Come See Me At The BYU Conference

At the Disneyland Resort, one attraction invites park visitors to discover what Disney cartoon character best matches their personality (I’m Jiminy Cricket). One question used in the evaluation is,

Would you rather have lunch with nice people or have nice people for lunch?

Well, it seems I’m on the lunch menu Wednesday (29 July 2009) of the BYU 2009 Conference on Family History and Genealogy. The schedule for the four day conference only shows a lunch speaker on one day. And it’s me! How weird is that? I don’t feel like I’m any different than any of you kind folks that say such nice things to me when we get to talk with each other at conferences.

They’re not calling it a keynote, mind you. That would be weird. There is a classroom map on the BYU Conference Center website. I’ll be presenting in room 2258, according to the Quick Glance Schedule. I wonder how this will work. Will it be a lunch area where people bring sack lunches? Will there be food items for purchase? Will people be wandering in and out, like a mall eatery? This could be scary!

I hope to see some friendly faces there in support!

It’s Not Stonehenge Nor The Generations Network

You’ll recall last week I posted this picture and asked where you thought it might be:

You may even recall the hint:

This magnificent circle of stones is located next to a highway.

Looking for a genealogical-world tie-in?

The highway leads to a genealogical company rumored to be changing its name…

…again.

The actual location of this stone edifice is the Stonehenge Retirement Center of Orem (motto: we provide health care from the Bronze Age), located on Orem Center Street, the highway that connects Interstate 15 with The Generations Network headquarters in Provo, Utah.

As Predicted

As predicted, yesterday the company formerly known as The Generations Network (TGN), formerly MyFamily.com, Inc, formerly Ancestry.com, formerly Ancestry Publishing, announced that it was changing its name to , the unpronounceable symbol recently abdicated by the artist previously and subsequently known as Prince.

Just kidding! The Generations Network changed their name to Ancestry.com. No, really! This time I kid you not. See their new corporate website, www.tgn.com, for the complete text of the announcement.

It’s ironic, don’t you think, that the new Ancestry.com corporate website and the announcement that they are no longer TGN is found on www.tgn.com. At the time of this writing, www.thegenerationsnetwork.com still points to the old TGN corporate website.

The problem of an appropriate corporate website address existed for MyFamily.com, Inc. They eventually found a home at www.myfamilyinc.com. It seems unlikely that the Ancestry.com corporate website will stay at www.tgn.com, but it remains to be seen where it will land.

The other problem that MyFamily.com, Inc. faced was the ambiguity of the name “MyFamily.com.” Nothing deflates an important business discussion like trying to explain whether you’re talking about the company or the website. “No, Ancestry.com is not part of MyFamily.com, it is part of MyFamily.com, Inc. No, the Ancestry.com website is not going away or being replaced by MyFamily.com. Yes, Ancestry.com provides the family tree feature of MyFamily.com, but if you want all of MyFamily.com, Inc.’s tree functionality, use Ancestry.com.”

I can only assume that this name change means one of two things:

1. Ancestry.com (the company) executives lack corporate memory about the problems caused by naming the company after one of several web properties.
2. MyFamily.com (the website) is dead, dying, or otherwise going away.

I have a lot of respect for current Ancestry.com (the company) management, so I’m betting on the latter. Look for Ancestry.com (the company) to close its MyFamily.com (the website) development office in Seattle as an indicator that this is the case.

Sorry, MyFamily.com (the website) fans. However, if Ancestry.com (the company) executives are looking for a good rest home for MyFamily.com (the website), I know of one in Orem…

They Were Under Her Bed All the Time

It's called coincidence, hunch, synchronicity, fortuitous luck, spiritual guidance, paranormal activity, karma, extra sensory perception, life-after-death, fate, divine intervention, genetic memory, manifestation of providence, intuition, statistical inevitability, inspiration, psychic channeling, revelation, subconscious reasoning, vision, sixth sense, collective subconscious, dream, past-life imprinting on present consciousness, educated guess, inner voice, out-of-body journey, chance, non-mechanical reality, portent, omen or "the sheer cussed ... wonder of things."¹

We call it Serendipity in Genealogy.

Serendipity in Genealogy

Listening to Alaura Ramsey's story, it sounds like Uncle Sammy might have been a favorite Uncle. But while she felt a special closeness to him, Samuel Wilson Black had married into the Boyce family and Ramsey grew up without learning much about his family. Like most of us, I imagine the genealogy bug didn't bite her until Uncle Sammy was gone and it was too late to ask him.

As she acquired each evidentiary artifact, she dutifully typed the information into her computer, marked the document with a check-mark in the corner, and filed it into her Boyce Family folder. Ramsey found Uncle Sammy as a boy in the U.S. census. That gave her his siblings' names and approximate birth years.

But then years went by and Ramsey could find little additional information about three of the siblings. She knew Uncle Sammy's parents and grandparents had moved to Idaho when he was young. Living in Boise, Ramsey availed herself of the state's historical archives. Many a time she concentrated hours of her research on just these three siblings, only to come up empty. The sisters were especially difficult because she was unable to identify their married names.

