Ancestry.com Search Features Get an Update

Like anyone else who sells a popular product, Ancestry.com is always tweaking little things to improve the user’s experience. They’ve been working on some updates, some of which you may have noticed on the site over the summer and some of which are rolling out gradually over the next couple of weeks:

1. A simple search form with the check-box option to match all terms exactly.

2. Search results shown grouped by category. This is great–no more scrolling through lots of results when you’re looking for specific kinds of records. This sort feature also reminds us to check categories we may be overlooking, like city directories and local histories. These first two-features are opt-in: learn how to do it here and see what it looks like below:

Ancestry simple search3. A summary box at the top of search results showing what you’ve already attached to your ancestor. The list is sorted alpha-numerically so you can see easily which records have been found and where there might be gaps (see what it looks like below). You can collapse this list if you want to give you more room to see the search results.

Ancestry consolidated list

4. A filter that removes search results similar to types you already found for that ancestor. For example, if you already have a death record for someone, the filter will remove other death records. “Smart filtering” is an optional feature, so you can still choose to see the full list. Read more about it here and see it here:

Ancestry smart filteringAncestry says they will provide plenty of feedback opportunities for these new features. Don’t be shy: tell them what you like (and what you don’t) and why!

 

 

A Tip for Harnessing New Technologies for Genealogy

Lisa BYU Keynote

Photo courtesy of The Ancestry Insider

New technologies don’t stay new. They keep evolving. Here’s a tip for harnessing new and emerging technologies to advance family history research and stay connected with living relatives. 

Last week, I was at the BYU Conference on Family History & Genealogy in Provo, Utah. What a friendly, welcoming group! (Be sure to check out the BYU Family History Library here.) All week, I taught sessions and gave a keynote address on various technologies that help our research. The week’s discussions reminded me how quickly technology moves–and how enthusiastically genealogists continue to embrace new opportunities given them by technology.

It’s part of my job to learn about these new technologies and pass the best ones–the “gems” along to you. But here’s a tip I shared during my keynote address that will help you focus on the technologies you care most about: Think about which tasks you want to accomplish with technology, rather than just learning genealogy-specific technology. Then keep up with developments in the technologies that accomplish those tasks.

For example, by now, many of us have used (or at least heard of) Google Translate. We can use it with foreign-language documents and to correspond with overseas relatives and archives. But Google Translate’s functionality keeps improving. “By the audible gasps of the audience” (during my keynote address) reported the FamilySearch blog, “most were not aware that the Google Translate app enables you to literally hold up your phone to the computer screen or typeset document, and it will translate foreign text on the fly for you—a must have free tool when dabbling in nonnative language content.”

Genealogists are really thinking about these issues. The Ancestry Insider blogged about my keynote talk, too, and my observation that genealogists haven’t been embracing digital video at the same speed at which they embrace other forms of digital media. In the comments section of that post Cathy added, “Now what we need to do is get FamilySearch to figure out a way to let us upload our URL YOUTube videos, not only for our deceased, but for our living….Our children and grandchildren don’t write letters, they email, text, instagram. They don’t write journals, they blog. They make videos of current history….We all need to look to the future and [learn] how to save the new technologies.” Cathy gets it!

A special thanks to conference organizers Stephen Young and John Best, who welcomed me and Genealogy Gems Contributing Editor Sunny Morton all week long. They did a fantastic job of organizing a large event while retaining a warm, personal environment.

Continue reading about applying technology to your family history here.

Atlas of Historical County Boundaries has been Updated

The Newberry Library’s online Atlas of Historical County Boundaries is finally fully updated and interactive! Read the good news here–and my preference for using the powerful geographic data that drives the Atlas.

The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries at The Newberry Library’s website has been undergoing upgrades for quite some time. Genealogists who rely on this fantastic online resource to research  old county boundaries in the U.S. have been able to access the basic data that drives the map (dates and geographic boundary changes). But they haven’t been able to use the popular interactive map. Great news: the Atlas is finally fully interactive again.

Changing Boundaries Reflected in the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries

Understanding changes in county boundaries over time is key to doing genealogy research in the United States. Boundaries have changed repeatedly–and some dramatically. County governments typically keep important genealogical sources: vital records, court records, land records and more. We need to know which county would have housed our ancestors’ records during specific time periods so we can find the records we want.

