First of all I wish to express my thanks for all the terrific results that I have been able to find on the various iterations of the FamilySearch website. The earliest that I remember was when I found my great grandparents marriage information, and was introduced to the Braunhart branch of my family tree. This branch, and the relatives that I have found have given me great joy as I have traveled the path to find my ancestors.

So THANK YOU, FamilySearch.

Recently this organization (which has provided the genealogy community with so much free information) has introduced some well-designed (in my view) capabilities that allow users to enter their family tree information, and upload photos and stories about their ancestors.

I had previously chosen to make my ancestors' photos and stores available via a couple of family history websites that I had created and currently own. That way at least I had some level of control. This was a personal choice at that time.

In reviewing the new FamilySearch tree, photos and stories features, I asked myself why would I want to put all of MY research on someone else's website? You should know that I am not a big fan of the "One World Tree" concept. Not because all of them have so many user submitted errors, but also because none of the sites where I have submitted trees have resulted in many "finds," with the exception of a half dozen connections I have made via Ancestry Family Tree.

I was intrigued by the new FamilySearch Photos and Stories capabilities however, so I did a little research, and this is what I found:

First of all, you must know that I am not a lawyer, nor have I had any legal training, but I have dealt for years with many hundreds of contracts in my pre-retirement profession. So I am not afraid of legal language, even if it is often difficult to decipher.

I was curious about the "ownership" issues regarding the uploaded photos and stories to the FamilySearch website, so I reviewed what is called the "FamilySearch Content Submission Agreement" which is available on the LDS.org website as a link from the Photos Agreement page, which one can get to by clicking "Photos" from the main FamilySearch web page.

There were two pertinent paragraphs that I found interesting and they are reproduced word for word below:


4. Licenses and Rights Granted to Us. By submitting content to FamilySearch, you grant FamilySearch an unrestricted, fully paid-up, royalty-free, worldwide, and perpetual license to use any and all information, content, and other materials (collectively, “Contributed Data”) that you submit or otherwise provide to this site (including, without limitation, genealogical data and discussions and data relating to deceased persons) for any and all purposes, in any and all manners, and in any and all forms of media that we, in our sole discretion, deem appropriate for the furtherance of our mission to promote family history and genealogical research. As part of this license, you give us permission to copy, publicly display, transmit, broadcast, and otherwise distribute your Contributed Data throughout the world, by any means we deem appropriate (electronic or otherwise, including the Internet). You also understand and agree that as part of this license, we have the right to create derivative works from your Contributed Data by combining all or a portion of it with that of other contributors or by otherwise modifying your Contributed Data.


and

7. 
Automated Screening. We reserve the right, without obligation, to monitor and edit your Contributed Data. We use automated filtering tools to suppress Contributed Data which appears in our best judgment to pertain to a living person or which violates the FamilySearch Terms of Use or this Agreement. Although we are not obligated to do so, we reserve the right to edit your Contributed Data for any or no reason.


Again I am not an attorney  but my reading of it basically says that FamilySearch can do anything they pretty much want with the photos and stories that you upload, including creating derivative works, and that they can edit your material for any reason.

Because of these restrictions as well as what appears to be the loss of rights to the material that I upload, I choose to not participate, for what I think are obvious reasons.

What do you think?  Any attorneys out there that care to weigh in?

Over the recent year or so, there has been quite a bit of writing, blog posts, and chatter about what terms in the "genealogy" arena appeal or do not appeal to those of us interested in the quest for our ancestors.

Many believe that it is all "genealogy" and then there are those that believe that it should be called "family history."

I am NOT going to present the arguments that folks have presented for either term - you can find those arguments on your own by performing a Google search and reading the arguments yourself. Nor will I present my own opinion. For those of you that know me, that is unusual.

Part of the argument is also - what terms appeal to newer and younger researchers as we encourage them to join us in this incredibly rewarding endeavor.

So - here are the facts - presented as data via Google search terms and trending information from Google themselves. Using Google Trends, essentially this can help us gauge interest in and usage of pertinent search terms. There are a variety of options with this analysis tool, such as geography and categorization, as well as assessing term usage over time.

