An interesting article by Rebecca Olds and published in the Deseret News web site will interest many genealogists:

FamilySearch has made more than 2.6 billion historical resources available to the public, and according to John Alexander who is a senior product manager there, there’s a lot more on the way. It’s just a matter of getting the documents transcribed.

More than 5 billion more documents — collected and converted to digital images — need to be transcribed to make them searchable and usable in FamilySearch’s database.

And 1 to 2 million more are added every single day.

With the development of new artificial intelligence technology, there’s more hope of getting billions of records to families looking for information about their relatives in as little as five years. And it’s already being tested and used.

“In just a couple of hours, the computer can index more than you or I could do in a whole lifetime if we did nothing besides indexing for the rest of our lives,” Alexander said. “So in terms of efficiency, it’s very fast.

Currently, it’s being taught — yes, “taught” like a child — English, Spanish and Portuguese, with plans for Italian in 2023.

Teaching AI to read hand-writing

You can read the full article at: https://www.deseret.com/2023/3/18/23622262/ai-family-history-familysearch.

In a stroke of sheer coincidence, two recent developments at the local level have left Vicksburg primed for a new opportunity as a hub for genealogy.  

Both the National Park Service’s announcement of a project to disinter and catalog remains of U.S. Colored Troops in the Vicksburg National Cemetery and the Warren County Board of Supervisors’ decision to devote more than $400,000 in ARPA funds to digitizing records dating back to 1807, more people than ever will have the ability to unlock their family’s history.  

One of the many unhealed scars of slavery is the lack of ancestral information available to people in the Black community. In many cases, the only way to determine African heritage is through DNA testing. Family histories are garbled due to the routine splitting of family units and inadequate recordkeeping in terms of birth and death records in the Antebellum period.

You can read more in an article in the Vicksburg Post at: https://tinyurl.com/2p8zspd3.

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman. 

"ISBN" stands for "International Standard Book Number." An ISBN number is an ISO standard and normally is found in all books published in the United States since 1970 and on many books published in other countries as well. Technically, an ISBN number is not a requirement for any book; you may publish books without such a number. However, experience has shown that an ISBN number is required if you want the book to be listed in the many indexing and cataloging systems available. Also, an ISBN number is required for all books that are to be sold by Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and most any other major bookseller. These booksellers use the ISBN numbers to order, inventory, and track books. If your book or ebook includes an ISBN number, it will also be listed in Bowker Books in Print®, which is used by all the major search engines and most bookstores and libraries.

Only the smallest self-published and self-marketed books can survive without ISBN numbers. 

The ISBN identifies the title of the book or other book-like product (such as an audio book or video) to which it is assigned, as well as the publisher to be contacted for ordering purposes. The original standard has been revised as book and book-like content has appeared in new forms of media, but the basic structure of the ISBN as defined in the original ISO standard has not changed and is in use today in more than 150 countries. Today the ISBN agencies around the world are administered by the International ISBN Agency, located in London, UK. Information on international ISBN numbers may be found at http://www.isbn-international.org.

As an ISO standard, one agency per country is designated to assign ISBNs for the publishers and self-publishers located in that country. In the United States, that agency is the U.S. ISBN Agency in New Providence, New Jersey, with a web site at http://www.isbn.org.

For more than thirty years, ISBNs were 10 digits long. On January 1, 2007, the ISBN system switched to a 13-digit format. Now all new ISBN numbers are 13 digits long. A 10-digit ISBN cannot be converted to 13 digits merely by placing three digits in front of the 10-digit number. There is an algorithm that frequently results in a change of the last digit of the ISBN. You can find an online tool that will convert a 10-digit ISBN to its equivalent 13-digit ISBN number at http://www.isbn.org/converterpub.asp.

The remainder of this article is reserved for Plus Edition subscribers only. If you have a Plus Edition subscription, you may read the full article at: https://eogn.com/(*)-Plus-Edition-News-Articles/13135532.

