“Official” statement about status of PAF premature

David April 14th, 2008

Genealogy expert, DearMYRTLE, raised a concern about my previous quote regarding PAF.  She did some research into whether my sources were considered "official" or not.  Contacting Gordon Clarke, LDS Family History Department, directly she found that Paul Nauta was the only person who can make "official" statements such as this. 

I’ll concede that this statement on the future of PAF is a bit premature for the general public.  Nevertheless, for software engineers who will be using the New FamilySearch API or the PAF API to create plugins for PAF, this statement from the Family History department makes some good suggestions for how new products can complement the technology offerings which the LDS Church has made and will be making to the community.  The Ancestry Insider has offered some additional insights into specific areas of this message.

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)