Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Going Down Memory Lane ~ My Storyworth Book
Friday, May 19, 2023
A Favorite RootsTech 2023 Class Session
One of my favorite RootsTech 2023 class sessions was "How to Milk a Source for All It's Worth" by Amy Johnson Crow. It was an excellent class. I highly recommend this class whether you are a beginning, intermediate, or advanced family history researcher.
The description for this class is as follows: "If you’re finding a record, pulling out a fact, and then moving on to your next search, you’re probably leaving valuable clues behind. See how to get everything you can out of each source that you use."
In her class, Amy Johnson Crow pointed out that a source can help us with our immediate research and it has the potential to help us with ideas for other sources to research.
Using examples, Amy demonstrated how to get all the information we can from a source.
To view Amy's excellent class, click on the following link ~ How to Milk a Source for All It's Worth
RootsTech.org has provided great year-round learning opportunities on their website. In addition to Amy Johnson Crow's wonderful class, RootsTech has class sessions from multiple speakers, subjects, and RootsTech years available on the Video Library tab of their website. Here's the link to the RootsTech Video Library ~ RootsTech Video Library
You can also search the full video library using search filters such as Speaker, Year, and Content Type. To search the On-Demand Video Library, click the following link ~ RootsTech On-Demand Video Library
Thanks for stopping by!
Jana
© 2023 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved
Thursday, April 13, 2023
My 11th Blogiversary
Oops! I missed my blogiversary again. Ugh! My eleventh blogiversary was actually on April 5th. Wow! It's hard to believe it's already been eleven years since I began this blog.
THANK YOUBLOGGING YEAR IN REVIEW
Here are my posts from the last year (since my last blogiversary).
I Did It! I'm a College Graduate! - May 9, 2022
My AncestryDNA Ethnicity Inheritance Results - July 13, 2022
RootsTech 2023 Influencer - November 1, 2022
Fun With the New MyHeritage AI Time Machine - November 19, 2022
Enter to Win a Free In Person 3-Day Pass to RootsTech 2023 - January 9, 2023
RootsTech 2023 Keynote Speaker ~ Jordin Sparks - January 20, 2023
And the Winner of the RootsTech 2023 3-day Pass is... - January 23, 2023
Again, thank you for taking the time to read my posts!
Thanks for stopping by!
Jana
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
My RootsTech 2023 Recap ~ Saturday
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
My RootsTech 2023 Recap ~ Friday
Welcome to my RootsTech 2023 recap for Friday, March 3, 2023. If you missed my RootsTech recap for Thursday, March 2, 2023, you can read it by clicking HERE. As I mentioned in my previous recap, I attended RootsTech 2023 virtually.
Friday, March 3, 2023
My first class session on Friday morning was Lisa Louise Cooke's "Reconstruct Your Ancestor's Lives with Google." It was a fantastic class! One of the things Lisa talked about was using Google Earth Pro to create a family history tour of our ancestors' lives. I really need to give that a try! She also shared that Google Earth Pro is now free and that it used to cost around $40. Wow! I highly recommend watching this class. It's available on the RootsTech website at the following link: Reconstruct Your Ancestor's Lives with Google.
Next up I watched the General Session featuring Me Ra Koh. She shared her inspirational story of her life. She is a famed professional portrait photographer who taught herself how to take photos. That's incredible!
She said that she didn't find photography, it came and found her (paraphrased). After she finished her presentation, we all got to experience the incredible moment when Tamra Stansfield of FamilySearch presented Me Ra with her family history, including 32 generations of her Korean genealogy.
Friday, March 10, 2023
My RootsTech 2023 Recap ~ Thursday
Welcome to my RootsTech 2023 recap for Thursday, March 2, 2023. I attended RootsTech virtually this year. Many of my genealogy friends attended in-person and from their social media posts it looks like they had a lot of fun at RootsTech, which is awesome! From my experience attending RootsTech in-person in the past, there really is a feeling of energy and excitement at RootsTech when attending in-person.
Before RootsTech began I looked through the class sessions that would be available for us virtual attendees and then created my Show Planner, or as it is called on the RootsTech website, My Playlist. The RootsTech app refers to my playlist as My Show Planner.
During RootsTech I shared my posts about RootsTech on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram instead of here on my blog. So now I will be sharing my experience attending RootsTech virtually here on my blog. I'll be sharing three recaps, one for each day of RootsTech 2023.
Thursday, March 2, 2023
My first class session on Thursday morning was "What's New at FamilySearch in 2023" presented by Craig Miller. Some of the things I learned from that class were these amazing statistics about FamilySearch: There are 1.47 billion persons in the FamilySearch Family Tree, 2.6 billion total sources, 83 million total memories, 8.9 billion searchable names in records, 4.6 billion historical record images, and 1 billion new record images published in 2022. Wow! One of the sneak peaks for the future that intrigued me is the "Shared Family Trees" feature that will be within Family Groups. With this new feature, we will be able to work on our family tree collaboratively with others in our Family Group. To learn more about this upcoming feature, and more from this class, click HERE.
