There is a bit of a hint that the Great Depression Collection is intended to illuminate our current economic landscape. Researching historical records about the previous hard landing for the economy might involve understanding the causes of the last one, and I’m not sure that the census explains that very well. The newspapers of the time are full of explanations, many of which history has shown to be less causative than originally hoped. There are five “major city” newspapers at Footnote, but none of them include years later than 1923. For the year 1930, there are 22 Small Town Papers on the site. The term “depression” can be found in 21 of them, but not every occurrence refers to the economy. There’s precious little of probative value in a discussion of economics to be found in this collection. But that’s not a bad thing, it’s just an indication that the labels have a bit of salesmanship involved in their selection.

It further seems to me that the 1930 Census is more properly viewed as a great enhancement to Footnote’s already considerable World War II collection. A bit of arithmetic will tell you that anyone serving in the military when WWII ended in 1945 should have been at least 17 years old, indicating a birth no later than 1928. And in fact, you can generally find everyone who served in WWII in the 1930 Census. When you do, you find them in the context of a family – either as parents or children. In a sense, you find what they were fighting for, in the war.

Ancestry.com – the largest genealogy site. What’s there, how to find it, what to do with it after you do find it.

Footnote.com – an original records site. What’s there, how to find it, what to do with it after you find it.

World Vital Records – another site with many indexes.

EllisIsland.org – an immigration site. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

Castlegarden.org – another immigration site. Before Ellis Island, Castle Garden was the world’s first immigration center. As many people passed through here as passed through Ellis Island.

GenSmarts – a tool for organizing research. Version 2 just out.

Legacy v7 – a tool for organizing research

Archives.gov – a site with some fascinating samples.

Glorecords.blm.gov – land records, just like in your dream.

Holly Hansen, Kimberley Savage, and Janene Morgan put on a great show, and Dear Myrtle is always very popular at Holly’s shows. The Eccles Conference Center, on the Utah State University campus, is a very nice facility for an event this size, which I would characterize as a small event in terms of crowd size. Here are a few photos from the campus and the center.

I gave the “Introduction to Footnote” talk. About half of the people there had been to the site before. The site is more fun to demonstrate each month, and this talk is shaping up.

Things I was surprised to be asked:

Do people just upload a website to your site? I wish I had been more clear about how users can create their own pages, but time constraints lead me to make brief descriptions and replies. Making a “story page” at Footnote is very similar to making a blog post. The editor that you use is very similar to wordpress. It’s about as easy as writing an email. But you create each page, one at a time, using this editor. If you have a website somewhere else, there is not a facility on Footnote for you to move that content to Footnote.

Things I forgot to say:

Customer contributed content on footnote is always free. We talked about what you could do, the fact that you still own it, but I failed to mention that your content is always free on Footnote.

JANUARY

8 National Archives, Washington DC. “Genealogy in 2020″
10 National Archives, College Park, MD. “Genealogy in 2020″

FEBRUARY

8 Family History EXPO, St George UT. “Pirates of the Pedigree”
9 “Introduction to Footnote.com”

MARCH

4 National Archives, Washington DC. “Footnote’s Civil War Collection”
6 National Archives, College Park MD. “Footnote’s Civil War Collection”
9 Jewish Genealogy Society, Los Angeles CA. “Jewish Research on Footnote.com”
13 BYU family history department, Provo UT. “Family History Research on Footnote.com”
22 Family History EXPO, Logan UT. “Introduction to Footnote.com”
28 OAH, New York, NY

APRIL

3 Hot Springs AR. The note from the Sentinal-Record says,

HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE – Beau Sharbrough will demonstrate how to explore a number of genealogical research tools available on the Internet during the workshop “Tips and Tricks of Internet Research” by the Village Genealogical Society from 1-4 p.m. Thursday, April 3, in Rooms 1, 2 and 3 at Coronado Center, 160 Ponderosa Lane, Hot Springs Village.”

9 Kansas Library Conference, Wichita KS. Morning genealogy workshop. Registration info [link]

12 St Louis Genealogical Society, St Louis MO. A number of widely-known speakers, day-long workshop. [link]
19 United Polish Genealogy Societies conference, Salt Lake City UT. [link to their blog]

“Polish Research at Footnote”
“What is this Social Media Thing?”

