Issue 4.10
This information was taken from an article by Chanae Landeen, For Mormon Times
There has been so much time spent fixing problems with family history resources that we don’t spend enough time finding ancestors, said Don Anderson, director of the Family History Library and Worldwide Support Services Division of the Family History Department of the LDS Church.
“We need to stop this cycle of re-researching what many generations have researched before,” said Anderson, who spoke Saturday, Oct. 17, during the biannual Family History Conference at BYU-Idaho.
Anderson spoke of the new programs that the Family History Library is introducing and programs being phased out to make the family historians’ jobs easier.
Programs nearing the end are the Personal Ancestral File, compact disc products, International Genealogical Index, Pedigree Resource File, Family History Library catalog on CD, universal data entry, Vietnam and Korean war casualties, Scottish church records, research guidance and FamilySearch paper publications.
According to Anderson, “nearing the end” means sometime within the next decade.
The programs, Anderson said, are a part of a product cycle. It starts with a vision of a way to make family history better. Then it goes into the planning stage. Next, the vision is designed and developed. Then it is tested, released and goes through the cycle again. This is why the Family History Library is coming out with new programs.
The programs in the “beginning of product cycle” are Online Training, Family Tree Feature, Preparing Family Names for the Temple simplified, FamilySearch Wiki, Standard Finder, Record Search Pilot, FamilySearch Indexing and FamilySearch Book Scanning.
Anderson invited those unfamiliar with these programs to go to the FamilySearch Labs Web site. http://labs.familysearch.org/
“It’s a good place to get users to interact with programs to see if they work well,” Anderson said.
Anderson gave the audience a promise that he gives to everyone who works on family history.
“Jump in, get started and I promise you’ll get help from the other side … neighbors, family and, believe it or not, really unknown sources that just show up at your doorstep.”
Shanna Jones is a professional genealogist. For additional information, Shanna can be reached at (435) 628-4900 or shannasjones@msn.com.