WeGather for Photos and Stories

So this little puppy came in the mail today!

I was super excited to win the WeGather raffle at RootsTech. I feel like I never win, and I honestly didn't know I entered to win, so winning was a complete surprise.  But--I do not write simply because I won.  I have to report on WeGather because it's awesome, and I love the developer!

Stories are the currency of our past, present and future. Without them, we are bankrupt. Since family photos trigger those stories, we should save and share them.

-- Rachel LaCour Niesen

So I met Rachel at her booth at RootsTech, but I had been following her site for months before that. I absolutely love her, I love her passion, her drive, her mission, and all that her site stands for.  We share our passion for photos and stories and she's got some amazing resources. I've learned some great tips and tricks from following her.  She has great insight into photos and stories and how they can impact who we are and who we can become. She has guest posted some great articles for FamilySearch's blog and other great sites.  One of my favorite reads was her guide to metadata. Here's a few of my favs:

• 3 Ways to Share Photos with Family Often and Easily
• 3 Keys to a Great Photo Backup Plan
• Your Family Photos Are in Danger, But You Can Protect Them Using This One Simple Trick

I absolutely recommend checking out and subscribing to her site if you're interested:
www.SavingFamilyPhotos.com

Also check out her latest tool, featured at RootsTech, WeGather.  I've already used it for a few photos that I didn't know who was in them.  I posted it to WeGather, shared the link with family via FaceBook and watched as the memories, and information flooded in about the photos. It was THAT easy!  A great resources for those of us who have inherited old photos, and have no idea who's in them.  Check it out:
www.WeGather.co

Best of all it's all free, so you can't go wrong! Thanks Rachel for sharing your wealth of knowledge with the rest of us!

Happy photo preservation.

Zoning for FamilySearch

Alright so I had a super busy weekend.  I taught 3 classes this last Sunday at the BYU Family History Library, and what I hadn’t thought to prepare mentally for was the fact that if you’re teaching in the same room 3 classes in a row, you’ll also be chatting & on your feet not only the whole class hour, but also in between classes too.  So from 3-7:30 pm I was talking straight through.  That said, I was exhausted when I was done last night and my feet were killing me. Note to self, no heels when teaching at RootsTech.  Today I’ve been dragging a bit too, BUT I promised my class some info about Zoning on here today, so here it goes---

Zoning, a new tool from FamilySearch.  It’s in beta mode, so it’s likely to change from what I give here, but for now this is where things are at.  It’s a great alternative to indexing for those peeps who are burnt out from Indexing but are still not quite ready to dig into research, OR for those of us who research and just need a new thing to “mix-it-up”.  *This is also a great addition to my Everyday Family History class. 

I heard about Zoning from my neighbor a few weeks back and was excited to try it out.  The first time you log in, as of now, you have to request access to be a zoner, but I got an email back a couple days later and was able to get started.  The wait time gave me time to read the Getting Started Guide provided by FamilySearch and educate myself on the process. It’s well written, concise and I felt confident zoning once I’d read it. I definitely recommend reading before you get started.
Here are a few screen shots to help you get started:

1. Go to www.familysearch.org/records/zoning/web.
2. Click on “Zoning Getting Started”.
3. Read the “Getting Started With Zoning” page.
4. Scroll down & complete the form at the bottom of the page, to request access to be a zoner.
5. Scroll back up to mid-page and download the “Complete Users Guide”.
6. Familiarize yourself with the Users Guide while you wait for your access,  it has some excellent images of examples of what to zone and what not to, as well as all the “how to’s”.
7. Once you receive access to be a zoner via email, visit www.familysearch.org/records/zoning/web again. *Make sure that you’re logged into your FamilySearch account.
8. Click on the purple Zone box.
9. Voila!! Zone away!

Thank you MyHeritage--link to FS tool

I was super excited to read the news about this new feature earlier this week, but I wanted to take the time to play with the new tool before I blogged to profess my love.
It is a WONDERFUL feature, I'm so excited to have it available now, thank you MyHeritage for being on board. Now if we could just get Ancestry and FindMyPast on board.  I can honestly say that having this tool will drive my research to MyHeritage first before I go searching on the other sites for records, just for convenience purposes.  The tool works slick, and easy.  The only problem I've stumbled upon so far is that it wasn't available with all the records I've found, but the ones it was available on, it worked like a charm. Thank you for making my busy life just that much more simple!