I received this information from FamilySearch today:
========================================
What to Expect from FamilySearch in 2024
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—FamilySearch International is giving a sneak peek at some of its 2024 plans. Of course, every year brings more free genealogy records to explore and new and improved experiences to help you make more fun family discoveries. Here is a glimpse of some of the things coming at FamilySearch in 2024.
Genealogy Records
FamilySearch will continue to work with record custodians and other organizations around the world to digitize millions more historical records, to preserve them and make them more widely available.
Record digitization efforts will include more than 75 countries in 2024 from every habitable continent and island group—Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Oceania. Peru and Portugal collections should see significant new additions.
In addition, we are always happy to make specialized and high-interest record sets more available. Last year FamilySearch worked in collaboration with Ancestry and the Library and Archives Canada to make the 1931 Canada census freely available to search. FamilySearch.org will add the full 1921 Canada census this year and continue to work on gathering oral genealogies from Africa and other unique record sets and making them available to search.
Speaking of oral genealogies, an updated search experience will be released that will allow you to easily explore the oral genealogies that have already been collected by FamilySearch in over 15 countries in Africa. Users will be able to search by tribe, village, and/or surname and get instant access to the photos, audio recordings, and lineages that were captured during the interviews.
Advances to Computer-Assisted Indexing
In 2024, FamilySearch will continue to improve its computer-assisted indexing algorithms to recognize and index historical genealogical records in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Our handwriting recognition technology, coupled with the help of online volunteers, is making millions of record images text-searchable faster, vastly improving your ability to discover your ancestors worldwide.
Full-text Search
On a related note, FamilySearch has been leveraging its state-of-the-art, AI-powered handwriting recognition technology to also improve its record search experience. We try to index the most important details of a record to help you find your ancestors. In 2024, we are working to make your search even more powerful by adding full-text search capability to select record sets.
New Volunteer Experiences
New volunteer experiences through FamilySearch's Get Involved initiatives will allow volunteers to more easily assist with reviewing computer-assisted indexes.
Previous enhancements have allowed volunteers to help quickly review indexed names on their mobile phones and work on record sets of personal relevance or interest. The 2024 Get Involved updates will include options that allow patrons to help review all fields in a record, in ways that are easier and more mobile-friendly. (See how your volunteer efforts from past years have helped others here!)
More Digital Books
FamilySearch will add more contributing organizations in 2024 that will continue to expand the number of digital publications added to its free Digital Library. These full-text searchable publications include genealogy books, family histories, local histories, maps, yearbooks, and more.
Better Sharing Capability for Family Groups
The FamilySearch Family Tree, is a free, highly collaborative tree, where any relatives—including cousins, parents, grandparents, and so on, can work together to document their ancestry. To protect privacy, the Family Tree limits visibility of information entered for living relatives.
This year, new updates to family groups on FamilySearch will allow users to share information about living relatives within a group so that family members do not have to re-enter information about shared living relatives. More details will come, but photo-sharing and collaboratively recording family memories and details about living family members will be much easier with this new update.
The Largest Genealogy Conference in the World—Coming in February 2024
Starting on February 29, FamilySearch’s popular RootsTech event returns, this year with the theme "Remember." Attend the world’s largest online family discovery conference online worldwide or in person in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 29–March 2, 2024. It will include over 700 classes in 27 languages. A new interactive chat feature will enrich the 2024 experience for those participating in the online RootsTech experience.
RootsTech is a wonderful way to make new family discoveries, learn helpful tips for expanding your family tree, explore innovative new products and services, and be inspired by wonderful keynotes and speakers. The online experience attracts millions of attendees worldwide, and thousands are already registered to participate in the in-person event. The online event is free, and the in-person event is only $109 for the jam-packed 3-day event at the Salt Palace Convention Center. Find out more or register now for both at RootsTech.org.
Be a Part of the Future of FamilySearch by Testing New Updates
FamilySearch is eager to hear from its users about its site and get feedback on what is working well and how we can improve your experience. In 2024, we plan to offer interested users the opportunity to help test select experiences as they are being developed. Keep an eye out on the FamilySearch blog for more information.
An Exciting New Year—Visit Often!
Visit FamilySearch often to make more discoveries in 2024. The FamilySearch Newsroom and FamilySearch Blog regularly publish updates to help you know when new features are released.
Copyright (c) 2024 Randall J. Seaver
Note that all comments are moderated, so they may not be posted immediately.
Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment