Tag Archive | familysearch

Rootstech 2015: My One World Tree Presentation

Feb13

Well I think my one world tree talk was a success, although the web site I used for my presentation – slides.com – went down or was just inaccessible via the internet in the presentation room here at Rootstech. Perhaps it was the Amazon s3 site where the images are stored that was the problem.

LandfillFortunately I had downloaded a PDF version as a backup so I used that. Maybe next time I will try the google presentation software instead.

I think my main point, that the most compelling reason to add your research to a one world tree is to keep it from ending up in the landfill the way my cousin’s did, came across well. My girlfriend Rochelle, who I am staying with, was convinced to add her research to one and even got herself a familysearch id today.

I have uploaded the rough draft of what I expected to say, much more wordy than what I actually said, to my downloads page under presentations. The URL for the slides which go with those words is
http://slides.com/kittycooper/one-world-one-tree#/

The side by side comparisons of the three one world trees start on slide 11
http://slides.com/kittycooper/one-world-one-tree#/11

The comparison chart is kept up-to-date in my one world tree blog post.

And I will be doing this talk again for the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego on the third Saturday in May.

The Advantages of Working with a One World Tree

Jun16

Updated Chart August 8, 2020

The idea of a one world tree is to collaborate with other genealogists who are researching the same ancestors and so have just one copy of each person on the tree, rather than each of you having your own separate family trees. My plan is to compare the three online sites that I am using in this post.
WikiTree, FamilySearch, and Geni logos
The advantages of using a one world tree are:

  1. You are not constantly duplicating research that has already been done.
  2. It is online and searchable so distant cousins will find you.
  3. Other descendants of your ancestors may have pictures and documents to share that are already posted.
  4. You will find distant cousins to collaborate with on some of your family lines who may be able to read records you are having trouble with or otherwise work with you to solve questions you have.
  5. When you connect your line into the tree you may find new ancestors that you did not know about before.
  6. You can often figure out immediately how you are related to a new “DNA” cousin.
  7. It is easy to send family members and distant cousins links to the family tree.
  8. After you are dead and gone your research will live on.

The disadvantages of a one world tree can be that:

  1. Other people will change facts and information that you knew were correct.
  2. How can you be sure that another person’s research is reliable?
  3. You need to be sure that living people have their privacy protected.

Personally, I have my family tree on three different one world tree web sites: FamilySearch.org, Geni.com, and WikiTree.com and I like and use them all for different reasons.

WikiTree has really pretty online charts, widgets for your website and shows DNA connections. It is the easiest one to use for sending possible new “DNA” cousins your family tree. GENI has the most intuitive user interface and has the best way to add source information. It is the prettiest of them all, plus it matches records with its partner site MyHeritage.com.  FamilySearch connects to its own enormous record repository and there is a wonderful third party web site for visualizing your familysearch tree: puzzilla.org.

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Genealogy books, family histories, and more useful books online, digitized

Mar15

When I was working on a cousin’s colonial ancestry, googling an ancestor’s name* would often find a book digitized and online at google, for example, a local history of Stamford, CT. Recently I saw a post about the genealogically related books digitized by familysearch which said “There are many thousands of historical and genealogical books available to read online. They are indexed so I was able to find old towns where ancestors lived, genealogies of families …”

In short order I found a book at familysearch.org about Norwegians in Brooklyn that listed my granddad and both sets of my great grandparents who lived there. The details of that are posted here on my family history site.

MunsonInstituteAfter I excitedly announced this on one of my favorite mailing lists, others chimed in with more online book resources. So with permission, I am including June Byrne’s list of these and tips on using them.

*n.b. when googling a name, put it in quotes to get an exact match, e.g. “Lawrence J. Munson”

The rest of this post is adapted from a write-up by June C. Byrne.

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Adding people from a GEDCOM to familysearch, part 2

Mar7

I explained step by step how to upload your GEDCOM to familysearch.org in my most recent post. Now to explain to add the people in it to their one world tree.

AddGedcom

In order to add your GEDCOM to the main Family Search Family Tree (FSFT), you must go through the people one by one after it has been processed by the familysearch software. You get to the screen shown above the same way as previously explained to do an upload: Search > Genealogies (click very bottom blue button “Upload”). When your GEDCOM has been reviewed by their software it will say “READY” in the status column shown on that Upload page. Now you can click on the blue “View” button to add your family.

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How to add a GEDCOM to familysearch.org

Mar5

familysearch LoginFamilysearch.org does not always have easy navigation. It may look pretty but there is so much available there that it is sometimes hard to find what you are looking for. Thank goodness for Google!

I could not find where to add my GEDCOM to their one world tree from the menus, so I googled around and found this URL for their user guide to uploading a GEDCOM which explains the details (no longer online)

As to why you want to do this, it is to use the cool tools at puzzilla.org (a blog post is coming on that soon)

Read on for my quick step guide to adding your GEDCOM at familysearch:

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