Click below on "Read More" to see pictures of our open house. The first row you will see Sister Crookston who was in charge of the event. Our celebration was enjoyed by over 500 guests. After admiring each of the displays and learning about our FamilySearch Library, they were treated to cookies and other treats. The event was topped off with a meeting on Sunday evening with our Directors Elder and Sister Larkin and the CEO of
                                                                           FamilySearch Elder Brimhall and his lovely wife.

Click here to Register for a Class online - or phone (435) 673-4591  to register

To read a description of a class, note the title and number. Click on Classes. Find the title by using its number. Click on the category title. All the titles in that category will open. Find the title you want and read the description. Click on "Classes" at the top to choose from another category, or click on the Blog tab to return to this Blog page.

View the Current Class List 
Register for a Class
Improve your research skills! Look through the class list below. Choose to attend a class that will offer you new computer skill and/or research methods. The more you learn, the more exciting and effective your research time will be. Plan to take one or more classes every week. 

There are three ways to register for a class: 1) online by using the form on the "Calendar" or "Classes" pages; 2) Call the SGFSL at (435)-673-4591; 3) Come into the FSL to the Reception Desk.

As a regular FamilySearch user, you are aware of our recent site enhancements. In addition to the new look and feel, we have also made updates to improve our search and research tools. As part of these updates, we . . .

• Made record searching available in 10 languages. (The language tab is at the bottom of the opening/main page.)
  
• Created new systems to allow us to efficiently add many more searchable records every day.
• Launched a fan chart pedigree view to make it easier to see the ends of ancestral lines.
• Added new, easier ways to access live research or product help from anywhere on the site.
• Made it easy to return to the last five ancestors worked on in the tree via a logged-in home page.
• Added photos and stories to bring family history to life.
• Opened the Family Tree to a much larger audience , which increases the number of people contributing, sharing, and collaborating.

We have seen a lot of excitement about these new features and updates. Along with the positive, however, there has also been some negative feedback about things such as the new location of some of our research tools, text legibility, and the process for attaching sources to ancestors. We want you to know that we are committed to addressing feedback and making FamilySearch.org the best place for you to have research success.



Ongoing Updates

While continuing to develop and improve new site features, we have already made progress in addressing some of the concerns our users have raised. For example, we have added a link to the Research Wiki on the main page and in the search menu, we darkened our fonts and made them larger to aid readability, and we simplified the sourcing process to allow sources to be added with a single click. This last enhancement has led to a record number of sources being added to the Family Tree-74 percent growth in the last three weeks!

To aid in the transition to the new look, feel, and functionality, we have arranged with FamilySearch community advocate Devin Ashby to provide a detailed review of new site changes, including the updates mentioned above. You can view Devin’s very good video (The first part starts a bit slow, but don't give up. Once the Fan Chart comes up he is off and running!   (What's New at FamilySearch for Power Users - How to use the Fan Chart, How to add picturs and how to tag them, How to add stories, pictures, and visual sources- as well as essential FS search methods, indexing, and live help).

We want to keep the conversation going. Please visit our feedback page to share your ideas on how we can continue to make our tools easier and more useful.

May 17, 2013 by Lynne L VanWagenen

Looking for genealogical online records can be like looking for needle in a prairie full of haystacks. Which haystacks do you search? In which order? We’ve just released a new filtering feature that will help you separate the hay from the needles.

After you conduct a search, you can filter your results by:

• Birth (and birth-like event) date and place
• Marriage (and marriage-like event) date and place
• Residence date and place
• Death (and death-like event) date and place
• Other event date and place (such as immigration, military service, etc.)
• Gender
• Category (record type)

The filters are located on the left side of the list of search results. Here’s how you use them:

1. In any search form, enter information about the person you want to find, and click Search.
2. Review your search results, and decide exactly what you want to find.
3. Click the filter type that you want to apply. For example, click Birth Place.

