Category Archives: FamilySearch

AI and Genealogy – Brick Walls, Breakthroughs and Blunders

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This is the fourth article in the AI series.

I suggest that you read these articles in publication order, as they build on each other.

AI and Genealogy

Most genealogy vendors use AI in one way or another. Like with everything else, there’s yin and yang to AI and genealogy – but for the most part, sprinkled with a little salt, I love the advances.

Let’s survey the genealogy landscape.

FamilySearch is my go-to for document images, especially now. One of the absolute best things to happen in the genealogy field has been the FamilySearch implementation of full-text searches, which they are rolling out across all of their imaged records. I wrote about the rollout here, and it’s only gotten better in the two years since.

For their latest update, including search hints, watch the video FamilySearch Full-Text Search – Your Golden Path to Ancestral Discovery.

May I live long enough to go back and search for information about each one of my ancestors.

Some of what I’ve already found is, well, shocking and sure does make my ancestors more human. Often, only the primary records like deeds, wills and marriage records have been transcribed, indexed and are online, if that much. Some other records have been published, but you have to know to look in a specific county’s records and have access to the published book. If you were trying to “find your way back in time” to where your ancestor came from, before full-text searching, you were out of luck. Now it’s easy to search across time and locations. Let’s just hope you’re not searching for a common name. Sympathies if you have John Smith.

Is full-text search an application of AI? Absolutely – and it’s wonderful. Is it always accurate? Not by a long shot – but it’s much MUCH better than nothing, and if it’s enough to “get you there,” as genealogists, we can deal with the rest.

Don’t let the pursuit of perfect be the enemy of good!

MyHeritage has been leading the pack with AI for some time now. Initially with their newspaper scans and OCR transcriptions, followed by photo restoration tools, and AI Time Machine. Next, they introduced Tribute Reels, which I wrote about here. Tribute Reels allows you to select photos and then animates them to bring your ancestor to life.

MyHeritage has also recently released Scribe AI, which is now one of my favorites. Scribe AI helps to decipher, translate, transcribe, and interpret old documents, photos, and more. I have not written about Scribe AI yet, but you can read the MyHeritage introduction article here, and try it for yourself here.

As an experiment, I selected a document at random from my saved photos at MyHeritage to see what Scribe AI could tell me. This is a French parish marriage record from 1721. Yes, I submitted something difficult, on purpose, but Scribe AI did not disappoint.

Not only did I receive a historical explanation of what this document is, I received the details, key findings, suggested next steps, a full text transcription in French, PLUS a translation to English, my language of choice.

I have been using ChatGPT for this, but sometimes different AI tools stumble over bad handwriting and such. Mied versus Mius, for example. Now I have two “go-to” tools for translations and transcriptions – both ChatGPT and Scribe AI. Hopefully, if one stumbles over something, the other won’t stumble in the same place.

This is EXACTLY the kind of help that genealogists need.

At RootsTech, MyHeritage announced that they will be introducing GAIA, a genealogy AI assistant, soon. I can’t wait.

Ancestry has been using OCR for their newspaper articles and indexes too, and including items such as wedding announcements and obituaries in your hints. They’ve also implemented AI for LifeStory.

I wanted to see what Ancestry had to say about the LifeStory of William George Estes, who lived in Lynch, Kentucky.

On the next screen, I selected “What might William George have done for entertainment while living here?”

This absolutely cracked me up, because William George Estes was, among other things, a notorious bootlegger. I never heard of him setting foot in a church – not once – nor a library.

Lynch actually didn’t have a library, but it did benefit from the Pack Horse Library Project, where librarians on horses brought the library to remote schools and residents in their saddlebags. Now that would have been both interesting and much more accurate.

Generally, though, this description was relatively accurate. These types of activities were available to people in Lynch, a segregated coal-mining town established and owned by the mining company.

Limited drinking spots? William George counted on that, and it’s exactly how he made his living!

Another recent AI beta tool, “Ideas” has been added and can be found in the upper toolbar of any ancestor’s profile.

I tried “Ideas” for Ollie Florence Bolton because of missing chapters in her story that I’d love to fill.

I was excited. I have already looked for these items, but maybe they are available now, or Ollie’s record can be located. I clicked on “Start researching” for her death certificate.

Was I EVER disappointed. Ancestry, whose primary offering is records, has just told me to search records that IT ALREADY HAS. Ancestry owns Newspapers.com, for Pete’s sake. SEARCH THE DOGGONE RECORDS FOR ME!

As I’ve been using Ancestry over the past few days, I’ve noticed the little Ancestry AI diamond pop up from time to time asking if I’d like help with something. What I wish Ancestry would do is transcribe text in the documents shown, beside the document itself, similar to FamilySearch and MyHeritage.

Across Vendors

One place where we see AI across vendors today is for customer support.

All genealogy vendors and most other businesses now use AI chatbots to answer questions that are asked repeatedly.

AI is the way of the future, and eventually, AI will be able to guide us through records and collections relevant to our ancestors. One day soon, AI will know where to look next and will look there on our behalf, providing an accurate analysis of the results. At least that’s my dream.

Everybody has to crawl before they can walk, so let’s keep moving forward and verifying.

Generating Ancestors

Modifying, enhancing, or even creating photographs of our ancestors is certainly of interest to genealogists. If you haven’t encountered this yet, you will.

I submitted a family picture of the children of Hiram Bauke Ferverda and Evaline Miller to ChatGPT. I asked it to create a likeness of the parents of their adult children, who were standing, and to completely ignore the two seated people. I did not tell ChatGPT that the seated people were Hiram and Evaline.

ChatGPT indicated that it could do as I asked, but cautioned:

  • It won’t be historically accurate in a forensic sense—it’s an informed visual estimate based on facial features the siblings share.
  • If there are both brothers and sisters, I can usually generate separate likely father and mother composites.

Here’s the output.

Notice that ChatGPT “cleaned up” the images of the children. That means it actually recreated them behind the scenes.

Here’s the second image that is different yet.

Here’s the original for comparison.

Here’s the question we need to ask ourselves and answer.

As ChatGPT cautioned, the images aren’t accurate – and I must add, they are especially inaccurate after ChatGPT “fixed” the original.

Should genealogists do this and attach reconstituted AI images to their trees?

I don’t think so, as they fall into the same category as supposed photos of Revolutionary War soldiers who died in 1800, decades before cameras existed. At least, in that circumstance, with a little bit of applied knowledge and logic, the discrepancy quickly becomes clear.

If an AI-generated image is attached, it clearly needs to be marked “AI-generated” across the photo in a prominent location, larger than in my example, such that the watermark or label can’t easily be removed as the photo is copied from tree to tree in the future.

AI genealogy expert, Stephen Little points to the Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy‘s statement on “Protecting Trust in Historical Images” which suggests that we “always label, always cite, and use for illustration not evidence.” It further states that images generated by AI should not be used as historical documents.

Here’s the bottom line. If you put any of these images in your trees, anyplace other than on your own computer (assuming you don’t sync with an online tree), you’ve released it into the wild because it will spread, often as the result of “hints.” Other people will copy and save it, and it will be represented as the real McCoy, either intentionally or otherwise.

We all need to be hypervigilant when evaluating photos, now and in the future.

Custom GPTs and Experts

Some people write “Expert GPTs”. Think of AI, generally, as a general practitioner. An expert GPT is written by someone who either is an expert in that field or thinks they are.

Like everything else with AI, remain cognizant of your surroundings. I mention this because I’m aware of an instance where someone who was very excited and well-intentioned about a topic wrote a GPT that was inaccurate – and if you trusted that GPT as an expert, you would be wrong and unintentionally spreading misinformation too.

If you find an expert GPT, validate that the author actually IS an expert in the topic at hand.

There are several custom GPTs available under the “More” button in the ChatGPT sidebar. You can search by topic or keyword or scroll and view by category.

I searched for Y-GPT, about Y-DNA, because I know positively that Dave Vance is an expert and that the answers his Y-GPT provides can be trusted.

Scroll to the bottom and just click “Start Chat.”

In fact, Dave has pre-loaded his GPT with the most common questions.

Dave’s Y-GPT is a great resource, and I recommend it, but all GPTs are not created equal. Fortunately, there are experts like Dave who freely share their knowledge. Just because someone writes a GPT or THINKS they’re an expert does not make them one. Know your author and their level of expertise before you rely on anything.

Special Project – How I’m Using AI Right Now

I want to share a special project I’m currently working on and how I’m using AI to assist. Actually, AI has saved my bacon.

I’m planning to visit my ancestors’ locations in Massachusetts this year. When I began preparing, I discovered that I have 100 ancestors who hail from 45 different Massachusetts towns. Nobody seemed to stay put. Various reasons existed for moving on. More or better land, marrying someone from another town, religious tiffs within the church, change of religion, or simply the lure of the next frontier.

I’ve compiled research into a document for each individual that includes dates and locations for the following facts, when known:

  • Birth
  • Marriage
  • Childrens’ births and marriages
  • Land grants and ownership, including purchases, sales, and inheritance
  • Military service
  • Civic service or appointments, such as selectmen or jury members
  • Church membership
  • Wills and estates, particularly land distribution
  • Death
  • Burial
  • Anything else that is location-specific, unique, or particularly interesting, such as if they helped to found a town, a church, or built a fort

If you’ve read any of my 52 Ancestors articles, you’re aware that I enjoy visiting where my ancestors lived, and “being” with them where the events in their lives took place.

That meant that after I compiled the information about each ancestor, I had to reorganize it by town because that’s how the trip would be laid out. Furthermore, in each location, I wanted to find my ancestor’s land, today. This recent article about William and Nehemiah Hunt, who owned Punkatasset Hill, and its connection to the Revolutionary War is a good example.

At this point, I have more ancestors whose land I need to find than I have time to complete the detailed research – and I was beginning to feel incredibly discouraged.

I Accidentally Turned to Google AI

When I say accidentally, I mean I never realized just how useful Google’s AI could be until I submitted William Hunt’s name, birth and death dates, and location to see what other resources Google’s search engine might turn up. When reading the AI overview, I realized that Google had found resources that I had not and certainly would not in the time I have available to plan this trip.

Then, I switched to AI mode, and the resource improved even more.

Incredible!

When using AI tools, we need to take into consideration the strengths of the tool we are using or considering and the resources it has available. In this case, aside from being a search engine and finding information, Google’s specialty is maps, locations, place names, establishments like restaurants, hotels, historical societies, museums and more – including customer reviews.

While I was preparing for the upcoming trip, I stumbled across information that my ancestors, William Hunt and his son, Nehemiah Hunt, both owned Punkatasset Hill, the hill that the men marched down in Concord to take the Old North Bridge in 1775. That infamous “shot heard round the world.”

Google found those resources for me, and their AI tool linked them together. I spent about two days researching this one ancestral place and family for the article – working with Google resources and using each link provided to VERIFY accuracy. You will find that sometimes the resource links don’t contain what AI said they do.

I hurriedly put together William Hunt (c1604-1667), Punkatasset Hill, and the Revolution for America’s 250th.

I need to make it perfectly clear at this point that AI did NOT write that article or this article for me. I write all of my own articles. Yes, I know AI could write faster and I could publish more, but that’s not my goal or my work. This is my work. Google’s AI was my research assistant, feeding me places and resources to check based on dozens of individual prompts that I fed it in the form of questions.

As you can see in the article, I was able to locate the actual land and home of Nehemiah Hunt, and it was Google that provided the current address gleaned through the video posted by a realtor. Otherwise, I have no idea how I would ever have found that, especially since the local museum/genealogy society is closed on the day I’ll be there.

I was then able to verify that location using other means, including comparing an old photo with a satellite image.

Caution: AI was incorrect more than once, and had I not verified, I would have been off on a wild goose chase, thinking I was catching my ancestors. But without AI and prompting it in different ways, I would never have found this at all.

The Process

I’m going to step through a prompt series for my ancestor Gyles (also spelled Giles) Hopkins, Mayflower passenger and son of another passenger, Stephen Hopkins. I’ll add my own commentary as we go.

I knew that my ancestor, Gyles (or Giles) Hopkins, obtained land in Brewster, Massachusetts. Here’s information I already had before I engaged Google’s AI.

  • Stephen Hopkins, in his will dated June 6, 1644, made Caleb Hopkins, his younger son, his ‘heir apparent,’ and consequently the whole of his large real estate holding was inherited by Caleb after Stephen died in July or August of 1644. Soon after his father’s death, Caleb gave a very large tract of land located in what is now Brewster to Gyles Hopkins, his older and only surviving brother.
  • As early as 1653, Gyles Hopkins owned the 8th lot in a tract in what is now West Brewster, east of Quivet, which he sold on Nov. 9, 1666, to John Wing of Yarmouth in consideration of a mare, colt and other land.

I wanted to know specifically where this land was located and whether Gyles ever lived there.

My first question to Google was, “Where was Giles Hopkins’ land in Brewster, MA, and where is that today?”

Tip: Be very careful when Googling to include identifying information about the person you’re asking about. For example, “Where was the land of Gyles, also spelled Giles, Hopkins who lived between <date> and <date>…” would have been a better way to ask the question to ensure that I received what I wanted. There could be multiple men with the same name.

Based on what I knew about other aspects of Gyles’ life, I suspected that this land was held speculatively, as an investment, because I knew he had lived in Eastham.

So, I was surprised to see that a home had been built there.

But read carefully – it says, “A historical Hopkins home was later built in this area.” It doesn’t say HIS home, but still.

Plus, there’s a Hopkins Homestead and Bakery? Seriously? You mean, I can visit the land he owned, sit there, and have coffee? Maybe? And who built that house? Is it the original house? So many questions…I had to stop myself from immediately going down that rabbit hole. And I wasn’t even in “AI Mode” yet.

Ok, let’s switch to AI Mode and see what it says.

Now we have the name of Snowy Owl Coffee Roasters too, which says it’s a homestead site, but not necessarily “the” homestead site.

And it looks like Gyles’ (or Giles’) son, Stephen, lived in this location. His grandson apparently was also named Stephen.

Google in AI Mode almost always asks if you’d like additional information – and it’s like crack for genealogists – almost impossible to say no. Keep an eye on the sources on the right, because they change with each question or answer, and you may need to click to “show all.”

Tip: Read the sources; do NOT presume that the verbiage used by AI is verbatim in the sources or that it’s there at all.

Next, I asked to see the bakery on a map. You can tell that I’m considering stopping during my visit, right?

Google just backtracked a bit, saying that the Snowy Owl had moved and that the Hopkins House Bakery sits directly on the land granted in the 1640s.

Hot diggity!!!

Word of caution: Verify addresses and locations on Google Maps directly, as I have found discrepancies.

