new frontier of discovery for individuals who are researching their Lithuanian-Jewish heritage.

The Lithuanian-Jewish Records from LitvakSIG, 1795–1940 collection consists of several million historical records and covers the era from the Russian Empire (1795 to World War I) to the period of independent Lithuania (1919–1940). The majority of records are from places in present-day Lithuania. However, due to various geopolitical changes during the time period covered, the records are not limited to the modern boundaries of Lithuania; they also cover areas located in present-day Poland, Belarus, or other neighboring countries. The records in this compilation include vital records, census records, tax and voter lists, conscription lists, household registers, directories, emigration lists, and more. 

This wonderful addition is part of our efforts to expand the Jewish genealogy resources on MyHeritage, and is a valuable resource for anyone of Lithuanian-Jewish origin. 

A long time ago, I was hospitalized for about a week. I had a lot of time to watch the in-room TV. I watched a documentary about Lithuania and wondered how long it would be before Lithuanian records became available to researchers.  I guess I have lived long enough to see that happen. MyHeritage.com is making it happen. 

Genealogy: Ethics, Ownership, Work Product, Plagiarism, and Privacy, Part One

 

Over the past almost 40 years of doing genealogical research and interacting with the genealogical community, I have encountered the same issues over and over again. These issues are summarized by concerns involving ethics, ownership, work product, plagiarism, and privacy. Genealogists are generally the most pleasant, cooperative, and kind people I know. The exceptions always seem to revolve around these five topics. Of course, there are other issues such as the digital divide and basic competence but I keep coming back to the BIG FIVE. 

This post is intended to explore all five of these issues. Over the course of this series, I hope to address some of the day-to-day considerations involving genealogists and the four interrelated topics. 

I will start with a short overview of each topic. 

Ethics

Ethics are moral principles the govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity. Ethical behavior involves establishing concepts of what is right and what is wrong. Over time, as people become involved in genealogical research, they usually become aware of the existence of a greater genealogical community made up of people with similar interests in researching their ancestors and other family members. However, genealogical research attracts people from all types of ethical backgrounds. But as people recognize and begin to work in the genealogical community they usually get a feel for what is ethically acceptable and what is not. Notwithstanding the existence of a commonly observed ethical system, there are always those people who disregard ethical norms and act in ways that are destructive and harmful. 

The basis of many ethical systems is the concept of doing to others as you would have others do to you. This may seem like a reasonable and simple concept but it is the cause of endless discussion and in some cases, dispute. Those genealogists who follow the path of monetizing their activities sometimes become involved with professional genealogical organizations that have codified their acceptable ethical practices. For example, see the Association of Professional Genealogists Code of Ethics and Professional Practices. All genealogists would do well to review and seriously consider this particular code and other such codes from other professional organizations to see concrete examples of the type of conduct that should apply to all genealogical activities. But this is only the beginning of what needs to be considered. 

Let me give an introductory example of what I and many other genealogists would consider unethical behavior. 

One of the places where we have the opportunity to interact with the greater genealogical community is online using the collaborative, shared, and universal FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Some of those who participate in this interesting experiment in constructing a universal family tree, seem to be unaware of the huge number of other people who are involved. The activities of these people, who are seemingly unaware that they have entered into a huge, international, genealogical community, almost immediately become destructive and blatantly inconsistent with the assumed ethical standards of the greater community. This is not to say that these people are intentionally violating ethical restraints but even if they are acting ignorantly or negligently, the effect of their behavior is the same. At a fundamental level, they fail to recognize that anything they do in this community is open to immediate view and consideration by every other participant in the community. In this Family Tree community, there are no claims to ownership, claims to work product, claims to plagiarism, or even claims to privacy. If you disagree with this reality, then you should not be involved in the Family Tree. If you think my statement is extreme and unrealistic, I suggest you read the entire FamilySearch Terms of Use (Updated 2019-12-10)  linked from the startup page of the website. 

More about ethics and genealogy in future posts in this series.

Ownership

The interaction between genealogy and the ownership issue can be summarized in one simple statement: you do not own your ancestors or relatives. If you do research about a family member and find some information about an event in that person's life, that is historical information. No one "owns" history. More about this as I continue to write. 

Work Product

The concept of work product is codified in the legal community based on another concept of attorney-client privilege. The attorney-client privilege refers to a legal privilege that works to keep confidential communications between an attorney and his or her client secret. Because there is an attorney-client privilege, the notes, and documents created by an attorney in the course of representing a client referred to as the attorney's "work product" are also covered by the privilege and usually cannot be discovered or used by an opposing party. Many people have focused on the words "work product" to extend a claim of ownership to their own research. If you don't own your relatives or ancestors, you certainly do not own information about these people. Genealogists have developed a multitude of excuses for claiming ownership and for preventing others in the community from benefitting and duplicating their research but all of the excuses boil down to the fact that you can own history or relatives. 

