{"id":570,"date":"2010-12-21T09:38:17","date_gmt":"2010-12-21T16:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/?p=570"},"modified":"2010-12-21T09:38:17","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T16:38:17","slug":"winter-greetings-from-a-very-wet-and-soggy-utah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/2010\/12\/21\/winter-greetings-from-a-very-wet-and-soggy-utah\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Greetings from a very wet and soggy Utah"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first day of winter<\/strong> arrived wet and soggy here.\u00a0 Not that we don’t need the wet–Utah has been very dry.\u00a0 Just getting it all at once is something we have difficulty handling.\u00a0 Seems the dirt along the mountains in the West becomes extremely unstable when it gets water-logged.\u00a0 Nothing to hold it up.\u00a0 And if we have had a fire recently taking all the brush, trees, and hillside debris, the dirt seems to melt away in the rain and very wet snow.\u00a0\u00a0 California\u00a0experiences the same melt-down–just more of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And my steep-pitched roof lost\u00a0shingles in recent wind storms.\u00a0 Naturally, with rain also melting the snow cover, the roof started to leak, down through the ceiling–remember that catchy song about\u00a0needing repairs only when it rains?<\/p>\n

New<\/strong> Beta FamilySearch<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

15 December 2010, the Family History Library launched the new Beta FamilySearch<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 I copied the “What’s New” page and got a surprise!\u00a0\u00a036 pages of critical comments dated 14-16 December–one irate woman stated she would “never be able to trace her ancestors again”–in capital letters!<\/p>\n

So I spent all day the 16th and\u00a017th December working on the Beta<\/em> sight.\u00a0 Oh, I had tried it earlier during the test period and disliked the many clicks required to access the data.\u00a0 I have since discovered that this is called layering<\/span>–going deeper and deeper into the databases, each time exposing more details.<\/p>\n

And the lack of a filter was maddening–when I asked for an ancestor born in 1700 in England, having to wade through thousands of entries for the 1900 and\u00a01880 US censuses was such a waste of time.\u00a0 I knew the computer could filter out all but the relevant time period and focus me on\u00a0those records I needed to track.\u00a0\u00a0Wasting time is costly for a professional genealogist.\u00a0 Getting the right data quickly is what we seek from the computer.\u00a0 And sometimes there is nothing quick about it.<\/p>\n

Actually, the new Beta<\/em> version\u00a0of FamilySearch<\/em><\/strong> is amazing!\u00a0 Giving\u00a0experienced researchers\u00a0access to huge amounts of genealogical information–HUGE–without overwhelming the beginning researcher who comes to the site without adequate preparation.\u00a0 I particularly like the Catalog<\/em>.\u00a0 You, gentle readers, know that when I am tired or I need a boost of inspiration for a difficult research project, I read the Catalog<\/em>.\u00a0 You can use the ancestor search window to ask for resources that match a specific person.\u00a0 Or you can browse the records categories by surname, title, author, keyword, film, or book number, etc.\u00a0 The total number of entries for each record category is given.\u00a0 And\u00a0descriptions are expanded in the entry listing so you can determine if that is the record you want.\u00a0 And actually, there are fewer clicks needed to get to the call numbers for retrieval.<\/p>\n

Transition to the New Format<\/strong><\/p>\n

Site managers\u00a0 assure us that 1) Feedback <\/span>from users is considered and the site will be up-graded and modified\u00a0to accomodate more effective use; and 2) User help includes understandable, step-by-step instructions to the new stuff.\u00a0 Not only that, to ease us all\u00a0through\u00a0the transition period, the previous version of FamilySearch<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is still\u00a0available to prevent confusion–although all the databases included in that version are frozen.\u00a0 No new data will be added\u00a0to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Enjoy this gift<\/strong>\u00a0–instead of restricting the newly indexed records to users at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City–more than 300 million records were posted online in August 2010, with millions more posted since–the whole world can now access Beta FamilySearch<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0at home or through more than 4500 local centers nearby!\u00a0\u00a0 Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle http:\/\/arleneeakle.com<\/a><\/p>\n

PS\u00a0 And be sure to send your comments, via the Feedback<\/strong> button on your computer screen.\u00a0 This is your chance to express what you need in both a search process\u00a0as well as access to records themselves for your genealogy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

PPS\u00a0 I just discovered that many orders have been placed for\u00a0 my books and publications\u00a0through Google.\u00a0 Imagine, you can purchase stuff, including mine, via Google.\u00a0 Through a glitch, email verifications and orders did not arrive in my own email inbox.\u00a0 We corrected that glitch Saturday.\u00a0 And I will now get orders on time.\u00a0 For those sent in the past weeks, I will process and fill the orders–to be shipped in mid-January.\u00a0 Please accept my sincere apology for this oversight and\u00a0know that I am learning, as quickly as I can, the online world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first day of winter arrived wet and soggy here.\u00a0 Not that we don’t need the wet–Utah has been very dry.\u00a0 Just getting it all at once is something we have difficulty handling.\u00a0 Seems the dirt along the mountains in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}