ONLINE HELPS FOR GENEALOGY AND COMPUTERS
©2020 by Donald R. Snow
This page was last updated 2020-01-05. Return to the
Utah Valley Technology and
Genealogy Group Home Page or
Don
Snow's Class Listings Page .
ABSTRACT: The secret to working with family history and computers is not knowing all the answers, but
knowing where to find all the answers. (And, about computers, sometimes that's to ask a grandkid!) This class will discuss places where you can find how to do what you need to in family history and computers. Among other things, we will discuss the FamilySearch Helps, the FamilySearch Wiki, the Family History Guide, online videos from several sources, and search engines such as Google. There will be time for you to ask questions and tell us what you are interested in. The notes and related articles for this class,
all with active Internet links, are on Don's
website
http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
.
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
- Instructor is Donald R. Snow of St. George and
Provo, Utah ( snowd@math.byu.edu
).
- These notes, with active Internet links and other
related articles, are posted on Don's website http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
.
- Tips: (1) To put an icon on your desktop
for the URL for these notes, or any webpage, just drag
the icon that is in front of the address in your browser to
your desktop. (2) To open a link while
keeping your place on this page, hold down the
Control key while clicking the link, so it opens in a
new tab.
- This class will discuss where you can find answers online for your family history and computer questions.
SOME MAJOR ONLINE HELPS
- FamilySearch Helps -- https://www.familysearch.org/en/
- FamilySearch Wiki -- https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Main_Page
- The Family History Guide -- https://thefhguide.com/
- UVTAGG (Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group) -- https://www.uvtagg.org/
- YouTube videos -- https://www.youtube.com/?gl=US&tab=w1
- Google and other search engines -- https://www.google.com/
- Not online, but an excellent place for help, is your local
Family History Center -- in St. George that's the FamilySearch
Center on the block south of the Temple -- https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/St_George_Utah_FamilySearch_Center
- Any of these, and many others, could be an entire class -- see other notes on my webpage
FAMILYSEARCH HELPS
- On the FamilySearch website the Help Menu icon is in the upper right -- click on the pick arrow (downward pointing trriangle) by the word Help and you see: What can we help you with?, Help
Center, Getting Started, Contact Us, Learning
Center, Community, My Cases, Research Wiki,
What's New, and Helper Resources.
- The Help Center menu has 16 topic icons for FamilySearch, so there is lots to explore here
- Te FamilySearch What's New on the Help Menu has 44 pages going back to 2010 -- https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/category/about-familysearch/whats-new-at-familysearch/
-- click Next at the bottom to go to other pages
- How to
use FamilySearch -- On the Church website,
but not on FamilySearch
- The FamilySearch Blog link is at the bottom of most pages and now has 195 pages with notes starting in 2009 -- https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/
-- click Next at the bottom to go to other pages
- The FamilySearch Community has 100s of FamilySearch groups which you can read and join for specific questions -- you have to be logged in with your LDS or FamilySearch account -- https://community.familysearch.org/s/
- FamilySearch Facebook Groups exist for many interests -- go to https://www.facebook.com/ and search for things like FamilySearch
- To get back to the FamilySearch Home Page from anywhere in FamilySearch click on the FamilySearch icon in upper left corner
- There is so much that it's hard to keep up with it all, but one of these locations may be just what you need
FAMILYSEARCH WIKI
- You can get to the Wiki from the Helps Menu or from the Search Menu on the FamilySearch Home Page or directly from -- https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Main_Page
- The Wiki now contains more than 90,000 articles about family history, computers, and related topics
- Read "New to the Wiki" to get started -- https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Help:Wiki_Help
- "Wiki" means it can be edited by anyone who is authorized, so it
is updated constantly by hundreds of people and has much information
- The articles are about research, history, geography, time periods, events, computers, software, libraries, locations, and more.
- Try searching in the Wiki for some country, e.g. "Ecuador" and see its history, civil registration, where to write for records, church records available, links to further information, and more
- If someone asks you "How do you ... in family history?", before you say you don't know, try the FamilySearch Wiki for answers.