Keep reading, because there’s more!

Wait? What? There’s a First Encounter Beach monument? I had no idea.

Google asked if I wanted to know more. Yes, of COURSE I want to know more about that.

I already know where Gyles is buried, and I’ll get to that when I’m not focused on his land in Brewster.

Ok, I’m definitely visiting the First Encounter site, but where is it exactly?

Google asked me if I wanted driving directions. I asked for 3 locations to be included: the Hopkins House, the Cove Burying Ground in Eastham, where Gyles is buried, and the monument site.

Google must be experiencing “fatigue” because it can’t seem to retrieve everything from its memory. I’ve had this issue before. I know that Google can easily show multiple locations and stops on maps, but this time, it didn’t show “the map below” that it said was there.

Tip: When I encounter this issue, I close Google and sometimes the browser altogether, then reopen Google in AI Mode.

You can then select the conversation you were just engaged in from the AI history menu. You can also search for keywords and view your most recent AI Mode converations. How convenient is that?!

I noticed an “Upgrade” button appear in the top bar and wondered if that has anything to do with the “fatigue” Google’s AI was experiencing.

So, I clicked on the link to see if this could have been the problem with the fatigue that failed to produce the map. It wasn’t the problem, but the information provided was still useful.

I suspect that if I upgraded to either Plus or Pro, which is very reasonably priced, I might experience fewer display issues. I figured that I might have to do that to complete this time-critical project – but I didn’t.

Instead, I just clicked on the embedded link to the map, and saw that the route had been nicely mapped out.

Google even added a few local features that I hadn’t requested, which I found helpful. I should also note, though, that it missed an important landmark – so don’t get overconfident in its abilities and answers, and always verify.

I didn’t realize that the Cove Burying Ground was just a few feet away from the Eagle Wing Inn. I hadn’t asked for that information. I’m not complaining because I’m going to need a place to stay and I can click on that location and see important information like customer reviews.

Unfortunately, by the time I finished the planning for this project, this Inn was full, but Google recommended other locations based on clustering my visit locations so that I only had to move every few days – establishing a central hub in an area.

Often, several ancestors lived in a specific town, like both Plymouth and Eastham. I compiled my information for each individual location, even if they were adjacent and everything I knew about all ancestors in that location, into a PDF file. Providing AI with too much in a single prompt results in less, more diluted, and less reliable information.

For each town, I uploaded the PDF file and asked Google AI how to find each piece of land, where it is located today, how much time to allocate for each stop, the best order, and even for information on places I’ve missed that would be of interest.

In one location, Google suggested a harbor cruise, complete with a contact phone number and website, to view the land of my ancestor because it’s on Saquish Head, which is entirely privately owned and access-restricted.

In another instance, Google identified a home built by my ancestor that still stands. It has been moved from the original location, which is why I didn’t find it.

I did a LOT of prep work and provided summary information for each ancestor, including location, some of which Google helped me gather. The document totalled 551 pages. I asked Google if it could extract every mention of each town from that document, and it replied that its processing limit was between 50 and 100 pages, so the extraction would have to be done by hand. That’s OK, because it gave me a better feel for the landscape and their lives.

After I extracted the ancestors’ information by town, Google helped me immensely by adding information and organizing it into a plan, with directions and recommended time allocation for each place on the itinerary. In one town, Google even found a local Inn located on my ancestors’ land. Unfortunately, it’s booked, but it is open for dinner, so I’ll still be dining with my ancestor – so to speak.

Here were the project steps:

  1. Gather information by ancestor using traditional genealogical resources, plus Google AI to add anything I didn’t already have. Note that Google does not gather information from behind paywalled sites, or sites that technologically deflect crawling and indexing information.
  2. Create section in Master Ancestor Document for each ancestor.
  3. Ask Google to find ancestral land locations today, adding to their page
  4. Extract information from each person in the ancestor document and reassemble by town in travel order. When complete, save as PDF file by town.
  5. Submit PDF to Google AI and ask for land locations today – verifying what it said before. Prompt for an itinerary for each town, listing each stop, and how long each town’s activities will take. Include any gotchas such as locked cemeteries, museum hours, inaccessible locations (like islands), and accessibility concerns (walking, steep hills, etc.)
  6. After each town was complete, create itinerary in table format. Submit to Google AI for verification and suggested lodging in each area. Ask for driving suggestions to avoid high-traffic areas or congested times of day or other concerns or requests – including lunch or dinner suggestions.

This leaves me with the following documents:

Just a few of my Massachusetts ancestors.

  • Master Document by Ancestor – One master document that includes every ancestor in this region. The Table of Contents is 5 pages long, and the document eventually totalled 551 pages. This is how I gathered the information before any organization, and before eliminating Connecticut and Maine, which are outside the scope of this trip.
  • Master Document by Location – I quickly realized that the ancestor document was already much too long, so I created a second document by location which totalled 531 pages.
  • Individual Location Documents – When finished, I divided the Master Location Document into one file for each location. I eliminated locations where there was nothing to see, so I now have 35 individual files, which have been updated individually using AI, so they no longer match the Master Location Document. I will load these to my laptop and also to a location that I can access from my phone so I can reference them as I travel. I would actually like to print them by location to take with me, except 500 pages is a ream of paper and paper is heavy.
  • Master Itinerary by Day/Location – Detailing where I’m staying, confirmation and phone numbers, which town I’m visiting which day, and anything else I need “at a glance.”

What will I need to do after this trip? I’ll need to combine the information from the Master Document by Ancestor with information in the Individual Location Documents that pertains to them. I’ll add photos, of course, and new information gleaned during the trip. I will compile this by ancestor in their own personal file. Will AI be able to help with this step? I don’t know. We’ll see.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, you’ll be reading these as 52 Ancestors stories for years to come!

My intention in this exercize was to illustrate how AI can help locate important geographical features, like ancestral land, for instance, help you organize your data and even plan trips. I almost always find more than I was asking for. I’ve found that Google’s ability to read historical and local history websites is extremely beneficial.

I feared that I might not be ready for this trip in time to make reservations, but thanks to Google AI, I am – and I’ve discovered things about my ancestors I would not have found in time. The worst thing possible is to make a critical discovery AFTER you’ve visited and don’t have the opportunity to return.

Advanced Tools and Bleeding Edge

This series has been focused on the “normie” user, not someone pushing the frontiers of the AI envelope – although we certainly need those pioneers to help sort out how to use these tools safely for genealogy and when to stay away.

When attempting more complex tasks using AI, I’ve experienced spectacular failures. But yesterday’s failures are today’s or tomorrow’s successes. The tools literally get better every day, and a week or month in AI is like a year anywhere else.

The tools from the various AI vendors leapfrog each other, too, and each tool has a unique learning curve.

Recently, Anthropic’s Claude introduced an extremely powerful tool called Fable 5 that was free for the first several days, then available via the purchase of prepaid usage credits or tokens. That’s marketing genius, because it encouraged what I would consider “complex genealogy users” to try it. People who had projects either in mind or in the wings where other models had failed.

Specifically, Fable 5 is focused on what I would call “long horizon” jobs or tasks, such as, “Here are 300 Acadian documents. Please translate and transcribe them, then reconstruct the relationships of the people in these documents.” Or, “Here are 550 pages of ancestors, please reorganize them by town, and within town, by year.” Of course, the construction of the prompt has a lot to do with the degree of success of any query.

Anthropic says it can sustain multi-stage projects over hours or even days, planning work, checking its own output, delegating to sub-agents in agent frameworks, and producing deliverables with much less supervision than previous models.

Some people reported amazing successes with multiple files and hundreds of pages being read, processed, correlated, and reported, mostly accurately. Others had a completely different experience.

I have not been working with these new tools, but Mark Thompson and Steve Little have been. Not only did I not have a massive project ready and waiting, as I had already completed by Massachusetts town extraction, I also needed to have time to VERIFY something that large, because as tempting as this is, AI can be and is often wrong.

You can read about Mark turning Fable 5 loose on his archiving project, here.

Catch up with Steve’s interesting experiments, troubleshooting, analysis and guidance here and here.

The AI landscape is shifting away from asking “Which AI is best?” to asking “How do I assemble the best team of AI specialists and effectively use them?”

Interestingly, these advanced agents are now being used both independently and together to answer complex questions and analyze projects. This is known informally as cross-model verification. Sometimes the models agree, and sometimes they disagree, presenting different “evidence” and debate positions for their conclusions. Ultimately, you are the final arbiter.

Just as genealogists don’t rely on a single record, increasingly they shouldn’t rely on a single AI assistant either. A census, will, land grant, deed, and church record each contribute different evidence, all of which needs to be considered together. Likewise, different AI models have different strengths, weaknesses, and biases. Comparing their answers is often the digital equivalent of seeking independent corroborating evidence.

You don’t need to work on the bleeding edge. Just tuck this away for a future project after these tools are more reliable and stable.

The Take-Away

The takeaway from this is that AI is a force to be reckoned with.

Vendors are using AI, sometimes when we know it, and other times behind the scenes to process text, for example. The net-net of this is absolutely positive.

AI usage will increase over time – and that’s a good thing since we can verify the output. AI can accomplish in seconds, minutes or hours what would take us hours, days, months or maybe never.

As always, AI becomes dangerous when we don’t verify, don’t understand that we need to, don’t know how to confirm the results or we trust “experts” who aren’t.

What Do You Want?

I’m excited for the future and I have my own personal list of how I hope the vendors will integrate AI with tools they provide.

My list includes, but is not limited to:

  • AI records transcription at Ancestry, similar to FamilySearch.
  • At FamilySearch, full-text records by name and location “suggested” as hints, by individual, along with a multiple-record summary of evidence. Over time, this could go a VERY long way in resolving the “wrong spouse” or “wrong child” connected issues that persist.
  • AI “DNA plus tree matching” WITH common ancestors, meaning providing a list of people on your DNA match list who match you and each other and have common ancestors in their tree that you have. Both Ancestry and MyHeritage provide part of this in different ways today, but not all of it.
  • AI “DNA plus tree matching” WITHOUT a common ancestor in YOUR tree. This provides a means to potentially identify a brick-walled ancestor by identifying the ancestors of the people whose DNA matches yours and each other, but who do not share a common ancestor in your tree. However, they DO share ancestors with each other, which could be critically important to your research. Yes, I know this would need to be fleshed out – but it’s doable.
  • AI records searching. Essentially, what Ancestry suggests as next steps, but to actually DO THE SEARCH on your behalf and provide those results. Go a step further and indicate where to find the records if they aren’t on the platform. Message you if those records ever become available there, or the person has been revealed in existing records. For example, if death certificates are now available but weren’t previously – or the writing was so horrendous that the indexing didn’t pick it up before, but the person has been identified now – let me know.
  • At FamilySearch, something similar to relatives at RootsTech, but year-round so that cousins can contact each other, collaborate and make breakthroughs together.
  • Broad yet restricted AI searching, such as “provide me with a list of all transactions that include anyone with the surname of Estes or Eastes between 1700 and 1720 in Halifax County, Virginia.” Or, “Provide me with a list of all Estes men who live in Tennessee but who were born in Virginia in the 1850-1880 censuses.” Or, “Provide me with a list of all Estes men who are listed on the 1840 census as being pensioners or having served in the Revolutionary War.”
  • At WikiTree, FamilySearch, GEDmatch, Geni and other public sharing platforms,  identify and provide a way to contact individuals who qualify to test for the Y-DNA (male direct paternal male-to-male line) or mitochondrial DNA (everyone’s direct matrilineal mother-to-mother line) of your common ancestors. Include an avenue to offer a testing scholarship at FamilyTreeDNA. There’s so much we could learn!!!

I’m sure you can add to this list. Specifically, what would you like to see AI be able to do for you, either within or outside of a vendor’s platform?

The sky’s the limit, so dream big!

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RootsTech 2026 – The Wind Beneath Our Wings

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I started writing this article on Sunday evening, the day after RootsTech ended, and I’m basking in the afterglow. Also, my back and feet may never forgive me.

As a tongue-in-cheek comment, I think someone coined the word “exhausterwhelmulated” and defined it as being exhausted, overwhelmed, and overstimulated all at once. Yep, that’s me.

However, I need to add another couple of words to this – gratitude and joy.

Gratitude and Joy

I’m going to try to express this without sounding too sappy.

Do you recall the joy you used to feel when you spotted a relative you loved dearly but didn’t get to see often? Think of the unbridled joy as you piled out of your parents’ car and spotted your grandmother coming out of the door because she saw the car pull up. You ran as fast as your little legs could carry you directly into her arms, and got hugged so tightly it nearly squeezed the breath out of you.

I don’t know what the word for that would be, but it’s similar to how RootsTech feels.

Let me explain. Continue reading →

RootsTech 2026 Schedule: Online and In-Person Sessions Plus Book Signing – You’re Invited!

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RootsTech is right around the corner.

Like always, there’s so much energy swirling around RootsTech, whether you’re attending in person or virtually. I can hardly wait!

If you’re attending RootsTech in Salt Lake City, I hope we have the opportunity to connect. Please be sure to say hello.

I have a few DNAeXplain badge ribbons left, so be sure to ask me for one. When they are gone, they’re gone and will soon become a RootsTech collector’s item!.

Register

Be sure to register for the free online conference, here, if you aren’t attending in Salt Lake City. All of the in-person only sessions have a syllabus available, and many speakers include their slides. So be sure to check everything out, even sessions that are in-person only.

Join Relatives at RootsTech

Oh, and while you’re at it, sign up for Relatives at RootsTech, here, and see which of your cousins are attending either virtually or in-person. I’ve written several articles about how I utilize Relatives at RootsTech, here.

Roberta’s Schedule

Here’s my presentation, appearance and book-signing schedule.

“Monday’s with Myrt”, hosted by Pat Richley-Erickson (Myrt), a RootsTech tradition, is always broadcast from the FamilySearch Library in SLC on the Monday before RootsTech. Myrt live-streams interviews and discussions with lots of people you know. 

I’ll be discussing something completely out of the ordinary for me – with surprise visuals! Here’s the link. Come join us for the fun!

Thursday is a VERY Busy Day With Four Sessions

This recorded session is available for everyone at this link, beginning when RootsTech opens and throughout the conference. This session is sponsored by FamilyTreeDNA, which makes sense because they are the only vendor that offers X-DNA matching.

Show Floor

Two of my events will take place in booths on the show floor. The book-signing in in the GenealogyBank booth, at far right, and the MyHeritage session is right inside the main entrance where you can’t miss it!

You can purchase my books during the signing while supplies last. If you’ve previously purchased a book and would like it signed, you can bring the book, of course, or I will have some bookplates with me that I will gladly sign for you.