When you apply multiple filters, remember the following tips:

• You can combine as many different filters as you need. For example, you can use filters for birthplace, birth date, gender, and category at the same time. You cannot, however, select more than one filter of the same type. For example, you cannot select more than one birthplace filter (such as Virginia and North Carolina). Allowing multiple filters of the same type is something that we will be working on for a future release.
• If you wish to change information in the search form, such as a surname, click the New Search button at the top left to see the fields. When you click Search, you will conduct a new search, and your filters will be reset when your new search results appear. We are considering adding a feature that would let you choose whether you want to apply the same filters to your new search results.
• As you apply filters, remember that the effect of the filters is cumulative. Each new filter is applied to the set of search results that are currently shown on the screen. For example, if you apply a birth date filter, the search results are constrained to the records that match that filter. Applying a birthplace filter takes that constrained set of results and reduces it to the records that match both the birthplace and birth date.
• Adding too many filters may cause you to miss valid records in your search results. So that you can tell which filters are applied, they appear highlighted in white.

• At any time, you can look at the top of the search results to see how many records remain in your filtered search results and to refresh your memory on your initial search parameters.
• To remove a filter, simply click the x that appears next to it.

Click below to to post a comment to let us know how the filters have helped you and to suggest improvement we should consider for future releases. Your feedback helps us improve this feature and the rest of FamilySearch.org.

Leave a Comment Tagged With:FamilySearch, filters, Searching Strategies

By Courtney Connolly of FamiySearch

Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of indexing and image capturing? There are more than 1.5 million images captured each week. Who makes this possible?

See the Video offered at the bottom of this article

Records preservation missionaries, contractors, FamilySearch employees, archive employees, and many volunteers are responsible for capturing millions of images each year. These historical records are captured so that they may be indexed, preserved, and published on FamilySearch.org.

There are about 222 cameras located all over the world; 92 cameras in the Western Hemisphere, and 130 in the Eastern Hemisphere. These industrial cameras can each take millions of images ranging from 16 to 50 megapixels. Computer software is used to calibrate the camera, capture the image, manage the project, and capture metadata or information about the records. Clamps and foam wedges are used to keep the book level and the image in focus. All images are saved on an external hard drive at the end of each week, placed in a protective case, and sent to Salt Lake City, Utah. Once the hard drive arrives in Salt Lake, it is sent through an auditing process where rejected images are sent back for rework and approved images are processed and published.

Click here to View the video, “FamilySearch Records Preservation Missionaries,” to see the record preservation missionaries in action.

Once these images are captured, they need to be indexed to be searchable on FamilySearch.org. Volunteer to index these images today.

View the new and recently completed projects.

Over the past two or three years, the Saint George Family History Center, or as it is now called the Saint George FamilySearch Library, has sent their missionaries to the Mesquite, Nevada Family History Center in order to train their patrons in many aspects of family history work. The St. George missionaries would travel the 41 mile journey to Mesquite, teach a 1-3 hour class and then return to Saint George.
Now, all that has ended because . . .

Elder Jim Orman has championed a method to teach classes remotely; that is, the lesson was taught in Saint Georg and then sent to Mesquite through internet connections. First testings of the process were conducted with the able assistance of Marlowe Anderson, assistant director of the Saint George FamilySearch Library, and missionaries Sister Jana Olsen, and Elder Kyle Adams. Their testing results were deemed sufficiently successful to try offering a class totally live.

 Sister Erika Campbell, who was familiarized with the program by Elder Orman, consented to teach the first class. Elder Orman would go to Mesquite to train John Christensen, director of the Mesquite FamilySearch Center, in how to set up and use the program. Within minutes of Elder Orman’s arrival in Mesquite, communication between Sister Campbell and the Mesquite Family History Center was established, and a view of her computer desktop showed on the screen (actually the wall) in Nevada. The audio quality was far better than expected; the two-way communication between Mesquite and the teacher was superb, and no breakups or time lapses were noticed. The lesson concluded with a joyous round of applause from Mesquite and a deep, happy sigh of relief in St. George.

Because of the success in Mesquite Nevada, several community groups outside of St. George have schedules remote classes.If this is a method your group would like to use, call us at the FamilySearch Library to see if this is a good method for your group (Call 435-673-4591).

This great program is taught this Thursday, May 14, 9:oo-11:00A.M. Class members will learn how to use this program to:

• Protect photos, documents and music in just 2 clicks.
  
• Encrypt and store data safely on their servers with private key encryption. No one but you has access to your data.
• Back up to unlimited devices (PCs, Macs, iOS and android) into a single account.
  
• Share files/folders via email, Facebook and Twitter.
• And much more

The doorbell rings and you answer it only to find a big box left on your doorstep by a UPS worker. You retrieve the box and set it aside as you are on your way to work for the day, but take a moment to glance at the return address and note it is a distant relative from another part of the country.

