RootsMagic + MyHeritage = Heritage Magic!

If you’re a MyHeritage user, you know how powerful their search and record matching technologies are–and how many records and trees they have. If you use RootsMagic, you know how adeptly this family history software helps you build and maintain your master family tree. Now you can work more heritage magic by combining these powerful family history tools!

MyHeritage’s Smart Matching™ and Record Matching technologies have been integrated into newly-released RootsMagic 7 in a feature called WebHints. Whenever new records become available that match people in your RootsMagic tree, MyHeritage will send you a clickable alert. It’s kind of like having Google Alerts for MyHeritage embedded right within MyHeritage! Some records will be free to view; others will require a MyHeritage subscription. Either way, don’t you want to know what’s out there that you might be missing? (Bonus: WebHints also include hints from FamilySearch.org!)

Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems PodcastPersonally, I’m so pleased to see this collaboration. RootsMagic is a longtime sponsor of the free Genealogy Gems Podcast. MyHeritage also sponsors our podcast now, too. These companies offer products I love to share with readers and listeners because they are truly “genealogy gems.”

A few more good-to-know facts:

  • RootsMagic assures users that “information sent by RootsMagic to MyHeritage for matching is never collected or shared, and is deleted after matching to ensure the complete privacy of RootsMagic users and their data.
  • You do have the option to turn off WebHints if you need to for whatever reason. In the software, go to Tools, File Options, and then uncheck WebHints.
  • MyHeritage matching technologies are also being integrated by Dutch genealogy software Aldfaer and the online genealogy services of Coret Genealogie in the Netherlands.

Is it time for you to try a free trial of RootsMagic and MyHeritage? Test drive them both with their freebie versions (still powerful and totally compatible with the paid upgrades). Click here to learn about RootsMagic 7 (and the free version, RootsMagic Essentials) and here to learn about free and paid subscription options at MyHeritage.com.

What are you finding in your WebAlerts on MyHeritage (or by searching the site yourself)? I’d love to hear from you! Post your discoveries on the Genealogy Gems Facebook page!

Annie Barrows Talks Family History and The Truth According to Us

Annie Barrow interviewIf you’ve read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, you know how brilliantly co-author Annie Barrows stitched together letters, conversations and history in her fictional love story and account of the Nazi-occupied island of Guernsey during World War II. I love that book. So I was super excited to hear her talking on The Diane Rehm Show recently about her new book, The Truth According to Us: A Novel.

Of course, Annie read from the opening of her book, which made me put it at the top of my reading list. Then she talked about how history can be so different, depending on who is telling the story and from what perspective. I loved her take on small-town history and family history: how it’s remembered so deeply and passionately by its own, and often so mis-remembered or mis-represented by outsiders.

Here’s the book summary from Amazon:

“In the summer of 1938, Layla Beck’s father, a United States senator, cuts off her allowance and demands that she find employment on the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program. Within days, Layla finds herself far from her accustomed social whirl, assigned to cover the history of the remote mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia, and destined, in her opinion, to go completely mad with boredom. But once she secures a room in the home of the unconventional Romeyn family, she is drawn into their complex world and soon discovers that the truth of the town is entangled in the thorny past of the Romeyn dynasty.

At the Romeyn house, twelve-year-old Willa is desperate to learn everything in her quest to acquire her favorite virtues of ferocity and devotion—a search that leads her into a thicket of mysteries, including the questionable business that occupies her charismatic father and the reason her adored aunt Jottie remains unmarried. Layla’s arrival strikes a match to the family veneer, bringing to light buried secrets that will tell a new tale about the Romeyns. As Willa peels back the layers of her family’s past, and Layla delves deeper into town legend, everyone involved is transformed—and their personal histories completely rewritten.”

Annie did talk about the Guernsey book, too. I hadn’t realized her aunt wrote the original manuscript, then became too ill to do the rewrites her publisher wanted. So Annie took on the task. As the author of the acclaimed Ivy and Bean children’s series, clearly she was up to the task. But she didn’t dream it would become an international best-seller!

