NY Times: Thomas MacEntee, Geneabloggers mentioned

Read an interesting story on family history resources online in the New York Times.

"Finding Family History Online," by Mickey Meece, can be read here.

The article included Ancestry, WikiTree, FamilyLink, Footnote, Tpestry, Facebook, Twitter and other sites.

Unusually, for a story dedicated to family history social networking, it did not mention MyHeritage.com.

Geneabloggers' own Thomas MacEntee was quoted:

Thomas MacEntee, a genealogy educator, writer and speaker, said the explosion of interest in genealogy was because of “an alignment of technology planets.” First came software, then the Internet and now social networks, he said.

“In the genealogy world, we have always been a social group,” said Mr. MacEntee, founder of GeneaBloggers.com, a community resource hub. “In a way, social media is a natural progression.”

...“This is a great time to be in genealogy,” said Mr. MacEntee, who became interested in the field after watching the 1977 television miniseries “Roots.”

Way to go, Thomas!

Three conferences in 10 days!

Tracing the Tribe has just arrived home after speaking at three conferences in two countries in 10 days!

Each was very different in format and topics addressed, and Internet access - on a personal level - varied, significantly curtailing communications. Jet lag, surprisingly, wasn't an issue on this trip. Along with the events themselves, Tracing the Tribe also connected with family, old and new friends.

The Society of Genealogists' Centenary Conference (London, UK; Saturday, May 7), was followed by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain's Northern Regional Conference (Manchester, UK; Sunday, May 8). Just two days later, I flew to the exciting National Genealogical Society's event in Charleston, South Carolina.

At the SOG and NGS, my topic was the IberianAshkenaz DNA Study as a case study - administered by Judy Simon of New York and myself - at FamilyTreeDNA.com. Each time this topic is presented, there is more to update on results and participants. It aways changes.

In Manchester, I spoke on social media for 21st-century genealogists, also an evolving topic.

At SOG and NGS, DNA was an interesting topic as the number of Jewish attendees is traditionally rather small, although there were more who had Jewish ancestry, some recently discovered. It was a different audience, with different questions, and we believe that these two opportunities helped to raise awareness of genetic genealogy - and FamilyTreeDNA.com.

From questions asked in session Q&As to those fielded during the rest of the events (and later emails), it was obvious that people are fascinated by this rather amazing tool available to us. The presentation includes the nuts and bolts of creating a DNA project applicable to any ethnicity, religion or geographic region.

At the JGSGB event - with some really excellent topics presented - it was a privilege to help explain how genealogists (as well as genealogy societies and other institutions) can benefit from today's social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and more.

Watch for separate posts on each conference.

Now back home in New Mexico, I still have a few weeks before the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree 2011 (speaking on creating online ancestral communities) and the Association of Jewish Libraries' event in Montreal (speaking on Sephardic research) soon after.

What do I do when at home, other than reading accumulated email, getting some needed sleep and generally not travel farther than the supermarket? Well, there are articles to write, a stack of books to review, and local genealogy goings-on, including genealogy presentations at local senior centers.

The schedule includes even more as I am genealogy co-chair of the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society, and involved in the creation and organization of the new general Sandoval County Genealogical Society.

Tracing the Tribe firmly believes that all Jewish historical societies should join the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS), as the NMJHS has recently done. It always seems that genealogists understand the connection between what we do and history, but that historical societies don't always see that essential connection. More cooperation between local genealogical and historical societies provides more learning opportunities for members of both.

What's on the menu for these two societies? We'll soon begin working on the new program year for both groups and contacting prospective speakers.

The Sandoval County society will be meeting the first Saturday of each month, from 10am-12.30pm, and we are working on the timing for the NMJHS events, which will be on Sundays (to be scheduled) at the Albuquerque JCC.

Back to email!

Florida: Internet goldmines for genealogists, Nov. 10

Gerald Naditch will present “Internet Goldmines for Genealogists” at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Palm Beach County on Wednesday, November 10.

The day begins with the Poland Special Interest Group from 11.30am–12.15 pm, a brick wall session at 12.30pm and the main program at 1pm, at the South County Civic Center, 16700 Jog Road, Delray Beach.

The presentation will review networking sites specifically directed to researchers of genealogy—blogs, e-zines, digests, forums, newsletters and more.

Some focus on helpful articles such as "How to Publish the Results of Your Genealogical Research" or "How to Make Proper Citations in Your Genealogy Program."

Others are in the form of a blog, which might be described as a stream of consciousness from a knowledgeable genealogist, often with comments from the general public.

Many are daily digests where researchers can exchange information, and websites such as Cyndi's List, a massive categorized and cross-referenced index to genealogical resources on the internet.

