As a retired attorney with over 39 years of trial experience and as an author, photographer, and blogger, I became interested in the issues of intellectual property law well before computer programs and the internet became legal issues. My technological background also dates back to the 1970s when computers filled an entire floor of the engineering department at the University of Utah. With my interest and background, I taught copyright law to both students and to my fellow lawyers in Arizona. Concurrent with my legal career, my genealogical background goes back more than 40 years.&nbs ..read more

  https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/ My wife and I have been enjoying some of the presentations from RootsTech 2024 that we missed while being so busy doing other things. Here is a list of some of the current attractions.  www.familysearch.org/en/connect www.familysearch.org/discovery/famousrelatives www.familysearch.org/campaign/lookalike www.familysearch.org/campaign/photocollage www.rootstech.org You might want to look at the huge collection of videos also. There are 1,500 sessions on 185 topics in over 30 languages. The video collection is a marvelous resource for l ..read more

  https://blog.myheritage.com/2024/02/introducing-all-new-profile-pages-with-hints/ Qouting from a recent blog post: The profile page is among the most visited pages on MyHeritage, and is one of the most valuable ones for genealogists. Many users requested that we add additional capabilities to the page. You asked, and we listened! Today we are proud to release the result: the all-new profile pages. This is a whole new experience that is more than just a single page; it’s a centralized hub for everything known about a person. This major enhancement includes a more organized layo ..read more

  https://feefhs.org/ The 2024 FEEFHS Annual Conference will be an in-person event held at the Plaza Hotel in Salt Lake City, August 6-9. Prior to the conference there will be a hands-on workshop day (as an optional add-on), followed by the conference with four days of instruction with three instruction tracks taught in parallel.  Conference topics will encompass countries and regions of Central and Eastern Europe, including areas of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, German Empire, Russian Empire/USSR and more. Other topics will include DNA, minority research, resources ..read more

  https://www.oldnews.com/en Here is the introductory video to the OldNews.com website.  https://youtu.be/U_z9EEF9t8c?si=scwYwnWgmxM8Esat Quoting from the MyHeritage Blog post about the new website: We’re delighted to announce the release of OldNews.com, an innovative website for historical newspapers, by MyHeritage. OldNews.com enables genealogists, researchers, and history enthusiasts to search, save, and share articles about people and events throughout history. At launch, OldNews.com includes a huge repository of hundreds of millions of historical newspaper pages from ..read more

  MyHeritage Tree Collaboration with FamilyTree DNA At RootsTech 2024, Aaron Godfrey, MyHeritage Vice President of Marketing, announced the following as quoted by Robeta Estes in her blog post on DNAeXplained - Genetic Genealogy, as follows: I don’t have specific details about how it works, as this won’t happen for a few months yet, but FamilyTreeDNA customers will port their trees to MyHeritage which allows them to take advantage of MyHeritage’s record collections and such. Existing MyHeritage customers will simply connect their FamilyTreeDNA test to their MyHeritage tree. You can read ..read more

  https://youtu.be/kLi65EnnKxk?si=a-jmyQKWC0LyV1hY There is a long list of impressive new releases and updates from MyHeritage.com. Here is Aaron Godfrey on the main stage at RootsTech.org to give you a short insight into the latest news.  Here is a hopefully complete list of the updates and releases mentioned with links to the blog posts about the new products.  Historical Records Added in February 2024 Introducing OldNews.com, A New Website for Exploring Historical Newspapers Introducing All-New Profile Pages with Hints New: AI Record Finder™Chat History AI Biographer™ MyHeri ..read more

  https://www.familysearch.org/Labs/ RootsTech 2024 was filled with technology with an emphasis on artificial intelligence or AI. One long anticipated announcement by FamilySearch was the beginning Full-Text.  https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text Full-Text is just what the name implies, the FamilySearch program can now search the full or complete text of historical documents. This opens up the ability to find more exact information. Previously and what is still the case with indexed records, the indexes only find records that matched the somewhat arbitrary index fields. W ..read more

 Yes, forever.  https://blog.myheritage.com/2024/02/this-week-only-upload-your-dna-data-and-get-free-access-to-all-dna-features/ Here is the announcement I received from MyHeritage: For each NEW DNA file uploaded this week (i.e. one that hasn’t been uploaded to MyHeritage in the past), the uploader will receive free access to all advanced DNA features, saving them the usual $29 unlock fee per file. This rare offer is valid for the next few days only, until March 4, 2024 at 11:59 p.m.    There are many great reasons to upload DNA data to MyHeritage ..read more

  https://youtu.be/iWXZLL180z8?si=t29TP8usaI6lUCrv This is the trailer for this remarkable story of the 20-year growth of MyHeritage.com one of the most successful genealogy website company in the world. It has been my privilege to have been associated with them for much of that time. If you watch episode three you will see a picture of me and my wife which was used to promote the Photo Animation program that is one of incredible features of the MyHeritage.com website. I have hundreds of great memories from being involved with them and helping people learn about their own ancestral herit ..read more