Rootsweb has returned . . . kinda. Last week Ancestry.com announced the RootsWeb wiki. It looks to be an impressive research support service with sections discussing census records, immigration records, vital records and much more. Also included is The Source and the Red Book which have both been broken down into individual articles to make it easier to find a specific topic. Does it have anywhere near the research information found at the FamilySearch Wiki? Not even. That doesn’t make it less useful and, for the moment anyway, it costs you nothing.
It appears social media is up to its old tricks again. A recent report published by the Norwegian Consumer Council states that Facebook, Google and even Microsoft have been employing design tricks to manipulate users into accepting privacy options they don’t want to accept. According to the report, they are using “privacy intrusive default settings, misleading wording, hiding privacy-friendly choices and take-it-or-leave-it choices”. According to the report, if users choose not to accept some privacy policies, they are threatened with loss of functionality or deletion of their user account.
Consumer groups in the U.S. and Europe are already filing complaints and asking privacy regulators for investigations.
Now for some good news . . . The Ancestry family group sheet is back! You will find it in Ancestry.com (not on the Ancestry mobile app) by clicking the drop-down menu for the tree you are viewing. At the bottom of the menu you will find “Family Group Sheet”. Choose it to view the family group sheet. Click on any of the people on the sheet to focus the groups sheet to that person.
If you are researching Scandinavian ancestors you will be glad to hear that FamilySearch has recently added 135 million records from Denmark, Finland and Sweden. These collections include church records (birth, marriage, death, confirmations), moving-in and moving-out records, court records, tax lists, examination books and more.
Blaine Bettinger, The Genetic Genealogist, has announced that DNA Central is up and running. He describes it as a membership-only website providing resources for researchers at all levels who are trying to understand DNA. A membership includes courses, monthly webinars, newsletters, how-to videos, forums and more. Membership costs $9.99/mo. or $89/year. Check it out at https://dna-central.com.
Not sure how to show off your family’s history? Take a look at Famicity. It’s part scrapbook, part private social network, part family tree and absolutely delightful. Even better it’s free and easy to use. With Famicity, you can build photo albums, post stories (past & present), post videos, add comments just about anywhere and send messages to the people connected to you in your Famicity network.
Your Famicity network is yours. You control who will have access and at what level. There may be things that aren’t appropriate for younger participants. Using Famicity groups, you can set access to the various elements to a specific group.
Want to learn more? Check out their video describing Famicity’s features at https://youtu.be/13teJtynVF8. The Famicity blog is full of ideas and tips to get you started.
Final Notes
Each new post published at SAGS Support is automatically emailed to member subscribers and/or delivered to their newsreader. Research Notes is published every Monday morning and other articles are posted during the week. Subscribers have the option to control how often these updates are delivered. Look down at the bottom of this message and you will find a Manage Subscriptions link in the fine print as you see in this example. Click it and you will be taken to the WordPress.com Subscription Management page. Use the Delivery Frequency column to change your delivery options from “Immediate” to either “Daily” or “Weekly”.
Sample of the “fine print” at the bottom of each post.
Also down at the bottom of each delivered post is a Comment button. If you would like to comment on something discussed in a post or ask a question, just click the Comment button and you will be taken online to the comment section of the post where you can share your thoughts and read what others have shared.
To learn more, download a copy of the SAGS Support Guide.
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