Heredis 2021 Now Available

Heredis.com is a desktop family tree software program that originated in France. I have been aware of the program for many years. It was introduced in 1994 for the Apple Macintosh operating system. See Wikipedia: Heredis for the background to the company. Representatives from the company have been attending the RootsTech Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah for the past few years. But, the program is not yet well-known in the United States despite its popularity in France and throughout Europe. 

Quoting from the English translation of the French Wikipedia article linked above with some alterations to correct the translation:

In February 2018, the startup participated for the first time in "RootsTech", the global genealogy fair held in Salt Lake City , the world headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . It presented a special edition of its software: a version for Americans which complements the database of FamilySearch , the largest genealogical organization in the world created and administered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Windows version of the program costs $29.99 and the Mac version costs $49.99. There is a free version that is limited to 50 people in your family tree.  

One of the most interesting and useful features of Heredis is the ability to search for information about any one in your Heredis family tree from hundreds of archives and major online genealogy websites at the same time. This tool is very impressive. Here is a screenshot of some of the archives the program searches.

Heredis is a very full-featured desktop program with some outstanding online support options. If you are interested in a desktop program, it is well worth your time to investigate. 

Reclaim the Records introduces Missouri Birth and Death Index Online

 

As a result of their four-year-long lawsuit using the Missouri Sunshine Law against the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Sevices (DHSS), Reclaim the Records has posted two databases online: The Missouri Birth Index and The Missouri Death Index. 

The Missouri Birth Index

The Missouri Death Index

Here is an explanation of the records from the announcement:

These two new websites hold the free searchable index to 7,501,974 Missouri birth records from 1920-2015, and 2,598,482 Missouri death records from 1968-2015, for a grand total of 10,100,456 brand new records.

These index files have never been online anywhere before, not on any website. You can now search all the data by name or partial name, or do a targeted date range search without inputting any names at all, or do combinations of these things. You can even download the underlying CSV data files, if you want.

Now, this index data just has the given name, the middle name (or initial), the surname, and the exact date. It doesn't contain any other data fields like a person's parents' names or their spouse's name or a location. But by using this basic index data, you can hopefully get some clues about some missing branches of your family, and then you can go request the original birth certificate or death certificate from the state, if you meet the qualifications to receive a copy. And these new websites also have information about how you can make your certificate requests.

Now, birth certificates, of course, have pretty strict privacy rules governing their release. And in Missouri, even death certificates are usually closed to public access for fifty years. But if you read the state regulations carefully, and we did, did you guys know that "all family members, genealogists representing a family member, and professionally recognized genealogists are eligible to receive copies of death certificates" in Missouri?!

For more information, see Reclaim the Records.  

Finding your ancestors using tax records

 

There is a saying that nothing is certain except death and taxes. As genealogists, we are always looking for death records but perhaps we have forgotten the other inevitability of taxes. Here is a shortlist of a few of the taxes that might be available and could be used as search terms. 

• Personal Property
• Poll Tax
• Poor Rate
• Real Estate Taxes
• School Taxes
• Social Security
• Income Taxes
• Estate Taxes
• Excise Taxes
• Head Tax
• Church Taxes
• Tea Tax
• Wealth Tax

There are probably hundreds of taxation categories. 

Here is an example from the FamilySearch.org Catalog of sections about taxes in the category of the United States. 

Here is another example from the FamilySearch.org Catalog for New York taxation. 

You will need to do some research on the types of taxes that could have been levied during the time your ancestors were paying taxes and you may also have to do some research about the type of taxes and how they were collected. 

Here is what a search for taxes found in the Ancestry.com Card Catalog. This is only part of the list. 

Land and property records are usually available through county tax assessors in the United States. In many states, the county assessor has maps showing the taxable parcels. Here is a tax map of one county in Arizona. Online, you can zoom in to see each of the individual parcels. 

Here is a zoomed-in view showing one of the parcels with its parcel number. You can click on the parcel to see the current owner. 

Exploring tax records adds a new dimension to locating and identifying an elusive ancestor. It was fairly difficult to avoid paying taxes. 

Genealogists! Free Yourselves from the Paper Prison

 

Regardless of how tech-savvy genealogists may be,  collectively, we seem to acquire huge piles of paper. We can scan the documents, letters, certificates, photos, and other important paper-based items but we feel duty-bound to keep everything. Granted, paper has been around for a long time and has served us well as the most common medium of communication but paper's time has passed. 

There are two great challenges with paper documents: preserving the documents themselves and disseminating the contents. 

Look at a paper letter. It is gratifying to see your ancestor's own handwriting and know that he or she actually touched that precious document. But any paper document only exists in one place and at one time. If you want to share the document with someone else, you need to physically share it. You could photocopy the document but then you have another piece of paper. 