What’s New at the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries

According to the Newberry Library’s press release, users can now:

  • view a base layer map that allows an overlay of boundaries on top of cities, towns and other geographic features;
  • zoom in and out of maps and expand the view to full screen;
  • select a date of interest from a drop-down box with all border change dates for that state; and
  • view information about border changes in a hover box that changes as users hover over different counties.

Here’s what the new interface looks like:

Google Earth Pro vs. the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries

It’s great to see improved functionality on the Atlas site. But after reviewing the update, I still think the experience of using data from the site is superior in the free Google Earth Pro (GEP) program. To use the entire data set in Google Earth Pro, simply download the KMZ data file onto your computer,and when you click to open the file, your computer will detect the KMZ format and know to automatically open Google Earth Pro (as long as you already have GEP installed on your computer.)

download files at Atlas of Historical County Boundaries

 

Using the file in GEP allows you to use the data in conjunction with the rest of your genealogical information (such as placemarks indiciating places lived & schools attended, historic  map overlays, embedded old family photos and home movies, etc.). This provides a more integrated genealogical research experience. Learn more by clicking here to watch a free video I’ve made about using Google Earth for genealogy.

 

Write Your Family History Book with RootsMagic

Writing a family history book is a daunting task. Check out this quick tip that will help you write your family history book with RootsMagic with just a few clicks!

rootsmagic_famhisbook_feature

Credit: Freepik.com

I love the many reports that can be generated from RootsMagic. RootsMagic is a genealogy software program that allows you to organize all your family history in one place. The software offers many types of printable reports like pedigree charts and family group sheets, but my favorite is the narrative report.

Write Your Family History Book with RootsMagic Using the Narrative Report

The purpose of a genealogy software program is to organize and analyze all of your genealogical data. The good news is that while you are popping in names, dates, and places in your RootsMagic database, behind-the-scenes, your book is actually being written.

Take a look at what I mean. Open your RootsMagic database and look at your family pedigree. Highlight yourself and then click Reports at the top.

Write Your Family History Book Using Narrative Reports

Choose Narrative Reports from the pull-down menu. A pop-up window will appear asking you to choose whether your report will include all the children or just spouses, how many generations to include, and some other format options.

I typically prefer to include as many generations as I can and I like to include the children. When you add the children of each couple to your report, it may be significantly longer so be aware of that.

When you have finished, click Generate Report.

family history with RootsMagic settings

RootsMagic slurps all your raw data into sentence form. Where you once recorded “Georgia Ann Smith, born 11 Nov 1913, Allen County, Ohio,” now reads, “Georgia Ann Smith was born on 11 Nov 1913 in Allen County, Ohio.” A sentence was created using your data.

RootsMagic_FamilyHistoryBook_5

Additionally, the narrative report allows you to:

  • Change the settings to influence how the sentences are structured,
  • Add notes to the appropriate section allowing a story to develop in chronological order,
  • Add pictures to enhance your story,
  • Alter the appearance and formatting of your printed report, and
  • Save in Rich Text format and work with it in a familiar program like Word.

Adding Enriching Details to Your Family History Book

Most people would agree, the best family history books are the ones that have fun, memorable stories and pictures. You can easily do this with RootsMagic.

I have a fun story about when Grandma was born. I want to add it to my family history book. If I double click on her name from my pedigree chart, her “edit person” window will pop-up. Then, I can click the Notes column (see the green notebook icon) in the birth line, and add a note specifically about when she was born.

Write Your Family History Book with Stories

After I have finished writing the story about her birth, I simply click Save note.

Now, when I generate my narrative report, the story about her only weighing about 1 1/2 pounds at birth appears right after her name, birth date, and location.

Add special stories to family history book

Adding Pictures to Your Narrative Report

Along with the stories, adding pictures offers another level of depth to your family history story.

RootsMagic’s narrative report will currently only print one image for each person. For example, if I wanted a picture of Grandma to appear in the narrative report, I would need to add the image to her “person.”

