Celebration Sunday-Genealogy Happy Dance! MyHeritage LiveMemory, Enabling Photos to Come to Life!

 

 You know the dance. You know you've done it. The one every researcher does after finding something new. The one where you want to jump up and down and shout to everyone that you found the document, contacted a cousin with the family Bible, made a DNA connection, or found a new branch to your tree. The one that is met with glazed stares and eye rolls.

                                                          Celebration Sunday is a place to share your discoveries. 

This weekly series enables everyone to tell about their Genealogy Happy Dance moment. 

Share by scrolling 

down and add your story to the comments section, or you may also put a link to a blog post telling about what had you dancing this week.

              My Happy Dance Moment:

Making my family photos move with the new LiveMemory feature!

A new AI tool from MyHertitage was announced a couple of days ago, and it is so much fun to play with. Using the app on an Android or iPhone, upload a photo and wait for an email with the photo now turned into a short video.

Here's a some examples from my photos uploaded to LiveMemory:

My parents. Both deceased. I miss them so much. 

It was fun to see this photo come to life.

Helping my dad cross off a bucket list item.

 Swimming with the dolphins at Dolphin Cove in Florida.

It even works with family group photos! 

My Thames family from Richland County, SC.

This turned out so funny. My great grandmother Beulah Mae (Price) Roberts, walks right out of the photo!

Blanche and Annie Thames, my great grandmother and her sister appear to be a bit irritated with each other in this one.

          

My dad and me on a swing.

And me as a baby!

These aren't perfect and some photos work better than others, but it's so much fun to play with and see your ancestors move!

Want to try it?

Here's the link to find out more and download the app.

Have fun with this new AI feature that has so many in the genealogy community doing the happy dance this week!

 

                                                                                              

Looking forward to reading about your Happy Dance moment! And if you give this new toy a try, share your videos!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Helping you climb your family tree,

GenFriends:Using MyHeritage For Your Genealogy Research with Daniel Horowitz

Daniel Horowitz, MyHeritage Chief Genealogist joins me and the panel, Melissa Barker, Bernice Bennett, Dan Earl, Laura Hedgecock, and Shelley Murphy to discuss the many tools the site offers to help you with your genealogy research.

Watch as Daniel answers our questions about DNA testing, photo colonization, tree matching, and record collections. A fun discussion!
Free record collection available every day in June

• DNA tools and matches
• Health Reports
• DNA Reunions
• Record Matches
• Instant Discoveries
• Photo Colorization
• Beginning with Free Acess

Links in This Episode:
MyHeritage.com
MyHeritage DNA
MyHeritage Blog
MyHeritage Photo Colorization
Today Show-DNA Reunion



Contact 

Melissa Barker -A Genealogists in the Archives

Bernice Bennett-Geniebroots

Dan Earl-Family History Guy

Laura Hedgecock-Treasure Chest of Memories

Shelley Murphey-The Family Tree Girl

Cheri Hudson Passey-Carolina Girl Genealogy

Have you had success using MyHeritage.com?

We'd love to hear from you!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Helping you climb your family tree,

Friday at RootsTech 2017~Laughter,Tears and Smiles

Every morning as we came into the hall for the opening session of RootsTech, we were treated to the comedy of Jason Hewlett. He warmed up the crowd with jokes, impressions, songs and facial expressions.
 On Friday he treated us to hits from Motown and had us up and dancing!

Jason Hewlett

Bernice Bennett getting her Motown on!

The Catholic Heritage Archive Announcement

 Exciting news came from Findmypast  The Catholic Heritage Archive was announced. This initiative to digitize Catholic Records is a first in the United States. To learn more visit their website with the link above.

The first African American Day was held this year at RootsTech.
The keynote speaker was LeVar Burton of Roots, Star Trek, and Reading Rainbow fame.

LeVar had us in tears after his touching words, but that was just the beginning of one of the most memorial moments from the conference.
 Thom Reed from FamilySearch came on stage and presented him with several generations of his genealogy.
 LeVar asked "Is that what y'all do all day?", to which the audience yelled "Yes!". 
 Then, while looking at the pedigree chart on the screen he exclaimed "Those are my people!"
 LeVar was visibly touched with the gift of discovering his ancestors.

Genealogy presented by Thom Reed

Unfortunately, LeVar Burton's Keynote address, although live streamed is not available now. Contract issues may be to blame. For those who were not there or missed the live broadcast, there are some excellent blog posts that capture the eloquence and emotion of his words.
The RootsTech Blog, Michelle Goodrum's Turning of the Generations and Jenny Joyce on Jennyalogy all contain a good recap of this inspirational talk. 

LeVar Burton Interviewing in the Media Hub

  Next up: The Innovator Summit Finals!

Innovator Summit Finals

With 5 still in the running, the judges listened again to each of the short presentations of each contestant and then deliberated.
 The audience was able to tweet and vote for the People's Choice Award.
And the winners:

There were some fantastic entries this year. You can learn more about all this year's entries by visiting the RootsTech Innovator Summit page and watch Jason Hewlett as he hosts this year's finals by clicking here.