But let's make this simple. Let us gauge first the use of the term "genealogy" and its trends since about 2004 (the chart on the top), and then the use of the term "family history" for the same time period (the chart right below). As you can see, since their peaks in 2004, both terms' usage have taken a nose dive in popularity, with the term "genealogy" taking  a bit of a deeper dive.

Now let's compare the two terms in the same chart and add Google's forecasting algorithm, which shows at the past and current levels of usage what the trending usage might be in the next year or so. The red line is "genealogy" and the blue line is "family history"

As you can see, the terms are "neck and neck" but the forecasting algorithm shows "family history" surpassing "genealogy" by just a bit.

And now for the big surprise   I added a third term "ancestry"  (which is orange) to see how it fared.  Take a look at the results from the data:

As you can see, "ancestry" surpassed "family history" in early 2010, and surpassed "genealogy" in late 2010. One could make the argument that the company Ancestry.com and all its advertising might influence this data, but I am not sure that it would have this much of a significant effect. Maybe so.

So, you can read the results from Google searches and the resulting trends; and you can make allowances if you want to for advertising effects.

But you can't ignore the data, can you?

Maybe "ancestry" should be the new buzz word.  Then again, maybe not.

You be the judge.

There are several subscription websites for researching City Directories to find your ancestors, including ancestry.com and fold3.com as just examples.

But are you aware of two free ones that are quite useful?

The first is well known, and that is Internet Archive (www.archive.org).  Just enter "city directory" with the quotes in the search box and depress the "Go" button. At the time of the publication of this post there are 1,696 results. You obviously would wish to refine the search by entering your city of interest, but it tells you that there are a lot of city directories available to you.

The second site, (Don's List) has a far less number of directories available, approximately 10% of the Internet Archive collection, and also includes some international directories. You can find the directory links at http://www.donslist.net/PGHLookups/Dir1Win.shtml.  The international links are on the right side of the page about half way down.

I have not done a comparison to see the overlap between the two sites, but either of them are extremely useful for finding out where your ancestors lived.  And in many cases, their occupation and given name of spouse is provided, depending on the directory.

City directories are an under-appreciated form of research. Lots can be learned and if your ancestor owned a business, even more can be ascertained.


Give it a try!

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about the reaction that I had received from a post on my Family History website Braunhart Mania regarding the imprisonment in 1920 of two of my ancestors. Shortly after sharing the story, which was included in a letter from one of the prisoners wives in Berlin to her sister-in-law in Brooklyn, I received an email from the grandson of one of the men incarcerated. He was totally shocked and surprised by the story and had never heard it before.

I related to my friend about how important it was for me to get as many family letters, artifacts and other precious materials from as many relatives as possible quickly (I am not getting any younger). Her response was that I was like a "pit bull" in my quest.

In discussing the whys and wherefores of my research project, which has become almost an obsession with me, it occurred to me that being passionate about one's research is absolutely essential to success and your happiness as a researcher.

You see, I have received incredible joy by performing my research. And it is not as you might think. The joy that has been bestowed upon me is really the satisfaction that I have been quite instrumental in writing the life stories of over 50 people. Without this research and certainly the cooperation of a small few of my "cousins," these stories would never be available and therefore could not be read by future generations of Braunharts; or Smiths, or Jones for that matter.

So as a result, my ancestors can indeed live forever - in their stories, photos, words and their deeds.

Furthermore, and this is equally if not more important, I have made a few connections with cousins that have been life altering because of researching our ancestors. One of my cousins for example, knew nothing of her ancestors because of the severe trauma of one of her parents in their childhood and the fear of revealing and re-living that trauma. Thus the child, my cousin, was never able to connect with her ancestral family. Through this research she is now able to do so, and it has been life changing for her.

It doesn't matter to me whether you are a great researcher, or a lousy one. I also don't care whether you can write 100% accurate and complete source citations, or whether you know your way around a cemetery or a courthouse.

The ultimate question you must ask yourself is:

Are your TRULY passionate about your ancestors?  Do you really care about them?  If the answer to either of these questions is no, or even maybe - then that means you are faking it, so why are you even bothering with this at times frustrating and always challenging exercise? Your ancestors deserve better, don't you think?