A visit from Father

President Nelson recounts a personal family history story that bears testimony of the importance of temple and family history work for all families.

GOT TIME?
I was just coming home from work when David asked if I'd like to go to the temple with him.  Of course, what ordinances will we be doing?  If it was just Paul going with us, we'd do endowments, but since Julia decided to come along, we chose baptisms.  As I was going through the list of names that I had reserved, two names popped up that needed sealed to parents.  I felt strongly that I needed to do this work for these sisters, but David really wanted us to go as a family to do baptisms.  I handed David the baptism names and promised I would join them just as soon as possible.  I quickly changed my clothes and took my two names to up to the sealing office.  There I was greeted by President and Sister Allen.  I explained that I needed to seal these two daughters and then join my family in the baptistery.  Sister Allen took me straight to a sealing room where a couple was already kneeling at the alter.  They had me slip in as a daughter; I did my two names and then changed my clothes.  I passed the temple greeter on my way to the baptistery.  She said that was the shortest session on record.  I was in and out in 10 minutes.  In fact, I arrived to the font area while my family was still changing their clothes.  I slipped into a white jumpsuit and walked out into the waiting area with Julia.  We still got all the baptisms done together as a family, but I know of two very grateful sisters that had their work completed because I took the time to make their ordinances a priority.

Ordinances Ready: FamilySearch New Feature

check out a 5 minute You-tube training video here for the new family tree app

or read all about it on the family search blog here

an awesome step-by-step video instruction on how to use the new app is found here.

How does it work?
It checks first for names you have reserved, then for names you've missed, and finally for names that have been shared with the temple (but are still related to you - you can see how when you pull up the names.)
It only gives you as many names as you can do right now.  (When those are completed it will generate a new list.  If you've misplaced your names, you can reprint them.)  The program will produce:
5 baptism/confirmation names
5 initiatory names
1 endowment
10 sealings of each type (spouse and parent/child)

If you are female, the names found will be female.  Going as a family?  Have each member log into their account (12-13 year olds need parent permission) and print their own names.

You have 90 days to complete the ordinances you requested.

These new-found names may provide additional opportunities for research.

Moral of the story: share all of your names with the temple.  You can always claim them back, but that way your ancestors aren't waiting on you if another descendant is going to the temple first.

acting as recorder

For the first time, we had the experience of acting as recorder at the Salt Lake temple.  We had taken 20 family names to do baptisms for.  Paul baptized Claire, Amy, Julia and Linnea while David baptized Paul.  (We each did 4 names.)  After the confirmations they let us scan the names into the computer system and stamp the cards.  It was great fun for everyone and we were able to take the cards home with us immediately after.

Ogden family history conference (Sept 8, 2018)

8:30 am - 4:40 pm
Keynote speakers: EFY speakers Eric and Megan Richards.
No registration needed and participation is FREE.
More information available at www.ogdenfsl.org

There are about 50 different class sessions. For example:

Art of Family Story Telling — Rhonda Lauritzen & Rachel Trotter Family historians preserve stories to convey values and inspire future generations. We also know this…truth is better than fiction. This dynamic workshop, peppered with real-life examples, will help you write your story in an engaging way. Learn a storyboarding technique adapted from Hollywood for telling true stories, whether a single vignette or a whole book.

Audio Inspiration – Preserving Family Stories — Rhonda Lauritzen & Rachel Trotter A workshop on the easiest, most budget-friendly tools for preserving family stories with audio. This focuses on one of the most timeless and intimate formats - voice. Touching on interviewing tips, the class then delves into saving, sharing, transcribing, editing and combining audio with photos, music and free video tools. Ample time for Q&A.

Back Door & Rear Window Research Techniques — Virginia (Ginny) Ackerson We will discuss 5 strategies to help you break through your brick walls. Case studies will help illustrate the validity of these methods and enable you to understand the thinking processes involved.

Brick Walls: Research Strategies — Roland Astorga Can’t find any more records?  Are you stuck?  The better you are the more brick walls you have.  Since less than 5% of genealogy records are online you need strategies to find the missing 95% of records.  We’ll cover how to tackle the toughest brick walls utilizing the latest technology, websites and processes.

Finding Joy in Family History Through 10 Easy Tasks — Lynette Oberg

Learn new ways to explore your tree in Familysearch.org, index records, utilize hints, upload and tag photos, navigate the Family Tree mobile app and more.

How to Tell the Story of Your Lifetime — Lori GillespieThis session is for people who are ready to start writing their family histories and/or personal memoirs. We will discuss how to turn the memories in your head into an engaging narrative and a family treasure.

