What's new with Familysearch

The future is almost here! The following link will allow you to learn what Family Search is going to look and act like:

http://blog.beta.familysearch.org/whats_new

You can learn about (and try) the new & improved "Search", "Share & Collaborate" and the new "Single Sign In". It appears that wiki.familysearch.org, pilot.familysearch.org and several of the features in "old" www.familysearch.org are being combined and better organized.

"Beta" will continue to evolve until it is eventually combined with and replaces the "Search Records" tab in the "old" familysearch and "pilot". I plan to start using "beta" now because I can access my favorite parts of "wiki", "pilot" and "old" familysearch on one site. It may not be perfect but it will allow me to access all my favorite tools from a single site.

Some of these tools are found in the "Learning and How-To's" tab :

• The Search function allows you to access research articles by topic. You can also access individual country portals directly. This is the best tool I have found for novice family history researchers and it is getting better every week!

• Using the Add function you can add or edit research articles. Yes, even you, can contribute to the collective knowledge contained in "wiki".

• Forums lets you pose that research question that has you stumped. There is a good chance that your question has already been asked and answered.

• Genealogy Learning Online includes many of those wonderful links and classes that have been buried deep in the Library Tab in "old" familysearch. They will now see the light of day. Guess what? There are even more now! If you want to learn about a specific topic in genealogical research this is the place to start.

Take a tour of the site and see the future.

Decisions

"New Family Search" has broken many of our individual work-flows for managing data collected during research. Everyone who is doing family history is doing research. You might be talking to a relative who shares some family information such as a birth date of a child or you are at Ancestry.com reviewing a census. What do you do with the this new information? In the past you would of entered the information in PAF (Personal Ancestral File) or some similar software. You might have printed a hard copy of the census information and filed for later reference. Then a couple of years ago New Family Search came on the scene. If you are like me, I didn't want to double enter the data in both PAF and New Family Search. So I quite using PAF for a while. This was a mistake. There is a lot of information that I didn't agree with on New Family Search. It didn't invalidate the ordinance but seemed messy. Also New Family Search was not a place to archive my research notes, digital document, photos or correspondences. It was not unusual for me to have New Family Search, Ancestry.Com, Rootsweb, cyndislist.com, and PAF all open at one time. I would be cutting and pasting information from one program or site to another. The data is always in fields and is not efficient for cutting and pasting. New Family Search was helping me to not redo ordinances that were already completed but had bogged down my data entry and broken my work-flow for organizing my collected data.

I think the pain that New Family Search created in my life might just be worth it with the recent announcement of Certified Products for new.FamilySearch.org. These products are revolutionizing my work-flow for saving, updating and synchronizing my data with New Family Search and other data repositories. Many of my frustrations have or are disappearing. Go to the link below to view the latest Certified products. It includes programs, services, and utilities that are compatible with new.FamilySearch.org (Family Tree) and conform to FamilySearch standards and systems.

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/affiliates/index.html

Over the weeks to come I will be posting reviews of some of the software listed. Mike Dahle and I have been trying them and we will share our findings. The reviews will be in the tab above called "Software Review".

Below is a hand out from today's Family History Class. It is a simplistic view of a work-flow that that goes from research to completing an ordinance. I have also started an "Issues" column that contains questions that I ponder. Please review and give me you comments or additions. I plan on expanding and modifying this work-flow and I would enjoy your input. If it is too small for you to read just double click on the image and it will open in a new window and you can enlarge or print it. I will begin to share the answers that I have discovered during my search for a better work-flow over the coming weeks.

"To you who are worthy and able to attend the temple, I would admonish you to go often. The temple is a place where we can find peace. There we receive a renewed dedication to the gospel and a strengthened resolve to keep the commandments."
—Thomas S. Monson



The last seven days has been a spiritual feast for the Nevada City Ward. We have reached 25% of our ward goal and performed many ordinances for our kindred dead. (see "Counting UP" sidebar on the right)

On the August 27th 10 people from our ward and about the same number from the Penn Valley Ward attended our assigned sealing session. There were so many of us that the Temple split us into two sealing rooms with two sealers. We did many sealings for relatives of members of our ward. Additionally we did many more sealings for others. Those attending felt that spirits were pleased with our efforts.

On September 3rd we attended a baptism session at the temple that Mike Dahle arranged. Those in attendance were Bishop Emery, Ken Farnsworth, Ken & Roxanne Eslick, Jon DeMartini, Larry Gray, Bess Russ, Pat Wadatz, Laura Warren and Ben Warren, Amber, Jeremiah, Garret and Hunter Newman, Tom, Marika, and Anna Conley, Kathy, Brianna and Jared Stephensen.

President William W. Parmley welcomed us and told about an experience that he had the previous week. When he was walking across the parking lot at 5:00 am in the morning to open the Temple he felt a large crowd of spirits following him to the Temple. He realized that these were the spirits that would have ordinances preformed for them that day. Not only did they know what was happening but wanted to attend. I'm sure that Friday morning that the 161 spirits that we performed the baptisms for were among the spirits that were waiting for the Temple to open. All were relatives of ward members and are thankful for our efforts.

The next major event is a ward Temple day scheduled for October 23rd. We have two hours in baptistery reserved. Also we should have 200 names ready for endowments and several hundred names for sealings. Please mark your calendars, prepare your family names and encourage others to participate. It will be a day of peace, a day of gratitude for those in the spirit world and a day to share the joy of service with our children.