Free Online Backup Storage for Your Genealogy Files

Google recently announced that any file type can now be uploaded to Google Docs storage. Google gives 1 GB of storage for free and more storage if you pay.  A single file upload is limited to 250 MB.  Google says  “This makes it easy to backup more of your key files online, from large graphics and raw photos to unedited home videos taken on your smartphone.”    Look for a “bubble notification” when signing in to know when this feature becomes available to you.

I created a folder in Google Docs called Genealogy Backup and began uploading to see if I found Google Docs a viable backup storage solution for my genealogy files.

I uploaded my genealogy files .ftm, ftmb, and .ged files to my Genealogy Backup folder.  All uploaded successfully and once uploaded I then had the options to download these files or to share them.

I next uploaded multiple pdf files - all the reports that I had saved which were produced by my genealogy program.  These also uploaded successfully and  not only can I download and share these pdf reports, I can also read them online and print them.

I then tried my media file which includes all my downloaded census and other record images.  I wish I could have uploaded the folder as a whole, but Google Docs made me upload them by record by record.  I could select multiple records to upload at a time, but when I tried to select all, Google Docs gave me an error message and told me to select less records to upload.  Uploading all these record images took quite a bit of time and used up a lot of my free storage space - not very practical.  I hope Google will soon allow uploading a whole folder at one time.

Overall, I am pleased to have another free place to backup my genealogy files, but I'll just be uploading my ftm genealogy files and not the individual record images.  The upload is manual and not automatic like the backup service Mozy (Mozy not only gives 2 GB storage for free, but does the back up automatically).

Here is my Genealogy Files Backup Plan.  I used to copy my files to CD's, but now copy to a flash drive.  With Google Docs, I like the idea of also having my files saved somewhere away from my house in case of a real disaster where both the computer AND flash drive were both destroyed.  I think saving to the Google Docs cloud makes a lot of sense.

The best discovery with uploading genealogy files to Google Docs is that I can now easily share my genealogy with family members by uploading and sharing my reports.  All free.

My genealogy files are small and Google Docs suits my needs for a secondary genealogy backup storage.  If Google Docs doesn't have enough online storage for your needs, Mozy offers 2 GB storage for free and has automatic backup. Microsoft SkyDrive offers 25 GB of free storage with a manual backup and ADrive offers 50 GB of free storage with manual backup. Or you can always email yourself genealogy files using your gmail account.  Gmail offers more storage than Google Docs and the amount is constantly being increased.  I suspect at some point in the future Google Docs will follow suit.

Additional Google Search Options

Google just added additional search filters to its Search Options.  You can find the Search Options side bar by clicking Show options on the blue bar above your search results on the Google Search Results Page (the page of results you get after you have entered a query into the Google search box).

Search Options helps the user filter search results by different criteria without opening a new page. Generally, Google gives what it considers the most relevant results first, but Search Options allows you to change the filter to meet your own needs.  Previously using Search Options, you could search withing a date range, get related search results, and get a Google translation.



You now have the following additional choices to further filter your Google search results:

• Visited pages  or Not yet visited  lets you search specifically for webpages you already viewed or not viewed. You can imagine how helpful it will be to select sites that you have Not yet visited  when searching for genealogy websites so that you don't keep checking out the same sites over and over.  This feature relies on your Google Web History so make sure you are logged into your Google account when surfing genealogy sites. 

• Fewer shopping sites or More shopping sites  could be useful when genealogy surfing if your search results keep giving book results at Amazon or memorabilia at eBay. Don't want those results?  Now you can choose Fewer shopping sites. 

• Blogs  This option will restrict results to just blogs. Blogs have been added as a search filter in addition to the filters for Images, Videos, News, Updates. Books, and Forums.

If you haven't tried doing your Google searches using Show Options located on the upper blue bar on your Google search results page, try it the next time you do a genealogy search.  I found these filters to really help filter and narrow down my search results.

A Look at Ancestry's Improved Search

Ancestry.com has made a huge improvement to its search wildcard functionality.

Previously, you had to enter the first three characters of a name and then the wild cards * or a ?.   Now you can use a wildcard for the first, second or third letter in a name.

The changes to the use of wildcards are:

• You can put a wildcard in any character position including the first, second,  or third character, such as *son or ?atthew,  J?nes or Sm?th.
• Either the first or last character must be a non-wildcard character. For example, Han* and *son are okay, but not *anso* 
• Names must contain at least three non-wildcard characters. For example, Ha*n is okay, but not H*n 

Wildcards at Ancestry.com work only with exact matches, not soundex matches (searches that look for sound-a-like names).

