Facebook is Not So Friendly Anymore

Recently, I received a warning from Facebook telling me not to "friend" anyone I don't know.  I was a little surprised to get the notice but it turned out to be a good exercise in clarifying a few things for me.

Click the image to enlarge

When you receive a friend request in Facebook you have 3 choices: 1) Ignore it and do nothing 2) Press the "Not Now" button which is pretty much the same as ignoring it or 3) Press the "I Don't Know This Person" button.

Accepting Friend Requests

I have always reserved the "I Don't Know This Person" button for people I didn't want to have friend me again. I didn't feel very strongly either way about them. It was sort of like using block in Twitter or Google+. It's not that I wanted to report them. I just didn't want to hear from them again because I didn't think there was a good fit.

I suspect that something has changed in Facebook (who knows when but my guess is right around the time they started public subscriptions) and this button is now sort of a report button for nefarious people who have the audacity to friend people they don't know.

Blocking vs. Reporting

As you can see from the warning above that Facebook is taking this very seriously.  Facebook is making it too black and white and as usual not telling anyone what the rules are.  I mean, how many of you knew that if you used the "I Don't Know This Person" button that you were reporting somebody and they could get blocked from Facebook? I certainly didn't.

The Fuzzy Gray Area

But Facebook is also not considering all the gray areas. What if you meet someone at a business or genealogy meeting.  You send the person a friend request in Facebook but the person forgot that you had previously met.  You really do know the person but now the person has reported you by pressing the "I Don't Know This Person" button.

And what about high school friends? One of your good female friends from high school sends you a friend request. She's using a little cartoon instead of a photo making it difficult to recognize her. Also, she now has a married name which you don't recognize. Will she be unfairly blocked by Facebook because you thought you didn't know her?

The gray area examples could go on and on.

I wish Facebook would come clean when they make changes like this.  Instead they use a very subtle, almost unnoticeable approach.  In this link, notice how they've added some extra text?

Facebook didn't use to say "If you know....," send a friend request.  Before all you had was the send him a friend request link.

Pending Friend Requests

Another murky area is unanswered/pending friend requests. The ones that others have sent and you have ignored. I must have pending friends requests that I sent from when I got on Facebook 4 years ago.  The funny thing is Facebook won't help you remember who you have sent requests to. You need to do that yourself.  You can cancel friend requests but only if you can remember the name of the person you sent it to. Very strange.

Friendly Genealogists

Genealogists are a friendly bunch of people. We love to network and share information. Because we are scattered all over the country and all over the world we tend to network with people we haven't actually met in person. Many genealogists will accept friend requests from people when they share many friends in common. It's just what we do and how we network. (Though you should check out the person carefully before accepting a friend request, not matter how many mutual friends you have.)

Facebook's new policy has made it a little tougher for genealogists. And only because they haven't explained the rules. (One solution I can recommend is to head over to Google+ where you won't have this problem). The next time you receive a friend request think carefully before you press the "I Don't Know This Person" button.You might inadvertently block an otherwise friendly genealogist. But ultimately it's your call.

To learn more about friend requests on Facebook visit their Friend Request Help Center page. You many also want to visit their Community Standards page. This is what they are trying to protect you from.

Think - Plan - Execute

Partial image of 1800 US Federal Census from
Charleston, Montgomery Co., NY
showing Wm Edwards on the bottom
Image Source: Ancestry.com

This past weekend I was reading some genealogical books and journals. I like to read books on methodology as well as peer reviewed journals in order to get new ideas on how to solve my old problems. Sometimes it's not even the specific topic but just the jogging of my mind that gives me ideas.

As I was reading, I suddenly thought about how I could expand my New York brick wall research in a productive way. At the start of 2012, I published my genealogy goals on my blog. One of them was to tackle my brick wall ancestor, William Edwards, of New York.

Previously all my research had focused on my ancestor and his descendants. During my reading this weekend I realized it would be worth the effort to broaden my reach and focus on FANs - friends, associates and neighbors. In other words I could do a little cluster genealogy research.

Thinking it through

My process when starting research is the same each time. I like routine and strive to find efficient and successful tactics. I tackle research with a Think - Plan - Execute approach. First, I get an idea about how I can tackle my problem and then I think it through.

In this particular case, I realized that the main piece of information I have on William is the 1800 US Federal Census which shows his arrival in Charleston, Montgomery County, New York. This is the area where the family would settle. My ancestor disappeared after 1808. The more I considered my problem, the more I realized that I should be taking a closer look at the neighbors that appear on the census. Even though my ancestor disappears in 1808, perhaps these gentlemen stayed on the land for many years and left records behind.

