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Matin Luther King Day and Family History – The Family History Guide Blog
Today, January 20, celebrates the legacy of Martin Luther King, a pioneer Black leader and activist who promoted civil rights in the United States and gave his life for the cause. You can read about his life ana accomplishments in many books and websites, including Wikipedia. Part of the awareness he helped to raise is the connection between generations in America. The Family History Guide has a helpful section on tracing family roots for those who are of African descent. You can find it in the Ethnic section at the bottom of the Countries menu. Here's a brief summary of some of the useful resources you will find in those pages: Learn the basics of African American research. Use effective tips and techniques in African American research. Learn how find record sources for African American ancestors. Explore vital and census records. Explore newspaper records for African Americans. Explore other record types for African Americans. Learn about resources in various libraries and archives. Learn about other resources for research. Learn about the basic records that document slaves. Learn about the Freedmen's Bank and Freedmen's Bureau. Learn about the National Underground Railroad. Learn about African American research challenges and breakthroughs. Trace your slave ancestors before the Civil War. Use Facebook pages and other sources to get answers to your questions. In addition to these topics, there is also a Vault section in The Family History Guide, where you can find links to addtional videos and articles about African American genealogy research, and more topics and links on many of the individual U.S. state pages. We hope you enjoy these resources! [caption id=attachment_10543 align=aligncenter width=900] Attractive young man sitting on floor with laptop computer over map of US States.[/caption]
BYU Webinar: New Training Tools in The Family History Guide – The Family History Guide Blog
On Wed. January 22 I will be presenting a webinar for the popular BYU Family History Library sesires, titled New Training Tools in The Family History Guide. The webinar begins at 5 p.m. Mountain Time and is free. To register for the online event, go to this page: To join the webinar, wait until just before the start time and access this page: https://familyhistory.lib.byu.edu/learning/webinars Then click Join Live Webinar to attend. The webinar will cover new and existing training tools in The Family History Guide, such as Online Tracker Sheets, 2-Minute Demos, Quizzess, Class Outlines and more. It will also provide an update on training partnerships and developments. See you at the webinar!
Maribel Medina’s RootsTech Classes – The Family History Guide Blog
Maribel Medina is one of the rising stars in family history education, particularly for Latino audiences and research in Spanish. She is one of the interviewees in the upcoming Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid TV series on genealogy that features The Family History Guide. Maribel will be presenting multiple sessions at RootsTech 2025: Taller para Consultores I: Principios y Prácticas Efectivas para una Consulta Exitosa (Workshop for Consultants I: Principles and Effective Practices for a Successful Consultant) - Thursday at 4:30PM in Room 255A Taller para Consultores II: 7 Principios de Persuasión (Workshop for Consultants II: 7 Principles of Persuasion) - Friday at 4:30PM in Room 255A) Taller para Consultores III: Herramientas para Organizar tus Esfuerzos (Workshop for Consultants III: Tools for Organizing Your Efforts) - Saturday at 3PM in Room 255A) Note: This class will showcase The Family History Guide. Capacitando Consultores Alrededor del Mundo (Enabling Consultants around the World) - Saturday at 8AM in the Latin America Content & Learning Space in the Expo Hall
FamilySearch 2024 Year in Review – The Family History Guide Blog
Note: This article appeared previously on the Genealogy's Star blog site. FamilySearch.orgI realize we are getting well into 2025, but I am always fascinated by what happened in the past year. FamilySearch.org had a banner year and from my standpoint, more than I can quickly learn about is coming in 2025. I do, however, have a few comments about the numbers for 2024. All this comes from an email sent to me on December 30, 2024. Here is the opening quote: SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—Join FamilySearch, the world’s largest nonprofit genealogy organization, in looking back at 2024 to recap some of its most notable highlights. FamilySearch celebrated its 130th anniversary as an organization in 2024, and the 25th anniversary of its popular website, FamilySearch.org. Millions of visitors made fun new ancestor discoveries during the year thanks to advancements in FamilySearch’s artificial intelligence, new historical records collections, and RootsTech by FamilySearch, which continued its global reach in helping individuals make new family connections. FamilySearch enjoyed more than 285 million visits from across the planet in 2024. Patrons frequented FamilySearch’s growing record collections, interactive discovery experiences like Surnames and Ancestors, and helpful articles on the FamilySearch Wiki and Blog. I am sure you are wondering how FamilySearch can claim to be 130 years old. The answer is very simple. FamilySearch is a trade name for The Genealogical Society of Utah. I have no doubt that the number of visits is accurate since I usually login to the FamilySearch.org website several times a day. The next section talks about the number of records using the measurement of searchable names. This is an interesting claim. FamilySearch currently has at least 5 different places on their website where you can search for names. The spectrum is from name searches, catalog searches, and page by page searches on digital images. If I have time, I will comment on this situation in the near future. The number of 20.5+ searchable names and images is probably a low estimate.The next subject is the FamilySearch Family Tree. The number of people in the FamilySearch Family Tree has to be adjusted for duplicates and some of us are painfully aware that there are still a huge number of duplicate names in the Family Tree. I also wonder is the number of sources is unique sources or simply a total of all the sources attached to all the people that would include multiple copies of the same source.Here is another quote. The world’s largest online family tree grew by more than 150 million people in 2024, totaling 1.67 billion searchable people. Contributors also added 530 million sources to their ancestors in the tree—which helps increase accuracy and collaboration. In addition, three new user features were added to the FamilySearch Family Tree: Merge Analysis Feature simplifies the ability to review and correct merges, and you can better understand the “before and after” of each merge. Portrait Pedigree View Update allows you to view siblings, a single-family line, and multiple family lines at the same time; add relatives quickly without leaving the page; and distinguish living individuals more easily. 3 Star Record Hints introduce a broader range of record considerations for experienced researchers to explore. There is a lot more to talk about but I will leave the rest for other posts on other days.