Why are wild cards necessary when doing a genealogy search?  Even though you know a surname should be spelled, it doesn't mean that the clerk who wrote the original records spelled it correctly and this can make it difficult to find a record.  For example, even on my own birth certificate, my mother's maiden name is spelled incorrectly and I have given up trying to get it corrected.  Using a wildcard helps search for spelling variations. 

I have also found that some official records will record a nickname for a first name.  John* will find both John and Johnny. However, if a first name is recorded as an initial, the new wildcard search will not help since you still need 3 letters to search.  If this is a possibility, (for example, many first names in the Social Security Death Index are just first initials), it is best to search with the first name blank.

Hint:  Start a search at Ancestry.com without wildcards.  Only after your first search doesn't produce results, should you try a search with wild cards.  If a wild card search doesn't work, next try searching with only a last name in case the record is recorded with just an initial for a first name.

What is the difference between the two wildcards?

• The ? matches one and only one character.
• The *  matches zero or more characters.

• M?yer will find Mayer and Meyer but not Myer, but M*yer will find Myer, Meyer and Mayer.
• M*yer* will find Myer, Meyer, Mayer, Myers, Meyers, Mayers, Myerson, etc.

No longer will I have to make different search queries using the multiple Myer/Myers/Meyer/Meyers variations because of Ancestry's previous wildcard limitation in the first 3 letters. This is my gggrandfather's surname and I have seen his name spelled all of these different ways from document to document. 

This change will really help with Mc and Mac names also.  Now that we can put wild cards in the second position, it can be used to find both names in one search.   Search for M*Carthy to find McCarthy and MacCarthy.

The wild cards work on first names.

• Jo*n will find names recorded as John or Jon.  Unless you specify gender in your search, Jo*n will also find Joan.
• Jo*n* will find John or Jon or Jonathan as well as Johnny or Jonie.

Previously, we had to use a soundex search to look for name variations which often produced too many false results.  This new functionality will be a big time saver.

Look for Ancestry.com to continue to improve its search this year with additional tweaks.

Google Picasa Desktop Face Recognition

Google has released Picasa 3.5, the newest version of their free photo editing software for Mac or PC.

Picasa 3.5 has many new features, but the one that will appeal to genealogists is that the incoporation of face recognition software which can help name the unknown people in old family photos. It also automatically organizes the photos into albums for each person.

Previously, to use Google's face recognition software, your photos had to be uploaded to Google Picasa Web Albums online. Now it can be done on your own computer.

Picasa uses name tags to power the face recognition software. The use of name tags then automatically organizes your photos by the people in them.

When you first launch Picasa 3.5, it will start scanning the photos in your computer's collection to create groups of similar faces using the same face recognition software that the Google Web Albums use. It puts all these groups into the "Unnamed People" album, where you can easily add a name tag to a set of faces by clicking "Add a name" and typing the person's name.

After you add a name tag, all pictures that Picasa has identified as that person are automatically added to a new album of their name. As Picasa scans more faces, it will suggest pictures that it thinks match faces already in your people albums. These suggestions are shown with an orange question mark next to the person's album. All Google suggestions can be confirmed or not. The face recognition is a tool, but it doesn't take the place of personal judgment.

With photos that contain multiple people, Picasa takes a thumbnail of each person to be tagged. For someone with old family photos, this is a very helpful way to find and organize all the photos.
It really didn't take me that long to name tag all the photos on my computer since Google grabs so many photos of the same person at one time. This allowed me to type the name once for a large batch of photos.

Once you have added name tags to your photos, you can do creative things with your photos in the new people albums. All the photos of one person, even if they appear in a group photo, appear in a album for that person. But you could also find all of the photos with the same two people in them. You can create customizable face collages and make time-lapse movies.

Since name tags now work on both Picasa and Picasa Web Albums, you can share name tags between the two. If you've added name tags in Picasa Web Albums, go to Tools > Download Name Tags from Picasa Web Albums in Picasa to import all the names you've added online. I found this saved me a lot of time.

It works the other way as well: if you're using name tags in Picasa Web Albums, any name tags you add in Picasa are automatically uploaded to Picasa Web Albums when you upload tagged photos, but you can keep all name tag info on your computer if you choose.