A computer expert, Naditch is the JGSPBC webmaster and vice-president of the Boca Raton Computer Society. He lectures frequently on topics of genealogical and computer interest.

Fee: JGSPBC members, free; others, $5.

The society is celebrating its 20th year. For more information, click here.

Your Tweets are History!

How Tweet it is - for eternity!

If you have ever sent a Tweet, your descendants will now have an even better picture of what you were like, your life, your interests.

For genealogists, this may be quite helpful to future generations who really want to know what their grandparent had for lunch.

Others do not feel quite the same.

Read on for the upside, and the down, of this recent development.

The Library of Congress, according to Matt Raymond's blog post, has acquired the entire Twitter archive. Every 140-character-or-less tweet that you have ever sent since Twitter launched in March 2006 - in anger, in humor, in simple status updates - will now be available at the LOC.

How many are there? Twitter gets more than 50 million - Twitter says some 55 million - tweets a day, totalling billions of the darned little things.

It was announced to the Twitter community via the LOC's own feed (@librarycongress); the LOC's feed has more than 50,000 followers:

Twitter posted the information on its own blog.

Library to acquire ENTIRE Twitter archive -- ALL public tweets, ever, since March 2006! Details to follow. (11:36 AM Apr 14th via web Retweeted by 100+ people)

That blog post also mentioned Google Replay.

"... It is our pleasure to donate access to the entire archive of public Tweets to the Library of Congress for preservation and research. It's very exciting that tweets are becoming part of history. It should be noted that there are some specifics regarding this arrangement. Only after a six-month delay can the Tweets will be used for internal library use, for non-commercial research, public display by the library itself, and preservation. ..."

"... Today we are also excited to share the news that Google has created a wonderful new way to revisit tweets related to historic events. They call it Google Replay because it lets you relive a real time search from specific moments in time. ..."

Read about Google Replay here. Although it currently only goes back a few months, it will include the very first Tweets ever created.

Raymond indicated that soon there will be a LOC press release with even more details, focusing on scholarly and research implications.

Other facts gleaned from these announcements: the LOC holds 167 terabytes of web-bsed information. That includes legal blos, national office candidates websites and Congressional members' websites.

For positive and negative reactions to this development, see the LOC post comments at the link above. Remarks included: Awesome, who owns the copyright (Twitter or the re-Tweeter)?, what right does the government have to a private individual's Tweets, is the 167 terabytes backed up?, tax dollars at work, waste of time and money, banal and narcissistic, no warning?, awful, access policies?, incredibly valuable resource, be careful what you Tweet online, what happens if a public Twitter account goes private?, can't put the genie back in the bottle, who owns non-US-generated Tweets? and more.

As should always be the case, be careful as to what private information you post on any social media networking site, such as Facebook, Twitter or others.

Northern California: 'Sharing, Preserving in Digital Era,' April 19

Learn how to share and preserve family memories in a digital age with speaker Daniel Horowitz at the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society's Peninsula branch in Los Altos, on Monday, April 19.

Doors open at 7pm, the program begins at 7.30pm at Congregation Beth Am, 26790 Arastradero Road, Los Altos Hills.

Today researchers have many options for storing and sharing research material, including text, images, videos, documents and sound. Today's tools range from "capturing" devices (such as audio/video recorders, cameras, mobile phones and scanners) to products for sharing (such as CDs, DVDs, portable disc, electronic photo frames) to the Internet itself.

For many, the Internet is the perfect place to share and preserve memories. Publish your material in a range of ways, from those that are completely private to completely public, everything between.

Ask for collaboration or confirmation or simply display the information; and you can control every aspect. Many easy-to-use tools and resources can facilitate the work of setting up websites, blogs, wikis or any other ways to publish the information.

Learn the different available options, establish your goals and decide the best way to publish your research and collected materials, and allow the younger generations to enjoy, help and collaborate in your project.

Born and raised in Caracas,Venezuela, Daniel Horowitz and his family have lived in Israel since 2005. He is translation and database manager at MyHeritage.com, a genealogical social networking site with many exciting features for connecting families around the world.

He's a computer instructor and teacher/creator of the Searching for My Roots genealogy project for young people. A founder/lecturer for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Venezuela, he's a member/webmaster of the Israel-based IGS/JFRA society and the Horowitz Family Association.

He's a frequent lecturer at international Jewish and general genealogy conferences and is a board member/webmaster of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS).

Fee: Attendance is free to all. For more information, contact the SFBAJGS vice president and branch chair Rosanne Leeson.

Technology: Facebook revamp

Are you Twitter-tired, Facebook-fatigued? Tracing the Tribe is so busy that we just don't log in as much as think we should. Perhaps this information will help.

