Ordinance Tracker Stand Alone Released

Ordinance Tracker was first released as an integrated part of the program FamilyInsight. Because of its success, Ohana Software has now released Ordinance Tracker as a stand alone. The program is new in that it gives LDS genealogists the ability to print and track ordinances in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface. When you bring up your reserved ordinances, it actually looks like a bunch of ordinance cards stacked up by type. Three stacks, pink, blue, and yellow. When asked about this design, John Vilburn said “The simple design is meant to be intuitive. You pick up the ordinance card and put it into the ordinance request preview, then click print. There’s not much to learn.”

The ordinance tracker cards also show you what is going on in much the same way. If an ordinance is complete, you see the date as if it were stamped on there. If a card has been printed it says so. And if it is ready to go, it says “ready”.

Some LDS genealogists have been hesitant to submit family names to the temple because they would prefer to do them themselves and don’t want their ancestors stuck waiting. This is no longer a problem because users can see exactly what is going on with their temple assigned ordinances. If a card has been processed at a temple, the card says so. If not, and a user doesn’t want to wait, they can take it back from the temple list by simply dragging and dropping it back to their personal list.

“One of the factors that contributed to releasing Ordinance Tracker as its own program, was the feedback we receive from family history center directors and consultants saying that it made teaching ordinance management so much simpler for them.” said John. “By releasing it by itself, it makes it available to everyone, no matter what database program they are using” All that is needed to run the program is an active login to the new FamilySearch website. For this reason, Ordinance Tracker can be used with any of the current database programs like Rootsmagic, Ancestral Quest and Legacy. For those who have decided to work directly from FamilySearch, without a desktop database program, the program is a much needed tool to organize their reserved ordinances.

To find out more about the ordinance tracker program, Visit the Ohana Software website. Ordinance Tracker costs $12.50 and is available for both Mac and Windows computers.

For those that currently use FamilyInsight, Ordinance Tracker will still be included the tools menu for you to use.

For more information on Ordinance Tracker visit: www.ohanasoftware.com

Win 2 Redding Family History Expo Tickets

Ohana Software would like to share the joy of attending the Redding Family History with a fellow Genealogist .  We will be giving away 2 Free tickets to the Expo to a lucky winner this next week.  It is easy to enter and there are several ways to do this.

1.   Visit www.ohanasoftware.com and click on the purchase tab.  But wait you don’t have to purchase.  This is just our Kookie way of having you enter.  There is a zero dollar product called “Enter to win Redding Family History Expo tickets”.   Choose this “product”  and add to your cart. check out and register if you are not already registered on our website.  Confirm the order and that is all you need to do to.  While you are there you may want to check out our new standalone product Ordinance Tracker that works directly with new FamilySearch.

2.  If you want more entries you can enter up to 5 more times by doing the following and commenting on this blog as to what you did. I additional entry for each of the below. Be sure to comment on this blog separately for each entry item you do.

* Subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog.

* Twitter about this Giveaway.

* Spread the word about this giveaway on Facebook

* Comment on this blog about what you like about FamilyInsight or the new Ordinance tracker.

* Become a member of FamilyInsight Users on Facebook.

Contest ends at Midnight Redding time ( Pacific time)  Oct 13th 2009

Hope to see you in Redding.

Aloha,

Paula

Helpful Hints for FamilyInsight

I’ve been following the Utah and Idaho roll out of the FamilySearch family tree with almost as much excitement as those of you who live in those states. It is an amazing website and I hope you will appreciate everything is can do.

With the roll out underway, more and more of you are updating to FamilyInsight each day. Welcome. We hope you will enjoy using FamilyInsight.

To say there is a lot to learn about the new.familysearch.org website is a big understatement. The same goes for FamilyInsight. I hope these hints help you get off to a good start with both our program and the new FamilySearch website.

1. The IGI is no longer being updated. All ordinance information goes into the new.familysearch.org website. FamilyInsight can still search the IGI but you will not see ordinances that have been preformed in temples using the new system or ordinances that have been done anywhere since the end of June. If you have access to the FamilySearch family tree, you should use either the Simple Update or the Full Synchronization mode.

2. The process of searching for your ancestors will go smoother if you will first use the Edit Places mode and make sure that your place names are recognized by FamilySearch. We have a good video training lesson ( http://tinyurl.com/aezfbg ) to help you learn to use this mode to the fullest advantage. You will learn how to clean up your file by using the suggestions from FamilySearch. When appropriate, you can keep your historically correct places and point FamilyInsight to the standardized place so FamilySearch knows where to look for your people. If you take the time up front to used Edit Places, you will save time when you start searching.