Plagiarism

You can probably see where I am going with ownership and may already guess what I will say about plagiarism. Yes, plagiarism is just another excuse for a claim of ownership. However, the concept is more complicated and directly related to copyright protection. You can own a copyright, however, plagiarism is not necessarily a copyright issue. Issues of plagiarism most commonly arise in the academic community where professors and other professionals advance in their standing in the community by publishing papers on various subjects. Having unique or original ideas can result in fame and fortune. When someone steals an idea and claims it as his or her own, that is considered plagiarism. This spills over into the genealogical community among those genealogists who are publishing papers either for profit or prestige. Again, this is basically an ownership interest. 

Privacy

Privacy claims are another smokescreen for ownership. Dead people do not have any claims to privacy. Information about dead people cannot be private. This is another topic that I will reserve for further discussion. 

Why aren't I also writing about copyright? I have written a lot about it in the past and will probably mention it in conjunction with everything else I am writing about in this series. Copyright is part of what is now known as intellectual property law. What is and what is not copyright protected is the subject of statutes and case law. It is not something you can claim without knowing exactly what is and what is not covered by copyright. Yes, you can own a copyright, but you can't copyright ideas and facts. To say that again, facts are considered to be in the public domain. They are not protected under copyright law. Copyright protection does not extend to news events or the facts or ideas which are the subject of news reports or your genealogical research. 

Stay tuned for more.

Genealogy in a Zoom World

 

During the recent RootsTech Connect 2021 Conference, I participated in an outreach program sponsored by the Salt Lake City, Utah Family History Library. The Family History Library has an extensive system of online consultations. Here is a screenshot of the Research Consultations web page. 

Research Consultation

This is an ongoing program that is still functioning and will continue to function in the future. Essentially, anyone around the world can sign up for a twenty-minute consultation with a Family History Library consultant. The consultants are primarily missionary/volunteers with the Library. When you sign up for a consultation, you are asked to fill out a brief summary of your experience and the questions you would like to discuss. The sign-up process asked you to select an area of research and then the program matches you with a volunteer who can help you in that area including matching you with someone who speaks your native language if that is possible. You are then offered a time slot that matches the availability of the consultant and a Zoom meeting is arranged. 

When you connect to your Zoom meeting, assuming you have a device with video capabilities, you will be able to see the consultant and he or she will be able to see you. You can then ask you questions and receive help from the consultant. If you need to share your screen then you will able to do so. The consultant can also share his or her screen to help you set some research goals. The consultants are not there to do the research for you but to help you understand how to find the information you need to do the research. 

The instructions for the entire process are on the FamilySearch.org website. See this screenshot for an explanation of the Virtual Research Strategy Sessions. 

https://www.familysearch.org/family-history-library/family-history-library-research-consultations

During the week of RootsTech Connect 2021, I was scheduled for 36 twenty-minute consultations. The preparation time was significant. Many of the questions involved challenging research issues. Also, some of the sessions were in Spanish. It was interesting and somewhat of a challenge to switch quickly between English and Spanish and to work with questions dealing with South America, Italy, Spain, England, Ireland, the United States, and other areas of the world. The sessions were scheduled in two-hour blocks with ten minutes in between the three twenty-minute segments. I was able to schedule the segments according to my personal schedule. 

Let me emphasize: this is an ongoing program. You can click on the link and set up your own research consultation session. I am not presently participating because I was only scheduled for the week during RootsTech but I hope to help out in the near future. There is also a possibility that the same program will be established at the Brigham Young University Family History Library utilizing our own staff of missionary/volunteers. I will keep you all posted if and when this happens. 

I am guessing this program will be expanded and continue even after the COVID-19 restrictions are eased (if that ever happens). 

Visiting the RootsTech Website

 

RootsTech Connect 2021 is hardly over. In fact, you might say it has just started. The website has links to over 1,200 videos and presentations. The intent is to have a huge online, library-like resource for the entire world. There is an interview with Elder Kevin S. Hamilton, a General Authority Seventy and executive director of the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Steve Rockwood, CEO of FamilySearch International. Jen Allen, the FamilySearch Representative in charge of the conference,  that was printed in the Deseret News for March 3, 2021, entitled, "How RootsTech Connect went from 130,000 to 1.1 million." About the impact of the conference, Elder Hamilton is quoted as saying,

The 1.1 million participants over the weekend was interesting. But to me, more interesting was the 242 countries that were represented. That just blew me away. I Googled it — there’s only 251 countries and territories officially recognized by the United Nations. We had 242 of the 251 with representatives at RootsTech. We had a large contingent from Oman. We had people from Greenland. So to me, that globalization across the globe was just really heartwarming.

