Saturday, June 4, 2016

#SCGS2016 Jamboree Day 2 Morning Festivities

Another rocky night's sleep in a strange bed, but life has to go on.

We were up early at 6:15 a.m. and went down to the "Starbucks" light bar next to the lobby for a banana, muffin and juice.  I read my email and blogs on the phone.

At 8 a.m. I was in the Exhibit Hall and had several conversations with folks.  Then it was off to the first 8:30 a.m. session with Bruce Buzbee on "RootsMagic: Your Home Base for Your Online Research."  Almost everyone was interested in what Bruce would reveal about the sync with Ancestry.com.  He started out by saying you can't make all trees the same, and noted that sync of a whole database is really hard, and for some person and locality names can be difficult because the two parties may use different character sets.  A user can have a tree in a genealogy program, in an online personal tree, in an online connected tree, in a mobile app, etc. The recommendation was to plant a tree in one place that works well for you, and then interact and update trees in the other places as best you can.

Bruce went through the Web Hints function, noting that a RootsMagic user can exchange information between a RootsMa gic person and the matching FamilySearch Family Tree person, but cannot exchange information with a MyHeritage or Findmypast tree person at this time.  For MyHeritage and Findmypast, the user must add the content to RootsMagic from the information on the websites, rather than sync information.  He noted that MyHeritage and Findmypast are both working on an API that permits person matching and content exchange.

He noted that the same Web Hint feature will be available for Ancestry.com and will bring the source citation and record image into RootsMagic.

Sync between Ancestry.com and RootsMagic, and Family Tree Maker, will not be the same sync that usually works between an Ancestry Member Tree and Family Tree Maker now.  Ancestry has provided the initial version of the new API that will enable sync interaction with RootsMagic.  It sounded like the functionality of the sync would be similar to the current person-centered sync between RootsMagic and FamilySearch Family Tree - you match a person, then transfer names, data, events, sources, notes, etc. one item and a time between the two trees.  Because an Ancestry Member Tree is usually owned by one person, RootsMagic may add some features to minimize tedious work.

After this talk, I went to the room to update the blog compendium and answer email, then went down to the Exhibit Hall and took more photographs.  At 11:30 a.m., I went to hear Tom Jones speak on "Organizing Evidence to Overcome Record Shortages."  This was interesting - first he provided some general principles about the process, and then applied them to an Irish family in the 18th and 19th century.

I hurried out at 12:30 p.m. to make the SDGS group photo, and then we had lunch.

Here are some photos from the morning:

1)  Bright and early Paul Hinkel came waltzing through the lobby like she was an attendee.  She's been wearing the headgear a lot recently:


2)  More headgear as Ron Arons and Kitty Cooper share Ron's joker hat:


3)  Jim Beidler and Lisa Alzo were at the Family Tree Magazine table signing and sellingbooks:


4)  Ancestry.com has a swag wheel - Diane Hall spun it and won something:


5)  Jane Strawn and Toni Perrone were at the Immigrant Genealogical Society table:


6)  Mark Olson was helping folks at the MyHeritage exhibit:


MyHeritage is having a daily drawing for a Kindle - you have to be present at 3:15 p.m. to win.

7)  The San Diego Genealogical Society members gathered in the lobby for a group photograph:


20 smiling faces.

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Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

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