Let me show you how simple it is to link an image. In the example below, I have double clicked on Grandma and opened her “edit person” window. Then, I clicked on the media column where the little camera icon is. Notice that the camera icon I choose was in the “person” line. This is the only place you can add an image that will then appear in the narrative report. If you were to add a photo anywhere else, the image would appear in the scrapbook report, but not in the narrative report. When you have clicked the camera icon, follow the prompts to add the image you have already scanned onto your hard drive or disk.

newimage

Now, when you run the narrative report, Grandma’s picture shows up next to her name.

Write Your Family History Book with Images

One Last Quick Tip to Write Your Family History Book with RootsMagic

If you don’t like the way your narrative report is formatted or if you want to enlarge a picture or even add additional images, here’s one last tip! Saving your narrative report in a rich-text file format will allow you to edit the report from Word or another word processing program you are more familiar with.

To save in a rich-text file format, first create your narrative report as written above. When you reach the view screen, click Save at the top left. Then, choose Rich-Text File from the pop-up window options. The program will open your narrative report in your word processor for easy editing.

rootsmagic_famhisbook_1

rootsmagic_famhisbook_2

If you have already been using the software for your family history, you have already started writing your family history book with RootsMagic without even knowing it! Why not print your report today and make it a special gift to yourself. It’s always a good thing to have your family history in written words! What are your favorite reports to create in RootsMagic? We would love to hear from you in the comment section below.

More Gems on Using RootsMagic

RootsMagic, FTM and the Holy Grail of Family History SoftwareRootsMagic bundle

Free RootsMagic Guides to Download and Share

RootsMagic Review: Why I Use It

5 Ways to Improve Old Home Movies

Show Notes: In this video, Lisa Louise Cooke demonstrates 5 ways to improve your old family home movies so that they are more enjoyable to watch. See how you can transform a short home movie into an integral part of family history.  She will demonstrate editing techniques in Camtasia software, but these strategies can also be applied in many other video editing software programs. 

how to improve old home movies

Video and show notes

Watch the Video Lesson

Show Notes

Family History comes in many forms. But one of the most exciting is old home movies. I’m going to show you the five best ways to polish them up and make them shine so that your family can enjoy them for generations to come.  (Downloadable ad-free Show Notes handout for Premium Members.)

Video Digitization and Editors

Larsen Digital: I got my family video and audio tapes digitized at Larsen Digital, a family-owned business that cares about family history. Click here to get 15% off on your Larsen Digital order when you use our exclusive coupon code GenGem.

Camtasia: Use this link to Camtasia and our coupon code GENE15 to get 15% off for a limited time. Be sure to scroll down the page to find the Buy Now buttons for Camtasia and Snagit. (Note: Maintenance and asset add-ons are optional and can be opted out of if desired during checkout. Discount applies to Snagit as well!)

1. Correctly Size Your Video

The first way to improve your home movies is to get the size right. That’s one of the most challenging parts and probably the most overlooked item when it comes to video production. You need to determine the original video size. Chances are you have already gotten your old home movies digitized. But if you haven’t done that, first, you need to send them into a reputable company. I use Larsen Digital.

Or perhaps somebody in your family has sent you a video and you’re not sure what the size is. We can take a look at that in the file manager on our computer. Right-click on the video file and go to Properties. You will see what size of the file is in MB. Click on Details, and there you can see the frame width expressed in pixels. The example video I worked on is 480 px by 360 px. This is quite small when you consider that an HD video is more in the range of 1920 x 1080. Because my video was so small it means it’s probably better suited for sharing on social media or on a website; something that can take a smaller video and display it properly. The large HD size would play better on YouTube or a big screen.

Now that we know the size of our video, we’re going to set the canvas size to match in our video editing software. That’s the key. When you see a video that’s blurry or doesn’t look quite right, it may be because the canvas was set improperly, or the video is not large enough for the place where it is being displayed. If edits were made but the video size wasn’t taken into account it can cause problems. You can’t take a really small video and make it really big and expect it not to get blurry or distorted.