Living here in Utah County, in my neighborhood where most of the people are members of the Church, it is interesting that very few of the people around me, except for the missionary volunteers at the Brigham Young University Family History Library, were even aware that RootsTech was happening and are completely unaware that the website with all that content will be online for the next year. It usually seems like they have been inoculated against hearing or learning about family history or genealogy. I am pretty sure that there are fewer than a dozen people in my neighborhood that even know or remember that I write a genealogy blog or that I am a volunteer/missionary at the BYU Family History Library. Sorry, I have to comment on this from time to time. 

Anyway, the RootsTech Connect 2021 website has now become a "go-to" place on the internet to get a lot more information about genealogy. If you do go to the RootsTech website, you might notice this statement.

It looks like to me that the RootsTech Website and the corresponding RootsTech Section of the FamilySearch YouTube channel may the first of a lot more video presentations. 

MyHeritage extends its offer to let you upload any other company's DNA for free

 

Wow,  this offer is now extended by MyHeritage.com to March 7th, 2021. Here are the details:

Due to the enthusiastic response, we’ve decided to extend our offer to upload your DNA data and access advanced DNA features for free! 

Users who have tested with another service can upload their data now through March 7, 2021 and gain free access to all DNA features on MyHeritage!

Uploading DNA results to MyHeritage is easy, and the results will be ready within a day or two.

Enjoy lifetime access to the Ethnicity Estimate and the new Genetic Groups feature, as well as the Chromosome Browser, AutoClusters, Theory of Family Relativity™, and much more! These features will remain free for any DNA kits that are uploaded to MyHeritage this week. Read more about this offer in the blog post. 

 For more information see: Upload DNA Data

 

Searching beyond the Ordinary

 

Online search engines find the most actively used records first. Many genealogists have about the same level of awareness and attention. They always look for the ordinary, comfortable, and usually the most used records first but sometimes also stop there. It is time to break out of the ordinary and look for records that may not be ones you are used to searching but may prove to be extraordinarily useful at the end of your search. 

Very early in my genealogical journey, I started to read some of the books that were on the "reference" shelf in the local Family History Center. This was about 35 years ago. One of those books was the following:

Eakle, Arlene. 1984. The source: a guidebook of American genealogy. Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry Publ. Co.

Little did I know at the time that this book and another one,

Greenwood, Val D. 1973. The researcher's guide to American genealogy.

would become the foundation for establishing my genealogical research skills. One of the interesting things that happened over the years is that I became friends with Arlene Eakle, the original author of The Source but that is another story. What these books helped me understand was the breadth of types of records that constituted genealogical research. Even before I began to regularly use census records and vital records, I understood that these were only a starting point for research. 

One statement, often repeated, about genealogical research methodology is that you begin with what you know before you jump off into what you do not know. To do this, you must make sure the information in your family tree is as complete and accurate as possible. This includes relying on validated records and documents that support a relationship between each generational advance. It doesn't matter how many documents and records you find about an individual unless those documents and records support a valid conclusion identifying a parent. 

To start, make sure you have searched all of the obvious records first. If you have your family tree in an online, major family tree/database program, you can also begin by processing and validating all of the record hints suggested by the program. Validation involves carefully considering the record hints to make sure they apply to your individual ancestor or relative. Most of these early record hints and searches will involve vital records and census records. However, these sources are usually time-limited. For example, most people in the United States have a birth certificate but birth certificates have only been consistently issued in the 20th century. Many researchers who do not know this fact, keep looking for a birth certificate long before these documents existed. 

If you get stuck trying to find a birth record, you may have to start looking into other records. Some of those that help establish a birthdate include:

• Death records
• Social Security applications and the Death Index
• Census records
• Cemetery records
• Church records
• Military records
• Bible records
• and many more...

You will soon realize that the large online genealogy websites seldom suggest some of these categories of records. One way to remind yourself to move beyond the ordinary records is to use a genealogy source checklist. 

Genealogically significant records are those created at or near the time of an event by someone who witnessed the event or had a duty to report it. However, the person who witnessed the event or had a duty to report the event may have reported the event at a time remote from the time of the event. In addition, everything having to do with genealogical research is dependent on identifying an accurate and specific location of an event in each ancestor's or relative's life. General locations such as England or Germany are only marginally useful. So, the main activity of doing genealogical research is locating records that relate to events in your ancestral lines. 

For example, the United States Federal Census records are valuable because they identify a person at a particular location and at a particular time. They are not so useful when they report the country or state where the parents of the person are reported to be born and the calculated year of the person's birth. If you were to find a draft registration card for the same person, you would likely find a record of the person's specific address as well as a specific birthdate. 

For people born back to the 1800s in the United States or in Western European Countries, there are a seemingly unending number of possible record categories to research. Don't give up. The more learn, the more places you will know to look and the more you look, the more you will find.