  • Thursday, March 5 – 2 PM Mountain Time (SLC), MyHeritage booth #900, Everything I Love About MyHeritage

Ok, so this session might not include quite EVERYTHING I love about MyHeritage. I’m going to begin in an unexpected place with an underutilized tool, Cousin Finder, and work my way through using the rest of the MyHeritage DNA (and supporting) tools successfully. Two fun case studies in my own family with an unexpected twist that every genealogist dreams about. MyHeritage makes it easy to jump the pond!

Mitochondrial DNA to Z is in-person only, so not recorded or livestreamed. Here’s the link which includes my slides. (You’re welcome!).

Friday Holds Two Great Sessions – Including One That’s Livestreamed

Y-DNA to Z is in-person only, so not recorded or livestreamed. Here’s the link which includes my slides. (You’re welcome!).

Mapping Maternal Connections, sponsored by FamilyTreeDNA, is available both in person and online. As a contract member of the R&D team, and as a genetic genealogist, I’m really excited to share the latest updates with you, as well as how I’m using the new MitoTree, matching and Discover to solve long-standing mysteries. Here’s the link, which includes a syllabus.

Just so you know, recordings of online sessions will be available after the event, so if you miss it, come back to view later.

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RootsTech 2025 – The Year of Discover and the New Mitotree

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Last week, RootsTech was a whirlwind and full of discoveries – which, ironically, was the 2025 theme.

I always take you along with me and share the RootsTech experience, start to finish, so here’s my 2025 “feet on the ground” report.

I might, just might, have overcommitted myself. I taught the half-day DNA Academy,  three more sessions, plus several other commitments such as book signings, get-togethers, and interviews.

One class, “DNA for Native American Genealogy,” was a live webinar from the floor of the expo hall. You can watch that here for free, if you’re interested.

Unfortunately, none of my other sessions were recorded, but I’ll see what other alternative options may be available to bring those to you.

Additionally, I did two book signings at the GenealogyBank booth, along with two other authors, Drew Smith and Sunny Morton. I’m sorry, I don’t have any pictures. I should have asked someone to take some.

There were long lines and books sold out. Still, you can order either of my books, The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA or DNA for Native American Genealogy, at Genealogical.com. Thank you to GenealogyBank for being so welcoming.

The book signing was particularly fun because people shared their success stories or their hopes of what they want to achieve. I met a couple of new cousins too! Even people waiting in line were helping each other with information about research resources.

I had created my “RootsTech plan” for sessions I wanted to attend, but I was only able to actually attend one of those. Several were happening at the same time as mine, or directly before or after. As a presenter, you arrive early to get set up and make sure everything is working correctly.

Then, after your session, attendees have questions and are interested in your topic, which is a good thing. So essentially, you can’t attend sessions either before or after your session either.

Before I share photos, I’d like to share something else.

It’s About the People

I have never attended RootsTech for the classes, although there are wonderful offerings – and I have enjoyed them immensely.

Having said that, for me, the best part of RootsTech is the people. People I know and love but never get to see – many of whom I met in-person at RootsTech initially. I get to meet my blog followers. I meet with or reconnect with friends and cousins from around the world. I am privileged to talk with people about their challenges and their victories – when they’ve broken through a brick wall using DNA that they could never have otherwise achieved. People collaborating and helping each other. It’s all beautiful.

The reason I started blogging in the first place, and the reason all 1750 articles are free, is because I wanted to help people do just that – confirm ancestors, find ancestors, and connect with their fsmily.

My cousins that I’ve met through genealogy are some of my closest friends and closest family members. Outliving everyone is a mixed blessing but it makes me extremely grateful for my various cousins since all of my siblings and close family, with the exception of the next generation, have transitioned to the land of the ancestors.

So, yea, for me, RootsTech is about connecting and reconnecting with the people.

That’s also why I never get anything done because I’m always talking with someone.

Additionally, this particular RootsTech was a celebration.

Mitotree Release

Just a few days before RootsTech, the Million Mito Team at FamilyTreeDNA released the brand new Mitotree, 5 years in the making, reconstructing the tree of humankind to reflect our combined heritage more accurately.

At RootsTech 2020, I was honored to announce the Million Mito Project, and the new Mitotree initiative was born.

At some point, I will write about the deep, personal significance of the Mitotree for me,  but for now, suffice it to say that there is something profoundly moving about rewriting the tree of humankind and in doing so, giving a voice to our ancestors from long ago. Yes, I know many of them are thousands or even tens of thousands of years old, but had they not survived, we would not be here today. Now we can identify who they are and that they lived.

Million Mito Team, left to right, Goran Runfeldt, Dr. Paul Maier, me, Dr. Miguel Vilar, Bennett Greenspan, John Detsikas

Our amazing Dream Team has given life to our ancestors and said their names once again, even if their name is a mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. Four team members, Goran, Paul, me and Bennett were at RootsTech. Where else can you actually approach and speak with the actual scientists?

When I say RootsTech is about the people, I know that I am related to every single individual at RootsTech, it’s just a matter of how far back in time. So are you.

Just think about the significance of that for a minute.

Every. Single. Person.

The other end of the mitochondrial DNA spectrum is genealogy, of course, and the new Mitotree with it’s haplotype clusters brings mitochondrial DNA results into the genealogical timeframe. In future articles, I’ll be writing about each one of the new tools, what they mean, and how to use them.

Dr. Paul Maier, lead scientist doing most of the hard science behind Mitotree, had the much-deserved honor of introducing the Mitotree to genealogists at RootsTech.

I’m not sure the audience understood they were witnessing history unfold, but they clearly were. We needed a drum roll and some balloons!

This wasn’t like most vendor announcements of a new product or feature – this was a major scientific achievement that led to genealogical benefits.

In celebration, I asked my friend to make double helix zipper pulls so that I could give them to colleagues, friends and cousins that I ran into at RootsTech. It’s my way of celebrating and sharing the joy!

Five years is a very long time to work on a project. The Mitotree is a massive accomplishment. Every customer at FamilyTreeDNA who has taken the full sequence test received their new haplogroup either the week before or during RootsTech, AND, the second updated version of the tree was released too.

While this is truly wonderful, the true highlight is the testimonials – seeing how Mitotree is actually helping people break through their brick walls.

Here’s just one.

Breathless Testimonial

I’m going to try to convey this exactly as it happened.

A lady that I don’t know literally runs up to me in the hallway. This isn’t unusual. She was so excited that what she said was one long breathless sentence, which I’m going to try to reconstruct here, although I’m adding a bit of punctuation. I also can’t remember how many “greats” were attached to the “grandmother,” but you’ll get the idea.

Roberta, Roberta, I’m so excited – I just wanted to let you know – I found my ancestor using mitochondrial DNA. I got my new haplogroup and I had like 47 matches before but now they are clustered together so I could focus…and there were three matches in my cluster…and one of them had an EKA but the other didn’t…so I built out the EKA matches’ tree and guess what??? They were from the same place and then I found that her great-great-grandmother’s sister is my great-great-grandmother but she had her surname so now I have more generations too. OMG I ‘m so excited I could never have broken through this wall without mtDNA because I had no surname. This is THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL DNA TEST I’VE EVER TAKEN, and I’ve taken them all. Thank you, thank you!

And with that she quickly hugged me and ran off to something she was obviously late for.

I never got to say one word, which was fine, but I stood there with tears in my eyes, thinking to myself, “This – this is what it’s all about.”

It doesn’t get better than this!

I want to hear your stories too. I just scaled my fourth brick wall last night using the new Mitotree and mtDNA Discover features.

RootsTech Week

RootsTech week started early for me – as in leaving the house at 3 AM Sunday. I fly on Sunday because the flights are cheaper and because the pre-conference meetings and events begin on Monday.

We took off into the dawn, jetting our way westward through the azure blue sky.

I have never gotten over the majesty and beauty of the Rocky Mountains.

And then, of course, the Great Salt Lake, for which Salt Lake City is named.

Looking at the Salt Palace across the street from the Marriott hotel. The silver building is the new Hyatt which is attached to the conference center behind the windmills which extends another very long block to the right, out of view. The mountain range is visible in the distance, and the beautiful sunset.

Speaking of the Marriott hotel, several people have asked if it was any better this year, and if I got trapped in the fire exit again, like last year.

No, I didn’t get stuck because I didn’t tempt fate again. It looked just the same though, so I’m presuming nothing has changed. Furthermore, there was no heat in my room, so they gave me a space heater and a pass to the concierge level – which they did not do last year.

That was kind of them, but food ran out, and there was only one poor server in the restaurant. I’m not even going to mention the nauseating thing that happened with my food. Let’s just say I’m not picky, but I will NEVER eat there again, and that makes it particularly difficult because there’s very little close by, especially when you’re exhausted.

I’m hoping that RootsTech will negotiate someplace different for speakers in the future. I’ve stayed in a lot of Marriotts and most of them are just fine. I have never had issues like this with any of them, let alone repeat issues year after year.

The good news is that we’re not there for the hotel, and the fun began on Monday.

Monday

My interviews began on Monday morning with “Mondays with Myrt” at the FamilySearch Library, which you can view here beginning about 16 minutes.

Mondays with Myrt is a RootsTech tradition and Myrt incorporates people present in person and tuning in virtually as well. Left to right, Kirsty Gray from England, John Tracy Cunningham, me and Myrt. Kirsty had a huge breakthrough that she shared with us just a few minutes after it happened.

I met John at the ECGGS Conference last October. He’s one of the few people I know whose 8 great-grandparents were born in the same county. I’m so jealous. Mine were either born in or first generation immigrants from four countries.

Sometimes the broadcast waiting area is just as much fun as the actual broadcast – in part because it’s the first day of RootsTech week and everyone is so excited to see their friends that they haven’t seen in forever. Call is a reunion!

Do Kirsty Gray and I look like we’re about to get into mischief?

Behind me is the first group of folks to be interviewed.

Pat Richley-Erickson, aka Myrt, Cheryl Hudson Passey, Laura Wilkinson Hedgecock, and Jenny Horner Hawran.

This is the livestream room at the FamilySearch Library. The waiting area for the next group is to the right, and the three presently being interviewed are sitting on the left beside Myrt.

For those who know Gordon, aka Mr. Myrt, he’s coordinating interviewees outside the livestream room. His job is herding cats and he’s the nicest cat-herder you’ll ever meet!

Pre-RootsTech Library Research

I love the FamilySearch Library. It feels like coming home to me.

So many passionate genealogists at every level – learning and searching. Lots of volunteer helpers available, too.

Normally, I create a research plan for the library, but I had been so utterly slammed between preparing my several RootsTech sessions and the Mitotree release that I hadn’t really been able to prepare anything.

I did, however, have a group of ancestors in mind that settled in the Oley Valley in Pennsylvania, so I decided to focus on the Berks County books.

I won’t bore you with the details, but among other things, I found confirmation that the Hoch surname is also the same as High and Hoy, which explains some very confusing Y-DNA results. So even though I didn’t get much productive time there, I did find something very useful in the land records.

I also ran into cousins and friends, of course, which is why I didn’t get more actual research done.

I knew Judy Nimer Muhn, at left, was going to be at RootsTech as a speaker, and I knew we connected through Acadian lines, but we never took the time to really piece together that puzzle.

My cousins, Mark and Manny were also coming for RootsTech, and to visit the library, for the first time. Mark, Manny and I visited Nova Scotia together in the summer of 2024, chasing our ancestors.

You know, fate is a funny thing.

We all descend from Acadian, Francois Savoie who was born about 1621 in France, but settled in Acadia, today’s Nova Scotia. Mark, Manny and I knew that we are cousins through Francois, but Judy and I did not. Mark, Manny and I ran into a local historian, Charlie Thibodeau, the Acadian Peasant, last year, outside of Port Royal. It just so happened that he was taking another couple to see the remains of the Savoie homestead deep in the salt marshes at BelleIsle.

We asked if we could join them, and Charlie was kind enough to include us. It was a long, brutally hot, tick-infested hike through the swamp, but oh so worth it!

We also found the well, located between three homesteads.

The year before, Judy had been in the same place in Nova Scotia, found the same man, Charlie, at the BelleIsle Hall Acadian Cultural Centre, and he had taken her to the remains of the same homestead.

And here we all four are in Utah.

What are the chances?

Needless to say, we had a LOT to talk about, and still do. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to Judy’s talk, but Mark and Manny attended.

I ran into Katy Rowe-Schurwanz, the FamilyTreeDNA Product Manager at the library too, and look what she’s wearing – a mitochondrial DNA scarf. How cool is that!

The rest of Tuesday and most of Wednesday morning were spent trying to update my several presentations to reflect newly released information by various vendors and practicing the timing of the presentations. I had another interview, and more people were arriving.

I found time to visit Eva’s Bakery about 3 blocks from the Salt Palace. If you’re ever in Salt Lake City, Eva’s is a must! Lunch is wonderful, and so are their French pastries.

Wednesday is “tech prep” day at RootsTech, along with speaker instructions and then the Speaker Dinner.

Steve Rockwood, President and CEO of FamilySearch always delivers an inspirational message and this year did not disappoint.

If you’ve wondered about RootsTech conference stats, they provided this information. I can’t even imagine trying to coordinate all of this – and that’s not including the vendors, expo hall, technology in the presentation rooms, food, security and so much more.

Last year, in 2024, the final attendance numbers were more than 16,000 people in person and 4 million virtual attendees. I noticed a few days ago that there were more than half a million people participating in Relatives at RootsTech, which is still live until April 12th.

On Wednesday evening, after the Speaker’s Dinner, vendors in the Expo Hall were putting the final touches on their booths and preparing for the thousands of excited genealogists who would descend Thursday morning.

Discover

This year’s RootsTech theme was “discover” and attendees were greeted with this display just inside the door.

Attendees listed their discoveries on Post-its and could either post them on the board or plastic boxes, or on the green tree.

I placed my discovery from the day before at the library on the Rootstech tree.

Some people place their wishes here, kind of like a technology wishing well.

I couldn’t help but think of the new Mitotree, now forever green and growing, so I posted a second discovery, “Mitotree.”

Thursday – Opening Day

For those who don’t know, the Salt Palace Convention Center is two lengthy blocks long, a block wide, and two or three stories high, depending on whether you are in the front or rear portion. In other words, it’s massive and you need a map!

The huge Expo Hall with vendors is located in the center on the first floor and vendors have aisle addresses. The show floor is always very busy, and this year was no exception. One of the things I love is that spontaneous conversations just spring up between people who often find commonalities – common ancestors, common locations, and more. People compliment each other and join others at tables. It’s like a big family gathering of sorts.