Genealogy Gems Book Club Genealogy Family HistoryThat’s my latest recommendation as the “curator” of the Genealogy Gems Book Club. We recommend mainstream fiction and nonfiction titles that resonate with people who love family history. Up soon on the Genealogy Gems Book Club schedule: our interview with author Nathan Dylan Goodwin, author of The Lost Ancestor (The Forensic Genealogist) (we’ll put the link up on the Book Club page when it’s ready). We also recently published this new companion list of how-to genealogy books we love.

 

DAR Bible Records Now Online

Sudweeks marriage cert cropped

This decorative marriage certificate and the Births page below come from a Sudweeks family Bible I helped return to the Sudweeks family.

The Daughters of the American Revolution Library (DAR) has a free online collection of searchable records. Its Genealogical Research System allows anyone to search databases of ancestors, descendants, members, its Genealogical Research Committee reports and more. Now it’s added another databases: Bible records.

“DAR collections contain thousands of Bible records from the Family Register sections and other pages,” states a news release from Eric Grundset, DAR Library Director.  A new database contains “approximately 30,000 Bible records taken from our Genealogical Records Committee Reports. This is an ongoing project as member volunteers review the GRC database to post more materials found in those nearly 20,000 volumes. As time progresses, we will add other Bible listings from other sources in our collections.

“At the present time, if someone wishes to order copies of a specific Bible record, they will need to contact the DAR Library’s Search Services for copies. We are developing the steps for the ordering of pdfs of all of the DAR Bible records for online ordering in the near future. Documentation that is less than 100 years old is restricted for privacy reasons.”

Sudweeks birthsFamily Bibles in years past served as a family’s private vital records registry, where the names, births, marriages and deaths of loved ones were inscribed. A Bible record may be the only place to find some of those, especially for the distant past and for children who died young. But it’s also the most intimate kind of vital record to find, a family’s log of its own kin.

Grundset reminds us that “DAR Collections are not limited to the period of the American Revolution or to the families of DAR members.”

Use Skype Translator to Speak Another Language

Skype translateDo you use Skype or another video chat service to keep in touch with loved ones? Have you considered using it for long-distance oral history interviews or collaborating on your genealogy with a faraway cousin? Language barriers can sometimes become a problem. Skype Translator offers a solution!

Last December, online communications giant Skype announced the debut of Skype Translator. The service launched with two spoken languages, English and Spanish, and more than 40 instant messaging languages. Customers could access it who signed-up via the Skype Translator sign-up page and were using Windows 8.1 on a desktop or device.

The Skype blog has proudly announced that they’ve added Italian and Mandarin to the list of spoken languages in Skype Translator. “As you can imagine, Mandarin is a very challenging language to learn, even for Skype Translator. With approximately 10,000 characters and multiple tones, this is one of the most difficult languages for a native English speaker to master.” The list of instant messaging languages has also expanded.

The post acknowledges years of hard work and testing required for the Mandarin application by Microsoft researchers and scientists in the U.S. and China. “Skype Translator relies on machine learning, which means that the more the technology is used, the smarter it gets,” stated the initial release. “As more people use the Skype Translator preview with these languages, the quality will continually improve.” Here’s a video demonstrating Mandarin translation:

“The focus of our updates in this preview release is to streamline interactions between participants, so you can have a more natural conversation using Skype Translator,” states the recent Skype release. They describe these key updates:

  • Text to speech translation:
    • You now have the option to hear the instant messages people send to you – in the language of your choice
    • Continuous recognition – Recognized text translation as your partner is speaking
  • Automatic volume control:
    • Your partner can speak while the translation is still happening. You will hear the translation at full volume, and your partner at a lower volume, so that you can follow the translation, which will help make conversations more fluid.
  • Mute option for translated voice:
    • There is now an option to easily turn the translated audio on or off if you would prefer to only read the transcript.

stick_figure_ride_mouse_400_wht_9283Want to learn more about using video chat services like Skype for family history? Click here to read tips about collaborating with other family history researchers via Skype. We’ve blogged about how to use third-party apps to record Skype conversations (click here to learn how). Our free Family History Made Easy podcast features an episode on interviewing skills (episode 2) and a 2-part series on how to contact long-lost relatives (“genealogy cold-calls,” episodes 14 and 15).

 

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