3. Watch the video training ( http://tinyurl.com/aezfbg ) to see how the program works. Attend a webinar ( http://www.ohanasoftware.com/?sec=webinars ) for in depth training on synchronizing records or reserving names for ordinance and printing the Family Ordinance Request. If you cannot wait for a webinar, you can watch a recording of a previous webinar by going to http://www.ohanasoftware.com/?sec=webinars&page=WebinarArchive.

4. While watching the training videos or webinars, pay close attention to the process of marking names as Matches and THEN going to the “Ready to Sync” line to select the information you want to update from FamilySearch to your file and from your file to FamilySearch. Make sure you understand how to select the information you want, especially for marriages and parents. This will ensure you don’t add duplicates to your file.

As you become familiar with FamilyInsight, you will come to realize how easy it is to synchronize records and how flexible and powerful it is.

City Directories

Since city directories played such a prominent role in my last post (Leave no Stone Unturned), I thought it might be a good idea to write something about them.

As soon as people started gathering together we needed directions to find each another’s dwellings, be it a cave, hut, farm or apartment building. Today, we use the Internet to find someone’s phone number and address, see a map, and get directions to drive there. You can even pull up a satellite image of the place you are heading to so you recognize it when you arrive. In the BC years (as in before computers) you opened a phone book and found the person’s name, address and phone number. You then flipped to the map section and found where they lived. Their predecessor was the city directory.

By the late 1700’s, major cities began publishing city directories as a means of locating people and places. They generally listed the head of the household and his (or her) address. Directories often contained maps to further facilitate finding friends, family members, and co-workers.

Helpful Genealogy Tool

Using some basic investigative techniques, family historians can use city directories to locate family members and the places they lived and worked. You can also find churches, schools, fraternal organizations, fire and police stations, government leaders, and businesses in the area. If your family has any connection with these kinds of institutions, you can narrow down which to search for by comparing their locations with where your ancestor lived.

City directories can also help us solve other problems. Since widows were sometimes listed by their name followed by, “widow of [husband's name]” you may be able to narrow down the time when her husband died. If you cannot find a family in a census record, check the city directory to see if they were still living in that area. City directories are particularly helpful for locating people in the 1890s since the 1890 census in virtually nonexistent.

One important fact to remember is, city directories were compiled about a year before they were published. If your person disappears as of the 1891 directory, they may have actually moved in 1890. If they appear in the 1865 directory, they probably arrived in area in early 1864 or even late 1863, depending upon the publication dates. Allow for compilation and publishing when you are estimating dates of departure or death.

Travel Back in Time

Don’t overlook the advertisements, especially if you love history or want to write a personal history. The adds are fun to read, the illustrations are generally delightful, and they help you envision the environment in which your family lived. If your ancestor owned a business, you may even find a advertisement for his or her business. Even looking at the competition’s advertisements can help you visualize life for your ancestors.

I hope you will avail yourself of the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of your family by looking for them in a city directory. You can look for city directories online or check the Family History Library Catalog. The films or fiche can be rented through your local Family History Center.

Leave No Stone Unturned

I have been actively involved with training family history consultants for the better part of the past 17 years, yet I sometimes need to remind myself to practice what I preach. One of the fundamental steps in research, especially if you have hit a brick wall, is to do a “thorough and exhaustive” search for your person using ALL the record types that are available in ALL the places where they lived. Some places do not have a lot of records in either the Family History Library Catalog or on the Internet. Other places have a vast assortment of records so the scope of this project may differ vastly from person to person and from place to place.

I think most of us content ourselves with finding what what are looking for and moving to the next level of research without exhausting all the possible resources that may contain information about our ancestor. When we move on too quickly, we may miss key pieces of information that would have helped us in our future research. We may also miss some family members and interesting tidbits that fill in someone’s life story.

Examples

My first example happened a few years ago while I was in the Family History Library in Salt Lake. I was looking for probate records for one ancestor and decided that “as long as I’m at it” I would grab a another roll of film that would include the records for my third great grandfather. I hoped to find some “background” information. Instead I found 5 new children (4 girls and a boy) and the husbands of two of these daughters! I quickly looked up these new families on the 1850 census and in short order added seventeen new people to my family, all of whom needed temple work.

Another example happened recently. Since I had extra time at our Family History Center, I decided to looked at the Chicago city directories covering years when my second great grandfather and his family lived there. I found him in three consecutive years of the city directory. Two entries listed his occupation as a laborer and the third one listed him as a mason. I also noted that he moved three times in three years. My findings were not earth shaking but they provided insights into this immigrant family.