I got an idea that I would research five neighbors before and five neighbors after William Edwards as they appear on the 1800 census. Perhaps if I looked at the land records of these men I could find a reference to my ancestor's land even if William was no longer living. It seemed like a good strategy to potentially open up some new leads. Then I decided I should probably check census records for these men as well. Maybe I could determine how long they were in the area.

Of course, if I really wanted to expand the research I could add in all the early allied surnames. The people who had married into the family and developed long lasting associations.

Keep in mind that this is just one research goal. It doesn't go into all the past research I've done nor the other ideas I hope to do in the future.

One of the important parts of "thinking it through" is determining whether the plan is logical. Does it make sense? Will it lead to potentially to new information? Will that information be helpful in furthering the research? If you believe that it will then continue. If you're not sure, discuss it with another genealogist and get their feedback. In this case I think the exercise will be helpful to me so I will proceed.

This wraps up my process of thinking it through. It may not be complete (or successful) but it's a concrete idea that I can develop into a plan and then execute.

The next stage for me is to pull out my books and learn what records are available and where. I will arm myself with this information and create a research plan. After my research plan is complete I can move on to determining when I can execute my plan.

In my next post, I will take you on the journey as I develop the research plan.

Bloggers - Where Do You Prefer to Get Comments?

Yesterday, my friend Linda in Australia asked me a great question - "Do people prefer comments on their Blog post where stats are available or on Google+ where there often is a larger audience?"

This is such an interesting question and I'm sure that many bloggers will have different responses.

Here's my response:

I love to get comments to my blog posts. I will take them where ever I can get them. That means sometimes people leave comments on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or in the comments of the individual blog posts. I will read them all no matter where they appear.

From a practical standpoint, the blog post is the lowest common denominator for all blog readers. Everyone (except for those using an RSS feed or blog reader) will see the blog post and the comments. That means that anyone reading a blog post will see the comments shared by the other readers. This is helpful when a great dialog starts in the comments and the readers start sharing with each other. Sometimes the comments are better than the original post!

When people leave comments on Facebook, Twitter or Google+, the only other people who can see those comments are the other people on those sites. There might be mini separate conversations on Google+ and Facebook.

Of course, the people who don't see comments at all at the ones using a blog reader or an RSS feed. It's a matter of the mechanics of how those programs/feeds are set up. I understand that using a reader or feeds is easier for organizing and quickly reading a number of blogs but the sacrifice is the lack of comments. In fact, I wrote a whole blog post on this topic.

So my answer to the question is more people will see the comments when they are posted in the comments section of the blog but I'm not fussy. I'm happy to get comments where ever readers want to leave them. I want them to do whatever is easiest and most comfortable for them.

Photo Credit: Photo by Search Engine People's Blog and used under the creative commons license.

Do Genealogists Need to be More Like Curators?

I've seen the word curator tossed around a few times recently.

Thomas MacEntee mentioned it in his post "It's Not Easy Being Abundant" where he says,

"...a hoarder gathers somewhat indiscriminately with little purpose besides gathering and possessing. A curator gathers that which adds value."

After that I found a follow-up post by Randall Dickerson called Hoarder or Curator?  Randall further defines the difference between hoarder and curator, "To me, the definition of curator implies a person who gathers and keeps items of intrinsic value, both to themselves and others. A hoarder gathers anything they think “may” have value, regardless of what others think (i.e. no peer review)."

These two posts really got me thinking about all the items that I have collected over the years as the family historian. I have my mother's genealogy research, as well as newspapers clippings and other paper documents. In addition I have been given many books, heirlooms, photo albums and ephemera.

I have collected all these items but never cataloged them. As genealogists we are focused on finding the paper trail of documents that lead us from one generation to the next. We do a good job, or try to, of organizing, storing and documenting the papers.

Some items I have, such as family Bibles, have been documented because they contain specific information related to family history. Outside of that the individual Bibles are not cataloged or organized in any specific way. In fact, they are boxed and just sort of squeezed into any spare space possible.

My mother, in addition to being a genealogist, collected antiques. She numbered her collection and maintained a paper list of the items with their description, number and value. I presume she cataloged as she went. I'm not sure why her cataloging efficiency didn't rub off on me.

How is it that after years of indiscriminately accepting and collecting family-related items that I have never thought to catalog them? Wouldn't it be great if I had a list of each item, what type of item it is, how old it is, where it came from and where it is currently located?

I'm not going to add this to my already long to-do list for 2012 but I am going to start thinking about how to organize what I have and search for systems that I can use to keep track of it.

Tell me I'm not the only one who has randomly collected family-related items and never thought to organize them! Someone else must be in the same boat as me, right?!