I always try to walk the entire Expo Hall, because I really enjoy seeing the vendors and their wares, but this year, I never actually had enough time to traverse all the aisles. I took several pictures as I was passing through and running into people, but not nearly enough. I know I missed a lot, but there just wasn’t enough time and I arrived at RootsTech already tired.

However, the energy of RootsTech is like no place else and just infects you.

It’s like you can’t drink from the genealogy firehose fast enough!

Let’s Take a Walk

Ok, come along on a walk with me.

Left to right, Lianne Kruger, a speaker, and Courtney, in the FamilyTreeDNA booth. I believe they said they are cousins.

Daniel Horowitz, genealogist extraordinaire, in the MyHeritage booth. More about MyHeritage’s announcements shortly.

Geoff Rasmussen in the Legacy Family Tree Webinars booth. For those who don’t know, there’s lots of good material at Legacy, and the freshly recorded webinars are always free for a week.

Several vendors offer booth talks, including MyHeritage. I love their photo tools and use their site in some capacity almost daily.

One of the RootsTech traditions is ribbons. Collect one, collect ‘em all. Liv’s ribbons almost reach the floor. I think she wins!

Selfies are also a RootsTech tradition. Me, here with Jonny Perl of DNAPainter fame. I owe Jonny an apology as he asked me if I had a minute, and I had to say no because I was on the way to one of my own classes. I never got back to his booth to view his new features. Sorry Jonny – don’t take it personally!

Jonny released a new Ancestral tree version titled Places, so take a look here at his blog. I need to go look at my ancestors Places.

You’ll find this new feature under Ancestral Trees, Places. These are my most recent 8 generations. Just think of all those brave souls who climbed on a ship and sailed for the unknown. Check this feature out and have fun.

In a booth talk, Dave Vance, Executive Vice-President and General Manager at FamilyTreeDNA is speaking about the three types of DNA, which are, of course, Y-DNA, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA – all useful for genealogy in different ways.

Dave is explaining how in-common-with matches, also known as shared matches, operate with the chromosome browser. You can use the chromosome browser, shared matches, the new Matrix Tool, and download your match segment information at FamilyTreeDNA, a combination of features not available at any other vendor.

WikiTree, a free a moderated one-world-tree is one of my favorite genealogy tools. One of their best features is that you find your ancestor, and in addition to lots of sources, their Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and those who are related autosomally are listed. Here’s my grandfather, for example.

Several DNA connections are listed. The further back in my tree, the more DNA connections are found, becuase those ancestors have more descendants.

WikiTree volunteers were wandering around taking pictures of “WikiTreers” holding fun signs.

Paul Woodbury, a long time researcher with Legacy Tree Genealogists, who specializes in DNA. I don’t take private clients anymore, and regularly refer people to Legacy Tree.

Me with Janine Cloud taking our annual RootsTech selfie. Janine, the Group Projects Manager at FamilyTreeDNA and I co-administer one of those projects and accidentally discovered a few years ago that we are cousins too. How fun is this!!!

I wanted this shirt, but by the time I got back to the booth, it was too late. I’m going to order it online from Carlisle Creations, in case you want one too. This is so me.

Land records are critically important to genealogists. Rebecca Whitman’s class was about plotting land plats. What she’s holding is a surveyor’s chain. You’ve read about chain carriers? This is what they carried to measure land boundaries – literally metes and bounds. Some of my best discoveries have been thanks to land records.

The only session I actually got to attend was Gilad Japhet’s “What’s New and Exciting at MyHeritage.” For those who don’t know, Gilad is the founder and CEO of MyHeritage and it’s always great to hear about the new features straight from the top executive who is, himself, a seasoned genealogist. That’s why he started MyHeritage in the first place – 22 years ago in his living room.

Gilad had several wonderful announcements, but the one I’m most excited about is their new Cousin Finder. Cousin Finder finds and reveals cousins who are DNA candidates if they have not yet taken a DNA test.

I’ll be writing more about the MyHeritage announcements soon, but you can read their blog about Cousin Finder now, here, and their Roundup here about the rest of their announcements!

My Last Class – Reveal Your Maternal Ancestors & Their Stories

My last class at the end of the final day of RootsTech was “Reveal Your Maternal Ancestors & Their Stories – Solving Mitochondrial DNA Puzzles.”

Had I tried to coordinate this presentation with International Women’s Day, I could never have done it, but fate winked and here I was.

I’m often asked what it’s like from the presenters’ perspective. This is one of the smaller ballrooms. My earlier sessions were in larger rooms, maybe 3 times this size. I took this picture about 15 minutes before the session started as people were beginning to drift in.

The amazing RootsTech techs had me wired up to microphones and had verified that the audio and video equipment was working correctly, so now it was just waiting.

My cousin, John Payne, who co-administers the Speaks surname project with me, came by and took this great picture of the two of us. We’ve made huge inroads connecting the various Speake(s) lines in America, plus finally proving our home village in England, thanks to the Big Y-700 test, followed by church records. All is takes, sometimes, is that one critical match.

As I sat there, waiting to begin the mitochondrial DNA session, I couldn’t help but reflect upon all of the women who came before me and how fortunate I was to have been in the right place at the right time to be a member of the Million Mito team.

These are my direct matrilineal ancestors who give me, and my daughter, pictured at left, their mitochondrial DNA. I felt them with me as I sat there, waiting.

The woman at furthest right, Barbara Drechsel (1848-1930), immigrated to Indiana from Germany as a child with her parents in the 1850s. Before her came thousands of generations of women with no photos, of course, and no names before Barbara Freiberger, another eight generations earlier, born about 1621 in Germany.

Before that, which was before church and other records, prior to the 30 Years War, this lineage came from Scandinavia where some of my exact matches are still found today.

Before beginning, I said a positive affirmation and thanked my ancestors – so very honored to introduce them. I know they were proud of me, a member of the team that opened the door to the distant past. I wouldn’t be here if not for every one of their lives.

In this session, I would discuss, for the first time ever, the new Mitotree and my/our connection to all of humanity some 7000 generations ago, more or less.

The mutations we carry over those generations form an unbroken chain of breadcrumbs, connecting us to mitochondrial Eve who lived about 145,000 years ago. We revealed that breakthrough finding in the Haplogroup L7 paper, published in 2022.

I’m still in absolute awe that we have been able to both reach that far back in time AND, at the same time, make the newest haplogroups and haplotype clusters genealogically relevant. I will write more about that soon, but for now, I wrote about the Mitotree release here and you can find articles by Katy Rowe-Schurwanz here and here.

I’m very excited about my new mitochondrial DNA results for my ancestral lines that I track and have already made headway on several.

I’m not the only one.

Not only was I excited about my results, many other people have had breakthroughs too, including Mark Thompson, one of our genealogy AI experts who also spoke at RootsTech. I particularly love his AI generated image.

If you haven’t yet, check your mitochondrial DNA results.

It’s a Wrap

Another year done, another RootsTech under our belts. Hopefully everyone is over the “conference crud” by now and are busily applying their newfound knowledge.

You can view either live-cast sessions or RootsTech webinars, here.

I saw a meme posted sometime during the conference that coined the term “exhausterwhelmulated,” a combination of exhausted, overwhelmed and overstimulated at the same time.

I added exhilarated and elated to the mix and asked ChatGPT to draw me a picture of someone at a genealogy conference feeling those simultaneous emotions.

ChatGPT titled this request “Genealogy Conference Overload,” which made me laugh.

The first two attempts looked like the person had a headache, which I fully understood, so I asked ChatGPT to make the person look happy to be there.

This person, carrying a coffee like I often do, looks like they have just discovered the great irony that they have chased the wrong ancestor for some 20 years – with “laugh or I’ll cry” mania being their overwhelm “go to” in that minute.

This one made me laugh too!

Yes, indeed, I think every single one of us, especially at RootsTech, has experienced this exact adrenaline-fueled emotion.

We leave with a VERY long to-do list, exhausted but full of anticipation and buoyed by excitement. Filled with so much gratitude for our cousins and fellow genealogists, the speakers, vendors, DNA to solve thorny problems, new tools and records, FamilySearch who sponsors RootsTech itself and their amazing employees, plus the legions of the volunteers who make it all work.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

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Genealogy Proof Series: Gathering Location Resources

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This is the first article in the Genealogy Proof Series.

Most genealogists, even if they don’t realize they are genealogists yet, begin by creating a small tree of their known ancestors. Most people know who their grandparents are, and by asking a few questions, can probably complete another generation or two.

If your parents were born in 1950, your grandparents would have been born about 1920, and your great-grandparents may have been born around 1890. You probably have concrete facts about your parents. Their birthdates, birth location, marriage location, and so forth. They probably have the same information about their parents. However, with each generation reaching back in time, the information becomes less precise and less reliable. Memories fail people, and the information they were provided may not have been accurate in the first place.

For example, my mother told me what she knew about her maternal grandfather, which wasn’t much. He died when my grandmother was 20, several years before my mother was born.

As the information becomes thinner, the need for additional information and confirmation of facts becomes crucial. Furthermore, when utilizing new resources, you may discover information not previously known about close generations. One of the best resources for that is old newspapers.

Our ancestors are more than birth and death dates. I like to piece their life together, complete with historical events, both national and local, and how they influenced and affected their lives.

This first article explains how I gather and utilize location resources for each ancestor.

Before we start, let’s talk for a minute about where we are going and how this series will be organized.

The Genealogy Proof Series Roadmap

It’s difficult to put the steps in a specific order because often, I get very distracted and go right down a rabbit hole.

In other words, I’ll be working on gathering resources for a specific county, but then I find a listing for what I think is my ancestor, and before you know it, I’m off on the chase. I really, really try NOT to do that because it’s actually very distracting to the process as a whole.

It’s also difficult for me to select an order to write these articles. For example, do I write about Leveling Up, determining what you need for each ancestor, first or last?

I’ve chosen to write about that topic last because I want to step through how to gather and use the resources before we get distracted by what you need to do with individuals in your tree. It’s way too easy to go after that bright, shiny object:)

Gathering and Organizing Location Resources: This article is about how to find location resources for the area where your ancestor(s) lived. I suggest starting at the beginning, meaning your closest ancestors. You know where your parents and grandparents lived, so start there.

If you think there’s nothing there that matters because you know everything about your family – I guarantee you surprises are waiting. They may surprise you, touch your heart, or even shock you, and they are just waiting to be discovered. But before you can logically extract everything to do with your family and surname, you need a comprehensive list of what is available for your county and region.

You’ll also need to keep a record of what you looked for in that county, and when, because you may very well need to go back and access those records again in the future.

Recording Your Data: After you have a list of what’s available for your specific counties, in the next article, we’re going to talk about extracting information and recording it in a spreadsheet. If you don’t like spreadsheets, you can do the same thing in a table. But it’s critical that you record it someplace.

You’ll also index and transcribe it as you go so you can reasonably retrieve it. This is why I utilize spreadsheets – they are made for filtering and sorting.

Surname Searching: You’ve found location resources, but where do you find surname resources? For example, what about books written about the Estes surname, or internet resources? Some will be in books or webpages about the location, but certainly not everything.

How do you find additional resources?

Proof Table: Now that you HAVE data about all the people in a region or regions where your ancestors lived, how do you prove that the Moses Estes or George Estes in Halifax County, Virginia is YOUR Moses or George Estes? What about men with the same name? What if there is no definitive proof in ONE document?

We will discuss the Genealogy Proof Standard and create a proof table for every single generation because you need proof for every single generation.

Including DNA.

(If you’re beginning to think you might dislike me by the time this series is finished – I fully understand. If it helps any, some days I’m tired and mad at myself.)

DNA: How and when can you use DNA as part of your proof argument? What about the different types of DNA? When are they useful? Are they conclusive? How do they bolster or refute other evidence?

Can you resolve conflicts between DNA and a paper trail, and if so, how?

Leveling Up: Leveling up is a methodology of determining where you are in the process of evaluating EVERY PIECE OF EVIDENCE available about each ancestor.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

For those of us who have been working on genealogy for a long time, it’s easy not to think about using new resources when they become available. For example, the 1940 and 1950 census, new full-text AI from FamilySearch, and new newspaper resources like OldNews.

What do you need to do yet for each ancestor to bring them to current?

Writing It Up: Now that you HAVE this information assembled, what will you do with it? I fervently hope you’re going to write or record it for posterity. I’ve chosen the 52 Ancestors series that I’ve been writing weekly for several years, but there are other ways, too. Genealogy is about resurrecting and honoring the lives of our ancestors. The more factual information you can saturate the airwaves and internet with, the less “bad information” can take hold. Genealogy is a team sport.

Gathering and Organizing Location Resources

This article is focused on gathering and organizing resources for where your ancestor lived, NOT on retrieving the records in those resources for your ancestor and their surname. The next article will cover retrieving and recording the data using a consistent methodology.

If you’ve followed my blog for some time, you’ll know that I’m a spreadsheet person, but I also use MSWord documents to organize and utilize resources from time to time, especially if the text is long. I have one Word document for every ancestor.

I’m going to use a chart as an example, understanding that you will create your own resource-tracking tool that you’re most comfortable with.

The first consideration is that you probably have at least three ancestors in any specific location. By that, I mean at least two parents and one child. You may have significantly more ancestors and family members from that location.

Conversely, those same ancestors may have moved from location to location – even state to state or cross-country, so you may have multiple locations for the same ancestor(s).

In my family, I have clusters of ancestors in the same county. For example, my early Estes line, along with their wives’ lines including Combs, Younger and Moore, resided in Halifax County, Virginia for about 4 generations or more than 50 years. The first generation, Moses Estes (1711-1787) who moved to Halifax County by 1771 came from someplace else, and the last generation, John R. Estes (1787-1885), moved to Claiborne County, TN about 1820, not long after his marriage.

I searched Halifax County records for at least four surnames and multiple generations.

This means I needed to compile the various resources for Halifax County across a significant amount of time.

Resources for Resources

There are multiple places to find available resources for a specific county and state.

We will use these to complete our own research list by county. In the next article, we’ll be checking each one of these resources for surnames.

FamilySearch Wiki

The first thing I do when beginning to compile resources is check the FamilySearch wiki.

Googling “Halifax County, Virginia FamilySearch wiki” brings up a lovely compilation of resources.

You’ll find general information by category, followed by very specific information and multiple resources for each category.

Click on any image to enlarge

Also note that the county website link is given, along with the county formation history further down the page. Don’t neglect to check each county’s individual resources and parent county, if relevant.

If you’ve checked the wiki, or any resource list before, check back often because things change.

I enter each of the resources into a spreadsheet for that county. This is NOT the same thing as making a list of information discovered for an individual ancestor or surname. We’ll get to that later.

