Bring the Digital World Together

I purchased my Ancestry.com membership last week, and I have fallen in love with the site. It does the research for you! Sort of. The collaboration with other people's trees and the searching of historical records is automatic. You are given the opportunity to accept changes and additions. Some of my mentors have cautioned me though. It seems that there needs to be great caution in accepting information on the Internet, mostly because the great number of people involved. The chances for human error are great.

I also signed up for FamilySearch.org, using my LDS information so that I can see if Temple Work has been done for specific individuals. At the suggestion of more than one of my mentors, I have my own PAF (Personal Ancestral File) program which I consider my authority. Before putting information there, I will make sure I have a primary source citation.

This means I now have three versions of my family tree! So I asked around and read other's blogs and this is what I've come up with as a temporary strategy:

Use Ancestry.com to grow my family tree, do research, and find those ever-important primary sources (historical records).
Use PAF to store my family information that I am more (most?) sure of.
Use FamilySearch.org to check for temple work (LDS-specific-ask if you want to know more).

I still have three trees, but I am not trying to make all three complete, only my local PAF files.

Why is this temporary? Because there is a new service being released soon by the LDS Church that might make it all more simple. I won't know until I can use it, and it isn't available in my area yet. The New Family Search will combine several databases to simplify the process.

I think I will still use Ancestry.com because of the access to historical records, but the rest of the process should be easier because of a connection between PAF and New Family Search. Here is a video that introduces the new system.

http://www.learnpaf.com/newFamilySearch/newFamilySearch.html

This video is accessed via: http://www.masteringfamilyhistory.com/

Mastering Family History is a website that offers free training related to family history and genealogy. Take a look at it and see what you can learn. The only thing better would be to have someone beside you showing you the steps you need to know. My philosophy is this: what ever it takes. If reading online and viewing videos works for you, terrific! If you want someone to help you live as if they were next to you, take a look at this page: FamilyHistoryGeek's Phone Training

I'm creating some specific lessons I think people will want to learn. They are mostly the same as you can get elsewhere for free (see above). You choose. I would love to help and earn some money, but I will also provide the links to the free material.

Please in comments let me know the things you would want a Geek to teach you if you had one. I'll add them to my list of lessons (as long as I know the answers or after I learn them.)