Get Easy Access to Your Blogging Comments

Bloggers love to get comments. It lets them know they're not speaking in a void and that someone else is reading their blog. But not all bloggers are seeing their comments as quickly as they arrive. The trick is to get your blogging comments emailed to you.

Here's how you set it up on Blogger:

After you log in to your Blogger Dashboard, click on the tab for Settings.

Then Click beneath that where you see the hyperlink for Comments.

Now scroll down almost to the bottom of the page where you find the option for comment moderation. Comment moderation allows you to review comments before you publish them on your blog. Most people select "always" and review every comment before publishing. I like to make things easy for my readers so I have opted to turn on moderation only for posts that are 7 days or older. I've read that spam usually occurs on those older posts.

Regardless of which you pick, you can receive email notifications to let you know a comment is waiting and needs to be reviewed.  Type the email address you want to use in the box for comment moderation. (Notice, if you choose never for comment moderation there is no need to include an email address because all your comments will be published automatically.)

Also, note the option for word verification. This is the little box that makes you type the squigly word to make sure real people are leaving comments. I have mine turned off. Again, I do that to make it easier for my audience to leave comments.http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=691016683378293851

Next, scroll down a bit more to the Comment Notification Email option.  Enter your email address here. This will let you know that a comment has been published on your blog.

If you use Comment Moderation for all your blog comments you might not want to use this option. If you do, you will receive an email to notify you that a comment needs to be moderated and again after it gets published.  You have to decide which works better for you.

How My Settings are Organized

I actually use two different email addresses for moderated and published comments. Most of my blog comments (95%) get published automatically so I have notifications sent to one email address just for that and I have a directory set up in Outlook to receive those blog comments.

Because I get very few comments more than 7 days after a new post I send those moderated comment notifications to a different email address. You can see two different email address in the images above to see exactly how I've set it up.  I do this so that I don't get confused between newly published comments and moderated comments that need a closer look. If they were all together in one directory I might get confused about which comments are new and which need moderation.

Get Notified Quickly

Add an email address to receive notifications so that you can be alerted to new comments quickly. Your readers will love you because you can respond to their comments quicker. And you will love it because you will know right away that people are reading your blog.

Let me know if you have any questions about getting set up or receiving notifications.

Not Going to RootsTech? You Don't Have to Miss Out!

I don't normally post Press Releases but this is an important one for everybody. Last year RootsTech live-streamed a number of talks for viewers to watch over the internet from home. It was an amazing experience.

They are doing it again this year. If you can't make it to RootsTech, you can still participate by watching these live-streamed talks. This is the wave of the future for conferences and I'm so glad that we can participate virtually. ** Please Note: The times below are Mountain Standard Time (MST) so be sure to recalculate for your local time zone.

RootsTech Conference Will Broadcast Select Sessions Free Online

SALT LAKE CITY—RootsTech, a leading family history and technology conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 2-4, 2012, announced today that fourteen of its popular sessions will be broadcasted live and complimentary over the Internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend worldwide a sample of this year’s conference content. Interested viewers can watch the live presentations at RootsTech.org. The second-year conference has attracted over 3,000 registered attendees.

The free online sessions include the keynote speakers and a sampling of technology and family history presentations. Following are the fourteen broadcasted sessions and speakers. All times are in Mountain Standard Time (MST):

Thursday, February 2

• 8:30-10:00 am, Inventing the Future, as a Community (Keynote Address) by Jay L. Verkler

• 11:00 am-12:00 pm, Do I Trust the Cloud? by D. Joshua Taylor

• 1:45-2:45 pm, Effective Database Search Tactics by Kory Meyerink

• 3:00-4:00 pm, Twitter – It’s Not Just “What I Had for Breakfast” Anymore by Thomas MacEntee

• 4:15-5:15 pm, Eleven Layers of Online Searches by Barbara Renick

Friday, February 3

• 8:30-9:30 am, Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities (Keynote Address) by Josh Coates

• 9:45-10:45 am, Publish Your Genealogy Online by Laura G. Prescott

• 11:00 am-12:00 pm, Optimize Your Site for Search Engines by Robert Gardner

• 1:45-2:45 pm, Genealogists “Go Mobile” by Sandra Crowly

• 3:00-4:00 pm, Google’s Toolbar and Genealogy by Dave Barney

Saturday, February 4

• 8:30-9:30 am, Making the Most of Technology to Further the Family History Industry (Keynote Address) by Tim Sullivan and Ancestry.com Panel

• 9:45-10:45 am Genealogy Podcasts and Blogs 101 by Lisa Louise Cooke

• 11:00 am-12:00 pm, Future of FamilySearch Family Tree by Ron Tanner

• 1:45-2:45 pm, Privacy in a Collaborative Environment by Noah Tatuk

About RootsTech

RootsTech is a new conference designed to bring technologists together with genealogists to learn from each other and find solutions to the challenges faced in family history research today. The conference’s activities and offerings are focused on content that will help genealogists and family historians discover exciting new research tools while enabling technology creators to learn the latest development techniques from industry leaders and pioneers.