Don’t limit yourself to just the years that you know your ancestor was living in that county because records pertaining to that family may exist before your ancestor arrived and long after they left. Other family members may have preceded them, while lawsuits, deeds, and other records may refer to them decades after they left or died.

Here’s the beginning of a list for Halifax County,

Resource State County Link Year Range Surnames Findings
Virginia Bible Records Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore One was donated by the Tune family.
Halifax Biographies Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore
1782 tax list Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm, http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/halifax/census/1782/1782tax.txt 1782 Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore 5 Estes, 1 Combs, 2 Younger 6 Moore
Slave Draft for Defense of Richmond Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm

http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/halifax/court/1862slavedraft.txt

 1862 Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore 2 Younger, 2 Moore

I enter the county and state in two fields, so it’s sortable. If I’m checking multiple counties using the same resource, I enter the resource twice, one for each county and the surnames in that county that I searched for.

For example, this link for Virginia Bible records takes you to a link for Halifax County Bible records on the USGenWeb site. I listed the surnames I checked for. I also noted the Tune donation because I know from prior research that the Tune home is on the old Marcus Younger land and the families intermarried. When you search any county for another surname, be sure to add it to the list so you don’t have to wonder later if you checked for that surname.

For county histories and biographies, check to see if they are available digitally. In the next article, you’ll want to search for and record all instances of your surname, even if it’s NOT your ancestor, because of the FAN club, Friends and Neighbors (thank you ,Elizabeth Shown Mills). Those people may or will help you identify which ancestors are yours. Not to mention fleshing out their lives.

Tax lists are often used to replace or supplement the census. You should be able to determine if the lists are recorded in procession order or alphabetical order. Clearly, procession order is much more relevant because it shows who lives nearby or are neighbors. This may help you identify specific individuals, especially when there are multiple people with the same name. In the case of John Estes in Halifax County, Virginia, the tax list placed “my” John by his father, George, which was a huge clue. Eventually, on a tax list that was stuffed in the back of a deed book in the Clerk’s Office, I found another tax list with the note, “S. G.” by my John’s name, and another note on the “other” John that lived in the north end of the county. “S.G.” meant son of George, as that designation had been used and spelled out for other people elsewhere in the same tax list. I’ve never been so grateful to the taxman in my life!

The Slave Draft for the Defense of Richmond is a fascinating document transcribed by a volunteer from the court minute book.

From Minute Book 20 page 169 Halifax County, Va

At a Court Held for Halifax County on Monday the 4th day of April 1862. Present Beverly Sydnor, Howell Chastain, John M. Craddock, William Moorewell, James Kent, Henry C. Logan, James Richardson, E. A. Coleman, Archer A. Farmer

The court in consideration of the Draft from the Governor of the Commonwealth for laborers on the Public Defense near Richmond do order and direct that the Sheriff of this County do proceed for ___ to require the following named persons to deliver to him the said Sheriff at News Ferry Depot, Boston Depot, Clover Depot and as may be convenient to the parties on ___ the day of ___ at such see hours as he may designate the Slaves between the ages of eighteen and fifty five years directed to be furnished by each person in the said following list and proceed with them to the City of Richmond and deliver them to the Agent of the Confederate Government and take receipt for the Slaves furnished by each person.

Then, by district, the name of the owner, and the number of enslaved persons sent.

This information may provide insight into who enslaved others at that time, which may provide insight into families that were slaveholders historically. Additionally, it may provide important hints and clues for African American researchers who seek their family and may have adopted the surname of their former enslaver after the war.

Also, please note that these records may not be entirely accurate. For example, there’s a list of ministers who performed marriages, and my Rev. William Moore is not listed, but I actually have the list of his marriages, returns made in his own handwriting obtained in the courthouse in Halifax County.

If you remember, I found my way to GenWeb through the FamilySearch Wiki. When I finish listing the GenWeb resources, I need to return to the FamilySearch wiki to list any further resources.

You may find lists of out-of-print books for land and property records and other record types. I sometimes find out-of-print books for sale at www.bookfinder.com.

If you own the book, note that it’s in your own library.

To locate books, check the WorldCat entry, but also check both the FamilySearch Catalog by county, the Fort Wayne Public Library and other book resources as well.

Surnames

While the goal of this exercise is to document and record location resources, if you stumble across surname resources, certainly don’t ignore them and think you’ll find them later – you might not.

I suggest starting either a second spreadsheet, or new tab on this spreadsheet for each surname.

I maintain a separate spreadsheet for each location and one for each surname or group of surnames on the same migration path. For example, my Combs, Estes, Moore, and Younger families are migrating from the Virginia Colony into the new frontiers, so I track them together from Amelia and Prince Edward Counties, where they are first found through Halifax County.

Ok, back to searching for our county resources.

FamilySearch Catalog

To search the FamilySearch Catalog by county, sign in and then click on Search, Catalog, and Place.

I was given the choice of British Colonial America or the United States. I’ll check both to be sure I have all available resources.

Selecting “Land and Property,” one of the items displayed is the Antrim Parish Vestry book. By clicking on that entry, you can see that it’s available in the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. Maybe it’s available elsewhere too. I’ll check in a bit.

I build research lists from these resources routinely.

The entry for deed books shows that some are available online only at either the FamilySearch Library or a Family History Center (camera with key), which may be located near you. Other images are available online with no location requirement, indicated by the camera without a key, just by clicking.

These may or may not be indexed, and an index may be available elsewhere or by using the new FamilySearch Labs AI full text transcription tool. AI is not available for all records yet.

FamilySearch Labs

Next, try FamilySearch labs for additional assistance. I wrote about this new AI full text transcription tool, here.

You’ll see two features which may help you.

Using the “Find Help with AI Search” feature, type in what you’re searching for. I find the Full Text Search” to be much more helpful.

Click on “Go to Experiment.”

Typing “Halifax County, VA” into the search box returns resources from unexpected places. For example, county histories from elsewhere that reference Halifax County, or a Divorce degree, or a deed book from another county.

These are unexpected gold mines that you’d never find otherwise.

Note that this search is literally an exact match, so Halifax County, VA, is NOT the same as Halifax County, Virginia.

However, adding a surname to the location narrows the results substantially.

While normal deed and other books are indexed by the grantor and grantee, the FamilySearch full text search reveals EVERY instance of that name, including when referenced in another document. This feature is an absolute game-changer!

I can hardly wait to revisit my earlier work to see what’s new, but that’s part of the Level Up process.

It’s important to note that FamilySearch is adding new types of records to the AI collection almost daily, so check back often. Not everything uses the full-text transcription feature today, and while it’s quite accurate, it’s not 100%, so read carefully for yourself.

FamilySearch Book Search

You can also search for books by location or surname.

Allen County Public Library

The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana is one of the largest genealogy libraries in the US. You can search their site for locations, keywords, or surnames, here.

While these resources are generally not available online at this library, they alert you that they exist, and you may be able to find them elsewhere.

The one HUGE exception is the one-of-a-kind PERSI index.

PERSI

The PERSI, or Periodical Source Index is maintained by the Allen County Public Library as well, here.

You can search by location.

Click on a category that displays the results.

At the bottom of each page, you can open a form to request a copy of the article.

Ancestry.com Card Catalog

At Ancestry.com, you can search their Card Catalog by title or location.

Be sure to try different spellings and abbreviations, like VA for Virginia, or remove the word county, etc.

The results display a list of records for Halifax County in their collection.

You can click on the link to this book to search by surname or keyword.

These local histories are wonderful tools for fleshing out your ancestor’s stories because they tell us what was happening in their community during different time periods that would have affected and influenced their lives.

For example, in one of these histories, I discovered that one of the Revolutionary War generals and his troops marched right down the road in front of my ancestor’s home. It’s no wonder that he “contributed” brandy, food, and fodder for their horses.

Newspaper Sites

At Newspapers.com, you can see which papers were available and when.

You can also add a surname or first and last name.

Unless there’s a story about someone’s ancestors, there’s no point in looking for people who lived there in the 1700s and early 1800s. These are the publication dates, so an earlier ancestor could have been included in a 25 or 50-year history column in the local paper.

This same technique works with other genealogy Newspaper sites, too, including MyHeritage with a subscription and separately, their new OldNews site which contains newspapers not included in the MyHeritage subscription.

Also check out the Library of Congress digitized newspaper collection, here.

Newspaper Archive is available with an NGS membership, here.

Fulton County (not limited to Fulton County) and GenealogyBank are two additional newspaper resources.

MyHeritage

At MyHeritage, you can search by location or Newspapers as well.

MyHeritage has one book about Halifax County.

By clicking on the book, you can add additional search criteria.

Estes is mentioned 16 times in this book.

Library of Congress

Don’t forget about the Library of Congress, which has its own Historical Newspapers section, here.

You can also search by county or surname in the search box at the top. The images are all copyright-free.

State Archives

Don’t forget about your state archives.

Most have wonderful search capabilities and specific collections.

For example, the Library of Virginia has been indexing individual county chancery records dating back to the county’s formation. Chancery suits are where you find all the juicy stuff because people are asking for remediation and explaining why.

The index is here, and you can search by a combination of county and surname.

There are 59 records in Halifax County fitting this description, mentioning Estes in any capacity, reaching back as far as 1795.

Don’t neglect later cases because many times later cases tend to be lawsuits filed about much earlier estates and property divisions. They also tend to provide relationships in their narrative.

You’ll also notice that often, the plaintiff and defendant aren’t Estes, but they are clearly mentioned somewhere in that case, perhaps in a deposition.

Clicking on “View Details” displays the entire case file.

The resources at each state library are different and vast, so take a look and check back for new offerings and features.

Google is Your Friend

Google can turn up amazing resources, but it can also lead to some unsafe sites, so be careful and don’t just click without thinking.

Google “Halifax County Virginia genealogy society.” You’ll receive eight results that may have databases, members, or donated materials, but these resources may not be complete. For example, I wrote and donated a Moore genealogy to the local museum, which doubled as a genealogy society, and that “book” isn’t listed anywhere in any resource list.

You’ll often find multiple groups focused on the county of interest. These groups will likely have dedicated and interested volunteers and other researchers.

RootsWeb

Ancestry shut down the RootsWeb mailing lists, but they are still out there even though you can no longer add information.

If you Google “Halifax County, Virginia Rootsweb,” you’ll be shown several pages and entries, some of which may or may not be useful to you.

One link provides a list of the 1860 slaveholders compared to the 1870 African Americans on the census. This could be extremely useful!

Google Books

Another underutilized tool is Google books, found here.

Some of these resources you’ll not find elsewhere.

Also, check out the other Google features, such as Images, Maps, and more, which may lead you to other resources.

I love old maps where sometimes you’ll find old stream names, landmarks, or even settlers’ homes with their name.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is an initiative found at the Internet Archive to digitize out-of-copyright books for public consumption.

You can read more here.

Genealogical.com and American Ancestors

Don’t forget about book publishers that specialize in genealogy books like Genealogical.com and American Ancestors. Both are searchable, offer both hardcopy and e-books, and American Ancestors sells used books too.

Facebook

Last but not least, Facebook has many groups, including county-focused genealogy groups.

Sign in to Facebook and then use the Facebook search for the county you want.

Some groups maintain a list of resources.

Be sure to check both “Files” and “Features,” then use the Facebook search function to search for your surname(s) or other relevant locations or keywords in the Discussions.

In Summary

As you step through this process, it’s easiest if you include links to the various sites so that you can extract names in the next step. Links make it easy to return in the future and quickly review to see if anything has been added.

Even if you don’t find anything relevant at the site, be sure to NOTE THAT. That way, you never have to wonder and replow that same infertile ground. For example, if you determine that none of your four surnames are in a book written in 1937, they will never be in that book. If you don’t record that you looked, you’ll be left to wonder a few years from now and you’ll find yourself looking again.

However, a new book about that county might be written in the future, so it’s important to continue to look for new resources.

It’s also important to know that you searched for Estes, Moore, Younger, and Combs in Halifax County because you might, someday in the future, need to search for a new surname, like Hart. This way, you know what you did and did not search for in the past.

Why might you need to search for a new surname? Brick walls fall. Sometimes, the FAN Club turns out to be an important key to unlocking relationships that may extend back in time to earlier locations. People did not live or move in a vacuum.

I’ve made every one of these mistakes and nothing makes me unhappier than having to look something up, AGAIN, because I failed to record what I did.

The same advice holds for hard-copy books in research libraries. If nothing else, I take a picture of the front or inside cover and the index so I know what to record and that nothing was found. I wish I had done that from the beginning. Live and learn.

The biggest lie I’ve ever told myself is, “Of course I’ll remember that!”

Your Turn

It’s your turn now. Happy hunting!

Our next articles in this series will discuss how to record data from these resources so that it is both useful and findable again.

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RootsTech 2024: Paradigm Shift – FamilySearch Knocks It Out of the Ballpark With Full Text AI Search, Transcription & Indexing

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RootsTech 2024 kicked off on Leap Day, offering a wealth of sessions with remarkable depth and diversity.

All of the RootsTech keynotes and some of the sessions are available, here, for free. You’ll find them on the RootsTech YouTube channel as well.

This year’s RootsTech theme was “Remember.” I really encourage everyone to view Steve Rockwood’s keynote welcome, which, as always, is incredible and made me cry. Steve always makes me cry, but this time, he made himself cry too. Trust me when I tell you that, as a speaker, there’s nothing more difficult than trying to regain your composure on stage in front of thousands of people.

You’ll love this, though, so watch, please.

Well, now that you’re all blubbery, too, let’s move to tech.

FamilySearch Tech Forum

I was eagerly awaiting the FamilySearch Tech Forum, but I never expected what was in store. This knocked my socks off.

The panel discussed, among other topics, how they are utilizing generative AI, artificial intelligence, to preserve and reveal the records that we need to access.

Don’t let the word “AI” scare you. FamilySearch has been working on this project for more than a year and it’s working quite well in the way that they’ve implemented it.

They introduced us to the new technology roadmap and told us to buckle up for an innovative journey. I’m all strapped in and can hardly wait. Fortunately, we don’t have to.

The new FamilySearch AI tools provide more than a roadmap. It’s more like the galaxy just opened up.

The AI field is marked by explosive growth with the ability for Deep Learning. FamilySearch is harnessing this energy for genealogists.

FamilySearch has implemented a full-text search AND transcription capability in its lab sandbox. Additionally, every handwritten document that it transcribes is also indexed and, in some cases, translated.

They are using LLMs (large language models) and GPT (generative pre-trained transformer) systems to enable this technology.

In a nutshell, these AI systems are trained to recognize both words and script and to predict which words are most likely to come next.

This incredibly powerful mixture is only the beginning, though.

