{"id":4366,"date":"2019-02-10T18:06:48","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T18:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefhguide.com\/blog\/?p=4366"},"modified":"2019-02-12T15:58:59","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T15:58:59","slug":"the-gps-of-family-history-the-family-history-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefhguide.com\/blog\/the-gps-of-family-history-the-family-history-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"The GPS of Family History ~The Family History Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This week I read a\u00a0wonderful article about, Dr. Gladys West, one of the top 100 Women mentioned by the BBC, as one\u00a0of the most important contributors to\u00a0science in our times.\u00a0 Dr. West was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall Of Fame in 2018.\u00a0 Dr. West, now in her 80s, is a noted mathematician and early contributor to the GPS (Global Positioning System) technology.\u00a0 \u00a0For more information on her see the note at the end of this post. The next time you use any navigation device or software like Google Maps, think of Dr.Gladys West’s important work!<\/p>\n

A GPS requires us to know where we are,\u00a0and where\u00a0we want to go.\u00a0 When we enter those two places into our device, the GPS guides us turn by turn to our destination.\u00a0 If we miss or skip a turn along the way, we would end up lost\u00a0or in the wrong\u00a0place.\u00a0 After several attempts of not being able to get where we want\u00a0to go, a lot of us might just\u00a0give up, especially\u00a0if we have tried so hard with no success and don’t know where\u00a0to turn for assistance. Without getting into the\u00a0fine points of how a GPS works with triangulation, Gladys West used mathematics and trigonometry (which literally means measuring triangles) to contribute to her work on\u00a0 GPS technology. Knowing\u00a0where we are, where we are going and seeking the steps\u00a0to get there is the essence of every goal we seek to attain in life.<\/p>\n

Is this not precisely what The Family History\u00a0Guide does for us in a very organized way? It is! When\u00a0I consider the word “guide” in the name of The Family History\u00a0Guide, this\u00a0was not a random choice. It literally guides<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0us in a sequential manner in becoming proficient.\u00a0 With a solid foundation, we can be successful in finding our ancestors.<\/p>\n

The Family History Guide\u00a0<\/a>is right\u00a0where I need it and when I need it. This week I finished a lot of projects and I am now able to fully concentrate on The Family History\u00a0Guide and getting ready\u00a0for RootsTech 2019. One of our daughters is coming to RootsTech and I needed to get her some information to review about doing demos in our booth\u00a0in the Expo Hall. Since she lives on the east coast she was not able to attend the meetings for booth workers\u00a0in Utah. As I pondered what to send her I remembered that Bob Taylor had written\u00a0a blog post<\/a> on January 14, 2019,\u00a0entitled “30 Things To See”.<\/p>\n

As I reviewed the post, of those 30 things to see in the Family History Guide, it was precisely what Laura needed to be prepared for Rootstech<\/a>. The list has been completely\u00a0revised\u00a0and updated from its last iteration, just in time.\u00a0 It is exactly what\u00a0I needed not only for Laura\u00a0but for two church leaders that\u00a0needed it also.\u00a0 This\u00a0is the thing I love\u00a0about\u00a0using The Family History\u00a0Guide. It is dynamic, current\u00a0and organized!\u00a0 That is extremely important when you are teaching and assisting others.\u00a0 It makes life easier, much more efficient, and enjoyable for everyone.<\/p>\n

We really hope to see many of you at Rootstech in a few weeks.\u00a0 It is the best time when we gather\u00a0together to learn more about\u00a0the wonderful\u00a0things that make connecting with our families so rewarding.\u00a0 There is such exciting energy there!\u00a0 It is a huge crowd of like-minded, very nice people under one gigantic roof. The Rootstech Team promises more efficient registration this year with lots of improvements, including three times more people checking us\u00a0in. There will be no more scanning of badges except for the paid labs and lunches. The best thing of all, no standing in big lines. The plan is to keep those lines moving quickly with a lot more classrooms and classes being offered than ever before.<\/p>\n

The Family History Guide has a prime location in the Expo Hall again this year.\u00a0 Enter the Hall and turn left, we are on the second row, booth 217, and just behind and to the left of FamilySearch.\u00a0 \u00a0We’ll be doing three big classes this year.\u00a0 Check your Rootstech mobile app for them or on their website<\/a>.\u00a0 There is one class called The Family History Guide: Accelerating Your Learning and Research<\/span> on Thursday afternoon at 3:00 PM in Ballroom B.\u00a0 We also have\u00a0two presentations on Saturday’s Discovery Day line-up. In the booth,\u00a0we will have demo computers where you can get a one-on-one experience and ask your questions.\u00a0 You can chat with others in the booth about the learning system and the website. You can also experience a variety of 20-minute mini-classes about\u00a0what is inside The Guide.\u00a0 We’d love to see you and help you\u00a0navigate through your learning process with The Family History Guide!<\/p>\n

The Family History Guide will help you figure out where you are in any given family history\u00a0journey, much like Dr. West’s contribution helps us identify our position on the planet earth of which Dr. West said, ‘When you are working every day, you’re not thinking, ‘What impact is this going to have on the world?’ You’re thinking, “I’ve got to get this right.'”\u00a0 The Family History Guide helps us “get it right.”<\/p>\n

A source for information on Dr. West’s contributions:<\/a><\/p>\n

“Dr. Gladys West is among a small group of women who did computing for the U.S. military in the era before electronic systems. Hired in 1956 as a mathematician at the U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory, she participated in a path-breaking, award-winning astronomical study that proved, during the early 1960s, the regularity of Pluto\u2019s motion relative to Neptune. Thereafter, from the mid-1970s through the 1980s, using complex algorithms to account for variations in gravitational, tidal, and other forces that distort Earth\u2019s shape, she programmed an IBM 7030 \u201cStretch\u201d computer to deliver increasingly refined calculations for an extremely accurate geodetic Earth model, a geoid, optimized for what ultimately became the Global Positioning System (GPS) orbit.”<\/p>\n