From time to time, I will create these collections of things that I think you might find of interest. I call them Hound Treats.
Recently I chaired my Edmonton Branch DNA Special Interest Group, and a member mentioned that she had a one-on-one consultation at FamilySearch. This is something that anyone can take advantage of, and it doesn’t have to be a DNA consultation; it can be about your research in general. I’ve had a couple of these consultations, and they are great to just see if you are on the right track.
The consultation is for 20 minutes, and they are conducted virtually. If you click HERE, you’ll find out a bit more about the consultations, and if you’d like to schedule a consult, you can do that HERE.
If you’ve watched Finding Your Roots or Genetic Detective, you are familiar with the work of CeCe Moore. On April 9-10th, she is holding i4GG in San Diego. You can sign up for the in-person or live streaming event. Cost is $169 US in person and $69 US virtually. Currently, the site doesn’t show who will be presenting, but I’ve attended this event before, and I know we won’t be disappointed. You can sign up HERE.
Jonny Perl at DNA Painter has added new features to his site just before RootsTech, and you can read more about those new enhancements HERE.
Some parts of DNA Painter are free, and some paid subscriber features, but I find it so helpful that it’s well worth the $55 US/year. To learn about what you get for free and what’s available with paid, you can find that HERE.
| If you missed out on participating in RootsTech, don’t worry; you can still watch the 1500 presentations. There were Keynote addresses from around the globe as well. You can access it all HERE. There were 261 sessions on DNA alone. I can highly recommend Tanner Blair Tolman, who has 12 presentations on DNA. Be sure to check out my blog post about how you can add the things you’d like to watch to your Playlist. |
| ▪ | If you have a FamilySearch account linked with your tree, you can still see which cousin attended RootsTech at the Relatives at RootsTech. Typically when I have attended in person, I don’t have any cousins, but this year for the first time, I had 90. but don’t wait because Relatives at RootsTech ends on March 25. |
Now for a bit of shameless self-promotion. I was excited on March 2 to present on MyHeritage Live on Facebook. My topic was Planning a Genealogy Road Trip. Despite having a bit of nerves, I think it went well. You can still watch it by going HERE, and I’m happy to tell you that 3.3K people have watched.
Contest
On March 21, my contest starts. If you have a FOREVER account, I hope you’ll participate. If you don’t, please accept my invitation, and you’ll receive 2GB of FOREVER Storage to get you started and $20 to spend in the next 60 days.
Starting March 21, go to your FOREVER library and take a screengrab of the number of files you have in your account (you’ll see the number close to the top). Then start uploading to your account and see how many you can do in a week. Then at the end of the week on March 27 at midnight (or whenever you’d like on that date), take another screengrab of the number of photos you have. Send me the number of photos and the screengrabs to [email protected]. Whoever has the most significant increase will win a $50 FOREVER gift card that you can use for whatever you’d like. Who’s in?
MyHeritage
A couple of things that I didn’t mention is that MyHeritage launched so many things at RootsTech, including LiveStory. LiveStory gives you the ability to have photos enhanced and colorized, but now you can have them talk. You can view my grandmother Mary Loretta Beaton’s story HERE. You can learn more about this and their available Free education HERE. They even have a new 40 lesson genealogy course. Look for that link on the education page. I know you’ve been researching for years, but I’ve heard that even people not new to researching have found valuable things to learn.
Be sure to also search on the RootsTech as there are numerous presentations about or done by MyHeritage.
Ancestry
Ancestry also had its share of new features during RootsTech with the launch of two new features that you can access through your smartphone. Ancestor Stories where you add photos and write the stories of your ancestors’ lives. Ancestry also talked about their partnership with PhytoScan. PhytoScan is a smartphone feature where you can scan pictures with your phone. I saw Photoscan at RootsTech in 2020, and it’s a great tool that I have on my phone, but now it’s available on the Ancestry app as part of the app. I know it’s available for those of you who have an Apple phone, but I don’t have it on my Android so far. (or at least I didn’t have it a couple of days ago). Once it’s up, it will be perfect for scanning photos and adding to your Ancestry tree. Remember, your trees and your ability to search are free. You only need to subscribe when you want to look at records.
Happy hunting