Nine Things I Learned at the Bruce-Grey Branch Fall Event

Each year for many years as I can remember, the Bruce-Grey Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society has held a day of presentations on a Saturday in the fall. Yesterday, the branch held this event at Grey Roots Museum and Archives  near Owen Sound.

Yesterday, we had two speakers: Mike Quakenbush and Steve Fulton. Both gave two fantastic, informative presentations. In each, I learned something new or got an idea of something I could do. I am sharing two things I learned from each presentation.

Social Media - making connections for genealogy - Mike [I didn't write down exact title. Mike pitched in for the first time slot as our original speaker on a different topic wasn't able to be there.]

1. Pages can be promoted on Facebook. You pay a fee but can target a particular demographic if you wish.  Groups can not be promoted but you can invite others to join.
2. Twitter can be a way of sharing information and sometimes making requests. Mike gave several examples of "gatherings" related to genealogy: #Acom, #GenChat and #Ancestryhour. [I am not on Twitter. I don't have a smart phone but Mike showed how having a folder on the taskbar of Chrome you can easily access different social platforms].

Getting Started with Digital Publishing From Book to Blog - Mike
3. You can password protect an individual blog post in WordPress but Google can still find them. You can add a request button to your menu where you can have a form where the person explains why they would like to see the page.
4. Having share buttons at the end of each post makes it easy to share your posts. [I have to figure out which plugin I would use. To share with pages on Facebook, it has to been one where I am an admin.]

Cemeteries that Sing - Steve
As a graveyard rabbit and also because I am giving a talk on Grey County cemeteries in November, I was interested in hearing this presentation.
5. When dowsing in a cemetery, Steve always does the width first then the length. This will help in finding where the monument is likely situated. In a Christian cemetery this should be on the west end of the plot. Steve demonstrated the technique using wire clothes hangers cut to make the tool.
6. With difficult to read monuments, take digital photos. Then with the windows paint program or equivalent use the red pencil tool and trace the lettering to help with making out the words.

Technology Overload: Let's Get Back to the Basics and Advance our Genealogy - Steve
7. Plan what will happen after your death with your research. This includes a "will" for your online existence. Make sure someone knows how to access it.
8. You can overlay the 1880 Ontario County maps over Google maps.

9. I would attend future workshops by both of these speakers as I enjoyed their presentation style as well as the information they provided.

© 2015 Janet Iles

Creative Gene: Carnival of Genealogy, 43rd Edition

Creative Gene: Carnival of Genealogy, 43rd Edition

The latest Carnival of Genealogy theme conerning Technology and Genealogy is now posted on Jasia's site. Once again lots of reading and good information for everyone. I just have to get caught up on my reading and blogging after having a great holiday in Central America. More on that later.

The next theme celebrates women in history. Now the challenge will be who will I write about?

Carnival of Genealogy - Technology & Genealogy

What technology do you most rely on for your genealogy and family history research? Select one piece of hardware (besides your computer), one piece of software (besides your internet browser), and one web site/blog (besides your own) that are indispensable to you. Resist the urge to dilute the impact of your 3 choices by mentioning several others you use and appreciate as well.

Hardware
Microform Machine (capable of handling both microfiche and microfilm). This good stand by gives a person the opportunity to view so many records that are not yet available in a digital format. - They are great for browsing information. The best machines are those that are, of course, in good working order, don't jam, give good quality prints and are set up erogonomically so that you don't have to have long arms to advance them. When the lighting conditions are just perfect for viewing and your chair is comfortable, you eagerly search for your family information.

Software
Brother's Keeper is the software program that I use to keep track of my family research. I find it straightforward to use. Citations are easy to do for each item of fact. Reports can be easily transferred to your wordprocessor for further editing.

Website/Blog
Now, this is tough one to decide. As a Canadian genealogist, I will select Library and Archives Canada. The information in the Genealogy Centre continues to grow. Recently, they have changed the web site and some of the search features but for anyone doing Canadian research, it is important to get familiar with what it has to offer - databases, digital images and how to information. The information continues to grow. If you have young people to whom you wish to introduce genealogical research, then check out the youth corner. A new link to a search engine that searches the Library and Archives Canada genealogical information and other databases is That's my family

Web 2.0 applications - Picasa - gets my vote

After looking at several of the Web 2.0 applications, I decided to download Picasa to my computer to organize and work with my photos. I already have the one that came with the digital camera and also one I downloaded from Adobe.



