Wake Genealogy Watch - Spring Edition 2024, v7.3 - Live Now at our website

The Spring 2024 Issue (Vol. 7, Issue 3) of our award-winning newsletter, Wake Genealogy Watch, is now available online for reading or download. You can visit the WCGS website  or access through this link - Wake Genealogy Watch, Spring 2024.

 

Features in this issue include:

• Read details of the recent unveiling ceremony for a new Historic Marker in Holly Springs.
• We are seeking a webmaster volunteer. Read the details and volunteer information here.
• Find RootsTech 2024 highlights including links to selected presentations, and the whole on demand schedule.
• Research tip – Finding Prisoners and other special populations in post-1900 Census Records
• Have fun exploring selected topics from the Wake Treasures Journal contents, now available to all. Featured collections are linked in this issue.
• Explore the Biofile image collection online at Allied Families. This vast collection comprises years of research on the Upchurch and their allied families in Wake County and their migrations elsewhere.
• Read about an AI image creation experiment using Bing Image Creator and other tools.
• Improve your photo preservation skills with this on demand video workshop from the Missouri State Archives.
• Learn about a very large donation of over 750 genealogy books that will benefit everyone with folks who migrated through Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.

 Photo Note: If you choose to read a printed version of this newsletter, some of the photos will be difficult to view due to size constraints. Please refer to the online edition where you can enlarge the photos to accommodate better viewing.  Click this Newsletter link to view this and all past newsletter content.  

 We welcome your feedback, input, and submissions for inclusion in future editions.  Please address all input to newsletter@wakecogen.org.

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RootTech 2024 Roundup

Artificial Intelligence made the biggest splash this year at RootsTech 2024. Check out the offerings and you will find AI applied to so many tasks in all areas of the genealogy world. The announcement that created the biggest shock waves came from FamilySearch. They have taken AI transcription technology and applied it - experimentally, so far - to their UNindexed  record sets. Their AI has the capability to transcribe handwriting, even old handwriting. I did a couple quick searches yesterday and it turned up results numbering in the hundreds to look through. This is an exciting new way to reseach my most stubbon elusive ancestors. Just FYI, you will find some shall we say "ODD" words included in  your transcriptions. The machine can only string together what it thinks it sees and sometimes that will surprise you. Poor sweet machine doesn't know that four letter words are four letter words... If that is what it sees, well, then you will see it too. Best to laugh and leave any sensitivities at the door.

Here is a link to the tool from FamilySearch and a blog post from Judy Russell She does a fine job of quickly walking us through the steps to return some new documents to review. 

FamilySearch Lab Tool - https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text 

Judy Russell's post - https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2024/02/29/gamechanger/ 

Ancestry seems to be putting most of their energy these days into building and promoting their Family Story format and Facebook-like interface,  to engage younger generations into becoming curious about their family history via quick, small bite exposures using the redesigned home page and the My Ancestry Feed that they introduced last year. They also talked up their new ProTools (extra fee) introduce recently. This set of tools for working with and maintaing your family tree is basically the same maintenance tools that you would find on any good desktop family tree product - Advanced Filters, Tree Checker (duplicates, missing info), Charts and Reports, and enhanced Map Views. Details the Pro Tools are here. 

Ancestry is bringing their set of DNA Match tools closer to current industry standards by offering some upgrades in the early part of this year. The new tool offerings include a view how your share matches match each other and their sharing amounts (a tool My Heritage users have found useful for several years). This will be a great help to all of us. Other changes include a redesigned user experience for working with notes and color dots (and more dots and special dot icons), easier search features, and other enhancements. The Shared Match comparisons will be part of a paid upgrade. It is not clear at this point what will be part of the standard subscription and what will be fee based.  You can view Ancestry's DNA tools upgrade overview video here and Crista Cowan's feature presentation below.
What’s New at Ancestry® in 2024 - Crista Cowan 

Of course there are hours of  presentation content for all topics within the genealogy world generated at RootsTech each year. I found this video on finding records at FamilySearch most valuable this year. I have a lot of deep diving I need to do and this will certainly help. This webinar was packed with helpful tips. The video link is below. 
Where did you find that? Effective searches on FamilySearch.org - Debbie Gurtler

Another webinar that I really liked focused on writing. This webinar actuallly inspired me to sit down and start writing about my elusive ancestor the same day so I could see where there were holes were in his story. If you want to be inspired too, watch -

From Research to Draft: Rapidly Writing Your Ancestor's Story - Devon Noel Lee

This was a fun research process demo. I have seen and used the Search Party method before and it is a nice way to get unstuck. 

Brick Wall Ancestors Need a Search Party - Janet Hovorka, Diahan Southard, Crista Cowan

Diahan Southard taught a four part series called You Can Do the DNA - This is a great series to watch whether you are just getting started working with your DNA Matches or are several years into the process. You never know what will spark a discovery and she has many good tips.

You Can Do the DNA - one,  two,  three,  four

On the DNA front there was also an nice panel discussion from the field's leading figures and a free commorative book that you can download. See the panel discussion here. 

Genetic Genealogy Turns 25: DNA Experts Tell Their Stories

Free digital copy of the book - So Far - Genetic Genealogy: The First 25 Years

Of course this just barely scratches the surface of the offerings at RootsTech. All the content generated over the last four days is available to view free in their content library. You can view this years content here and craft your own viewing party. Enjoy. 

RootsTech2024 Class Schedule - note that you will need to open the schedule for each day and theat there are several filters that you can use. 