The Tales Dead Men Tell — Virginia (Ginny) AckersonThere can be over 20 different types of records created at death that have varying amounts of information in them. We will discuss what they are, what they contain and where to access them

Tips for Genealogical Research — Fritz JuenglingThis class has been extremely popular. It is geared toward the beginner and intermediate.  It is based on 30+ years of my own research and some years of working as a Research Consultant at the Family History Library.  If people use these tips, they can save themselves many hours and make their research more efficient.

For a complete list of class titles and descriptions, click here

To see what is offered when, click here.

pdf files

Pdf files are great for preserving page layouts, but lousy at reproducing photographs if used at a lower resolution (which are faster to scan but have poorer quality.)

PDFelement for iOS offers easy conversion of your images to PDF format on your iOS devices. You can snap photos or select photos from your album and then convert them into PDF for free. 
PDFelement for iOS is probably the best iOS app for format conversion of your documents and images. It is more than just a photo to PDF app and won't just convert your images into PDF format, it can also aid you in reading, editing and annotating your different PDF documents.
Moreoever, the app also allows conversion of PDF files into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other 6 formats(HTML,RTF,Pages,XML,ePub,Text). 

audio file formats

What's the difference between .mp3, .m4a, and .wav?

M4a aims to overtake mp3 and become the new standard in audio compression. It is very similar to mp3 in many ways but developed to have better quality in a same or even lesser file size. M4a format was first introduced by Apple.  (MPEG-4 files with both video and audio normally use .mp4 file extension but when it is intended for audio only, the file will generally have a .m4a extension.)

Mp3, on the other hand, is the most well known digital audio format. It was also one of first compression formats on the scene and became hugely popular among music lovers/collectors. Its mainstream success is so tremendous that the file type is capable of being played anywhere and with almost anything - hardware or software. In theory, m4a will produce better sound quality but many would argue that, whether it’s true or not, the sound difference is not distinguishable and it would be a waste of time trying to convert mp3 files into m4a files. After all, the conversion will just make you lose the original sound quality, therefore, not a good idea unless necessary.

Mp3 files are usually small in size as compared to the wav file. But you will have compromise with sound quality because WAV (waveform audio format) has better quality.

Some, like mp3, are what we call "lossy CODECs", which means that every time we save in that format, a little more of the original signal is lost (just like dubbing cassette to cassette, back in the day!). The beauty of a lossless CODEC is that you can open and save the file as often as you like, and no deterioration will occur. The reason .wav is preferred (or is "better") is because we get to keep every part of the signal as it was originally captured.

To summarize:

WAV is uncompressed and the same as the original file.

MPs uses lossy compression that allows it to chop away parts of a recording that we humans hopefully won't notice.  (A typical MP3 file contains only 10-20% of the information in the original.)

Again, a factor in determining which format to use for memories is the length and complexity of the recording as each uploaded file has a 15 MB limit.

image file formats

To some a computer image is just a bunch of pixels, but in reality there are different kinds of image formats.  Each was created for a specific use and has advantages and disadvantages.

When saving memories in Family Search you can use TIF, JPG, PNG, and BMP.   So what's the difference?

TIF is a great choice for archiving images when all detail must be preserved AND FILE SIZE IS NOT A CONSIDERATION.  TIF format means that no image data is lost after scanning. TIF files are very large in size compared to JPGs because no  compression is used.

JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is the default image format used for photographs and is the most popular one on the web. It supports 16.7 million colors.  It may not be evident to the human eye, but JPG images sacrifice some image information to keep file sizes small. Each time you save a file, some data is lost. This loss of image data is not recoverable. JPG is great for color photographs but NOT for line drawings.

PNG (Portable Network Graphic) is a better choice for storing line drawings, text, and iconic graphics at a smaller file size because it is lossless.  It is patent free (unlike the proprietary GIF format.)  If an image has large areas with flat or single tones colors - such as logos, icons, banners, and cartoons - then PNG is the format of choice. 

BMP (Bitmap) The native file format of the Windows platform is like the parent format to the above three. BMP formats commonly do not allow for image compression.  BMP images are crisp and precise, but being pixel dependent they don’t scale well. Detail comes at the cost of file size and that’s why you won’t see BMP images used on the web.

To summarize:

• JPG is the most common format that’s in use. But you should be careful as image quality degrades with every save.

• PNG is great for clipart and drawings where limited colors are in use.

Whichever format you choose, your memory cannot exceed 15 MB file size.