For a free application, it has a lot of benefits. I had a couple of photos from the wedding where there was red-eye. Wow it was easy to fix. I had a couple of photos that were taken in low light and I didn't take the time to figure how to adjust my camera (hard to do when it is dark). These were improved by using the Picasa features. I was not successful in using the "blog this" feature. I created a collage of pictures. You also can create posters. There are different ways to sort the files. You can watch a slide show. In the editing features cropping, straightening, removing red eye, auto contrast. Some fine tuning includes the fill light, highlights and one shadows and color warmth.

Here is a photo that I fixed up with the features from Picasa.

Google Docs

Google Docs

Google Docs is easy to use. You can use different formatting options, including the addition of photos, tables and links. One thing I wondered about was file size, so I checked the help file.

Documents

• Each document can be up to 500K, plus up to 2MB per embedded image.
• You can upload documents from any of the following file formats:
  • HTML
  • Plain text (.txt)
  • Microsoft Word
  • .rtf
  • Open Office (.odt)
• Each user has a limit of 5000 documents and 5000 images.
  

If a team was collaborating on a larger project, then the work would have to be broken down into smaller documents. Page breaks can be inserted as well as horizontal lines (separators). The ability to share files for revisions is a great asset. All revisions can be accessed. If a person uses more than one computer, I could see that it would be great to be able to access files created in Google Docs.

At present, I am not working on a project where I would use the ability to collaborate but it is good to know the capabilities of this tool. I particularly like that the work can be exported in a variety of file types. Many would find being able to export .pdf files also useful. Because this file can be posted to your blog, I could see me using it to be able to include tables.

Date YYYY-MM-DD	Event	Place	Source
1858-12-07	Birth of George X	West Field Guiting Power Glos.	Birth Registration
1859-01-02	Baptism of George X	Guiting Lower, Glos.	Parish Baptismal Register
1861-04-07	1861 Census	Condicote, Glos.	1861 census - http://www.ancestry.co.uk/

The above is an example of a table inserted in the document. By right-clicking in a cell you can make revisions to the table after it is inserted. I needed to add another column. The above is an example of a time line. This is one of the useful tools that I use when I am researching my own or other people's families. It helps identify errors and also alerts me to gaps in the research. The sources shown above are abbreviated. The actual documents would have full citations given. This chart could be expanded to include a document reference number. A future blog posting will talk further about using time lines in your research.

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This item was created in Google Docs

Library 2.0

The purpose given for Library 2.0 is that libraries should be user driven. I see a big use of technology to reach outside a library's walls to people who may not currently use a library's resources by entering the building.


Having looked at several library and book related blogs, I can see the value of providing book reviews and discussions on books - a virtual book club. Blogs too can be a great forum to advertize and discuss events at the library [to get feedback and ideas for future events].


When I read the articles in OCLC Next Space Newsletter, I did not do it from the screen but from copies that I printed out. Why? Because I find it hard to read anything on the screen that is more than a page long or that has long paragraphs. I like to get away from the computer to read.


When a library is looking at changes, the people who are already using the library in the more traditional fashion must not be forgotten. Not all people have computers or have high speed Internet. This may be for economic reasons not just an availability issue. Balance - is necessary. Each library needs to evaluate how they can best serve their current clientele as well as reaching out to potential members.

Through this learning experience, it is interesting to see what new is happening. It raises so many questions - Will funding forumulas for public libraries have to change if staff time and energies are used to provide resources for people who never enter the building or become members? Will there be members? Are more trees used for paper resources if people have to print out information in order to read it? How do you decide what to purchase in print format or only have available in electronic format?

Tagging - My cataloguing background comes through when I want consistency and some type of "authority files" so I am happy with sites that allow you to see your tags or pop up already used tags to choose from as you begin to type. I like that it is easy in del.icio.us to make global changes to tags. Can that be done in Blogger? - I am not sure about the idea about allowing people to tag in library catalogues? Would they be visible to everyone or only to themselves?

[I lost Internet connections at this point. So, my final paragraph was lost. Perhaps, a good reason to type up the information in a wordprocessor first.].

How will publishing change? How will writers be compensated for their work?

In the last 30 years, I have seen many changes in the public library world on how we find and provide information to people. At OSNGUPL, we waited and observed other libraries before we began the journey to become an automated library. I think that was a good thing. What will happen in the future? I don't know, but I know that it will be different.

Technorati

When I tried to post my previous post, I ended up with an error message. I went to the saved drafts and was able to recover what I had typed.

Technorati

I set up a technorati account. I added two genealogy blogs and one library related blog to my list and gave them tags.