FamilySearch envisions creating family trees for entire cities and countries.

Be still my heart.

Can you imagine the power of a combination of probate records, wills, property records, census, vital records and the trees that can be created and verified FROM those records?

This technology will also facilitate comprehensive views of ancestry across entire regions with the capability of uniting people across the globe.

Holy COW.

I sat in stunned silence, unable to believe what I was hearing.

But they weren’t finished.

They’ve also built new search tools.

There are two types of searching. Let’s look at the second type first.

FamilySearch Helper

FamilySearch built a prototype, FamilySearch Helper, to help you. 

The new search tool includes the 100,000 FamilySearch wiki pages, the FamilySearch blog, and the resources at over 5000 Family History Centers.

To begin using the new tools, go to FamilySearch.org and sign in. Then scroll down until you see the FamilySearch Labs box on the right.

Click on “View Experiments,” and voila!

Next, click on the Find Help box.

This new search tool provides links across knowledge articles on multiple platforms.

Just type something in and try it.

I’m sure you noticed the other options. In fact, by now I’ve probably lost most of my readers because they clicked on that Full Text Search button.

Let’s go there next.

Full-Text Search

The Full-Text Search is a tool created for working with unindexed images, many of which are plagued by a variety of issues, including:

  • Poor quality image
  • Horrible handwriting
  • Lack of structure
  • Dense text
  • Just too many

Now, full text transcripts, searches and indexing are available with the click of a button. This is truly a genealogist’s dream come true. The results aren’t 100% yet, but WOW.

Just type what you want to know. I typed, “Joel Cook in Russell County, Virginia” to see if there’s anything more about this ancestor.

Look at this awful image quality. On the right is part of the transcription. The AI tool did amazingly well, certainly enough for me to determine that this is indeed the Joel Cook for whom I was searching. These documents, especially in deeds, not only index the grantee and grantor, but every name in the document.

Game-changer is an understatement.

Their example utilized Thomas Colson.

You’ll be presented with options. The presenter knew that Thomas Colson was from Massachusetts, so she clicked on that deed, which was, in fact, her ancestor.

100 million records are now available for full-text search, and that number grows every single day.

Collections available to be indexed include:

  • US Land and Probate

  • Mexican Notarial records
  • Plantation Records

Plantation, land, and probate records often include the names and locations of enslaved individuals. I’m helping my cousin track his enslaved ancestors, and this is an incredible boon to that research. I think I’ve found his ancestors in a probate record.

FamilySearch will take every unindexed image and run it through their full-text search AI tool over the next several years. I hope they’ll do this with records that are only partially indexed as well.

This process pairs the power of human volunteers and AI. Humans still need to adjust things a bit, and you can volunteer to help with that as well.

Please click the feedback link and be helpful and KIND!!

Speaking of AI

I took a series of classes in the fall from Steve Little who is teaching AI through the National Genealogical Society.

You can watch one of Steve’s instructional videos in the NGS RootsTech booth, here.

I remember that he mentioned that if a transcript is available for a video, one could copy and paste the transcript into AI tools such as ChatGPT or Claude and prompt the model for a bulletized summary.

I was disappointed that RootsTech did not provide transcriptions for their videos. Considering their announcement, I find that to be highly ironic, and it made me laugh.

How do you know if a transcript is available?

Here’s a great 1-minute video about how to find a transcript on a YouTube video. If a transcript were present, I could use AI to summarize and not have to watch the parts of videos that I don’t want/need. Of course, if you use the transcript tool, you’ll miss out on the accompanying slides, so beware. However, transcripts come with a timestamp, so you can scan the transcript and then view the slides at the time marker in the video.

The RootsTech videos don’t have an included transcript, but FamilySearch has posted the videos on YouTube too, so I have a second chance. I didn’t find any transcripts there either, so I asked Steve if I was missing something.

Indeed, I was. Steve provided a wonderful little summary for me showing how to generate a transcript if there isn’t one.

Normally, if transcripts exist, they will be found under the little three dots (…) at far right, beneath the image.

It never occurred to me to look for a generate transcript option under the video’s description. I think I clicked literally everywhere else hunting for this.

Thanks, Steve!

Steve follows AI passionately, and you can subscribe to Steve’s free blog, here.

I encourage everyone to take Steve’s AI classes.

Your Turn

If I haven’t lost you already to the FamilySearch full-text search feature, try it now. What fun things are you finding? This new tool is more than a game-changer; it’s a paradigm shift.

Which record types would you like to see next?

I’d like to see court record transcripts, which are almost never transcribed and indexed. There are nuggets of gold there, too. One of my ancestors’ probate and estate information is missing, but by reading every entry page by page, I found his death month and year in the court records. Soon, reading page by page will be like viewing census records on an old hand-cranked microfilm machine. I can hardly wait!

I’m planning to search for each of my ancestors’ names to see if they are mentioned in records that I don’t know about. So far, I’ve found unknown entries for every person I’ve entered. Maybe I can finally unravel some of those mystery wives. Maybe you can too!

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RootsTech 2024 Happy Dance – FamilySearch Library and RootsTech Setup

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Monday, February 26th, dawned in Salt Lake City with beautiful blue skies. I was excited to walk the couple blocks to the FamilySearch Library. Come along with me!

I was planning to chase a few ancestors and had created a research list.

The iconic “salt shaker” of the Salt Palace with its “Point of View” unity signs, which is a permanent art exhibit, greeted me as I exited the hotel.

Fittingly, the Art Museum is next door in an attached building.

It was chilly and windy, but we’ll term it “refreshing,” especially since it became much colder later in the week.

Five minutes or so later, I was outside of my home-away-from-home, genealogy Mecca, the FamilySearch Library. I love this place!

Library Research – A Strategy List Pays Off

I always create a research list using the FamilySearch wiki and catalog. I only include items I can’t access from home. I don’t want to waste valuable time in Salt Lake City working on things I can do elsewhere.

This time, I was planning to work on a few stragglers who have proven incredibly difficult, and then a line that I had hardly touched.

I quickly found the land grant survey of my Joel Cook in Russell County, Virginia, then moved on to the Hill line out of New Hampshire.

I know that my Joseph Hill was born in Barrington, Strafford County, New Hampshire on September 2, 1791. Of course, like many families, several people were named the same name and often lived at the same time in the same place. They have to be sorted, one from another.

Joseph’s father, John Hill, was born about 1737 in Durham, Strafford County, New Hampshire, and died in 1804 in Barrington, New Hampshire.

John’s father, Henry Hill, was born about 1700, in Black River, near Dover, also in Strafford County.

The line continued, at least ostensibly, through William and his father, William, in Durham and Dover, both in Strafford County.

Was there evidence of this?

I met my cousin, Audrey, at the library in the morning.

She had previously recruited two Hill men, and we ordered Big Y-700 DNA tests for them. Their results were back, so I explained how to use the Big Y-700 and Discover tools and what we could discern. Fortunately, we confirmed our lineage.

We have more work ahead of us, but we do have two English matches, in different locations in England. I’m hoping that additional research and perhaps upgrading these men to Big Y tests will provide us with a location in England that might yield birth or other records for our Hill line.

By this time, we were ready for lunch.

Audrey and I made our way to the main floor of the library from the third floor, where we had been working.

It was still three days before RootsTech, and the place was already packed.

It did my heart good to see all those genealogists working hard and helping each other. I noticed several young people too.

During Covid-time, the library renovated and installed a very nice lunch or break area with several tables and vending machines. Nice vending machines. There’s a selection of frozen and cold food items, plus a microwave and complimentary paper plates and silverware. They also provide a clean refrigerator so you can bring your own lunch.

There’s no place nearby to eat anymore, and it’s a cold walk anyplace.

Plus, you really have to pack everything up, including your laptop, which disrupts your research. It’s much better to just grab food in the convenient snack area and chat for a few minutes.

Back upstairs, I began sifting through books and other wonderful resources. However, what I initially thought was a book turned out to be the most exciting revelation of my research.

The great irony is that I almost bypassed this item because I didn’t think that “Dover Neck Village” was the right location for my families. Fortunately, I always at least take a cursory look at everything because I learned long ago that it’s better to waste a little time than miss something critical.

One resource available only in the library is a map of Dover Neck Village, which was reconstructed in 1912 (for some reason) by local officials. The map shows the locations of the landmarks and residences of citizens between 1623 and 1723.

The library has a special map room that is AMAZING!

You can take the map to scan various stations on other floors.

The challenge was that this map was huge – probably at least 18X36. I wish I had taken a picture of myself holding it.

None of the scan stations could accommodate a map of that size.

However, this lovely young man who is serving his mission at the library knew of a way to help me. I’m INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL.

Joseph Gongaware had just finished some advanced training in the library’s “Memory” area, where patrons can bring their family photos and other memorabilia to scan and preserve.

You can see the scanner behind him, with the map partially hanging off of one side.

Joseph scanned the map in portions and digitally stitched the pieces back together.

It took him several tries, but when he was finished, it was perfect – as in, you really can’t tell that it was “stitched” back together other than the slight color variation. The text and lines are perfect.

Click to enlarge map

I am over the moon ecstatic.

Of course, I wouldn’t be quite that happy if my ancestors weren’t on the map.

BOTH John Drew, the father of Hannah Drew, and William Roberts, the father of Hannah Roberts, are shown on this map. Oh, happy day!!!

There’s one more hint too.

William Hill’s father, John Hill, was reported to have died in Kittery, Maine. Could this be the right parent for William, who was clearly in Dover, NH, given that he married Hannah Roberts?

Look, the location of the ferry to “Old Kittery” is marked, so this does in fact make sense, even though they are two different states.

This map is a goldmine in so many ways. The old Quaker Meeting House is marked too, as are other landmarks my family would have frequented, like the tannery, the old road, the ox pasture, the sheep pasture, the physician, the training ground, the old log meeting house, and ultimately, the “Oldest buring (sic) ground.”.

I literally wanted to jump up and do the happy dance right there in the library.

And you know what, every single person would have understood.

If you have a thumb drive, you can save the files to the drive. If you don’t have a thumb drive, they give you one!!

Seriously!

You might notice that I didn’t know the identity of Hannah Roberts’ parents before this trip, but I do now.

I was super excited, but I was also tired after a day of research, and this seemed like a good stopping point.

On the way back to the hotel, I noticed that there was still ice on those poor Pansys that had been planted a bit too early.

The Nordstrom’s window made me laugh out loud. I do believe this is a Florida man.

The Blue Iguana

I dropped my laptop bag off at the hotel and decided to eat at one of my favorite restaurants, the legendary Blue Iguana.

I knew if I didn’t visit before RootsTech, we would never get in. It’s very popular because it’s close and has excellent food.

The Blue Iguana is about a block away and quite unique. The restaurant is down a flight of steep blue steps enclosed by glass. The great news is that there’s a sturdy banister. The bad news is that it’s not handicapped-friendly.

I took this photo from above, looking down into the patio.

Looking off the other side of the steps here. You can see their reflection in the window.

The flowers are plastic, of course, but they are bright and cheery.

Color always warms my heart and makes me happy.

The inside is warm and inviting.

And the food is AWESOME. Who would think you’d find great Tex-Mex in Utah, of all places? I think these are my second-favorite tacos ever – and the first place doesn’t exist anymore.

Audrey and I enjoyed ourselves immensely. It’s a lot of fun having a research partner who is also interested in genetic genealogy.

Fine-Tuning Presentations

Arriving back at the hotel, I saw something I’ve never seen before.

You’ve heard of that mythical money tree? This is a donut tree. The chocolate donuts were to die for. Unfortunately, there were no chocolate donuts for the rest of the week.

Beginning now, evenings would be consumed with fine-tuning my presentations.

I’ve never given a RootsTech session that’s 2.5 hours long before, and I wanted it to be perfect. Pacing 1 hour is hard enough. You want to move fast enough but not too fast.

Plus, vendors are well known to modify their products or webpages just before RootsTech – so I had to check everything.

And there’s always that elusive spelling error just lurking.

I fell into a fitful sleep, worrying about PowerPoints that didn’t work and hotel doors that wouldn’t open. I woke up at 4:25 a.m.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???

At least as the sun came up, it was another beautiful blue-sky day!

Cold Tuesday 

Tuesday morning was downright cold and windy. Icy gusts swept through the valley.

I had to stop at the light, and I looked across the street to see someone riding one of those “lime” rental scooters.

I shivered thinking how cold they must be, then thought to myself that I’d surely fall off. Based on their bag, I surmised that they were probably a genealogist heading for the FamilySearch Library, which would be opening in a minute or two.

Wait!!!

Isn’t that Audrey???

It sure is! I’m impressed. She is one brave lady! She said she went about 3 blocks in 3 minutes and it cost her $3.

You pay via Paypal and just drop the scooter off out of the way when you’re finished.

On Tuesday, the library was jam-packed. In the front, the staff had set up folding tables and chairs in any open space.

Tuesday is always the day for broadcasts, podcasts, and, previously, the bloggers’ lunch.

However, the Blue Lemon, where we used to gather, closed, and the blogger group walked back to the mall. I was really torn. I was heads-down in New Hampshire, and I wanted to go to the lunch, but I didn’t want to go.

New Hampshire won, but I missed my friends.

Everyone loves those great MyHeritage bags. They are sturdy, lightweight and fold up easily for travel. This year’s bag didn’t have DNA on the outside.

Do you have any old discs with known or unknown files but no way to read them? Audrey brought these and the library retrieved the files off of the old, years-obsolete diskettes.

Keep that in mind!

Lunch took place in the snack room again, catching up with people I hadn’t seen in a least a year.

I wish I could share the energy with you. The utter joy at spotting someone you know.

And even if it isn’t “you,” just watching other people joyfully greet each other.

Once again, the library stayed open late, but I was at a good stopping place and decided to return to the hotel and finalize my presentations.

I noticed the signs had been placed on the sidewalk between the library and the Salt Palace. Early festivities began the following day, Wednesday. During RootsTech, FamilySearch provides a free shuttle golf cart between the facilities.

I had planned to go back to the library on Wednesday, but I never made it.

Walking back from the library, the wind had begun to blow, and snow was in the air. We were just hoping for not-too-much snow.

The new silver high-rise Hyatt dwarfs the salt shaker now. I wanted to stay there until I saw the $450 per night price. Wow!

Setup and Speaker’s Dinner

On Wednesday, I had lunch with a friend and then headed over to the Salt Palace to pick up my lanyard and nametag.

In the past, the registration lines have been hours long, and I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t stranded in a line with more than 200 speakers later that evening.

The staff was putting the final touches on the hall as the speakers arrived for the Speaker’s Dinner.