I use Camtasia as my video editing software, and the first thing I do is go in and set the canvas size so that it matches up with the size of my original video. To do this in Camtasia, go to the top of the canvas and you may see a percentage size, such as 50%. That means the canvas we see as we edit is actually about ½ the size of what the produced video will be. That just has to do with video editing, so don’t worry about it. Click the down arrow and go to Project Settings. Camtasia provides preset standard sizes to make it easy. You can see that 1920 by 1080 is HD. My video was much smaller, so I can either pick from a smaller preset size or select Custom.  I like to use Custom and enter the exact size I want. In this case I will enter the size of the digitized video I will be working on which is 480 by 360.

Next, import the video by clicking the Plus sign in the Media Bin and locating the file on your computer. You can then click it in the Media Bin and drag it and drop it on to the timeline at the bottom of the screen. It should fit the canvas perfectly.

I’m working on editing a short little home movie that one of my viewers, Kate, sent me. It’s a wonderful little video of her with her siblings and her parents when she was a child. The original video was pretty small, but there were some other issues with it as well. And that leads us into our next best practice.

2. Correct the Video Speed

Often times old home movies may appear speeded-up. That was certainly the case in Kate’s home movie. Things are moving very quickly making it really hard to figure out who’s who and just get a chance to look at their sweet faces. There are several things that we can do to correct this in Camtasia.

Speeded-up movies can happen due to issues with the little sprockets on the sides of the original film, or missing frames – there are a number of reasons why this might happen. Also, the person filming may have made many cuts, starting and stopping repeatedly in an effort to try and capture the action. Unfortunately, the end result can be the film moves far too quickly and appears jerky. When you’re in the middle of filming, that doesn’t seem so bad. But the final resulting film can seem jumpy as if you’re jumping from one thing to the next. We can slow this down and create some pauses so we can really see the people in the film.

Start by clicking the video clip to select it. Right-click the clip to reveal the menu and select Add Clip Speed. On the right-hand side of the screen, you will now see the Properties of Clip Speed. Here you can see the size of our video. Clip Speed will default at 1.00 which means we’re using the exact same speed of the original video. It is 100%. But we want to slow this down. Change the minutes and seconds to adjust the speed. Going from 1 minute to 2 minutes will make it twice as long, thereby slowing the video down accordingly. You can speed the video up by shortening the length of time.

Review your adjustments. You can drag the playhead to any location (this is called scrubbing) to review that portion of the video.

There are also opportunities to do additional things with speed to improve the viewing experience. One of the things we can do is Extend a Frame. If you have a spot on the video where you’d like to take a pause and be able to see someone in the film a little longer (such as a child running by the camera) you can select that moment and make it longer. Place the playhead at the exact spot where you want the moment to last longer, and right-click on the video clip. Select Extend a Frame. Select the seconds to the desired length. Review your work and make adjustments as needed.

You can Undo at any time by clicking Control Z or in the menu under Edit > Undo.

Another way that you can extend a frame is to click on the clip and split it by clicking the Split button. Then you can slide the section on the right down the timeline. With your playhead on the end of the first section, right-click and select Extend a Frame. Then you can click and drag the end of the extended frame to the desired length. (You can see how long it is by that little text box that’s showing up just down below.) Once you’re happy with it, drag the split off section back up against the first clip so that it will run smoothly when played.

3. Correct the Color

The next way you can improve your old home movie is by applying color correction. If the video is black and white (as in my example) there may be minimal work to do, but small adjustments can make a nice improvement.

You can also use color correction to be creative and distort things, but generally speaking, the goal will be to improve the overall look and make it as natural as possible.

If you’ve split your frames during the editing process, you’ll want to be sure to apply color correction to all of them. You can do that by dragging your cursor across all of the clips to highlight them. You can tell they’re highlighted because they have yellow outlines.

Next, go to Visual Effects in the menu on the left side of the screen. There are several from which to choose. Click Color adjustment which gives you several options and it’s fun to play with the various properties. You can colorize things make them interesting. You can change the frame of the entire video, such as rounding the corners, or making it look like the video is playing on a computer.

To apply Color Adjustment, drag and drop it onto the highlighted clips.  You can bring the settings back to the original colors by setting everything to zero. Then you can play with brightness, contrast and saturation to get exactly the look you want. Small adjustments can even improve black and white home movies. You can also make spot correction by just selecting portions of the film that need correction. You can isolate those portions by splitting the clip into sections.

