Category: Technology

22 Million Completely Searchable Books and Records on the Internet Archive

Editor’s Note: This article by James Tanner originally appeared on the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used with the author’s permission. 22 Million Completely Searchable Books and Records on the Internet Archive One of the least known valuable genealogical resources is the Internet Archive or Archive.org. This website is rapidly becoming the largest, free, downloadable, completely accessible collection of books...

Some Of My Favorite Things!

I love reading The Family History Guide when I have a few minutes to learn something new.   I was reading Bob’s blog post from August 25th and remembered I had planned to watch Bob’s recent Webinar for the BYU Family History Library. I had forgotten to do it.  So I stopped what I was doing and did it right away. I’m glad...

New: The MyHeritage App Project

You may be aware that over the past year, The Family History Guide has included Projects for three mobile apps: FamilySearch Tree, FamilySearch Memories, and Ancestry Family Tree. Now there are four, as we are just finishing a new mobile app Project for the MyHeritage App. The Project has entries in the Word Tracker and the Online Tracker so you can...

What Is Worth Preserving?

Editor’s Note: This article by James Tanner appeared previously in the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used here with the author’s permission. The Ultimate Digital Preservation Guide, Part Five — What is worth preserving? The real question behind all digital preservation efforts is determining what is worth preserving. Obviously, the incremental cost of digital storage has been falling for...

Why Accuracy is so Important in Genealogy and Family History

Many visitors to The Family History Guide are new to genealogy and family history. There are a lot of misconceptions about why record sources and citations are so important. Some people feel that if a relative passed on a story it should be good enough. What we sometimes don’t consider is that those stories may not be accurate. Most people...

The Ancestry App Project Is Here

Phones and tablets are becoming an increasingly popular way to access family history. We recently introduced Projects in The Family History Guide for two FamilySearch apps: Family Tree and Memories. These are available at the bottom of the FamilySearch menu. This week we are introducing a new Project, for the Ancestry app. It’s at the bottom of the Ancestry menu...

Understanding MyHeritage’s Smart Matching™ Technology

 Editor’s Note: This article was published in the Genealogy’s Star blog site by James Tanner and is used with the author’s permission. As I teach classes about MyHeritage.com, I find a lot of confusion about the differences between the website’s Smart Matching™technology and the Record Matches. Once users understand the differences, they begin to see the tremendous power in both technologies. Here...

The Google Goldmine for Genealogists

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series of blog posts written by James Tanner and is used with the author’s permission. Getting the Rest of the Gold out of the Google Goldmine for Genealogists Part Seven https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions Google Help Google Search Google Newspapers Archive Google Drive Google Docs including Sheets, Slides, Forms, Draw and more Google Keep Google...

YouTube Update: Show Me’s and Playlists

This week we added two more Show Me videos:  Project 1, Goal 8: Adding Sources (11:13) Project 1, Goal 9: Record Hints and Attaching Sources (6:11) These Show Me videos are available on our YouTube Channel, and as a link in the header area of the Goal 8 page or the Goal 9 page. This brings the number of videos...

New: Mobile-Friendly Updates

A while back we introduced new menus for mobile devices using The Family History Guide. While this was definitely a step forward, some formatting issues have lingered for the phone and tablet views. This week we completed some major updates to get the website looking more consistent on mobile devices, with only minor impact to the desktop view. Here’s a...