The 3rd party vendor product announcements are usually as good as the presentations each year. If  you want to see the latest and greatest new tools coming our way, you will find them here. 

RootsTech 2024 Online Vendor Booth Videos & Resources

Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website - 

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Follow up to the September 26 virtual meeting - AI and Genealogy

For all who participated in Tuesday night'ss presentation from Steve Little - Artificial Intelligence and Genealogy, the interactive handout and guidance is posted on our website. Please go to the temporary handout space on the homepage to gather the needed files. They are now posted and will remain through this coming Friday, Sep 29 at 8pm. 

Use in this order:

1) Transcript file - be sure to read the instructions from Steve in the description box.

2) Speaker Handout - After working through the conversion process, compare your results to this sample created by Steve.

3) Chat log - additional file from the meeting.

Have fun and best of luck if you are working through you first AI attempt.

Visit Wake County Genealogical Society's Website - 

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RootsTech Roundup 2023: All the Tools, All the DNA, All the AI, All the Stories

RootsTech 2023 was this past weekend. Here is a short recap of highlights.

RootsTech is a live an virtual conference held yearly each spring. RootsTech is billed as a "a place to learn, to be inspired, and make connections through family history." The conference is live (this being the first  live instance since Covid) at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. If you are unable to make it to Salt Lake, you can tune into the conference virtually. The most wonderful part about that is that virtual attendance is free and the sessions are available to watch real time or at your convenience. This is a double win for virtual attendees since this weekend in Raleigh was just too beautiful to stay indoors. 

If you were outdoors all weekend, you can still join in the fun and learning after the fact. Watch the RootsTech 2023 virtual sessions here. (You may be required to register or log in. It is free.)

I did manage to hit a sampling of the sessions and came away with several recurring impressions:

• AI (artificial intelligence) is popping up often as vendors are discovering new ways to harness its power in the field of genealogy.
• Story telling and story automation (fueled by AI) are the activity of the year.
• DNA tools and methodology continue to be a steady interest and driver of presentations at this yearly genealogy and tech convention.

Here are some highlights regarding these three topics with links to guide you:

AI (artificial intelligence) 

AI is pervasive in the development of new tools. The Innovation and Tech Forum featured several examples from small start ups to big players like FamilySearch.

At 20 minutes in, Andy Gold of FamilySearch introduced a new tree technology - Computer Generated Trees. These trees are built by location (world wide) using records specific to the area. They are processed in the cloud using machine learning, AI and clustering. These trees focus family structures by creating a scaffolding to store the data to process complex connections quickly. The CGTs are time savers and connection facilitators!

Storied.com (at 27 min)- an online genealogy tree builder with an emphasis on bringing trees to life with vibrant, collaborative stories, introduced a new tool called Story Assist that uses an AI interface to build story drafts that you can edit and craft to your own voice. 

KinSame.org (at 36 min) - has used  AI to develop technology for identifying family relationships from images for a variety of applications. Could this be the end of all those boxes and albums of unidentified family photos? Can't wait to see if this holds up.

Ericsson (just before 46 min) introduces game changing tech...literally... as they pioneer AI generated virtual experiences created for use in the family history/genealogy market. Don a set of virtual reality goggles and have a visit with your great grandparents or that Viking ancestor from the distant past!

Facilitated Story Telling

In addition to the previously mentioned Storied.com, you will want to explore these new offerings.

Ancestry.com introduced Storymaker Studio just as RootsTech was getting started last week. Crista Cowan tells a great story from her family and walks us through the process of building a story with the new tool. Tool details start at about 52 minutes, but, really, watch all of Crista's Anatomy of a Story video.  More information on building stories can be found on the website.

FamilySearch.org is using AI to create stories, too. Craig Miller illustrates how FS is using AI to create stories using records to enhance indivitual profiles in the FamilySearch 2023 video (starts at 16 min in). This new computer generated story panel can be seen by checking any profile and opening the "about" tab. Here is an example of a FamilySearch AI generated story on the page of my great grandfather, William G. Tarleton. (I find the sentence structure kind of clunky. I hope that improves as the tool evolves.)

New DNA Tools 

My Heritage - Color Coding for Family Trees

My Heritage - cM Explainer for finer accuracy in relationship prediction for DNA matches

Ancestry.com - watch Expanding Your Family Tree with SideView and More AncestryDNA Innovations

DNA Presentations

Diahan Southard - (never miss a Diahan Southard class when it is offered!) 

Should I take a DNA test elsewhere? Or at all?

My Messy Complicated Birth Roots Story

Shared DNA Matches - the only DNA Tool You will Ever Need

Jonny Perl

How third-party DNA tools can help with your family history research

All the DNA topics for 2023

Beginner to Advanced   

Traditional Genealogy offerings

Not mentioned here are the huge number of  traditional genealogy topics for everyone to looking to solve any research problem you can name. View the entire searchable on demand list here.

Be sure to catch this session on research methodology and workflow from Janet Hovorka, Diahan Southard, and Crista Cowan. They are a heavy hitter tag team.  I guarantee you will learn a few new tricks.

DO GENEALOGY Step-By-Step 

Enjoy! I hope you find something that helps your research efforts.

Don't try to take in all this wonderful content at once. As you can see they keep a webinar library and much of the webinars are available for a year or more. So much to learn for free! I hope you will take advantage of all this goodness that RootsTech shares with us.

Visit the Wake County Genealogical Society - Homepage | WCGS Events | Join WCGS | Publications | Digital Resources | History Resources | More Links and Resources | Contact