Steve Rockwood, the FamilySearch CEO, welcomed us and spoke briefly.

Seldom is one person skilled in both leadership and speaking, but Steve definitely is that person. He’s one of the most inspirational speakers I’ve had the privilege of hearing.

This year, his message was about RootsTECH, with TECH emphasized. He talked about the inspiration for a technology-focused conference. The first RootsTech was held in 2011, and has technology ever morphed since then.

Of course, genetic genealogy has become increasingly important and prevalent. It went from a novelty to a comprehensive and critical tool in the genealogist’s toolbox. Today, AI for genealogy is bursting onto the scenes, too, and holds incredible promise.

New technologies and new tools!

It’s hard for me to believe I’ve been to exactly half of the RootsTech conferences.

After the dinner concluded, I joined another speaker who had access to the Expo Hall which wouldn’t be open until RootsTech officially opened its doors the following morning, welcoming genealogists by the thousands from around the world.

My first commitment on Thursday morning was a book signing in the My Genealogy Books booth for my DNA for Native American Genealogy book.

Unfortunately, there were some glitches with the Expo Hall vendor map, and their booth was not shown, so I definitely wanted to be sure I knew where I was going ahead of time. I hoped other people could find it the next day, in spite of being omitted from the map.

The hall was eerily quiet.

The vendors’ booths were, for the most part, all ready for the crowds who would begin streaming in at 8 AM and fill the space with their excited, happy voices.

Final touches were being applied to some booths, and the Salt Palace staff was still rolling out the carpets that would attempt to soften the concrete floors. One of the FamilyTreeDNA staff told me that she walked 60 miles in three days last year. I didn’t walk nearly that far, but 20 wouldn’t surprise me, and I felt every step of it!

By morning, everything would be pristine.

I didn’t manage to get a photo of the many RootsTech helpers, but hundreds of FamilySearch volunteers made navigating this huge conference center much less confusing. Donning shirts that asked, “How can I help you?”, they directed many confounded genealogists in the direction they needed to go.

The RootsTech staff and volunteers really do go out of their way to help everyone and make RootsTech a world-class experience.

Tomorrow would be here before I knew it.

And yes, as all speakers do, I reviewed my slides – again.

I had two book signings, two presentations and two ask-me-anything (AMA) sessions on opening day. I also hoped to attend a couple of classes.

Was I nervous? Of course – this conference is huge. It’s the granddaddy of them all. No one wants to mess up or make a mistake, or, heaven forbid, have a technology issue.

And we know, for a fact, that Murphy takes up residence here during RootsTech week.

We also know that our fellow genealogists have our back.

We know that other speakers will help as much as possible. Every single one of us has been on both ends of that.

We know that the RootsTech staff and our room ushers are there for us. They are amazing!

We know that we can go to the Speaker Ready Room and have a moment if we need to, or take a Tylenol, grab a water, or a quick snack.

Most importantly, we know that everyone else at RootsTech is as excited as we are, and everything will be just fine. Just keep repeating that to yourself!

What no one does is sleep well the night before RootsTech opens. We are all just too excited!

_____________________________________________________________

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Relatives at RootsTech – How to Use & Connect with DNA

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Relatives at RootsTech is back and I’m so very glad to see it.

Let me show you how to use this wonderful tool, including tips for how to get even more out of the experience.

It’s important to start now to accumulate your cousins, because there’s a display limit of 300 in each category, so you’ll want to begin recording your findings so that as more people sign up and are added to your list, you don’t “lose” the earlier relatives.

Let’s start with my link. Click here.

You’ll be prompted to sign in to your FamilySearch account, or create one. If you don’t have an account, create one now.

Right now, the number of participants is doubling every few days.

Let’s take a look at how Relatives at RootsTech works and how it can benefit you.

Surnames

At first glance, the surname tool doesn’t look terribly exciting, but there’s a hidden gem, especially for newer genealogists.

I entered my surname and one other, knowing there is probably no common locations other than the US. Kvochick is very rare and unique.

The results show two interesting things. First, the genesis of the surname, and second, the total number of people in the FamilySearch tree in both of the common locations for both surnames.

Be sure to try variant spellings too.

After you sign in, you’ll be asked to update your profile which is how you join in on the fun. If you signed up for Relatives at RootsTech last year, that doesn’t count for this year. You need to opt-in for this year’s festivities.

RootsTech Relatives

After you sign in, you’ll see how many of your relatives have joined.

Of the 60,461 total who have joined, according to the FamilySearch tree, I’m related to about 15% of them. That sure gives new perspective to how many people we’re related to. And just think if those brick walls didn’t exist. We’d be related to just about everyone. Far enough back, we’re all related, literally.

Your Relatives at RootsTech are displayed in three ways.

By location, ancestor or family line.

Relatives by Location

Your first view will be by all locations (including people who did not select a location,) but displayed in closest to most distant relationship order. For me, that’s the most interesting part.

These people, my closest relatives, are the people most likely to have critical pieces of information that I don’t have or know about. Like family stories, or photos, for example.

I know one of these people, but not the rest. I’m dying to know who they are and how we are related.

For me, the map itself isn’t terribly useful, but it would be if some members of your family were from distinct locations.

Not everyone opts in to have their location displayed. The “173” in the center is the people who generically selected United States.

Relatives by Family Line

The Family Line display shows you the number of people by parent or grandparent. Unfortunately, you can only view 300 of your matches in each line, which is disappointing.

However, there’s a better way to view your relatives.

Relatives by Ancestor

For me, the best way to view relatives is by ancestor. This also circumvents the 300 limit to some extent, unless you have more than 300 relatives for any one ancestor.

I have two relatives who also descend from Curtis Benjamin Lore. It’s Jen and Jill again, my closest relatives.

I’m quite interested in these people, because Curtis is my great-grandfather and he was a very interesting man. I know Jen and Jill are interested in genealogy too, or they would not have signed up for RootsTech Relatives, this year, in the past few days. This is not a stale list.

I’ll be messaging them as soon as I’m finished with this article!!!

Please note that FamilySearch does not label half-relationships accurately.

Jen and Jill are my HALF second cousins twice removed, which will affect the expected amount of shared DNA. Their ancestors, Edith and Maude were half-sisters through their father, not full sisters. One of the reasons I’m so interested in communicating with Jen and Jill is because I’m not at all sure that those half-sisters knew each other existed.

Maintaining Contact

For each relative found, you can view your relationship, message them, or add them to your contact list. Be aware – your contact list “saves” this person, but it does not tell you how you’re related. That’s where either a Word document, with screen shots of how you’re related, or a spreadsheet where you can detail that information is important.

If you have messaged people in the past, those messages are still in your message box in the upper right-hand corner.

I generally provide my email address when I message relatives.

Displaying the Relationship

If you click on the “Relationship” button, you’ll see how FamilySearch believes you’re related to each match.

My relationship with an Acadian cousin, beginning with our common ancestor, is shown above. Grab a screen shot so you can remember. I drop them into a spreadsheet or Word document.

These matches are based on FamilySearch’s one world type of tree. I don’t have to tell you to be cautious because, like any tree, there are erroneous connections. This connection, at least on my side (left hand,) seems to be accurate. I don’t have Jeanne Chebrat’s second marriage to Jehan Piorier in my file, so I’ll need to check that out. Many times FamilySearch, WikiTree, Ancestry, or MyHeritage has connected documents or sources. In this case, here’s the WikiTree entry for Jeanne.

See, I’ve found something interesting already.

Search for People

On the toolbar, if you click on the right arrow, you’ll notice there’s one more option – Search.

If you think one your cousins might be attending, either virtually or in person, you can search by surname. I entered Estes out of curiosity.

This is quite interesting, because some other poor soul is also named Roberta Estes. You KNOW I’ll be messaging her. I’m pretty sure I know who this is, because we’ve been getting mixed up for years. Unless, of course there are actually three of us interested in genealogy.

However, where this Search option really shines is if you’re looking for males who descend from a particular line as candidates for Y-DNA testing.

Bingo!

I suggest doing this name search for each surname in your tree.

The Share Button is Critically Important

Sharing is the key to encouraging people to participate.

This button on the main page is how I generated the link for you to use to see if we’re related.

There’s a “Share” button in several locations. However, you’ll want to be sure you know exactly what you’re sharing. In some cases, it will be the surname comparison information or other information that you’re viewing. 

However, on the bottom of your Relatives pages, Share will generate a message link to/through several programs or apps so people can sign in to see if they are related to you.

You can also just copy the link and send it to someone in a text message or otherwise.

If you generate a message to share, you’ll see what will be posted, so you’ll know for sure exactly what you’re sharing. I wanted to post the link for my friends on Facebook to see if we are related, and that’s exactly what was generated.

If you follow the link to see if we are related, be sure to tell me, or anyone else whose link you follow.

Next, Connect with DNA

Relatives for RootsTech is a wonderful segway into DNA testing.

Remember, with the 300-relative limit, different searches will produce different results including people that won’t be included due to the 300 limit in other searches. Be creative and search in multiple ways. Add your relatives to your spreadsheet or Word document, then record whether they’ve DNA tested, at which vendor(s) and if you match there.

There are various ways to utilize Relatives at RootsTech for DNA.

  • Y-DNA candidates for the direct paternal line for males – The Search by surname can provide you with Y-DNA testing candidates. They may already have tested their Y-DNA with FamilyTreeDNA or their autosomal DNA with at least one vendor, so just message them and ask. Tell them which databases you’re in. Viewing Relatives by Ancestor can be very useful for this same purpose, especially if you have multiple unrelated lines with the same surname.
  • Mitochondrial DNA – the Relatives by Ancestor tool is very useful for locating mitochondrial DNA testing candidates, especially since you can easily see how they are descended from your common ancestor. Mitochondrial DNA is passed from women through all females to the current generation, which can be male or female. Any of your cousins, of either sex, are candidates so long as they descend from your target ancestor through all females.
  • DNA Pedigree Chart – If you’re building your own DNA Pedigree Chart with the Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA of each ancestral line, consider offering a DNA testing scholarship to people who carry those lines that are missing in your DNA Pedigree Chart.
  • Testing Candidates – Anyone is a good candidate for autosomal testing. No second cousin or closer has ever not matched. Ask your cousins if they have tested and tell them which DNA databases you are in. Furthermore, suggest that they upload their DNA to FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage for free to utilize their tools and find matches that aren’t in the other databases. GEDmatch isn’t a testing company, but is another free database where you may find people who tested at Ancestry. Unfortunately, Ancestry does not provide segment information for matching or painting, so hopefully you’ll be able to find your Ancestry matches elsewhere.
  • Databases – Be sure you’re in all of the databases (Ancestry, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage and GEDmatch) so you can be found and you can find your relatives.
  • DNAPainter – If you’re painting your segments at DNAPainter, you can paint your matching segments from 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage or GEDmatch. Ancestry is the only vendor that does not provide matching segment information for their customers.
  • DNA Search – If your cousin has used their actual name when registering at FamilySearch, sort by ancestor, then search your DNA matches at the various vendors for that cousin’s name. The beauty of Relatives at RootsTech is that the relationship is already sorted by ancestor, so that piece of the puzzle has already been assembled for you, which is exactly the opposite of most DNA matches. Of course, this does not preclude errors or connections through multiple ancestors.

Limited Time – March 31 is the End

If I had a FamilySearch genie and could get one wish, it would be that they would leave Relatives for RootsTech up and available until the next RootsTech. I need time to work on these relationships.

However, that’s not the case, and Relatives for RootsTech ends on March 31st.

Therefore, it’s important to begin building your spreadsheet, or however you’re going to record your relatives, NOW. Check your list often so none of those precious matches will roll off of your list and become unavailable. Access to the complete relative match list, meaning no 300 limit would be my second wish from the FamilySearch genie.

To preserve the ability to communicate with your relatives, message them now or at least add them to your contact list – WITH A NOTE IN YOUR SPREADSHEET AS TO HOW YOU’RE RELATED. Otherwise, that information will not be available after March 31st.

You’ll want to use the same spreadsheet from year to year, as some of the relatives signing up this year probably did last year too.

Ready, Set, Relatives at RootsTech

Have fun. Be sure to let me know if we’re related and how!!!

____________________________________________________________

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Preparing for Research at the FamilySearch Library

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One of my readers asked about what type of research facilities are available in Salt Lake City (SLC). They are attending RootsTech for the first time.

I’m so glad they asked. This article will answer their question but is also a broader article about how I research specific lineages and locations. Please note that I’ll be including lots of links where you can find additional information.

The FamilySearch Library is extremely useful to genealogists, even if you can’t visit in person. This article isn’t just for in-person visitors, although that’s where I’m focused today. It’s really for everyone and will help you understand how to access the various types of research tools available, and where.

When in Salt Lake City, the Family History Library, now called the FamilySearch Library is THE place to go for research. It’s world-class and equivalent to Mecca for genealogists.

The FamilySearch Library is pictured above. Just a block away, with the red arrow, you’ll find the Salt Palace Convention Center where RootsTech is held. The large silver tower behind the red arrow is the brand-new Hyatt Hotel.

First, we’re going to discuss logistics, then how to prepare for utilizing resources at the library.

Family History Library Renamed FamilySearch Library

Just a few weeks ago, the Family History Library (FHL) rebranded itself as the FamilySearch Library, so you’ll hear both terms. Just know that by whatever name, this is the most comprehensive genealogy library in the US, as well as in the world.

The library is funded and sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as the Mormons. Genealogy is a part of their religion, so whether you are of the LDS faith or not, the library is beneficial, welcoming and does not attempt to recruit non-LDS visitors to the LDS faith. The staff and volunteers there are super-friendly and helpful. I am not LDS and I love this library.

The library hosts special hours, here, during RootsTech week, staying open 12 hours per day.

You can see lots of pictures, here and a map to the library, here.

If you haven’t visited in the past couple of years, the library has taken the opportunity to remodel and upgrade during the Covid down-time. I really look forward to visting the new facility.

Help

If you need help or direction, there are multiple ways to receive that, both virtually and in-person. Consultations are free and can be arranged, here.

On the library website, be sure to click on each of these helpful buttons to plan and get the most out of your visit.

Media

Within the FamilySearch Library, there are different types of resources you can access, including traditional books and microfilmed records through their complimentary workstations. The library is divided into sections, and you’ll find an information desk when entering.

Here’s a layout and a site map with additional information.

Food

Please note that while the library does have a breakroom where guests can eat, they don’t have food service. Many library patrons bring something in their bag and simply visit the breakroom quickly to eat. Peanut butter cheese crackers are a favorite of mine, along with protein bars. I refill a water bottle.

The closest restaurant is around the corner in the Salt Lake Plaza Hotel, and the next closest is the Blue Lemon.