My last example happened several years ago and also involved using a city directory. I was trying to pin down when a great uncle moved from Pennsylvania to Kansas. In the process of looking for his records in the Scranton city directory, I  found his father who should have been living on his farm in a different county.  It turns out that between census years he moved to Scranton and back to a farm in the original county. While in Scranton, he worked as a lorry driver for a butcher. The following year, the city directory said his occupation was a butcher for the same company. The third and final year, he was the co-owner of the butcher shop. After that, he was no longer living in the city. This short interlude from farming was a total surprise and a treasure to me.

Lessons Learned

The moral of the story is, even though you have identified your family and think you have the family put together properly, it is good to continue looking for additional records and leave no stone unturned. You may find more children, the married name of a daughter, someone’s occupation, address, etc. Every new fact adds life to the person and the possibility of pushing the family line back or forward another generation. The time involved is often well worth the effort.

Happy Hunting!

Loveland Colorado Family History Expos

Diana and I are in Loveland, Colorado today. The Family History Expos is underway and the enthusiastic group of attendee’s have made their first pass through the vendor hall.

The electricity in the air, generated by teaching, learning, and sharing our experiences in family history, eclipses that which came with the thunderstorms of last night. I love gatherings of people with a common interest. There are no strangers, just good friends that haven’t ever met.

I’ll keep my ear to the ground for late breaking news. My first “scoop” is Heritage Collector Suite released version 5.3 yesterday. It will be on their website next week and on ours sometime thereafter.

Stay tuned.

Email Hoaxes – Don’t Believe Everything you Read

Email. Many of us have a love/hate relationship with it. We love it for keeping in touch with friends and family. We hate it when friends and family only pass on dire warnings that the sky is falling and viruses are attacking from Mars, only to find out the warnings are just a prank.

The dilemma, or course, comes as we try to determine which are factual and which are fraudulent. Some warnings are truthful and timely, some are truthful but so old that our computers have already be “inoculated” against that virus, and others are completely bogus. Before you follow the inevitable command to, “forward this to everyone in your address book”, please take some time and investigate.

Helpful Websites

Do a Google or Yahoo search on “Hoaxes”, you will find many websites which investigate these types of emails to determine whether they are true, false or somewhere in between. Currently, the best known website is Snopes.com. In an April 2009 Reader’s Digest article called,  Rumor Detectives: True Story or Online Hoax? the author, David Hochman, called Snopes.com “one of the Internet’s most trusted authorities”. I generally use Snopes.com but you may want to try Hoax Slyer, About.com-Urban Legends, McAfee (to confirm Virus threats) or any of the other options you find from your search.

These websites generally categorize thier articles into topics. If the email is telling you that eating chopped liver on Saturday will make your rich by Monday, look for a category to do with food, health, or wealth. If the email is about a computer virus, look for a category for computers or viruses. Once you get to the specific category, you should be able to find an article that matches the email you received. Read the article to find out if it is factual or a hoax, urban legend, or scam.  These articles are be fascinating so enjoy yourself while you learn.

Don’t be Gullible

Often, the email will say, “I’ve checked this out on Snopes.com and it’s true. If the friend that sent the email to you is the one that said they “checked it out”, you can decide whether to trust their judgment or not,  BUT if the email itself says “it was verified by Snopes.com” then beware. Spammers are savvy. They want us to believe and react. Spammers want to waste our time, frighten, defame, create anger and resentment and clog our minds and inboxes with junk. Don’t believe the that statement, check it out yourself. Most of the time, I find these opening statements are misleading and the warnings or call to action is bogus.

This is not to say that all such emails are fraudulent. Some warnings can save you from scam artists or your computer from a virtual plague. My suggestion is, don’t take these emails on face value.  Educate yourself and be a good cyber citizen by checking the story before you perpetuate the problem.

Helping Others without Spoiling the Fun

The spiritual thought at a recent Consultant Meeting gave me food for thought. The director said, in essence, “We do family history because we should, because it is right.” Then using a very LDS example he went on to say, “For some, the experience is like Laman and Lemuel returning for the brass plates; arduous and unpleasant. For others, it is an adventure because they enjoy the journey.”

The journey lovers often try to entice the unconverted by doing their research and presenting them with mounds of information. The indifferent may find one or two tidbits interesting but their eyes soon glaze over while we happily prattle on about how exciting everything is. They may be grateful for our help but their heart has not been changed. Sigh.

How can we help someone feel the joy that we feel? Part of our enthusiasm comes from FINDING the information we are seeking. Looking at your grandmother’s pedigree charts is not as much fun as going onto the Internet and finding your great grandparents on a ship’s passenger list. Our spirits are touched by the Spirit of Elijah as we seek for our ancestors and find them. The pleasure comes from putting forth effort and eventually having success.