If you are not yet a Plus Edition subscriber, you can learn more about such subscriptions and even upgrade to a Plus Edition subscription immediately at https://eogn.com/page-18077. 

Genealogists will probably enjoy reading an article by Trent Toone published in The Church News web site. It provides an excellent overview of the events and activities at this year's RootsTech event.

I spent 3 days at the event and yet I discovered things I didn't know about in this article:

3-day global family history event featured celebrity keynotes, fun activities, a bustling expo hall and hundreds of informative classes

For the first time in three years, thousands attended RootsTech in person in Utah, and many more participated online March 2-4.

The three-day global family history event in the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City featured a list of celebrity keynotes, fun activities, a bustling expo hall and hundreds of informative classes, which will continue to be available online for the rest of the year at RootsTech.org.

This year’s theme focused on “Uniting,” said Jen Allen, director of events for FamilySearch.

“This year we are uniting, specifically uniting families — past, present and future,” Allen said in a video interview. “It has been an incredible growth ... and it feels perfect as we emerge out of that virtual-only experience and bring people together not just here, but all over the world.”

RootsTech organizers sought to enhance the online experience by localizing content for all regions of the world. They incorporated 15 emcees from various cultures and backgrounds who speak 11 languages to help customize content for people following RootsTech around the world.

You can read the article at: https://www.thechurchnews.com/global/2023/3/6/23627346/rootstech-2023-global-family-history-event-utah.

The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

Connect to your Irish lineage this St Patrick’s Day with Findmypast 

·         Thousands of new Irish family history records added 

·         Findmypast has the largest collection of Irish family history records online 

Family history website, Findmypast, has released thousands of new Irish genealogy records to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. With Findmypast, and their large collection of Irish records, you had a better chance of tracing those often-elusive Irish ancestors.  

Findmypast have added the brand-new collection Ireland, Inland Revenue Wills & Administrations 1828-1879. With transcripts and images, these 261,256 records are a rare survival of priceless information about early Irish wills. The original documents were mostly destroyed in 1922. Typically, you’ll find details such as the name and address of the deceased, the name and address of the executor or administrator, the value of the estate and the date of death.  

The existing Ireland Calendars of Wills & Administration 1858-1965 collection has been updated with a further 591,011 transcriptions. Though the detail varies from will to will, you’ll normally find the name of the deceased and their death date, the names of any beneficiaries and the county. 

Other unmissable Irish genealogy records include: 

·         The ffolliott collection (exclusive to Findmypast) 

·         Irish workhouse records 

·         The Irish Quaker collection (exclusive to Findmypast) 

·         Ireland Roman Catholic collection 

·         Irish newspapers 

Plus, Findmypast has several handy guides to kickstart and inspire Irish family history research: 

·         An expert’s guide to researching Irish surnames 

·         Discover the remarkably rich history behind Irish diaspora 

·         Why is Irish genealogy so tricky? 

·         Did your ancestors experience the Great Irish Famine? 

·         Everything you need to know about Irish census records 

·         Were your ancestors caught up in the Irish War of Independence? 

There is a new genealogy service available these days, but it is a bit different from most other genealogy-related services. The company is called Storied and the company's service is called StoryAssist™.

I saw StoryAssist™ in action at the recent RootsTech conference and have used the service briefly. I'm hooked and am now working on a much larger StoryAssist™ project.

The brief description of StoryAssist™ is that it is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine that empowers users to enter a few details and then it generates a draft article for sharing with others that can be edited and published as family history stories on the Storied platform.

Quoting from the company's introduction of the new service:

"StoryAssist™ is the first AI-powered tool to help family history enthusiasts capture rich details from the past at a speed and scale previously impossible. With StoryAssist™, users simply select a tone (e.g. “happy”) and add a few details. From there, StoryAssist™ produces a draft that the user can edit and publish on Storied in a few seconds.