However, most genealogists don’t want to pack everything up and then unpack after lunch, so they simply bring something to eat in the breakroom.

I strongly recommend a small rolling suitcase for your research, laptop, notebooks, pencils (I use mechanical pencils) and snacks. You’ll be carrying or pulling everything, all day long.

You may well leave with more than you arrived with, meaning copies.

Also, don’t neglect to bring phone charging cords (with electrical plug-in) in your library bag, along with a spare thumb drive or two. Voice of experience here. Your phone will double as your camera and prevent you from having to make copies. You can stand right at your table and photograph what you need.

Close to the RootsTech Conference

The FamilySearch Library is literally a block away from the Salt Palace Convention Center where RootsTech is held, directly across the street from the Marriott hotel. The Marriott has a Starbucks in the lobby.

The library is within easy walking distance and Salt Lake City keeps the sidewalks shoveled and clear of ice and snow, for the most part. Bring warm clothes that you can layer though, because it is the dead of winter.

There’s a coat check at RootsTech, but I don’t use it. I just wear a thin thermal-lined coat and stuff it in my rolling bag.

A word about parking. Don’t. I use Uber or Lyft. There is also public bus transportation from the airport. I’ve never used that. However, parking is very limited and if you’re going to drive or rent a car, you’ll probably want to park it at the Marriott, the conference center, or other paid parking and walk when you are downtown. Parking is quite expensive, especially given that you’re probably not going to use that car for days. Uber/Lyft is MUCH easier and if you need to Uber/Lyft to a restaurant downtown, it’s just a couple of dollars.

Most of us are so tired we just grab something quick at the end of the day and then just die in our beds. There are food vendors at RootsTech.

Research Prep

Ok, now that we have location and logistics out of the way, let’s talk about how to actually prepare to research.

Go to www.familysearch.org where you’ll be prompted to either sign in or create an account.

Click on images to enlarge

If you don’t have an account, create one. They are free and there are things you can’t see and do without an account.

Also, you can scroll down to view different kinds of assistance available, including at local Family History Centers and library affiliates across the world. However, this article is about preparing to research at the main FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City.

Having said that, I do suggest you take a look to see where your closest facility is located, because items in the FamilySearch catalog are available:

  • Online plus at the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City and in local Family History Centers
  • At the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City ONLY
  • At the local Family History Centers in addition to the library in Salt Lake City

When in Salt Lake City, you’ll want to focus your efforts on items that are available only at FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. You can utilize online resources at your convenience, and you can visit your local Family History Center or affiliate library easier than visiting SLC. In my case, I don’t have a local center or affiliated library anyplace even remotely close, so I’ll be accessing everything in SLC. Some local Family History Centers have very limited hours or aren’t active anymore, so check before you assume you can access something locally.

Family Tree

The FamilySearch Family Tree is a collaborate effort. Some people love it, some don’t. I use it judiciously to see if someone has found a record for an ancestor that I have not and attached it to that ancestor’s profile. You can access this tree from home, so I’m not covering it in this article.

Search

What you’re going to do is Search and make a list of items to reference when in Salt Lake City.

I prepare either a spreadsheet or Word document as I search.

Of course, experiment with each search category, including images.

For all county searches, you don’t type the word “county.” Just “Just Hancock, Tennessee” for Hancock County, Tennessee.

Book Search

In the Book search, you’ll generally want to enter one word, such as “Estes” or experiment with the Advanced Search Options.

Click images to enlarge

I was prompted to sign in before I could view this book. Because I can view it online, I’m not going to waste time viewing this book in SLC, but I might use it to prep, or view it later, so I’m adding it to my spreadsheet but not for SLC.

However, there will be books that you cannot view online.

This book is copyright restricted. You will be able to see some highlights, often including the index, but not the entire book. Click on the title to see additional information.

This book is physically located at the FamilySearch Library, so put it on your list for SLC using the:

  • Title
  • Author’s name
  • Title number
  • Call number

If you see a book that is ONLY available in off-site storage, contact the library before your visit to see if they can retrieve it for you. Be sure to record all call numbers on your spreadsheet. If you can’t find a call number, call the library.

Some locations of availability will be local Family History Centers, so be sure to read carefully. Additional books are available through the Catalog Search.

Catalog Search

My favorite search is the Catalog Search.

You can search in a wide variety of ways and combinations. Sometimes one search will pick something up that another won’t, so I use all of the searches.

In this case, I’m searching for items from Hancock County, TN. Sometimes I limit the search to “Online”, then search for “Any” because it’s easy to quickly tell if there is anything in a category that is not available online. For example, there are three items in the Cemeteries category, but only one item available online, I know to look in that category for two things that aren’t available online.

You can expand any of these categories to view the items listed.

By clicking on the title, you can easily see additional information.

The first book (series) is available in a number of ways.

The book volumes are available at the library in SLC, and also on microfiche at the library.

If these little film roll icons were the only availability, then YES, I would want to view these in SLC

The reel means microfilm only, and must be viewed in Salt Lake.

However, at the very bottom, the little camera tells you that some are available online with unrestricted images so long as you are signed into your FamilySearch account. This is why you need a FamilySearch account.

By unrestricted, I mean that you don’t have to be physically IN Sale Lake City to view the images.

This little magnifying glass icon means that the images are available, have been indexed and are searchable. Glory hallelujah.

So, if this is a group of marriage records, you can browse the records themselves, but if you search for a surname in record search with location, you’ll find people of that surname from these records.

Many records are not indexed or searchable, but some indexes have been filmed so you can cross-reference that way.

If you see the image of a camera with a key, that means that the image is ONLY available to view at either a Family History Center or affiliate, or the FamilySearch Library. Generally, that has to do with the license FamilySearch was able to obtain from the owning entity.

You can read more about the availability of catalog items here.

Additionally, sometimes notes are provided that direct you to other viewing opportunities.

Clearly, I don’t need to view this item in SLC.

You may see this note which means you should definitely put this item on your SLC list.

Here’s another article about research methodologies.

FamilySearch Wiki

Additionally, I use the FamilySearch Wiki often. I just type my desired search into Google. “Hancock County, Tennessee FamilySearch wiki”

The FamilySearch wiki not only tells you what’s available specifically for Hancock County, but other relevant record collections not at FamilySearch, and where you can access them.

Additionally, these pages explain about formation, boundary changes, record loss, cities, towns and villages within the county, and neighboring counties. The information is updated regularly, so check back from time to time.

Prep Summary

I find these pages and tools invaluable. I hope you do too and will find goldmines of information just waiting for you that will provide those missing pieces to your ancestor puzzles.

Preparing wisely is the key to getting the most out of your limited research time in Salt Lake City.

Have fun!!!

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Connect Your DNA Test, and Others, to Your Tree

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22

To optimize your DNA tests, each tester needs to take advantage of the features offered by each vendor.

In order to do that, we need to perform the following tasks.

  1. Upload or create a tree (except at 23andMe who does not support trees)
  2. Connect our own test to our own profile card on our tree
  3. Connect other tests we manage to their (or our) tree, depending on the vendor
  4. Connect matches who are known relatives to their profiles on our tree

Each vendor handles these situations differently, so we’ll look at each one of the vendors with step-by-step instructions for handling those situations. We all want to get the most out of the tests we’ve taken!

Plant a Tree

If you have not created or uploaded a tree at each one of the vendors (except 23andMe who does not support genealogy trees), please do so. However, 23andMe does provide for links to your tree elsewhere, so we will review that function.

I manage my “master tree” on my own computer, but I also maintain trees at both Ancestry and MyHeritage where I attach documents and research found at that vendor. I also update my ancestors at WikiTree to be sure other researchers benefit from new discoveries.

I have not uploaded my full tree from my computer anyplace because I have many private notes that are not appropriate for disclosure, not to mention speculative and unproven relationships. I created a pared-down tree at one time to upload to both Ancestry and MyHeritage, and build those trees out from there.

I’m often asked about replacing your tree at the various vendors with an updated tree. If you do that, be aware that you will lose your DNA connections and document links. I do NOT recommend that. I simply maintain multiple trees. I wrote about this in the article, “Genealogy Tree Replacement – Should I or Shouldn’t I?” If you are considering that option, PLEASE read that article first.

RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, and Legacy Family Tree Software all provide a syncing option with various vendors and FamilySearch, although not every vendor allows access to each of those software companies. I probably should experiment with the syncing option, but given a family member’s terrible experience some years back, I’ve been unwilling to do that. My biggest fear is that I will corrupt the file and not notice it until it’s far too late to revert to a backup.

When you upload or create a tree, make sure deceased and living people are marked as such, and you’ve opted to share your tree. If you don’t, you accidentally have a private tree. Worse yet, you might not realize it. I wrote about that in Quick Tip: Trees, Death Dates and Unintentionally Private Ancestors.

Now, let’s take a look at each vendor.

23andMe

23andMe does not support traditional genealogy trees, but they do provide a location for you to link your tree at another vendor or source.

Under your name at the right side, you’ll see “View Your Profile” under the dropdown.

I’ve not been able to find a generic Ancestry tree link that will allow non-Ancestry subscribers to view my tree, but it’s easy to do at MyHeritage. Simply open your tree at  MyHeritage and just copy the link at the top. Don’t worry, people won’t see anyone living.

If you want to use “one world” types of trees, you can also link to other trees such as FamilySearch or WikiTree, but just remember that you don’t control that content.

You don’t need to connect yourself to your tree at 23andMe, because there is no genealogy tree. However, 23andMe constructs a “genetic tree” for you using your closest matches, based on how you match other people, and how they match each other.

You can view your tree under “Family and Friends,” then “Family Tree.”

I added my ancestors’ names so it’s easy to keep straight. You can do that by simply clicking on the colored circle representing the ancestor, starting with your parents.

If you know that one of your matching relatives is not in exactly the correct tree location, you can click on their circle, and then click on Edit to make modifications.

You may want to add a relative that you can identify but who isn’t connected on the tree that 23andMe constructed.

Looking on the far-right side of the tree, in the lower corner, you’ll see “Add a Relative.” Click there and follow the instructions.

Ancestry

At Ancestry, you need to link your test to “you” in a tree. Your test can only be linked to one person in one tree at a time. You can change this, but you will lose any ThruLines you currently have. They will be regenerated based on the new tree you connect your test to, but based on the tree and other factors, they may not be the same. My recommendation is if you’re going to disconnect yourself and reconnect yourself elsewhere, record everything first.

Alternatively, you can take a second DNA test and simply link that second test to another tree. IMHO, that’s a better alternative. You can leave one in place as your research tree and use the second test to experiment with.

To link your test to your tree, select the “DNA” tab. At far right, you’ll see “Settings.”

You need to tell Ancestry who you are in your tree. Click on “Settings,” then scroll to “Tree Link.”

You can also link other tests you directly manage to their placards in your tree as well.

These links allow Ancestry to form ThruLines using both DNA matches and common ancestors in trees for 7 generations.

On your DNA Match page, Ancestry will ask you if you recognize a match.

If you click on “Yes,” you’ll be asked which side the match is on.

Then you’ll be given a long list of possible relationships in most-likely to least-likely order. Literally, Erik is the last option offered.

Select and confirm.

I’m not positive exactly HOW this helps Ancestry help you, but I suspect it confirms and helps Ancestry perfect ThruLines, relationship predictions, and perhaps even “sides” of ethnicity.

I wrote about Optimizing Your Tree at Ancestry for More Hints and DNA ThruLines.

FamilyTreeDNA

At FamilyTreeDNA, every DNA test kit has its own kit number and associated tree, so you don’t need to tell FamilyTreeDNA who you are if you create a tree from scratch on their site.

FamilyTreeDNA offers a unique family matching feature that sorts your matches into maternal and paternal sides.

In order to take advantage of this, you will need a tree. You can upload a GEDCOM file, although the upload at FamilyTreeDNA does not seem to do well with very large files.

If you don’t have a GEDCOM file on your computer, you can download a tree from either Ancestry or MyHeritage and upload to FamilyTreeDNA.

I wrote about this in the article Download Your Ancestry Tree and Upload it Elsewhere for Added Benefit.

If you upload a tree, you’ll be asked to select the person in the tree that is “you,” meaning the person who tested their DNA.

You’ll want to link known matches to your tree to enable Family Matching, aka bucketing, so that FamilyTreeDNA can divide and assign your matches maternally and paternally.

If you are building your tree at FamilyTreeDNA from scratch, simply click to begin and complete the information on the placards to add your information, then your parents, building out from there. You’ll want to add the ancestral lines to connect with your closest matches on your match list.

Family matching, or bucketing, is enabled by linking known matches to their proper place on your tree. FamilyTreeDNA then evaluates each match, determining if they match a common segment with you and someone you’ve linked. If that match does share a segment with both of you, meaning they triangulate, then that person is assigned either maternally, paternally, or both. I wrote about Triangulation in Action at FamilyTreeDNA, here.

The best people to link are your parents and grandparents, of course, but that’s not always an option. You’ll want to link as many matches as you can.

To link people, either click on the Family Tree tab at the top of the page, or on the “Link on Family Tree” under Relationship Range for individual matches.

Simply click on “Link Matches,” then drag and drop your match to their placard.

Here’s an example of linking parents.

Once someone is linked, the green dot will appear signifying that they are linked, and which type of test. Green is a Family Finder autosomal test, blue means they’ve taken a Y DNA test, and pink is a mitochondrial DNA test.

If your parents aren’t available to test, link every upstream relative that you can identify. By this, I mean that your children and full siblings will match you on both sides, so aren’t helpful for parental-side assignment.

People who have DNA tests from both parents can expect around 80% of their matches to be assigned maternally, paternally, or both.

If you have relatives who have tested at other vendors, you can ask them to upload to FamilyTreeDNA for free matching.

MyHeritage

At MyHeritage, you will connect yourself and any relatives whose tests you manage to your tree.

Under “DNA,” select “Manage DNA kits.”

At the right, you’ll click on the three dots, also known as a hamburger menu (who knew.)

Select Assign (if this is a new test or a transfer) or Re-assign a kit.

Be sure to do this for every kit you manage. I made that mistake and wrote about how I discovered and fixed the problem, here. Kit assignment enables Theories of Family Relativity and other super-helpful features.

I wrote about several things you can do to optimize your chances of receiving Theories of Family Relativity, here.

You can upload DNA kits to MyHeritage from tests taken at other vendors, here.

Fish in All the Ponds

I have provided step-by-step download/upload instructors for all vendors, here. It’s important to fish in all available ponds by making sure you have DNA tests at all four vendors. Then, upload or create trees and complete this bit of housekeeping to increase your chances of catching fish!

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here or follow me on Twitter, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Book

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research