Technology-assisted genealogy research may have an impact on US Presidential politics

David March 27th, 2008

Despite their ideological differences, genealogists have found that the leading US presidential candidates are tied more closely than previously thought. Barack Obama is a distant to cousin to the current President George W. Bush and the former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchhill. Senator John McCain is related to the current first lady, Laura Bush. Senator Hillary Clinton has ties to entertainers Celine Dion and Madonna. (See CNN, Family ties: Candidates’ ancestry makes for strange bedfellows)

The New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, says it is the oldest such organization in the country. Members spent three years tracing the lineage of the candidates. … Most surprisingly, Obama — the man who could become America’s first African-American president — is linked by ancestry to Robert E. Lee, who commanded the armies of the Southern slave-holding states during the American civil war.

You don’t have to be a presidential candidate to be able to look up your ancestry easily. Digital Roots, a BYU Computer Science research foundation, has created Relationship Finder. This tool duplicates the years of research that the NEHGS did for the presidential candidates in only a matter of seconds. For its data it uses the Ancestral File, so if you don’t have family members who have contributed data to this previously, you won’t get many results. [Note: You’ll need the Ancestral File Number (AFN) from as many of your last three or four generations of ancestors as you have available as input for this search. You can look this up at FamilySearch.org.] Give it a try, you’ll be surprised at how many people you are related to!

FamilySearch Developers Conference makes an impression

David March 13th, 2008

FamilySearch logoI attended the first annual FamilySearch Developers Conference in Provo, Utah yesterday at the BYU Conference Center. The FamilySearch Webservices team and 3rd party developers presented the basics of utilizing the API as well as examples and initial product offerings which will incorporate this functionality. It is my opinion that this will affect the entire genealogy research industry as much as the introduction of the GEDCOM standard did back in the 1980’s. Where the industry has made incremental improvements for researchers, the New FamilySearch (NFS) will change the way that genealogy is researched.

Although I haven’t developed an application using these resources prior to this conference, I have enrolled on the development site at http://devnet.familysearch.org and have reviewed the documentation.

Here are the sessions which I attended:

  1. Keynote - “Brave New Platform: Changing the World of Genealogy”, Ransom Love, director of strategic relationship, FamilySearch (LDS Church)
  2. “Family Tree, Authorities, Ordinance Reservation, Common Identity, and Future Opportunities”, Gordon Clarke, API and Third-Party Program Manager, FamilySearch (LDS Church)
  3. “GedLink”, John Finlay, professor at Neumont University and open source creator of PhpGedview.
  4. “PAFSDK”, Gaylon Findlay, creator of Ancestral Quest and PAF 4.0/5.0
  5. “PHP NFS Library”, John Finlay, professor at Neumont University and open source creator of PhpGedview.
  6. “Bungee Labs web framework”, Matt Misbach, BungeeConnect.com
  7. “FamilyTree Combine/Separate”, Rob Lyon, FamilySearch Web Services API Team Lead, FamilySearch (LDS Church)
  8. “Record Search”, Tim Crabb & Robert Lee, FamilySearch (LDS Church)