4. Add Annotations

Have you got any old photo albums at home where nobody wrote down the names or the places or the dates. It drives you crazy, particularly if you love family history, and you’re trying to get things right. Well, we don’t have to leave our home movies unlabeled either. You can add context to this historical video document through annotations. We can’t assume that everybody’s going to know who everybody is in this old home movie. There are things that we can do to add that context to the film, so that no matter how far into the future, anybody watching this video will know who they’re looking at and what was important about it to the people who were involved.

Adding context is particularly important for older home movies that are silent. So, let’s put on our Cecil B DeMille or John Ford hat and do what they would have done to their silent movies: add titles. We will do this with Annotations in Camtasia.

How to Add Annotations / Callouts in Camtasia

Click Annotations in the left-hand menu to display your options. There are some nice basic annotations that come with Camtasia. You can also create your own custom library and themes. Select the desired style. (You can also get more of these types of assets over the TechSmith website.)

Since we’ve extended frames to highlight certain people and actions, these are great places to add annotations. Go to the extended frame and place the playhead there. Click the annotation style you want and drag it onto the canvas. I like to use the Callout that has text on a background which works well as a label on the screen. It’s very easy to read. Double-click on the text of the Callout and type the  name or context information.

Resizing Annotations

You may see that you have extra whitespace at the top and the bottom of the label. Click on the little handles around the label (Callout) and pull to resize.

Stylizing Annotations

You can also change the properties and the spacing in the Call Out Properties on the right side of the screen. You can change the label outline color and background color. Use the color picker to pick a coordinating color from the video or select from the color palette. You can also change the thickness of the border. Text can also be formatted to suit your needs.

Reposition annotations by clicking on it and dragging it to the desired location.

Copying Annotations

Speed up the process by copying annotations, pasting them at the desired location on the timeline, and then updating the text. If you don’t see the pasted annotation, it might be on top of the one you copied. Also, check the position of the playhead on the timeline. If the playhead isn’t on the annotation, it will not appear on the canvas.

You can extend each annotation to the exact desired length by grabbing the edge and dragging it on the timeline.

Fade Transitions

Another way to create a pleasant viewing experience is to add Fade Transitions at the beginning and end of annotations.

5. Cite Your Source: End Titles

We’ve added annotations to tell more about who is in the film along the way. However, the source of the overall package of this video needs to be cited as well, just like any good genealogy record. A great place to do is by adding a title card at the beginning and / or end of the home movie video.   

I particularly like to add the source citation at the end so that when they finish watching the video, they will see how it came to fruition, where it originally came from, who did the editing, and notes about the improvements applied.

If you’ve made changes such as color correction it’s important to mention that at the end in the source citation. This end title can explain what you did that alters it from the original piece. We do this with photos, and the same thing holds true here for home movies. We want to make sure that people know the difference between what was original and real and what was added in post-production.

You can create a simple custom title card at the end by using an annotation. Place the playhead at the desired location on the timeline and go back to the Callouts under Annotations. I like to use the simple text only callout. Drag and drop it onto the canvas or the timeline. Highlight the text to select it and type your text. I recommend small amounts of information on multiple callouts, separated by Fade Transitions. Review your work carefully to ensure that the viewer has enough time to read through each title card you create. You can drag the edges of each callout to shorten or lengthen them, but keep in mind you might need to move the callouts that follow the one you’re working on further down the timeline to make room.

Bonus: How to Add Music

One last little thing you can do to your video is music. Import that mp3 music file into your Media bin, and then drag and drop it onto the timeline. If the music isn’t long enough, add a second copy. Trim blank space at the end of the first piece of music and then butt the second piece up against it.

If your music is longer than your video, shorten the music to match. Then, go to Audio Properties on the left side of the screen (it may be under More) and drag and drop Fade Out to the end of the music.

Share Your Home Movies

I love old home movies, and I love getting them into tip top shape so that they can be enjoyed for many years to come by countless people. There are so many different ways you can share your home movies. You might want to upload it to YouTube. If you do, add some family information in the video description so that other people can find them. You can also share videos on social media, by text or email, etc. There are so many different ways to share your family history, and I think that moving pictures is one of the most exciting. Your family will appreciate the extra effort you put into improving them and making them more enjoyable to watch.

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