By the time you return home late in the evening, you have forgotten about the box and are busily taking care of your family’s needs. Finally you can sit down and you remember the box delivered earlier in the day. As you view the contents you see a variety of artifacts that spans a few lifetimes, and wonder how you will be able to assimilate them into your own families’ genealogy and family history as there are items closely connected with your family. The box contained the following items which you have grouped by media types:

Photographic Media – Group A

1. 2 old shoe boxes full of snapshot booklets in various conditions
2. 3 scrapbooks of photos, some identified and others not
3. 15 tintype photos of military people
4. A box of faded Polaroid photos

Photographic Film Media –Group B

1. 4 Envelopes full of negative strips of different sizes
2. 6 Carousels of slides along with some loose ones

Magnetic Recording Media-Group C

1. A box of reel-to-reel tapes, some large and some small
2. A box of small cassette tapes
3. About 15 VHS tapes marked “for book”

Printed & Handwritten Media-Group D

1. 2 scrapbooks with newspaper clippings
2. A written biography on the family
3. Some onion-skinned, typed family histories
4. A family Bible with genealogical data inside
5. A couple of handwritten diaries

Computer Media-Group E

1. Some 5 ¼ and 3 ½ floppy disks labeled “family history / paf-gedcom”

As you survey the items in the box you notice an envelope at the very bottom addressed to you stating that the contents belonged to your great aunt on your father’s side and was recently discovered in her attic while her family was cleaning and preparing the home for sale. It is known throughout the family that you are working on family history, and it was decided to send these artifacts to you.

Of course you stare at them and wonder how to tackle such a big project that has just appeared out of nowhere. Where do you begin? How do you go about organizing and assimilating these items into your online family history presence?

The whole process should be tackled over a period of time so you do not get discouraged. Looking through the current articles written in TechTips, one finds a couple of articles on how to handle Groups A & B. These articles are entitled Taking Pictures of Photos, Microfilm, Slides and Film and How to Preserve Photographs, Documents and Databases. Each has great ideas and ways to digitize each of these items.

Group C, Magnetic Recording Media,  can be approached by addressing each item individually. Reel-to-reel tapes usually contain video, however sometimes they are just audio recordings like the cassette tapes. The VHS tapes would of course be video. For these types of media it may be wise to seek out a company in your own area that handles media conversion. Type the search terms “digitizing reel to reel + your location” in your browser’s search engine. This should provide you a list of those companies in your area that handle this type of digitizing. Of course, prices will vary, and staying local allows for less chance of loss in the mail of irreplaceable memories.

Group D, Printed & Handwritten Media,  can be tackled very similarly to handling the photos. There is a good follow-up article for this also in TechTips entitled Preserving Your Family History Records Digitally. While time consuming, the end result will be well worth the efforts put in. Additionally, there are software programs that can help to organize all this new digital information. A few of them are:

• Passage Express available online at http://www.passageexpress.com
• Family History Products online at http://www.familyhistoryproducts.com
• Heritage Collector online at http://heritagecollector.com

Each of these programs has step-by-step videos to help, as well as providing online assistance either by phone or email.

Group E, Computer Media, is the last section in the above list. While you may not be aware of individuals who have access to this older technology, there are USB “A” drives still available for purchase for both a 3 ½ and a 5 ¼ floppy. Their cost is minimal. However, you may not wish to purchase something you think you may only need one time. These types of items are available at companies like NewEgg at http://newegg.com, and/or TigerDirect at http://www.tigerdirect.com.

An alternative is to get assistance with the data from a local business once again. The label states they are PAF Gedcom files, however, you do not know what version they are in, which is critical in transferring the data. Check with your local family history center first for assistance. If you are at the Family History Library in Salt Lake the information can be upgraded to the latest PAF version and transferred to a USB drive for you to be able to access. The important fact is you should not wait to have this data transferred, as services like these will not be available forever. There will come a time when the data will become inaccessible.

It is hoped that others can contribute their own experiences and solutions to a growing problem of preserving the past regardless of the format it is in. It is not too late to start digitizing at this time. However, there will be a time when it will be too late. Don’t be the one to prevent your descendants from the opportunity to learn about their ancestors through their personal artifacts left to you in hopes of preserving them for generations to come.