Author: James Tanner

Introduction to the 10 Million Names Project

Note: This article was published previously on the Genealogy’s Star site.   https://10millionnames.org/ Quoting from the Project website: 10 Million Names is a collaborative project dedicated to recovering the names of the estimated 10 million men, women, and children of African descent who were enslaved in pre- and post-colonial America (specifically, the territory that would become the United States) between...

Always New Records on FamilySearch.org

Note: This article was published previously on the Genealogy’s Star blog site.   If you look closely at the date these records were added to FamilySearch.org, you will see that they are the same day that this post is being written. The process of adding all these records and thousands more each day is complex. It starts with a pile...

The History of Artificial Intelligence and What Will Happen to Genealogical Research as a Consequence: Part One

Note: This article was published previously on the Genealogy’s Star blog site.   Image Created by Microsoft’s Image Creator Somewhere between appearing in Isaac Asimov’s book, I, Robot, in 1950 and the latest StarWars movie or series, artificial intelligence became a threat to civilization as we know it for newscasters and pundits around the world. In a class at a...

Goldie May Now on FamilySearch Portal and Free in FamilySearch Centers

Note: This article was published previously on the Genealogy’s Star blog site.   One of the most innovative and useful programs that have been developed in the past few years, GoldieMay.com is now included in the FamilySearch Portal and is therefore free to use in all FamilySearch Centers. If you need a quick review about the program, here is a video from...

United States Social Security NUMIDENT Records Added to FamilySearch

Note: This article appeared previously in the Genealogy’s Star blog site. This is one of the collections of 63,700,494 records on the FamilySearch.org website that has only been available for a relatively short time. Here is the description of the files from the FamilySearch.org entry shown above. The Social Security Administration created these records to track the earnings of US workers and...

African American Great Migration Classes at RootsTech 2023

Note: This article was published previously on the Genealogy’s Star blog site. https://rootstech2023.mapyourshow.com/8_0/sessions/session-details.cfm?scheduleid=85 You are invited to attend my live class at RootsTech 2023 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 2, at 9:30 am. “Understanding and Researching the Records of the Great Northward Migration 1915-1970” The class will be held in Room 155 B. I also...

What You Probably Do Not Know About the FamilySearch Catalog and About Catalogs in General

Note: This article was published previously in the Genealogy’s Star blog site.   I have spent a great portion of my life both working and as a patron in libraries. I started going to the Phoenix Public Library in Phoenix, Arizona when I was about 8 years old and was a constant patron of that and other libraries as I...

Access – The Real Genealogical Challenge

Note: This article was published previously in the Genealogy’s Star blog site.   During the last two years or so, I had online consultations through the FamilySearch Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. These consultations last twenty minutes and I usually schedule eight a week. The FamilySearch Family History Library has a link to get Research Help. Here...

Comments on the Limitations of Online Genealogical Research

Note: This article was published previously on the Genealogy’s Star blog site.   If you do all your research in the 20th and 19th Centuries in developed countries, you might have a tendency to forget that paper exists. But the minute you step out of your comfortable cocoon of online records, research becomes much more difficult. Genealogists spend much of...

Multicultural Language Options Added to the FamilySearch Family Tree

Note: This article was published previously in the Genealogy’s Star blog site.   One comprehensive goal of genealogy should be to abandon its Western European roots and become more international. The FamilySearch.org Family Tree has just taken a long-awaited step in that direction with an internationalized menu of field options for entering names and making some edits. When you open an option,...