Perhaps we can provide others with a successful experience by scouting ahead and finding information about their family. When the time is right, we can help them by teaching them about a research tool, then letting them plug in the name and find their person. Bingo! Success! They sought for something and found it. Maybe something will stir within them because they had a positive experience.

Patiently waiting for the right time to teach and lead may be a greater gift than stacks of stuff they cannot appreciate at this time. Teach them how to fish. It will taste better than the fully cooked fish on a platter.

Usernames, Passwords and License Keys

From fairy tales to science fiction, magic words overcome the spells guarding vast treasures, transform mice into horses or turn a pumpkin into a beautiful carriage. Magic words have power. So do usernames, passwords and license keys. They protect personal information, guard access to your email, grant access to online information, and verify you paid for the use of certain programs and websites. You can create some usernames and passwords while others are computer generated. The key is knowing what to use when. If Ali Baba had uttered “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo”, the mouth of the cave would have remained shut. Cinderella would not have been dressed well or had a beautiful carriage to take her to the ball had her fairy godmother waved her magic wand and uttered “Abracadabra!”. Similarly, you will not be able to install FamilyInsight without using the correct license key and its accompanying license username. You will not be able to update your contact information or purchase an update license without the login information for our website. Worst of all, you will not be able to log onto one of the two FamilySearch websites while using FamilyInsight without the correct login information.

What to Use When and Where

Here are the differences between all the magic words you need for our website, installing our programs, and using the modes that require a login for either of the two FamilySearch websites.

The Ohana Software website Customer Area Login

• Requires the username (or email address and the password YOU created during registration at our website
• Grants access to your contact information for updating
• Permits access to the license key and username for the programs you purchased from us.
• You can retrieve this by going to our website at www.ohanasoftware.com, going to My Account and selecting Login/Register. Click the Lost Password button and enter you email address and we will send you your login information.
• If you do not get our reply, it is because we do not have a current email address for you. Call us toll free: 1-877-436-3256 or send an e-mail to: support@ohanasoftware.com

Installing FamilyInsight

• Requires the COMPUTER generated license key and username which act as proof of purchase for the program.
• These work as a pair to unlock the use of the program
• They are case and space sensitive and must be entered correctly to finalize the installation
• Enter the license key and click OK. On the next window, enter the license username and click OK.
• Do not confuse this computer-generated username with the username you created when you registered on our website. They are generally different.
• You can look these up on our website by logging into our website as mentioned above.

FamilyInsight – Edit Places, Full Synchronization and Simple Update Mode

• Requires the username and password you created when you registered with the FamilySearch family tree website(aka new FamilySearch).
• Allows you to search for records on the FamilySearch family tree (aka new FamilySearch)
• You can reset this information by going to https://new.familysearch.org and clicking the link that says “Forgot?”
• If you are not in an area that uses this new system, you will not be able to use these modes at this time.

FamilyInsight – IGI Search mode

• Requires your username and password for the ORIGNIAL FamilySearch.org website at www.familysearch.org
• FamilyInsight/PAF Insight submits this information to www.familysearch.org and signs on for you so you can look for information in the IGI.
• Retrieve your username and password from www.familysearch.org, by clicking on the Sign On link and choosing the link that says, “If you have forgotten…” You can also call FamilySearch Support at 1-866-406-1830.
• Once you have the correct username and password, enter that into FamilyInsight

Alakazam and Hocus pocus!! No more problems!!!

Free FHC Training Webinars Now Available

We have now opened registration for training webinars to all family history consultants, directors, and staff. Directors are invited to share these webinars via projection screen for their Family History Center staff. Consultants may also join webinars from a home computer equipped with audio. A microphone or long distance phone connection will be required to participate in the live question and answer sessions following each presentation. Webinars will be 40-60 minutes in length. They will be recorded and archived to allow viewing for those who are unable to attend them live.

These FHC Webinars are now available for registration:

Syncing PAF files with FamilySearch™ using FamilyInsight:
Monday, May 11th 9:30-10:30am MDT
Thursday, May 21st 6:00-7:00pm MDT

Collaboration Clean-Up
Saturday, May 16th 10:00-11:00am MDT

How to Light a Fire Under Your Ward
Tuesday, May 26th 7:00-8:00pm MDT

Click here for more webinar information

If you would like to organize a special webinar for a group of 40 or more, you will need to e-mail webinars@ohanasoftware.com at least a month in advance. Please include the date & time, an estimated number of attendees, and the desired topic.

To subscribe to a monthly calendar of webinars, go to the Family History Webinar Page and fill out the form at the bottom of the page.

If you have an idea for a webinar subject or would like to be a guest presenter, e-mail webinars@ohanasoftware.com

Aloha,

The Ohana Software Team