26 Collin County Genealogy Society, Plano TX. [link to their calendar] “Introduction to Footnote.com”
“Using Ancestry.com”

MAY

3 National History Show, London, England.
16 National Genealogical Society, Kansas City MO. “Introduction to Footnote.”
30 Ontario Genealogical Society, London, Ontario, Canada.

JUNE

4 National Archives, Washington DC. “Footnote’s Rev War Collection”
6 National Archives, College Park, MD. “Footnote’s Rev War Collection”
16 Jewish Genealogical Society, Philadelphia, PA. “Jewish Research on Footnote.com”
21 Wabash Valley, Terre Haute IN.
27 Southern California Genealogical Society, Burbank CA. “Rootsworks: Excel for Genealogists.”
“Introduction to Footnote”
28 “Automated Search Tools”
29 Amer Library Assoc, Anaheim CA.

JULY

18 Utah Genealogical Society, Provo UT. “Introduction to Footnote” (tentative)

AUGUST

15 Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis IN.
17 Intl Assoc of Jewish Gen Socs, Chicago IL.
24 Society of American Archivists, San Francisco CA.

SEPTEMBER

3 Federation of Genealogical Societies, Philadelphia PA.
20 Great Family Search Genealogy Conference, Plano TX.
24 Jewish Genealogical Society, Broward County, Ft Laudedale FL.

OCTOBER

18 Illinois State Genealogical Society, Elgin IL.
25 Clark County Genealogical Society, Las Vegas NV.

NOVEMBER

7 ICAPGEN Conference, BYU, Provo UT. “Introduction to Footnote.”
14-15 Family History EXPO, Mesa AZ.
16 Jewish Genealogical Society of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas NV.
19 Jewish Genealogical Society of Palm Beach County, Boca Raton FL. Beifield Auditorium and Lecture Rooms, Sandler Center for Jewish Life Enhancement, Levis JCC Campus, Glades Road and 95th Ave. South, Boca Raton
10am – Photographic and Document Preservation – Scanning and Restoring Old Family Photos
1115am – Methodology, Technology in Genealogical Data Exchange
2pm – How to Navigate Footnote.com’s Jewish Records and other Online Historic Documents now Available through Agreement between NARA and Footnote.com

DECEMBER

• Major search overhaul at Footnote.com. Users get a great deal more control over the process.
• 2008 User Meetings – preliminary schedule. Six cities with a lot of the midwest – St Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas / Ft Worth, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia make the list.

Enhancements to Search Go Live

On Friday a new search paradigm went live at Footnote. Briefly, they’ve replaced the “free text” search with a “faceted” search. Visitors to the site have much more control over search results than before. It’s especially helpful with common names, where some “winnowing” is very helpful. Further, names can be decomposed into first names and surnames.

There’s a blog post about it on the Footnote blog. The example there shows a good insight into the goals of the site developers.

One of the most frequent questions that people ask as Footnote, when we do demos and talks around the country, is about search functionality. The initial offering was somewhat spartan in that regard – the zen haiku search, where no results left you feeling poetic. The new functionality is a big step in the right direction. Try it and see if you don’t agree.

2008 Footnote User Meetings Schedule proposed

Footnote holds meetings with users who live in a particular area. These are generally planned to coincide with travel by Footnote team members so that a special trip isn’t required. The tentative schedule for 2008 follows.

25-Mar. Minneapolis
12-Apr. St Louis.
26-Apr. D/FW.
16-May. KC.
26-Jun. LA.
3-Sept. Philly.

The meetings may turn out to be a day earlier or later than these dates. Still, it’s something to plan for. A bit of face time with Footnote staffers, a chance to have your say about the site, the business practices, the content … members might want to show up for that. It’s likely that users will see an announcement and a sign-up link on the Footnote blog sooner or later.

The main purpose of these meetings is to give members a chance to meet Footnote people face-to-face. It’s easy to imagine a company as some monolithic black box. Footnote staff hope to dispel any preconceptions that we aren’t like other people. We are just like other people. Only more so. If you live near one of these towns, make plans to meet us, and to tell us what you think of the site, and what you’d like to see.