Why Closing the SSDI is a Bad Idea

Recently, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) introduced the “Keeping IDs Safe Act of 2011” (aka KIDS Act). Rep. Johnson claims that thieves have been using the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) “to access Social Security numbers, file bogus tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service and collect refunds.”1 By closing the SSDI to the public, Johnson…

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Preserving Stories on 1000memories

In the past couple of years, there has been an shifting emphasis in genealogy/family history. Momentum has been building around capturing not only the names, dates, and places — the cold, hard facts — about our ancestors, but also capturing their story. As Lisa Alzo put it in her presentation on writing your family history…

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FamilySearch Has Lost Its Flash

It’s official. FamilySearch has lost its Flash. No, not the sparkly, “gee, this is the most awesome site since the dawn of time” kind of flash. I’m talking about Adobe Flash, which FamilySearch was using as its method to display images. Why does this mean anything to us as researchers? Because it changes how we…

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On the Radio This Saturday

This Saturday, 27 August, I will be the “FGS 2011 Conference Speaker of the Week” on the Federation of Genealogical Societies’ My Society radio show. The show begins at 2:00 ET/1:00 CT. My portion will begin at approximately 2:30 (1:30 central). I’ll be talking about my sessions at the upcoming FGS conference as well as…

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WeRelate sees increase in new users

WeRelate.org, the world’s largest genealogy wiki, saw a doubling of new users from Saturday, August 13 to Monday, August 15 over the same period the week before (August 6-8). Since people don’t have to give a reason for joining, it’s impossible to tell why the sudden bump in new users, but I strongly suspect it…

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