SuperPAF/HyperPAF Idea

[huffkw]

WaddleDee:
I have been told that the process of putting the 2.5 million roles of microfilm in the vault into computer image form will take about 7 years. And the human readable parts of those pages will gradually be put into text form. Other documents such as temple records are already in text form and indexed.

I think nearly everyone wants to have a genealogy computer system that will do exactly as you suggest. That is my goal. We have all the computer technology we need to do it, so we just need to get busy. You should be able to put your grandparents’ names in and get back all the names that are connected to them, going back for centuries, without any duplicate names to confuse things.

It would be nice if you could put your own name in, and get the connected names, but the names of the living may be considered too sensitive, so they will have to be password protected, and you would have to contact someone to get permission to start a pedigree with your young self. But hopefully you know all your living relatives anyway.

If this project is not all done by the time you get out of college or computer school, then you can make sure it gets done yourself!

[sochsner]

Sounds cool!

But I do agree with you about the "sensitive" information. If you want to add someone as young to your pedigree, then obviously you have to know the parents.
But then again, seeing that you just happened to be related closer to your neighboor then you thought, could be interesting to know...

[thedqs]

THe records in the granite vault are being ditalized under the project of Internet Indexing, which is still in beta being tested by a select number of Stakes. This used to be the old Extraction Program where you'd get the microfilm or jpeg of a microfilm, type it up and then sumbit the results to the church through your director. By making use of the internet any member should be able to do this work and they have perdicted that in 7 years the entire Mountian will the digitalized. The records will be avaliable on the new Family Search and through the new client that the church most likely will replace PAF with.

[huffkw]

Since the forum began, and there seemed to be some interest, I have added three short articles to my website describing the ideas I would like to see implemented. The current list of articles are as follows:

The Intended Revolution in Genealogy Research
A Tour of the Main Menu
The "Impossible Dream" of More Efficient Genealogy Research
System Feature and Operation Overview
System Logic Overview, May 2005 (PDF, 24 pages, 262K).
PowerPoint for April 3, 2003 BYU Family History Technology conference (PPT, 40 slides, 600K).

See them all at:
http://www.genreg.com/study/welcome3VC.html

Or go to http://www.genreg.com to see the current home page, then see the prototype main menu at http://www.genreg.com/famil05c.asp

[huffkw]

This forum discussion thread seems to have nearly run its course. It has been worthwhile. I am glad that several people have participated with their comments, and a larger number have at least taken a quick look at the goings on here.

I guess I have a question mostly for the moderators. Government regulatory agencies hold hearings, and politicians run polls to better quantify public reactions to new ideas. Is there such a mechanism at the Church that relates to the many new genealogy computer developments in progress? At a recent genealogy conference keynote meeting held at the Salt Lake Radisson Hotel, Bill Mangum and Rich ? described a group that was doing research into how genealogists now do research and how new computer systems might assist them. Is this exploratory work and related design work all internal, or is there an appropriate place for more detailed discussions involving outsiders? I have heard that some of the private vendors of such things as genealogy PC software have been consulted, but I wonder if they will have covered all the possible topics and options. There may be many diverse opinions among genealogists, but perhaps there is a way to categorize and consolidate them.

[sochsner]

I am sorry, but I can't answer that. (As in, "I don't know")

But if you PM tomw, I am sure he will be able to answer that.

[WelchTC]

I am sorry, but I can't answer that. (As in, "I don't know")

But if you PM tomw, I am sure he will be able to answer that.

I actually sent an email over to the Family History dept. for someone to chime in on your questions as I also don't know the answers to these questions.

Tom

[dlongmore]

Maybe these two guys can help us. They both work for the LDS Church Family History Department and seem to be in the know about things. They even have blogs. Here are their names and a link to their blogs. I have made comments on their lastest blog entries inviting them to monitor the forum and make comments. What do you all think - good idea?

1.) Grant Skousen
http://familysearchlabs.blogspot.com/20 ... -tree.html

2.) Dan Lawyer
http://eatslikeahuman.blogspot.com/

[huffkw]

dlongmore:

Good job on your sleuthing. These guys are definitely knowledgeable and deeply involved in genealogy software development. It would be great to grasp what they are up to and add a few more ideas to their already bursting mix. One mentioned that he missed the TechTalk but has nonetheless been getting emails on the topic.
I sent an email to those two guys and to the Geni.com guys who are trying to change the genealogy website world.

[garysturn]

It is my understanding that when you log onto NewFamilySearch with your church password you will see yourself and your personal Church records and all your ancestors who were members while living and their personal church records all tied into the Family Histroy pedigrees. The system will only display personal Church info of your own ancestors. In the same way that personal info is tied to a persons ID, I would like to see your own preferences tied to your ID. Example: If there are two sets of parents listed for an ancestor you could pick the parents you believe are correct and those would be shown in your pedigrees when you log on. When there are duplicate children entries that you do not have authorization to remove you could pick your choice and the others would not be displayed in your view of a Family Group Record. etc... This way everyone can personalize their Family History VIew and not have to duplicate everything in a private Pedigree taking up extra space. These personal preference markers would only take up bytes of space not megabites required for everyone to make their own copies of everything.

It is my understanding that links to original documents and multimedia items will already be included in NewFamilySearch and many automaticaly linked as the images are indexed and brought online.

The new scanning and indexing project of the info in the Vaults has already been going for a while. You can participate now by going to: www.familysearchindexing.org

A joint project from FamilySearchIndexing and the State of Utah was just completed and posted in the Utah State Arcives allowing you to look up images of Utah Death Certificates online for the years 1905-1954 go to: http://historyresearch.utah.gov/indexes/index.html

And regarding the above USB Flash Drive discussion, Flash Drives are available up to 8 Gigabites. It is hard to even find them smaller than 256 MG anymore. I have seen sales where you could get 1 GB Flash Drives for $14.