Random Genealogy News

Maybe due to the recent passing of Tropical Storm Colin through my area my thoughts are fairly random today! Several days of heavy rain and wind is pushing me to get outside and do some cleanup yard work so this will be brief!

First up - did you know that Family Tree Maker is back.  They have a newsletter that will keep you updated as to when they are going to start synching again with Ancestry.com.  If you're a faithful reader you know I gave up on them about two years ago but now I'm thinking that maybe the problem was that I had the 2012 version and when they moved to the 2014 version it interfered with the synch. Neither FTM or Ancestry ever asked me what version I was using when I repeatedly called which says a lot about their customer support.  Anyway, the software is now owned by mackiev which used to make really good products, like Kidspics that my own children loved back in the day.   For $29.95 they'll sell you their latest version of FTM at a discount if you had a previous one and I may do that as another backup.  To sign up for their newsletter click here.

Update to my last three blogs about frugality in genealogy - Should have definitely mentioned Linkedin and Facebook.  I use both and they are free!  Did you know that there are over 8,000 genealogy sites on Facebook?!  To view the list of them click here.

Two more reason to DO IT NOW! - Had a colleague from my educational job thank me for giving her the "Mean Momma" look when she told me two weeks ago that she had 14 boxes of family documents stored in an unair conditioned shed near a major river that floods.  I told her to move them in her house pronto but she insisted that she was going to spend the summer going through the boxes, one a week.  She had gone through 3 of the boxes when the flood advisory hit the area and she wasted no time in getting the boxes relocated in her home.  With the storm, she had time to go through them and found some wonderful genealogical stories that I'm encouraging her to write about and publish.  She's an awesome writer so in the near future, look for a guest blog from her.
Another colleague asked me about how to go about collecting family history information.  I pointed her to my website that houses all of my blogs (www.genealogyatheart.com) and strongly encouraged her to talk with her parents when she went home for Memorial Day weekend.  When she returned the following Tuesday she told me that she relaxed all weekend and never got around to talking to her parents about the past.  Five days later one of her parents had a stroke and has lost the ability to speak.  Understandably, she is devastated on so many levels.  If that isn't a wake up call for all of us, I don't know what is!  Don't delay - send that email, make that phone call, take the older relative to lunch and get the info today!

Those are my three random thoughts for the day - got to go get on the garden gloves and start picking up Spanish moss.