How Google Picasa Software Can Help Genealogists

FTM 2009 Error Message when Un-Installing

Now that I am running Family Tree Maker 2010 on my computer, I decided to uninstall Family Tree Maker 2009 to free up some space on my hard drive. FTM 2010 does not install over FTM 2009, rather it creates a separate folder taking up extra space.

I am running Windows XP. When I went to the Add/Delete Programs in my Control Panel and tried to delete FTM 2009, I got the error message "Error Reading Setup Initialization File". Uh-oh. Since I am trying to delete this file, I am not sure why I would get a setup error.


I went to the Knowledge Base for FTM and searched for "Error Reading Setup Initialization File". Nothing there. Not for installing or un-installing.

I searched Google. Everything I read about this message pointed to a problem with a download. But I hadn't downloaded FTM2009. I installed it from a disk. And I was trying to uninstall.

Not knowing what else to do, I put the FTM 2009 disk into my CD drive and clicked to install (even though it was already installed). thinking perhaps I could re-install that might help me get a successful delete. A few minutes after inserting the disk, I got the option to install or delete the program. I chose to delete the program, and it was then successfully deleted from my computer with no error messages.

If you run into the error message "Error Reading Setup Initialization File" when trying to uninstall an older version of FTM using the Add/Delete on the Control Panel, try using the FTM disk to install, and then choose "uninstall" from the list of options.

Collaborate on Picasa Web Albums

Google has just introduced Collaborative Picasa Web Albums. Now, every album on Picasa Web Albums is potentially collaborative, meaning multiple people can add photos to the same album.

This is a great way for cousins, siblings and other family members to share ancestor and old family photos.

Plus, the more photos that are placed in one web album, the better job Picasa can do with its photo recognition. This can help families better identify people in those shoe boxes of old photos.

Picasa Web Album contributors' photos will be attributed to the contributor, and they can rotate, delete, and add captions to the pictures they've uploaded.

To make your own Picasa Web Album collaborative:

• Click the "Share" button in Picasa Web Albums
• Select the people you want to share with
• Select the "Let people I share with contribute photos" check box.

Those whom you have invited to collaborate will receive an email with an invitation to contribute photos. When your family members visit your collaborative album, they just need to sign in and click the "Add Photos" button to start uploading their photos.

How Google Picasa Face Recognition Software Can Help Genealogists

Google Picasa Web Albums has face recognition software that can help name the unknown people who are in your old family photos.

This free software even recognizes the same person at different ages.

I discovered this by accident. I was scanning old family photos from one of those shoe boxes of unmarked and unnamed photos that every family seems to possess. After scanning, I uploaded the photos to a private and unlisted Picasa Web Album to share with my cousins so that we could collaborate on trying to determine who was in the photos.

I enabled name tagging** so I could name those people in the photos whose names I did know. I thought name tagging would be a good idea to keep us organized. After enabling name tagging, you can hover over a face in a photo in the Picasa web album, click, and type the name the person.

Then I discovered that after name tags are enabled, Picasa Web Albums will look for similar faces in your photo collection using its photo recognition software. Picasa shows an Add name tags button on the My Photos tab along with the number of untagged faces that were detected in the online photo gallery.

The Add Name Tag feature groups similar faces together. Its purpose is to let users tag photos with names a batch at a time, but for genealogists trying to figure out who is who in old photos, it aids in finding all photos of the same person - even at different ages. Then it suggests the name of the person in this batch of photos based on face recognition similarity to other photos.

It was a very impressive moment when Picasa presented me with a large array of photos with the same face, and then suggested a name which turned out to be correct.

I can't begin to say how helpful this was in naming people in my old family photographs. I had been manually going through the photos comparing ears and noses and eyebrows and so on to find all the photos of the same person. Google did this for me automatically.

Google Picasa makes photo name suggestions based on its software - it is up to the user to decide if the person in the photos are the same and that the names are correct. Face recognition is a tool but does not replace human judgment.

Once photographic subjects are named, you can click on a name to see all the photos of that person in your albums even if that person appears in a photo with others.

Picasa's name tags are very helpful but not perfect. The face recognition software works best if the subject is facing the camera. There is a limit to the success of face recognition when the subject is in the shadows or is in profile. And it didn't get all the photos correct. Sometimes in my case, it confused brothers; sometimes it didn't recognize the person at all, but still, oh, what a help.