The New York Times today writes about how Facebook is revamping itself to look more like Twitter.

Unlike Facebook, where friends mutually agree to let one another into their online lives, Twitter lets people share updates and links with anyone who cares to read them.

That has turned Twitter into a tool for people to peer into the collective mind and see what people are talking about in real time. It is also a tool for businesses to reach customers and monitor what their customers are saying about them.

Facebook seems to be very interested in those features. Since last fall, when Facebook tried and failed to acquire Twitter, it has been slowly introducing features that mimic Twitter.

Last week, Facebook added two new, Twitter-like features. Users can now “tag” friends or companies that they mention in status updates, and they can use a pared-down version of the site called Facebook Lite that resembles Twitter’s stream of status updates.

While a Facebook spokesperson says they are making changes to reflect the rapid evolution of how people share online information, others think it is Twitter envy and that Facebook is trying to copy Twitter features.

To tag another Facebook member in a status update, users type the @ symbol before the friend’s name. The @ symbol is a convention that Twitter users started. In response, Twitter added a section on its site where people can see any tweets that mention them. The mentions are hyperlinked so others could click on them to see the subject’s profile page.

Facebook calls this “a common Internet mechanism,” and expects Facebookers to use it more for storytelling.

Although we've always tagged friends in Facebook photos, this capability has not been available for status updates. Now, however, tagged people will receive an e-mail, along with a profile page update and their names will be hyperlinked to their pages.

Facebook says it enables users to “to talk about their real-world connections” and to interact more. Additionally, it will help the tagged (people and businesses) to see what others are saying about them.

What does the future hold? According to the article, Twitter will soon be introducing features to help businesses interact with customers. Facebook already offers special commercial pages and the option of buying ads.

According to a restaurant manager quoted in the story, he's happy and says that when the place is mentioned, friends can go to the company's profile page with a single click and the company will get an email alert. He also believes the new feature will bring people to the site because of the tagged alerts.

Facebook Lite is the other new feature. Its target market is Internet users with slow connection speeds or new users who want to learn about core features. The article calls it "essentially a stream of updates, like Twitter." Photos and comments are included (not on Twitter) but gets rid of a lot of current Facebook homepage static.

Previous changes - I think I really need to log in more often! - have included updating homepages to show real time updates from all friends, allowing brands and "names" to send status updates directly to Twitter, and allowing Twitter users to send tweets to Facebook.

Read the complete story at the link above.

NewspaperARCHIVE: Stay tuned!

It is always good news when the big online companies collaborate with researchers, genealogists and other users of their resource databases. Asking for input from users is valuable to the companies as it helps improve features and the experiences - ultimately - for all users.

NewspaperARCHIVE.com has just gotten into the act with its Facebook community, with a project called OurNewspaperARCHIVE. Because Facebook users have experience with social networking communities, the company felt they would be a great place to start.

For now, the company is limiting the beta test to those who are already members of its Facebook page community, so as not to overwhelm the system. It makes sense to Tracing the Tribe: Fix the possible bugs and improve functionality before making a public general release.

If you are already a member of the Facebook group for NewspaperARCHIVE, you can sign up at the new site, look around and test the site. The company is asking for feedback from beta testers, so I hope people will get involved to make the experience ultimately better for everyone. The company really wants to know what works, what doesn't and what enhancements would be appreciated.

Current features include groups, forums, blogs, comments and images. Features to come will include better integration of NewspaperARCHIVE with OurNewspaperARCHIVE, annotated image galleries, timelines, and more connection opportunities.

Stay tuned for more information.

Footnote + Facebook: 'I remember'

Footnote.com has just launched "I Remember," a Facebook application.

Footnote has met with many genealogists and family historians over the years, writes marketing director Justin Schroepfer. They've voiced a common problem - trying to get family interested and engaged with family history.

Instead of trying to get everyone to come to Footnote to participate in family history, the site is bringing Footnote to the masses via Facebook. "I Remember" enables people on Facebook to view any existing Footnote Page or create a new page without leaving Facebook, writes Justin.

These pages are used to document the life events and memories of our ancestors or anyone else that had a meaningful impact on our lives: family, friends, classmates, teachers, mentors, religious leaders, or even pets.

Utilizing the Facebook environment, people are now able to more easily share these pages with their friends and family.

Another feature is that any contribution or upload that is made on Facebook is also featured on Footnote.com.

According to the press release, the application is aimed at helping connect Facebook users to share memories of loved ones.

Few events in life generate the emotions and memories as does the passing of a friend, family member or colleague. However, without the appropriate tools and forum to preserve and share these memories, a loved one’s legacy may be lost. Now with I Remember, Facebook users can create a meaningful experience to honor those individuals that had an impact on their lives.