When you do a keyword search for Library 2.0 in blog posts you get many posts where the term is used. When I searched the blog directory the number was much more reasonable and you could scan through.

When I checked the popular blog, searches and tags, I found the top searches were things I am not interested in as were the majority of the top blogs.

I may eventually "claim" my blog if I start writing blogs about researching methodology and some of my research.

Del.icio.us

I reviewed the different items in the OSNGUPL account and discovered that many had been bookmarked by other users. I found the comments could be helpful to users.
For people who used more than one computer, having their bookmarks available no matter where they were would be extremely helpful.

I decided to create my own account. Adding the del.icio.us and tag bookmarklets to my Internet browser only took a couple of minutes. I had to wait about 10 minutes for the e-mail that autheticated my account. I decided to export my current favorites and then import them into del.icio.us. This was easy as the instructions were clear. This took a few minutes as I have over 500 bookmarks. I like that the default is that all bookmarks are private until you make them available to be shared. It will take me awhile to go through "my favorites" I forgot what some of them were so a click on the heading takes you to the site. When I imported them it used the folder headings as tags. I added some comments and more tags.

If you are logged on to del.icio.us you can tag other sites manually.

Searching for Feeds

I tried the various search pages for blogs and news. Searching in all gave primarily American resources. Because they indexed individual postings a word could appear in a post but not necessarily be the main focus of the topic.

When I was using the Blogline searches, if I found one I liked, I checked out related feeds. From these, I chose others to add. Of the various search sites, I liked the Blogline searches the best.

One way that I have been locating is doing a Google search for the topic plus blogs. If the RSS symbol shows up on the Internet Explorer, I can choose to add it Feeds under Favourites or I can copy the URL into bloglines.

I have chosen three to post under Feeds in my favourites - two are about organizing and cleaning and one is Rick the Librarian who had been featured on Blogger as a blog of note. I will see which I find the easiest to use.

One of my favourite blogs that I now have added to bloglines so that I will know when it is updated is bigandlittle - a young Canadian mother who posts the most wonderful photographs of her children and her garden. I enjoy reading about her daily tasks. - Not unusual but you get interested in what is happening in the family.

RSS and newsreaders

Well, I have set up 20 feeds for my Bloglines account. Setting up the Bloglines Account was not too difficult as the tutorial was helpful. To set each up, I went to some of the blogs I already had in my favourites, I copied the url to the Bloglines add dialogue box.

The advantage of having the RSS feeds going to Bloglines is there is one place to check if there are updates to Blogs. Until I set this up, I was going back regularly to some of my favourite sites to check to see if there is anything new.

So far I have added only four sites of co-workers but I am sure I will add more especially if any continue after this project is finished. The majority of my choices have been genealogy related. One that might be of interest to Reference Desk staff is ResearchBuzz -- News about search engines, databases, and other information collections and Librarians Interent Index. I have chosen also the Word a Day, Home section of the Toronto Star and the Library 2.0 project blog.

Technology

Well, I think I am like many people when I think that technology can be a mixed blessing. I could not live without a microwave to re-heat previously cooked food or to "bake" a potato. I do not understand how a television, radio, telephone and the Internet work, but I am thankful to have them to use on a daily basis.

Computers and software can be annoying at times. They can be time wasters. They don't always behave the way you want them to behave or the way they should behave, but we have got so used to having them that we feel lost when we don't have electricity or we have lost our telephone connection during a storm.

When I was working on putting the material for my book, Churches of Grey Presbytery of the United Church of Canada: Historical Highlights, in to the software used by the printer for publishing, I had some trying moments. I was cutting and pasting from one program to another. All went reasonably well until I needed to insert information about a Church between two others and there was not enough space. Some ended into what I began to call la-la land. When I discovered "design check" and put it to work it indicated information in "overflow". Some times my mouse would accidently drag pages out of order. [Okay, it was me that was controlling the mouse.] If I realized it immediately, Ctr-Z righted the wrong. Thankfully, I did work things out in the end and everything appeared in the correct order for the finished project. All previous experience with the program had been with documents less than 8 pages. In the end it was 130 pages long with illustrations and maps inserted. I used the Internet, e-mail, photoediting software, two different word processors, an indexing program and the publishing program to complete the book. I can not imagine doing the book without the technology I have readily available in my office.

When I research, in addition to print resources, I use a variety of technologies from microfilm and microfiche to various resources provided by the World Wide Web, but I will leave that topic for another day.