Sometimes Google found all the photos of one person, but we still didn't know who it was.

But, overall, I found the Picasa photo recognition software extremely helpful in naming the people in my old family photos.

**To Enable Tagging in Google Picasa Web Albums

• Click Settings at the top right of the page.
• Click on the Privacy and Permissions tab.
• Web Check the box next to 'Use name tags to name people in my photos.

Family Tree Maker 2010 Improvements (and Coupon Code)

FTM 2010 is now for sale in the Ancestry store. ( Upgrade Version.)





Use the following coupon code in your checkout cart for an additional 20% savings : 2C4TCHL .

Here is a detailed list of what is new on this version of FTM 2010.

Tree Management
Ancestry.com Family Tree Download
You can now download your online Ancestry.com trees directly into Family Tree Maker and either start a new tree or merge it into your current file. The downloaded tree will include the facts, images associated with the online tree and a link to the attached source records.
Enhanced File Statistics
You can view new statistical information about your tree, including the average life span of individuals in your tree, the earliest birth date, and the most recent birth date.

Data Entry
Enhanced Family View
Improvements to the People workspace allow you to see more information about individuals in the pedigree view as well as information about the parents of the selected couple.
Ability to Quickly Add Facts on Person Tab
When adding facts to an individual on the Person tab, you now have the ability to quickly add basic facts (such as Birth, Marriage, and Death) from a drop-down list. The drop-down list will include any facts you’ve custom added to the editing panel on the Family tab.
Enhanced Editing of Relationships
A new relationship window gives easy access to relationship facts, notes, and media items.
Saved History List
Previously, when you closed the program, you would lose the history list that showed which sources, media items, or individuals you had. Now the history of your changes and additions is saved even after the program has been closed.


Sourcing
Replacing Source Citations
Source citations can be replaced by an existing source citation—without losing any links to individuals or media items.

Tools
More Robust Relationship Calculator
The Relationship Calculator now has the ability to display multiple relationships for an individual (for example when cousins marry).
Global Spell-Check
An enhanced spell-check will look for spelling errors in all facts.


Charts, Reports, and Books
Family Group Sheet Redesign
The Family Group Sheet has been redesigned and has improved image support.
Genealogy Report Improvements
The wording of the Register and Ahnentafel reports now have a more narrative feel.
Kinship Report Lists Multiple Relationships
The Kinship report now lists every relationship for an individual. For example, if cousins marry, their relationships as spouses and cousins will be included.
Sources in Charts
You can now include source information with a chart; sources are numbered and displayed at the end of the chart.
Export and Delete Individuals from Charts
You can select a group of individuals in a chart and then export them as a separate tree or delete them as a group.
Include or Exclude Non-preferred Events in Charts and Reports
You can choose whether to include or exclude non-preferred facts from charts and reports.
Shortened Place Names
You can enter your own brief place names to use in reports and charts.
Book-Building Improvements
You can change the order in which items in your book appear by dragging and dropping them in the book outline; you can also use duplicate names for book items.


Media
Scanner Support
You can scan images directly into Family Tree Maker.
Slide Show
Create slide show presentations using images you’ve included in your tree. (The slide show can be viewed in Windows Media Player).
Work with Media Items as a Group
Select multiple media items at the same time; choose categories for media items as a group.

Maps and Locations
GPS/Latitude-Longitude Support
In the Places workspace you can access and modify GPS coordinates. You can also select your own locations on the map and store their GPS coordinates.
Migration Maps
Show the locations of an individual’s life events on a map. Or choose multiple individuals and show all the locations linked to an entire family. (You can select the specific individuals to include and the specific events you want mapped.)

Web Dashboard
Shows the latest news and information about Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com

My first review of FTM 2010 shows that it opens and runs much, much faster than previous versions. I am a happy FTM user and really like FTM's search integration. I also like the flexibility of the user interface.
To order FTM 2010 , go to the Ancestry Store.


Use Family Tree Maker 2010 Coupon Code in checkout cart for 20% savings. 2C4TCHL

On Sale at the Ancestry Store.

If you are a bargain hunter as I am, you might be interested in checking out the products that are on sale at the Ancestry store.

On Sale at Ancestry Store

The sale items are updated frequently and usually include software as well as reference books.

There are usually at least five pages of sale items so be sure to browse all the page to see if there are any items you have been waiting to go on sale. Look for the page links for the sale pages at the TOP of each webpage.

No coupon code needed.