Using I Remember, Facebook users can share stories, upload photos, post comments and add facts about an individual. These facts will automatically generate a timeline of the individual’s life and a map detailing important places and events. Further, shared information will undoubtedly spark more memories. Soon a robust page can be created through the simple efforts of a few people coming together. For an example of an I Remember page, click here.

In addition, contributions using I Remember on Facebook will also be accessible on Footnote.com, a premier history website. From the I Remember pages on Facebook, users can easily tap into the over 53 million historical documents found on Footnote.com to discover additional information about those people they are remembering.

Click here to learn more about I Remember.

Social Networking: New ways to connect

And we thought we only had to contend with networked blogs, applications already available and Twitter-related apps.

We'll have to face many more applications after Facebook announced they were opening up to developers so they could create more programs to tap into it.

The New York Times' Brad Stone wrote an interesting article on this announcement.

TO understand the counterintuitive business wisdom infecting Silicon Valley these days, consider an imaginary corner supermarket, Joe’s Foods.

After establishing his store as a vibrant enterprise and a hive of neighborhood activity, Joe makes a strange decision: he props open the front door and invites everyone to come in, take the merchandise free of charge, and then give it away themselves.

All the extra foot traffic, Joe says, will make Joe’s Foods the social center of the community.

That is roughly comparable to what Facebook, the popular social network, did this past week. In a loud and proud public announcement, it said it didn’t care whether its members visited Facebook.com at all.

Facebook will provide tools to let other companies create programs tailed to a wide range of mobile devices like iPhone, and make it possible to share more information in more ways.

This is similar to what Twitter did - allowing third parties to create programs to help users. Numerous companies are creating new ways to access social networks.

French entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur's start-up faced high costs, so he fired half the staff and developed Seesmic Desktop, which allows Facebook and Twitter users to update without logging into either one. It also allows people to create groups of more than 1,000 followers or in a certain locality. It has been downloaded about 1.5 million times.

Ian Didsworth's TweetDeck is used by more than a million people, blending Facebook and Twitter streams. Amit Kumar's SocialScope is for BlackBerry users to check multiple social networks. Glam Media's network has about 600 lifestyle sites and blogs for women, and is working on Tinker, which allows people to receive moderated or edited update streams for specific events. The company believes it offers advertising attraction.

It seems there will be many more announcements. Things are free for now, but one never knows about the future.

Stone speculates that the new companies might even smother Facebook and Twitter by attracting users and advertisers away from those sites.

There's much more. Read the complete article at the link above.

The NYT, Facebook and Jewish genealogy

Are you on Facebook? It expects to register its 200 millionth user this week.

In today's New York Times, Brad Stone's Facebook story - in the Technology section - mentions Jewish genealogy. Hooray for us!

It starts out with stats and about the controversial changes to home pages, how it's struggling to keep up with sites like Twitter, other language versions and more. But then it gets into why many use it.

In my own first weeks on Facebook, I discovered two cousins from Russia now living in Germany, a third who had been moving around and was now in Moscow, and an old friend from our Teheran days. More recently, I viewed photos of a Los Angeles family event as a tech-savvy cousin posted them from the event. Our Geneabloggers group is also strong on Facebook.

The NYT story mentions Jewish genealogist Karen Haber of Tel Aviv:

Facebook can also help rebuild families. Karen Haber, a mother of two living outside Tel Aviv, logs onto Facebook each night after she puts the children to bed. She searches for her family’s various surnames, looking for relatives from the once-vast Bachenheimer clan of northern Germany, which fractured during the Holocaust and then dispersed around the globe.

Among the three dozen or so connections she has made on Facebook over the last year are a fifth cousin who is a clinical social worker in Woodstock, N.Y.; a fourth cousin running an eyeglasses store in Zurich; and another fifth cousin, living in Hong Kong selling diamonds. Now she shares memories, photographs and updates with them.

“I was never into genealogy and now suddenly I have this tool that helps me find the descendants of people that my grandparents knew, people who share the same truth I do,” Ms. Haber says. “I’m using Facebook and trying to unite this family.”

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says connecting people in various ways represents "a generational shift in technology."

The site is dealing with disgruntled users who are not happy about recent changes, and the story addresses the challenge of keeping 200 million people happy.

The company says users must learn how to better use privacy settings, to avoid embarrassing moments, such as conflicts between kids vs parents, employees vs bosses. The story reports that only 20% of members use privacy settings.

A social scientist who studies social networks says people spend a lot of time trying to be separate, such as parents and children.

Learn about possible future interactive advertiser tie-ins and probable user rebellion against ads.

Read the complete - and very interesting - story at the link above.