The com­put­er is one of our most impor­tant genealog­i­cal tools. Many of us remem­ber when this was not the case. I have my fair share of mimeo­graphed fam­i­ly group sheets filled out in fad­ing pen­cil wait­ing in a stack to be scanned. But today, with your research find­ings stored in a dig­i­tal data­base and your research con­sist­ing of… Con­tin­ue read­ing Keep­ing Your Com­put­er Up-to-Date

Update: 9 March 2011 I am not Pam Sla­ton, and do not even know her. A lot of folks are post­ing here think­ing they are con­tact­ing Pam, but, unfor­tu­nate­ly, they are not. I wish I could pass infor­ma­tion on to her, but I am not in touch with her. — This was news to me:… Con­tin­ue read­ing Pam Sla­ton: “Search­ing for …”

Google Docs was once an appli­ca­tion that was “like Microsoft Word” or “like Pow­er­Point”, and could read and write files from those pro­grams as well as Excel. But main­ly, you under­stood that you were edit­ing your file and stor­ing it, in Google’s pro­pri­etary for­mat. Then, in Jan­u­ary 2010, Google announced that they would allow users… Con­tin­ue read­ing Google Docs Goes Native

Google Ear­li­er this week, Apple announced a new sub­scrip­tion pay­ment mod­el for the iPad. Google respond­ed yes­ter­day with a much more flex­i­ble sub­scrip­tion mod­el using Google Check­out (a Pay­Pal com­peti­tor), and pro­vid­ing 10% in rev­enue for Google (in com­par­i­son with Apple’s 30%). Google does not require that the in-app pur­chase price be at least as… Con­tin­ue read­ing More Tech­nol­o­gy News for Geneal­o­gists

Apple announced today that they will be sup­port­ing sub­scrip­tions on the App­Store. A lot of us have been think­ing that would make for a good day, as it nev­er made sense for own­ers of the iPad to only be able to buy some­thing like a mag­a­zine for the iPad one issue at a time (often… Con­tin­ue read­ing Sub­scrip­tions on the Apple App Store

The Way­back Machine, a project of The Inter­net Archive, (cur­rent ver­sion: http://web.archive.org/; new beta ver­sion at http://waybackmachine.org/) is an attempt to archive the com­plete con­tent of the Inter­net. Brew­ster Kahle, the co-founder of the Inter­net Archive spoke about the project at the Sat­ur­day keynote address at Root­sTech 2011. The key pur­pose of the Inter­net Archive is… Con­tin­ue read­ing Using the Way­back Machine for Geneal­o­gy

On Sat­ur­day at the Root­sTech con­fer­ence in Salt Lake City, there was an open dis­cus­sion ses­sion on genealog­i­cal data stan­dards. There has been a heat­ed dis­cus­sion, lit­er­al­ly going on for years, about a new data mod­el that could replace GEDCOM. A new GEDCOM stan­dard would address GED­COM’s gaps — for exam­ple, being able to store… Con­tin­ue read­ing Root­sTech 2011: Towards a New Genealog­i­cal Data Mod­el

Brew­ster Kahle, founder of the Inter­net Archive, gave an incred­i­ble keynote address this morn­ing. His non-prof­it has been dig­i­tiz­ing and pro­vid­ing on the Inter­net all kinds of media. As he said, “We are in the busi­ness of giv­ing infor­ma­tion away.” He briefly men­tioned “born dig­i­tal” data, but focused his dis­cus­sion on the data we all… Con­tin­ue read­ing Root­sTech 2011: Day 3

Day 2 of Root­sTech start­ed with a spir­it­ed keynote address by Curt Witch­er of the Allen Coun­ty Pub­lic Library on “The Chang­ing Face of Geneal­o­gy.” His point was: The world is going dig­i­tal and going there quick­ly. Get on board, or be left behind. Bri­an Pugh of Fam­il­y­Search pre­sent­ed a pow­er­ful talk on how the… Con­tin­ue read­ing Root­sTech 2011: Day 2

Yes­ter­day was the first day of Root­sTech, a new con­fer­ence on geneal­o­gy and tech­nol­o­gy held in Salt Lake City and spon­sored by Fam­il­y­Search Inter­na­tion­al, the geneal­o­gy infor­ma­tion arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints. The con­fer­ence start­ed with a lit­tle bit of con­fu­sion: It seemed that there was a rush to the… Con­tin­ue read­ing Root­sTech 2011: Day 1