Recently, Ramsey decided to perform an exhaustive search for Sammy's sister, Virginia. She spent hours. Again, she failed to find any additional information. Having pursued every avenue she knew how to do, in utter frustration she appealed for help from beyond this world. "Heavenly Father," she prayed, "please help me find them, if it is Thy will." She got her answer the very next day.

Ramsey was getting something from under her bed when she glanced over at some genealogy files and the thought came to her:

You really should go back through those records and check to see if you have the sources accurately recorded.

Ramsey was meticulous; she had no doubt that there was nothing in her files that needed to be recorded. Still, perhaps more for curiosity than for any other reason, she opened the box. She opened the Boyce Family file and examined the document on top. She discovered it was the obituary for Uncle Sammy's father!

And it didn't have a checkmark.

I imagine her heart skipped a beat as she skipped to the end of the obituary where survivors are enumerated.

And there it was.

Surviving is a daughter Virginia Schmutte, living in Nebraska.

And it didn't stop there. The other two siblings of interest had also survived their father. They were listed, married name and residence.

Alaura Ramsey sought Uncle Sammy's family all over the state, only to find they had been under her bed all the time.

---

1. Henry Z Jones, Jr., Psychic Roots : Serendipity and Intuition in Genealogy (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1993), p. 81.

2. Alaura Ramsey, Family History Moment: A Distinct Thought, 14 February 2009, LDS Church News, p. 16; online edition available (www.ldschurchnews.com : accessed 20 April 2009).

3. 1920 U.S. census, Gooding County, Idaho, population schedule, Bliss Precinct, Enumeration District 2-170, sheet 1-B, p. 604, dwelling 14, family 14, Sherman E. Black household; digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 22 April 2009), citing National Archives microfilm publication T625, roll 292.

4. Michael Boffey, photographer, "Under The Bed," digital photograph, flickr (www.flickr.com : uploaded 24 January 2009, accessed 21 April 2009); some rights reserved.

Ancestry Insider Named to Top 101

When I met Family Tree Magazine’s Diane Haddad earlier this year I admitted that each article I published was done in fear that my writing skills were lacking. She was a darling; she reassured me and told me not to worry.

So it was an especial treat when I received a letter from Allison Stacy, Family Tree Magazine Publisher and Editorial Director, informing me that for the second year in a row the Ancestry Insider has been named one of Family Tree Magazine’s 101 Best Web Sites.

There’s a couple of letters

But there’s a couple of letters I can read lest my head gets feeling too big. The first:

Hi. I love your column and read it ravenously whenever it appears in my email!  I know you will keep me updated on Ancestry.com, as well as other matters. 

But......there IS one thing I wish you would do.  Not just you.  A lot of other people, too.....and that is:  PLEASE stop using grammatical structures such as "There's two new links....." as you did in this last AncestryInsider.  It should be "There ARE two new links...."  You need a plural verb (are) to agree with the plural subject (links).  The word "There" is merely a place holder, not the subject;  therefore, the verb should NOT be "is"  which you have used in your contraction "There's."

You are certainly not the only one I have seen forgetting the rules of subject-verb agreement.  Lately, I have seen quite a few folks slacking in their usage.  I consider you to be a "master" in many realms, and so I am bringing the usage problem to your attention simply because I know so many people read your column.  We tend to mimic those we admire.  I don't want anyone picking up any bad grammar habits from a "master" who simply slipped.

One of your greatest fans,

Brenda

Dear Brenda,

Thank you for your fragrant argumentation about my flagrant augmentation, the implications of which, constant and casual contractions that they are, precludes the presumption of formality frequently associated with grammatical masters worthy of mimic; and for the greatness of your rhetorically ravenous fan-chi.

Sincerely,
The Ancestry Insider (two words)

Mountain Climbing

Dear Ancestry Insider

In a response to 'Geolover' on 30 December 2008 on your blog, you said, in part, "... [b]ut you've peaked my interest. What do you know about Ancestry.com's post-New Years plans?"

The correct word to have used here is piqued, not peaked.  The former is a transitive verb that means 'to provoke or arouse'; it comes to us from Vulgar Latin through Old French and means, literally, 'to prick or irritate'; while the latter is an adjective that means 'ending in a peak'.  I believe you meant the former.

The reason that "[s]ome things just drive me nuts ..." is that it is my belief that, as bloggers, we have an obligation not to mislead.

But, then, it's probably a minor point ...

Best wishes,
Lawrence Bouett
Lafayette, California

Dear Lawrence,

Are FamilySearch employees allowed to speak Vulgar Latin?

Sincerely,
The Ancestry Insider

All things considered, I enjoyed Allison’s letter the best.

Serious Census Search Techniques

A somewhat arbitrary part of my editorial policy has been to avoid regurgitating the blog posts of others. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy the service some bloggers provide of alerting readers to really good blog posts. Since that need is already being filled by others, I try to provide fresh news, insights, and commentary. But the policy is more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules…

I love to learn. That’s one reason I enjoy genealogy; there’s always something new to learn. That’s why genealogy conferences are so popular—and so important. Arlene Eakle recently reported the main points of Bernie Gracy’s keynote from the 2009 Colorado Family History Expo. This is some serious census sushi.

Check out “The TRUTH is Out There…”