Two Important Things Our Ancestors Knew About Community

I try not to get too serious on my blog or to take myself too seriously. On occasion I'll make an exception. This time is one of them.

Our ancestors knew a thing or two about life and community.  They knew what it took to raise up kids, get through life and enter into the twilight with dignity.

My sense is that people these days are losing their understanding of why doing certain things is important.

Over the past year I have lost five friends and family members. The most recent being my mother earlier this month. Quite a banner year for someone who has never really had to deal with death.

The experience has taught me two important lessons that our ancestors knew about services and community gatherings. I hope you'll consider these points when the time comes for you to handle major life events.

1) Shared Community Events are Important

After my mother's service, my cousin told me something along the lines of "Coming together like this makes me realize how important it is for family to be together and stay connected." She is so right. I had the same reaction. In this frantic world that we live in it is so easy to get wrapped up in our own worlds and push our greater community of family, friends and neighbors aside.

Our ancestors knew that community events were important. They knew that community events created a bond that gave support to all the members involved. Marriages before the community publicly announced to the couple that they were not alone. Their family and friends and community would be there to help them get through the rough patches. Smaller events like baby showers, birthdays and anniversaries likewise further strengthened the ties of support and witness to life events. And so it is with funerals, that a community, no matter how large or small, comes together to provide support to those left behind. Our ancestors knew that with this support we could together make it through this journey of life.

Maybe there is something that we've forgotten as a society that we should revisit. Maybe we need to put more effort into creating ties and building the bridges that will strengthen and enrich our lives and encourage us in hard times.

2) Saying Goodbye as a Family or Community is Important

My mother died from complications due to Alzheimer's disease. When that happens, the one who passes has lost a connection with a social community often for many years except for select immediate family. Sometimes we are tempted not to hold a public service as a result. No matter what the situation at the end of life it is important to hold a service and allow family and friends and those who want to support us to attend.

Saying goodbye is really important. That one brief act will provide the closure you need to grieve and allow you to move on with the rest of your life. Those who opt not to attend a service, or not to have a service, are preventing the much needed chance to release those emotions no matter how complicated those emotions might be.  A one hour service gives you the freedom of the rest of your life. Denying the need to say goodbye will hold you captive for a long, long time.

I say this because I didn't think I needed to attend my Mom's service. That I was fine on my own.  I was wrong. Our ancestors knew how critical is was to say goodbye and to allow yourself to receive the support of others.

So the next time you pass on the chance to say goodbye to someone because the kids are sick, or you're busy at work or you don't like to fly, think again.  Work will understand, bring the kids along and make it a road trip if you have to. Your life will be strengthened by the decision.

Check Out Megan Smolenyak's New Look

....and her new book.

In celebration of her new book, Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing (Kensington, 2012), internationally-known Megan Smolenyak has developed a new website giving her a whole new look.

The website, MeganSmolenyak.com, is fresh, clean and inviting, giving a new crop of genealogists an approachable way to get to know Megan and her love of genealogy.

After checking out the new website I gave Megan a call to get her take on the site and what's going on in her life.

Megan tells me that it was her new book that sparked the idea for the new website. She wanted to provide a site that wasn't overwhelming for a more mainstream audience.

The main page of the website features a photo of travel trunks taken by Megan at Ellis Island.  Megan says it's the first thing you see when entering the immigration building at Ellis Island and really gives a sense of our ancestors journey to America.

A fun, whimsical feature on Megan site is the appearance of floating, glowing circles on the individual trunks. Viewers need to hover over the circles to see what they reveal, creating a click and see what's behind this curtain effect that leads the viewer to more in-depth content.

One of the things Megan likes the best about her new website is that it is easy to navigate. "It's straight forward and easy for people to find the information they are looking for."

On the very front of the home page is a short 3 1/2 minute video. Megan says, "“I hope people watch the video. It’s a fun introduction.”

What About the Old Website?

Have no fear, the old website isn't going away. Her Honoring Our Ancestors site will remain firmly in place and act as a repository for the in-depth and historical content that already exists on the site.

What's Happening Next?