“At Storied, our vision is to make online family history accessible to more people and to help users paint a more complete picture of their rich past. This means it needs to be as simple and effortless as possible to make connections and publish stories,” said Storied CEO Kendall Hulet. “StoryAssist is a phenomenal tool to accomplish these goals, and it’s just the first of many AI-enabled features we plan to launch on the Storied platform."

Formerly called World Archives, Storied launched its new brand and online family history platform in public beta on January 18, 2023. Backed by Charles Thayne Capital—and built by former Ancestry.com executives—Storied delivers a modernized approach for casual and serious family history enthusiasts around the globe to connect, discover, and reminisce about the moments that matter, whether recent or in the distant past.

Storied has embraced AI in a wide range of applications, from the platform itself to new features and the marketing produced for the company’s rebrand and product launch, which received national attention.

“We want to leverage all the tools at our disposal to bring family history 3.0 into the mainstream,” Hulet said. “That includes designing an elegant product experience and using emerging technologies in intelligent ways. StoryAssist™ is a terrific example of technology making it easier for users to get tremendous value out of a product feature with minimal time and effort required.”

During Storied’s public beta, users can build family trees, create and share stories, and receive hint notifications for free. Paid plans, which start at $4.99 a month, enable users to create private groups and gain access to billions of records and newspaper articles from 46 countries.

Learn more about StoryAssist in this short video. To start your next chapter of discovery, visit storied.com.

About Storied

Storied is the next chapter in family history. Backed by Charles Thayne Capital, and built by former Ancestry.com executives and technologists, Storied leverages next-generation family history technology and billions of records to deliver a fresh approach to discovering, capturing, preserving, and sharing stories about the past. To learn more, visit storied.com.

I have written frequently about VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) and the reasons why everyone should be using one. (I am a believer in what I preach. I am using a VPN to post this article online. When I turn my computer on in the morning, it immediately connects to the Internet via a VPN and remains connected all day long. The same is true for my laptop computer when traveling and for my cell phone wherever I am.)

Now one of the bigger VPN providers has announced the addition of unlimited simultaneous connections. Private Internet Access is one of the most popular VPNs. Many VPN providers place a limit on how many devices you can have connected at once, partially to manage network capacity, and also to prevent someone from sharing their account with many other people. 

Starting today, PIA is dropping its device limit entirely, allowing people to have as many devices connected through the same subscription as desired. The company said in its announcement, “PIA’s new offer of unlimited device connections per subscription applies to both new and existing customers, and is a significant upgrade from the 10 device connections previously offered.”

Private Internet Access already has most of the features you would expect from a VPN provider, including apps on every major platform, browser extensions, WireGuard support, servers across the world, and limited support for streaming services. Most people probably weren’t maxing out that 10-device connection limit, but dropping it certainly makes PIA a better overall value.

You can learn more about the service from PIA’s official site: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ (scroll down to the section entitled Want To Know More? for more information about VPNs).

The following announcement was issued by Heritage Canada:

The Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez announced the reappointment of Leslie Weir as Librarian and Archivist of Canada for a four-year term, effective August 30, 2023.

Since her first appointment in August 2019, Leslie Weir has led Library and Archives Canada through a series of exceptional challenges and major initiatives. In addition to guiding the institution through the COVID-19 pandemic, she oversaw the development of the library’s Vision 2030 strategic plan and the launch of digital and service transformations to better serve Canadians. Weir has also helped guide major building projects, such as the Gatineau 2 Preservation Storage Facility and Ādisōke, the joint facility with the Ottawa Public Library.

Before joining the library, Ms. Weir was university librarian at the University of Ottawa, where she founded the bilingual School of Information Studies in the Faculty of Arts. She previously worked at the National Library of Canada, Statistics Canada Library and Côte St. Luc Public Library in Montréal.