THE FAMILY HISTORY GUIDE
- The FH Guide is a free website at
http://thefhguide.com/
sponsored by The Family History Guide Association ,
a group of volunteers who can always use contributions of money or expertise, but neither
are required to use it
- The URL extension is .com, but it is free -- the first page says, "Your free
learning, research, training, and activities center for
family history."
- Can be read in many languages, so it's helpful world-wide; contains a broad collection of introductory and advanced lessons, videos, projects, and training for family history and computers; goal is to teach you what you want, so skip what you already know or are not interested in
- Home page has a good 2-minute introductory Overview Video and Get Started icon gives you lots of good starting info
- 16-minute BYU video on YouTube by Ann Tanner about The FH Guide -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIvWRHRIvws&feature=youtu.be
- Use the SEARCH button, to find info about specific topics, e.g. there are over 900 articles on Utah on the site
- Scroll down on the Home Page to see many icons, e.g., Topics lists all their topics alphabetically and the list goes on for pages
- Click on The Family History Guide icon (upper left corner) to go back to the Home page from any other page
- Examples of content and lessons
- COMPUTER BASICS -- if you want a better understanding of how the computer works
- FAMILY HISTORY BASICS -- how to get started in genealogy, things to look for, what to do first, how to keep track of what you have found
- FAMILYSEARCH FAMILY TREE -- how to sign in and use FamilySearch Family Tree
- COUNTRIES AND ETHNIC -- QUIKLinks for states and countries with data from several sources
- TRAINER RESOURCES -- helpful for self-training and for helping others, includes Tracker sheets to keep track of what a person is learning and what to do next
- CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS -- special information for Church members doing family history
- There is a free newsletter you can subscribe to keep up to date
UVTAGG = UTAH VALLEY TECHNOLOGY AND GENEALOGY GROUP
- Home Page is -- https://www.uvtagg.org/ -- Goal is to help people use technology to help with their family history; organization is 30 years old now; started in Jan 1991 at BYU
- Don's webpage is under Resources on here -- http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
- Meetings are on second Saturdays in Provo and are broadcast live and posted on Facebook -- the link to watch live or later is on UVTAGG Home Page or go to Facebook.com and search for UVTAGG
- Main presentations and a class are done each time and live and recent videos are free to everyone, but older ones (over 400 now) are limited to UVTAGG members ($15/year)
- Monthly email newsletter is TAGGology with 20 or more pages and lots of helpful articles; I write Don's Freeware Corner article every month
- Good place to keep up with new things in technology and family history
GOOGLE AND OTHER SEARCH ENGINES
- Google and other search engines are a major help --
try Googling "windows 10 helps" or
"genealogy research Minnesota" (without the quotes
- Google's YouTube has loads of helpful videos -- https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=byu+family+history and https://www.youtube.com/?gl=US&tab=w1 -- search for things like "familysearch" or "BYU family history" of "california genealogy resources"
(without the quotes)
- To get the best results you need to know basic search techniques, e.g. for Google, using quote marks around a name, e.g. "Joseph Smith", means you want that exact expression, not all pages with both Joseph and Smith on them; see more Google info on class notes on my webpage
- There are 100s of search engines, e.g. DuckDuckGo and Dogpile -- each has its own characteristics and some are metasearch engines, that is, they show you results from several search engines, Dogpile is an example
A FEW ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF HELP
- FamilySearch Catalog -- https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog
- Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter - EOGN -- https://blog.eogn.com/
-- Has a free version and a paid version
- The Family History Daily
- Family Tree Magazine Free Genealogy Cheatsheets
CONCLUSIONS
- There is a wealth of helpful information online about family history and computers and these notes just get you started and there is much more.
- If you need to, phone the Church Family History Dept, 1-866-406-1830 (Note that the number is the day the Church was organized!)
- Remember: "Small deeds done are better than big deeds planned." Good luck.
Return to Don's
Family History Class Notes Page .