In the coming months Megan will be doing book signings at a number of Barnes & Noble bookstores in the NJ/Philadelphia/DC area promoting Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing which is being released Tuesday, January 31, 2011.

Be on the lookout for book signings coming to your area.

Congratulations Megan, on the new website and the new book!

I've Been Ignoring Some of My Ancestors

Caroline Nunge and Frank Walleck with their children

It's true. I've been ignoring some of my ancestors.  My whole maternal line, in fact. Well, that's not quite true. It's mostly my Mom's paternal line. I know it seems blasphemous. They were more recent immigrants. And, well, with having so many ancestors on my Dad's side that go back to the 1700s and even 1600s it was pretty easy to avert my eyes.

This line is a family called Walleck. Growing up I always believed they were Ellis Island immigrants. One of my ancestors who married a Walleck was an Ellis Island immigrant and that was fun to find. No, these Wallecks came from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and they arrived probably in the 1860s.  As an adult I traced as much of them online as I could through census records, city directories and what not. Early census records showed them coming from "Bohemia."

My mother always talked about this family speaking German. I grew up believing that they were of German heritage. I heard the word Czech thrown around but I thought that was mostly in reference to my uncle was definitely Czech.

Well, this past weekend I got to spend some time with the Walleck side of my family. My uncle happens to be a family historian and has put much more effort into tracing these Wallecks than I have. In addition, he grew up in Pittsburgh with these family members and was exposed to the family history.

My uncle took out a paper napkin and started drawing the old time neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. He explained all the family groups, which neighborhood they were from and what their ethnic background was. There were three surnames that he discussed - Wallecks, Roemers and Nunges. Surprisingly, my uncle explained to me that the Wallecks were Czech. They lived up on the hill with the other Czechs (don't ask me which neighborhood that was at the moment). The Roemers were German. And the Nunges (my Ellis Island immigrants) came from Alsace-Lorraine.

The ethnic groups and the neighborhoods they lived in were critical for understanding their history and where they came from. Listening to my uncle, I realized, was also pretty critical for me to understand where they came from.

If I hadn't taken the time to listen to my uncle at that moment, I may have been left with erroneous ideas about my Pittsburgh ancestors.

I think the time has come for me to stop ignoring my difficult, ethnic ancestors and start getting some of this down on paper. If I collect as much as possible now from my uncle, perhaps I will slowly be able to work through verifying the information and learning the particular local history behind Pittsburgh and Allegheny City. Maybe I'll even become brave enough to try to track them back across the sea to Europe.

Thank goodness I made this realization before it was too late. While oral history is not the whole story of any family history, the information passed down from your family members can be critical to understanding your ancestry. The stories could mean the difference between having the right information to get started versus no information at all.

If you have any older family members that you can talk to about your family history, get started now. Don't wait for when it's too late.

Where Do You Turn For Research Guidance?

Inevitably at some point in your genealogy research you will encounter a new ancestor in a new location. This makes you stop dead in your tracks in order to figure out what to do. A new geographic location can mean learning new geography, new ethnic groups, new names for records and a whole different set of rules about record availability. Encountering a new ancestor in a new location can be both a wonderful adventure and a real headache.

First Line of Help

When I am trying to understand a new location I typically turn to Ancestry's Red Book: American State , County & Town Sources (Ancestry, 2004) . Red Book is organized geographically by state with further information about counties and towns. Within each state is an overview of all the major record groups and where to find them. While I tend to reach for my book which sits next to my desk, Red Book is also available online for free on the Ancestry.com Wiki.

Another resource I am starting to turn to more frequently is the FamilySearch Wiki. Not so long ago FamilySearch used to offer research guidance on numerous locations in the form of printed guides or online pdfs. Those have been replaced with a sleek new wiki which allows users to find everything online. The FamilySearch Wiki is volunteer driven, though, so you might not find complete information on every location you are researching.  The advantage to this compared to Red Book is that it is international. For more information, read a guest post about FamilySearch Wiki which I wrote for Legacy.

Some of you may still be holding on to a copy of Everton's Handy Book. I don't believe it is being published anymore but you can still find copies around. It is very similar to Ancestry's Red Book in that it provides information about American genealogical records in a geographic based format.

Where Do You Turn for Information?

What I want to know, and the real reason I wrote this post, is where do you get your information when first encountering an unfamiliar geographic area? Do you use sources that I haven't listed here? I'm am wondering if I have overlooked some good reference books or sites.

Also, I really want to know about Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Do they have anything comparable to Ancestry's Red Book?  Where do genealogists outside the United States turn for information?  I look forward to hearing your responses.

Photo Credit: Photo by CCAC North Library in Pittsburgh, PA and is used on the creative commons license.