My wife and I recently reviewed a large business folder of "genealogy" paper, a friend asked us to review.  The stack was about eight inches thick. The paper was well worn. The entire stack appeared to be photocopies. After both of us had gone through the stack page by page looking for any original documents, we concluded that not only was the stack all copies, it was not even original research. Everything in the stack had been copied from printed books about English nobility and royalty. There was not even any original research. We recommended that there was no real reason to preserve the documents. Of course, we do not know what our friend intended to do with the stack. 

It is true that many genealogically significant records are continually being lost. I could write a long book about the huge significant collections of photos and other documents that were on their way to the dump and were only snatched from destruction at the last possible minute. As a result, I have spent literally years of my life digitizing documents and finding a place for the originals to be preserved. Here is an example.

Overson Family Photograph Collection

This huge collection of early Arizona photos was preserved by a relative of mine who realized the significance of the photographs and carried the huge boxes of glass negatives and other photographs around for 30 years before he gave them to me to preserve. I digitized the entire collection and finally gave the originals to the University of Arizona for preservation. I have all the digitized photos backed up several times on my own computers and have uploaded the maximum number to FamilySearch.org where anyone can view them. 

There are those genealogists who resist digitizing all their important records with the excuse that they either do not know how to do the work or point out that digitized records must also be preserved. Yes, it is true. Preserving a digital collection of records takes maintenance but as with the Overson photo collection, once the documents (in this case photos) are digitized, they can be shared with anyone who is even mildly interested. Of you go to the FamilySearch.org Memories section and look at the Gallery link, you will see all the photos your family has uploaded (assuming you or your family have uploaded any photos and have your own information in the Family Tree). If you then search for Overson, you will see the thousands of photos I have uploaded. 

When you have a genealogically important or significant paper document, that document is in the paper prison. No one can see it except you. You can only share it physically by making more paper copies. If you lose it or it is destroyed in some way, the contents are lost. But if you find a way to scan (digitize) the document and then find a place such as FamilySearch.org Memories, to share the document online, you can free that document from the paper prison. In a sense, by relying on paper, you are putting yourself in a paper prison. 

There is a lot more to say about this situation but it will have to wait until another time. 

No longer silent or boomers, we are now the "Disposable Generation"

I live in Utah. Specifically, I live in Utah Valley. Here is a graph of the latest resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic here in Utah.

You might notice the substantial increase in the Daily New Cases. Apparently, this increase is of little concern to either the residents of Utah (with some notable exceptions) or the state or county governments. Even though stiff measures were imposed during the runup of the COVID-19 virus in May, June, and July which resulted in a decrease into August. Those in charge of the governments and the general population decided that their interests in having children go back to school and the economy was far more important than the lives of hundreds and perhaps thousands of older Utah residents. Also, the state did not want to antagonize the vocal minority of people who opposed wearing masks. Hence, there is no need for a statewide mandate for wearing masks because the virus is only going to infect people who live in the areas where there are current cases.

The results of this were apparent when I made an extremely short visit to a local Walmart in Vernal, a small community in eastern Utah. Less than half of the people in the store were wearing masks and almost all of those who were wearing masks were Walmart employees. The situation in Utah Valley is about the same. Even though there is a local mandate for wearing masks, I still see huge groups of younger people with almost no masks evident.

Why is this? Even if you discount the fact that a significant number of people who claim to be "conservatives" are adamantly opposed to masks based on claims of freedom, liberty, and constitutional rights, there is also the factor that the "virus only makes old people sick and only old people die from the virus." In short, we have our rights and we don't care if old people die. 

Even though the graph above clearly shows the effect of mandated social distancing, limits on the size of gatherings, and masks, there is still not enough social consciousness in Utah Valley and elsewhere that might have prevented the huge increase in Daily New Cases in September and on into October. 

What does this mean for old folks like me and my wife? If means that we are now marginalized to the point of risking our lives to go out into public gatherings. There does not seem to be any point in the increase in the rate of infection that will trigger either the government entities or the general population that will trigger any reasonable or effective response. 

Old people may die more readily from the virus but young people are effective carriers and constitute a pool of infection that is easily passed on to old people. In a recent New York Times article entitled, "Utah Covid Map and Case Count," the 14-day change in the cases was a 107% increase. 

