Alan E. Mann, AG

---

alan.familyhistory@gmail.com                                                                                                Accredited Genealogist

Grainger Family History Fair                                                                                   www.alanmann.com/articles                                                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                        

New Technologies

and the future of Family History Research

 

I would like to show you several new technologies or concepts which may be ideas for future products or services, and give you a few hints on how to keep find more of the same on your own.

 

New Technology or Concepts

 

Television on the web. Try Roots Television (rootstelevision.com), see these examples:

Vblogs - http://rootstelevision.typepad.com/video/2007/01/genealogy_websi.html.

Climbing Your Family Tree channel - http://rootstelevision.typepad.com/climbing_family_trees/2007/02/searching_for_y.html

Webbiographies - http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid203711729/bclid240119644/bctid452316473

New Technologies - http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid212355366/bclid236034208/bctid291718279

Something new is splashcasting. Take a look at www.splashcastmedia.com.

 

I’ve been encourage participation in blogging and podcasting long enough not to refer to it as a new technology. For those interested, check out www.NetVibes.com for blog tracking and iTunes for podcast tracking.

 

The Foundation for Online Genealogy is another new company in the genealogy community. Their first product is WeRelate.org, a cooperative site that seeks to enhance good tools through individual participation in the improvement process. At this site, you can search names, places, or sources and then map them through a Google maps mashup. The mapping portion is only visible when doing a sources search at www.werelate.org/wiki/Special:SearchSources. They have drawn information from a variety of sources, including the Family History Library Catalog. Try a source search for a state or country and enter a record type into the keywords field. Once you’ve found a record for a place, you can edit the results to add additional valuable information, which will then be available to future visitors to the WeRelate site. It’s an interesting idea, with a lot of potential for the future.

 

Google Apps – docs.google.com

Online Video editing – see http://mojiti.com/learn, but other online video editing include www.vyew.com, www.JumpCut.com, www.MotionBox.com, www.EyeSpot.com, www.Gotuit.com, www.Cuts.com, and perhaps best of all (only one which can auto-attach a sound clip) www.photobucket.com.

 

Create movies and slideshows online – www.slideroll.com upload to YouTube. early examples - www.slideroll.com/slideshows/members/ginalance/show/lance-family-pictures-2/

www.slideroll.com/slideshows/members/rolandsmartin/show/john-h-johnson-lies-in-state/

 

www.Tippermap.com – Mashup of photos and data. Or try the various mapping tools at www.mapyourancestors.com. One promising application of technology is the LifeBrowser at www.familysearchlabs.com/lifebrowser.

 

Immortal computing – Microsoft project to create an artifact which preserves information. Could this change the experience of a cemetery visit? Could we use it to create genealogical time capsules for our posterity? Read more in an article at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/300636_msftimmortal22.html).

 

I’m not sure exactly what will be done with this, if anything. Here’s a look at what’s being called Genealogy motion graphics - www.metaportaldermedienpolemik.net/blog/Blog/2007-01-16/rhnav+-+rhizome+navigation+used+to+create+genealogy+motion+graphics

 

Web 2.0 is a popular term often used to describe new services offered using recent web technologies. For a great video production on Web 2.0, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE. For a genealogical example, see www.genealogieonline.nl/genealogie-berkemeijer/I9510.php.

 

 

How to Find More on Your Own

 

There are thousands more such sites on the internet. It would be impossible to list them all here. Even if I could list them all, there would be more that weren’t listed by tomorrow! So how can you find more? There’s a lot you can do to be aware of developing technology. I would suggest:

 

 

 

 

 

©Copyright 2006-7 by Alan E. Mann. All rights reserved. Written permission to reproduce all or part of this syllabus material in any format, including photocopying, data retrieval, or the Internet, must be secured in advance from the copyright holder.