Next up for me was the General Session which included the very talented Jordin Sparks. She said that her family helped her keep her feet on the ground and her head screwed on straight. And that her family brings her back to center. And can I just say how amazing her voice is! Wow! What a treat to hear her sing at RootsTech!
Can I also say a word about the wonderful emcee for the RootsTech General Sessions? His name is Kirby Heyborne and he was such a great emcee! He was so fun and did a fantastic job. To learn more about him, click HERE.
The next class session I watched was "1950 Census Secrets" by Lisa Louise Cooke. Unfortunately, inclement weather where she lives caused a power outage and her class was cancelled part way through. But one thing I learned from her abbreviated class is that Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, and the NARA each have a different version of the 1950 census index. That's quite helpful because if we can't find our ancestor in one of these indexes, we should search the other indexes.
I also watched the Innovation and Tech Forum 2023, or at least part of it. One of the company's presenting in this forum was MyHeritage. Maya Lerner from MyHeritage spoke about their new AI Time Machine. I've tried this feature and it is very fun. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI), MyHeritage creates "imaginary images of a person, as he or she may have looked in different periods throughout history." Here is one of my 1950s Chic photos using MyHeritage's AI Time Machine. If you'd like to give the AI Time Machine a try, click HERE.
My next class session was "What's New at Ancestry in 2023" presented by Crista Cowan. She did a fantastic job with her presentation. One thing Crista pointed out was the comparison of time it took Ancestry to index the 1940 census versus the 1950 census. It took nine months to index the 1940 census and only took nine days to index the 1950 census using AI and handwriting recognition technology. Wow! A new feature on Ancestry is group messaging in the message center. Another new feature in the message center is the ability to archive messages. An upcoming feature on Ancestry is Info Request. So watch for that. A new and exciting feature is called Storymaker Studio. This feature is included in the Ancestry App. Storymaker Studio will allow us to "enhance photos," "capture audio," and "craft and share stories." To learn more about this new feature, click HERE.
My last class session of the day was "An Overview of Recent MyHeritage Photo Feature Releases" presented by Tal Erlichman. The AI Time Machine was discussed, which I already shared information about here in this post. Another feature that was discussed is the list view option for viewing photos uploaded on MyHeritage. Here is a screenshot of some of my photos on MyHeritage using the list view option. The red arrow is pointing to the list view icon. The icon next to list view is grid view.
Friday, February 24, 2023
Exploring the RootsTech 2023 App - Part 2
Next up in our exploration of the RootsTech 2023 app is a look at the Expo Hall. Clicking on "Expo Hall" takes us to the Expo Hall map.
Exploring the RootsTech 2023 App - Part 1
RootsTech 2023 is right around the corner. In fact, it begins next week on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Are you attending RootsTech? I am attending virtually this year. If you haven't registered yet, there's still time. To register for RootsTech 2023, click HERE. Virtual attendance is FREE and in-person attendance is currently $98.
Did you know that RootsTech has an app? Yep, it does. I have downloaded the RootsTech 2023 mobile app and have been exploring it lately.
Today I'm going to give you a tour of the RootsTech 2023 app. Here is a screenshot of the app's homepage.
Wednesday, February 22, 2023
RootsTech 2023 Keynote Speaker ~ Sean Astin
Have you heard the exciting news? Sean Astin will be a keynote speaker at RoostTech 2023! Yep, that Sean Astin, who played Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I love those movies! Sean Astin is a successful actor who has played various roles in film and TV.
If you haven't registered for RootsTech 2023 yet, there's still time. Here's the link to register: Register for RootsTech 2023.
Thanks for stopping by!
Jana
© 2023 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved
Saturday, February 18, 2023
RootsTech 2023 Keynote Speaker ~ Me Ra Koh
It has been announced that Me Ra Koh will be a keynote speaker at RootsTech 2023. Me Ra is a famed portrait photographer and will be the keynote speaker on Friday, March 3.
As stated in the FamilySearch news release, "Koh rose from humble beginnings, including physical and emotional challenges, to become a famed photographer featured on Oprah, Live with Kelly & Ryan, and other popular television shows, sought after photography expert, best-selling author, Disney Channel host, and one of the first two women photographers to be Sony-sponsored. Her family portraiture work has been featured in galleries in London, New York, and Los Angeles, and published in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Martha Stewart, Parenting, and Women’s World."
"She is also a sought-after motivational speaker whose inspiring story weaves in and out of personal tragedy, homelessness, and a period in a psychiatric hospital to a successful life as a wife of 25 years, a mother of two young adults, and the co-owner with her husband Brian Tausend of the renowned FIORIA portrait studio in Frisco, Texas, whose sole purpose, she says, is to celebrate people's resilience."
To learn more about Me Ra Koh, click on this link: Fioria.us.
If you haven't registered for RootsTech 2023 yet, there's still time. Here's the link to register: Register for RootsTech 2023.
Thanks for stopping by!
Jana
© 2023 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved