Tika's not here in Kona.......................

Tika is home in Spokane with "Grandma Kay" and we're sunning ourselves in Kona, Hawaii. I did my first SNUBA dive! This is where you have on a mask and flippers and breathe through a 20 foot
tether going up to a little boat. It was awesome and the most interesting thing I spotted was this green Crown-of-Thorns. This is a poisonous and obnoxious relative of the humble sea stars (starfish). I Googled and read about it and wondered if after the tourist-snorkelers are gone if they go back and pluck up these rascals for (according to what I read) they can decimate a reef. But it was neat to spot one. Would I recommend or do SNUBA again? You betchya!!

Tika & RootsTech Trivia

Tika did not view any of the RootsTech presentations but I told her all about them. Some 4500 people from a dozen countries and nearly all U.S. states attended and in the main auditorium the speaker was in the center and there were two huge screen to the left and two to the right so everybody could see. It was awesome.

What did I learn about Evernote:  "It is no improvement to go from a mess to a filed mess..... it's still unorganized and you still can't find what you want."  Meaning, stuffing binders, filing cabinet drawers and file folders is no answer; using a computer genealogical program, or putting your tree up on the cloud, or using a super online note keeping program (like Evernote) makes good sense in this digital age.

What did I learn about Facebook? "Facebook has 845 million active users per month and only 8% of them are in the U.S. Genealogy is about people; Facebook is about people."  If you think of Facebook as a way to connect with cousins and not just a wuzz-wuzzing forum, you'll see Facebook in a new light.

What did I learn about Ancestry?  Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry, used the term "bag of words." They use this term in-house to mean "we have this bag of words that is meaningful and how are we going to make it accessible and useful to genealogists?"  Ancestry has a team of several hundred engineers working to develop new techniques in content recognition and record linking; they're working to make more data "searchable, hintable, recognizable and attachable to your tree."

Was RootsTech worth the effort, the time and the expense to attend? Absolutamentally. Will I attend next year (21-23 March 2013)? Absolutamentally.  Will Tika miss me? Absolutamentally.

Tika has no clue about the 1940 census.

This was taken at RootsTech but in the Family History Library where on Friday evening they remained open until midnight for eager researchers............ and they had cookies at 8pm and pizza at 10pm and showed the Martin Sheen episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on the main floor. There were balloons and everybody was in an upbeat mood. The big thing right now, stressed both at RootsTech and in the FHL, is the coming soon availability of the 1940 census and getting us all onboard and signed up to help index those millions of names. The images will be available on April 2nd, but the indexes will be available as soon as we.... you and me........ get the indexing accomplished. Anybody and everybody can help do this....... all you need is computer access and a finger or two for typing. I know Tika would help iffen she could.