Thursday, March 30, 2017

Family History Labs Survey - Your Help is Needed

Thomas MacEntee, in a post on the Geneabloggers blog, pointed to a survey with 11 questions pertaining to Genealogy and Family History.  The survey is here.


The questions and my answers include:

1)  How long have you been researching your family history?  

I checked 5+ years.  It's been 29 years.

2)  How much time a week do you spend researching your family history?

I checked 10+ hours.  It's between 40 and 60 hours each week.

3)  What sparked your interest in family history?  Check all that apply.

I checked "I wanted to discover more about my heritage" and "I wanted to find out what kind of people my ancestors were" and "Other: "I read Roots and saw the TV series in 1987."

4)  What methods do you use to research your family history?  Check all that apply.

I checked "Go to the library," "Search on Google," "Use a family history website," "Visit archive centers," "Search newspaper archives," and Other: "Use the GPS principles" and "Share my research in online trees and websites."

5)  What, if anything, don't you like about researching your family history?  Select all that apply.

I didn't check any of the boxes.  If there had been an Other, I would have added "Not all records and documents are digitized or indexed online."

6)  What family history websites do you use? Select all that apply:

I checked "Ancestry," "MyHeritage," "FamilySearch," Findmypast," "Geni" and Other, where I added "AmericanAncestors, GenealogyBank, Fold3, WikiTree, RootsWeb, USGenWeb, Family Tree Webinars"

7)  How much are you willing to pay to research your family history?

I checked "$250 a year+" because I pay for subscriptions to Ancestry, AmericanAncestors, Fold3, GenealogyBank and societies CVGS, SDGS, SCGS, NEHGS, NGS, FamilyTreeWebinars, plus books and software."

8)  What do you, ultimately, hope to achieve by researching your family history?  Select all that apply.

I checked "Get back as far as I can with my family tree;" "Discover what kind of people my ancestors were;" "Meet other like-minded people;" "Help other people do their family history (as well as my own);" "Share my research with family/friends."

I was surprised there was not an option for "Write and publish a family history book."

9)  Are you a member of a genealogy society?

I checked "Yes."  See list above in 7)

10)  Have you had your DNA analyzed?

I checked "Yes" - I have done Y-DNA, mtDNA, and autosdomal DNA (with AncestryDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage, LivingDNA and DNA.Land plus GEDMatch).

11)  If you answered "Yes" are you happy with what you learned from your DNA analysis?

I checked "Yes" but I wish this question had added more options to discuss features of DNA analysis, like chromosome browsers, DNA matches, etc.

This was an interesting survey - I wonder who created the survey.  Was it the BYU Family History Labs?  I've only seen the survey on Geneabloggers - were other websites and media outlets targeted for this survey?

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Copyright (c) 2017, Randall J. Seaver

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1 comment:

Cassmob (Pauleen) said...

We had very similar responses except for five. Well, that was the same, as didn't tick any either, but my reason would have been that data comes flooding at you like a tsunami with so much digitisation. I have a mostly love, sometimes hate relationship with it.

When I started my research 31 years ago I never imagined how it would become such a passion or that I would write a large book about one of my families.