Blogging Fun and Other Time Commitments

Today's review of my blog views shows 25,555. When it reached 25,000 views last week that was amazing, but this was the serendipity moment as the numbers all lined up. Lately things seem to be picking up again. There were two days in a row this month that were 120 and 110. In April 2013 I reached 1764 views for the all-time high of monthly views. May was 1708 and so far for the month of June it is 1423.

PAF No Longer Provided or Supported by Familysearch

With sadness we are losing access to one of the greatest personal genealogy databases ever created. As of July 15, 2013 PAF will no longer be available to download or install on your computer via the familysearch.org website. Lately it has become increasingly more difficult to find. Along with this announcement is the termination of new.familysearch.org on June 30, 2013.

Serendipity Within the Gates Family

Now, how would you feel if this email arrived in your inbox as this did in mine yesterday?

"Hello,

It was my good fortune last evening to have Googled my 3rd great grandfather's name and run into your blog! I knew very little about "Ardell" prior to that. I suspected he was an 1812 vet and had inklings he was down near Mankato at one time. A big issue for me was that I had 2 different death dates for him. Turns out he lived much longer than I imagined.

Serendipity Finds in Familysearch Record Search Browse

Yesterday was a day of interesting phone calls, especially those requesting me to speak for various groups. Most of the current requests are looking for someone to guide attendees in learning how to research familysearch.org with the recent changes. While the browse section on the record search page has been there for some time, very few people are comfortable using the digitized records that are so valuable in searching for our ancestors.

Pedigree Charts and Family Group Records

Long the standard forms for recording genealogy information, pedigree charts and family group records took a mighty leap forward this week when they became printable on familysearch.org. Randy Seaver wrote a post about this today and early in the day after reading his post it was time to test the newest updates to the familysearch.org website.

The first test was for my husband's and my pedigree charts. The first four generations for each of us is pretty much filled in, but there were some missing pieces of information. Some of the dates and places for events were entered long ago when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1978 encouraged members to submit four generations of family data.

The Genealogical Forum of Oregon Special Interest Groups

Today the Genealogical Forum of Oregon was a beehive of activity. A wide variety of genealogical researchers were present the entire time, from 10 am to 3 pm. For the first two hours the Virginia Interest Group held the attention of the fifteen attendees. Two, Dawn and Linda, made the two hour drive from Eugene to attend. Judi Scott presented information on Revolutionary War ancestors and locating their military and land records. It was my first time attending this group and even though I do not have Virginia ancestors, many people that I work for do.