Now some comments about the case count. The case count is really a meaningless number. The real number is the percentage of positive cases regardless of the number of tests. Let's say they do 100 tests. Right now, the rolling 7-day average of positive cases in Utah is 13.7%. If you do 100 tests with that rate you will have about 13-14 positive tests. If you do 1000 tests, you will have 130-140 positive tests. If you think about it, at the local Brigham Young University, where there have been over 1000 positive tests so far this semester, if you did a test to all 43,000 people at the university, you would probably have over 5,891 positive tests. So, the inescapable conclusion is that the number of new cases is politically controlled by adjusting the number of tests. The number of new cases is also politically controlled when none of the known methods of control are abandoned. 

Right now, 8 out of 10 deaths reported in the U.S. have been in adults 65 years old and older. We have become the Disposable Generation.

MyHeritage Expands its Theory of Family Relativity

 

MyHeritage's Theory of Family Relativity™uses all of the huge resources of MyHeritage.com and the FamilySearch Family Tree to provide those with a DNA test on the MyHeritage website with remarkably accurate DNA matches and then calculates up to five different paths back to a common ancestor. In short, the Theory of Family Relativity™ harnesses the billions of family tree profiles and historical records on MyHeritage to suggest relationship paths between you and your DNA Matches, potentially saving you dozens of hours of research. 

MyHeritage recently announced that the data for the Theory of Family Relativity™has been refreshed. Quoting from a recent email:

This update has added millions of new and improved theories that explain how you and your DNA Matches might be related, and can enlighten you about family relationships that may have been complete mysteries until now. Please take a moment to share this exciting update with your audiences.

Since the last update, the number of theories on MyHeritage has grown by 64%, from 20,330,031 to 33,373,070! The number of MyHeritage users who now have at least one Theory of Family Relativity™ for their DNA Matches has increased by 28%. 

The Theory of Family Relativity™

For more information about this update, see the MyHeritage blog post, "Update to Theory of Family Relativity™".

The Brick Wall Conundrum: Is there or is there not a "Brick Wall?"

 

It seems like I can never write or talk enough about genealogical brick walls. The main reason for this is that no matter how much time you spend on doing genealogical research you will always come to the end of every one of your ancestral lines. In fact, the more research you do, the more lines you have and therefore the more end of line situations you create for yourself. The "castle in the sky" illusion is that you think that your "end of lines" extend a lot further into the past than is actually the case. 

Genealogical research is essentially historical research. Starting with your own parents, the historical questions are whether or not you have valid, defensible, reliable, historical sources connecting you to your parents? Realistically, some people do and some people don't. With the development of DNA testing, I continue to hear about people who are discovering that they are not related to the people who they have always assumed were their parents or other relatives. No matter how much genealogical research you have done in your lifetime, if you take a DNA test and find out that you are not related to your parents, you have the option of starting all over again on a genetically related line of inquiry. 

If you think about this fact, you will realize that this is the case in every generation. How do you know your two grandfathers are really your grandfathers? And on and on and on. What this establishes is the basic unreliability factor of historical research. Now, let's take a step back. What if you don't know who your parents were? What if you are a foundling, abandoned on the doorstep of a church or police station or whatever? In today's world, through DNA testing, you have a reasonably good shot at finding your biological parents. But the present limitations of DNA testing and your ability to find relatives to involve in testing will limit your ability to use DNA back more than a few generations. You will soon be back to doing genealogical/historical research, that is, relying on documentary evidence. 

Unfortunately, there is a fairly large percentage of the people who try to do their "genealogy" who do not know how to do genealogical/historical research. As a side note, those who do know how to do research get extremely frustrated with those who don't. In addition, there are a few people who are not satisfied with their verified history and make up their own version. This is nothing new and unverified, traditional, histories are rampant in our genealogical past. More castles in the sky. 

There are a huge number of possible reasons for a brick wall or end-of-line. The important thing is to do enough research to recognize the difference between the two possibilities. An end-of-line means that valid, defensible, reliable, historical sources for further genealogical information are missing. This can occur anytime in the past although DNA testing coupled with an extensive, documented family tree has made recent end-of-line situations less common. A claim of a brick wall is most commonly an excuse for a failure to do the research necessary to find the pertinent documents. I have talked to people who claim to have a "brick wall" before they have done any research at all. Others, claim brick walls after looking at census records and searching for vital records, even when these sources have the information they need. 

Let's reserve the term "brick wall" for those situations when extensive research over a long period of time has failed to find any valid, defensible, reliable, historical sources. Let's also admit that there is an end-of-line when no further valid, defensible, reliable, historical sources exist. 

If you think your ancestor or relative is a "brick wall" it is time to start learning and stop complaining. Stop. Take the time that is necessary to learn about the record sources for the time and place where the supposed brick wall ancestor or relative lived. Go back through every source for every person leading up to the assumed brick wall and make sure you haven't gotten off on the wrong track or that you aren't looking in the wrong place or have the wrong name. Admit you need help.