In her career, Weir has played a key role in launching many significant library and archives research projects. She was a founding architect of the Scholars Portal, a research infrastructure initiative for Ontario universities, hosted at the University of Toronto. As President of Canadiana.org, she oversaw the launch of the Heritage Project, which digitized 60 million heritage archival images in partnership with LAC, which are publicly accessible. She also played a leading role in the development of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network and the Canadian Digital Content for the Social and Human Sciences Project.

Weir has served as President of both the Canadian Association of Research Libraries and the Ontario Library Association, as well as Chair of the Ontario Council of University Libraries. She is a Professional Division Chair and member of the Professional Council at the International Federation of Library Associations. She has received numerous awards, including the CLA/Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship (2015), the Ron MacDonald Distinguished Service Award from the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (2016), the Ontario Council of University Libraries Lifetime Achievement Award (2018) and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries Award for Distinguished Service to Research Librarianship (2018).

Weir holds a Master’s degree in Library Science from McGill University and a Bachelor of Arts from Concordia University.

The following is a press release issued by Library and Archives Canada:

After the legislated 92 years in the vault, the highly anticipated 1931 Census of Canada will be made available to the public. Collected during the Great Depression and at a time of significant immigration, the census provides a snapshot of the more than 10 million people living in Canada in 1931. On June 1, 2023, Canadians can expect to browse the digitized census images by geographic district and sub-district on the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) website. Following the initial release, LAC will work collaboratively with Ancestry® and FamilySearch International to create an advanced searchable database for Canadians and those with Canadian heritage who wish to look for their ancestors.

In this collaborative effort to increase access to the 1931 Census of Canada, LAC has digitized all 234,687 pages of the census, and Ancestry will apply its state-of-the-art handwriting recognition technology to the digital images to create a full index of the entire census. FamilySearch will then review the computer-generated index to ensure a complete and accurate index of all fields at a level never achieved before. The images and indexes will be available and searchable online for free through Census Search, Library and Archives Canada’s new one-stop shop for national census records. The images and indexes will also be available on Ancestry.ca and FamilySearch.org

LAC has been working in collaboration with external organizations including Ancestry and FamilySearch for over 20 years to help preserve, and provide access to, its genealogically significant historical records. Today, collaborations between private organizations and public institutions are the meeting ground of cutting-edge technology and subject-matter expertise. This collaborative partnership is key to meeting public demand and ensuring that the 1931 Census of Canada can be viewed and searched online more quickly than previous censuses.

Users can bookmark LAC’s Preparing the 1931 Census web page to stay up to date on the project’s status.

About Library and Archives Canada

The mandate of Library and Archives Canada is to acquire and preserve the documentary heritage of Canada for the benefit of present and future generations, and to be a source of enduring knowledge accessible to all, contributing to the cultural, social and economic advancement of Canada. Library and Archives Canada also facilitates cooperation among communities involved in the acquisition, preservation and diffusion of knowledge, and serves as the continuing memory of the Government of Canada and its institutions.

About Ancestry®

Ancestry®, the global leader in family history, empowers journeys of personal discovery to enrich lives. With our unparalleled collection of more than 40 billion records, over 3 million subscribers and over 23 million people in our growing DNA network, customers can discover their family story and gain a new level of understanding about their lives. For over 40 years, we’ve built trusted relationships with millions of people who have chosen us as the platform for discovering, preserving and sharing the most important information about themselves and their families. 

About FamilySearch

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. It is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to make joyful, personal, and family discoveries. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 5,000 FamilySearch centres in 129 countries, including the main FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

One of the many presentations at RootsTech 2023 that was videotaped is now available online. I was in the audience during this presentation and enjoyed it. I hope you will also. MyHeritage CEO Gilad Japhet discussed several recent additions to the service. Gilad gave a sneak peek of one exclusive new photo feature that will be released very soon. 

You can watch the video in the in the MyHeritage Blog at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/03/whats-new-at-myheritage-our-founder-and-ceo-gilad-japhet-addresses-rootstech-2023/.