Interviews with the Winners and the Judges
Yep, that's me sitting on the left edge of the far couch!

Winners and Judges Interview

Talking to the winners was fun, but I especially loved being able to ask the judges a few questions. My question of what is lacking in the genealogy tech community brought interesting answers.
Thomas MacEntee shared his thoughts on the need for the desire to search for our ancestors and would like to see products that would light that fire and interest more people. 
 The others discussed apps to help understand DNA results. They also wanted ways to make doing genealogy easier but with a clear understanding that "easy" also means correctly.

Helping out in the FGS (Federation of Genealogy Societies) Booth was next on my agenda, and once again, friends found me there!

Lottie Johnson from home!

Eowyn Langholf from WikiTree

After a packed day, it was time for the infamous MyHeritage Party!
My post about the much talked about event and to watch the video click on the link
MyHeritage After Party 2017-The Video!  Enjoy!

MyHeritage RootsTech After Party 2017~The Video!

The people at MyHeritage know how to throw a party! 
There were light refreshments, magicians, a photo booth, games, a dance floor and karaoke. Being able to relax and unwind with colleagues and friends was so appreciated!

This morning this video was in my inbox to share.

MyHeritage RootsTech After Party 2017 from MyHeritage on Vimeo.

I even made the cut and am in the video at the beginning sitting with friends and watching the hilarious karaoke performances!

My phone died at the beginning of the event on Friday night but I was able to capture a few pictures.

Thomas MacEntee, Jen Alford, Christine Woodcock and Terri O'Connell

Shannon Combs-Bennett and Terri O'Connell

On the dance floor

Michelle Roos Goodrum, Me and Laura Wilkinson Hedgecock

Thanks, Daniel Horowitz and the MyHeritage team for the fun! 

My Heritage Announces Pedigree Map

I received the following from My Heritage this morning:

MyHeritage Launches Online Family History MapPedigreeMap™ plots events and photos from users’ family trees on an interactive map to provide geographical and historical insights

TEL AVIV, Israel & LEHI, Utah, June XX, 2016 — MyHeritage, the fastest-growing destination for discovering, preserving and sharing family history, launched  PedigreeMap™ today — an innovative way to visualize family history, optimized for tablet devices. PedigreeMap™ displays all events in a user’s family tree, such as births, marriages and deaths, as well as digital photos and scanned historical photos, on an interactive map. This allows users to trace the locations of their ancestors and gain new insights into their lives. All data is grouped by country and location, and users can easily filter their view of the map by person, family group, event type, and time period.

PedigreeMap™ comes with additional features such as place name standardization to improve data quality, and Heatmaps that showcase which geographic areas have a high concentration of activity in the user's family history.

“MyHeritage is the family history technology leader. We’re constantly developing new ways to give people insights about their family history," said Uri Gonen, Senior VP of Product Management at MyHeritage. “The first release of PedigreeMap™ helps people understand the life journeys of their ancestors, and we have interesting and original ideas lined up for the next releases.”

PedigreeMap™ is free for all users. To access it, log in to your account on MyHeritage or create a new account for free, then select PedigreeMap™ in the “Apps” menu.

About MyHeritage

MyHeritage is the world's fastest-growing destination for discovering, preserving and sharing family history. As technology thought leaders, MyHeritage is transforming family history into an activity that’s accessible and instantly rewarding. Its global user community enjoys access to a massive library of historical records, the most internationally diverse collection of family trees and ground­breaking search and matching technologies. Trusted by millions of families, MyHeritage provides an easy way to share family stories, past and present, and treasure them for generations to come. MyHeritage is available in 42 languages. www.myheritage.com

Contacts

MyHeritage

Aaron Godfrey, VP Marketing

Phone: +1-­347­-542-­7902 Email: aaron@myheritage.com

Are we kin? Need help with your research? Please contact me.

Together we can find our people.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I received the following email from My Heritage this morning:

MyHeritage Releases Innovative Family Tree Chart

The Sun Chart is designed to be the most spatially efficient way to display a descendant family tree with photos  

TEL AVIV, Israel & LEHI, Utah, June 15, 2016 — MyHeritage, the fastest-growing destination for discovering, preserving and sharing family history, released today the Sun Chart — a new type of descendant fan chart, available to all users of MyHeritage for free. The center of the Sun Chart features an ancestor selected by the user, with multiple generations of descendants in the outer rings. This chart is the world's first descendant fan chart with personal photos, unique to MyHeritage.

The Sun Chart is designed to place as many descendants as possible on the smallest possible chart, scaling to hundreds and even thousands of people,
making it ideal for sharing with relatives at a family reunion or get-together. Descendant charts that would not fit in a room if arranged horizontally or vertically, can now be prepared in this compact circular format and hung conveniently on the wall. It is designed to be the most compact family tree chart, while offering a very eye-catching and attractive visualization of a family tree, complete with photos.

The Sun Chart design was inspired by a family tree chart format that MyHeritage staff encountered multiple times while researching family history in Corfu, Greece. It was used for centuries by the Jewish community in Corfu, and the researchers immediately saw that it offered a unique benefit: a different segment is allocated for each person, proportional to the extent of descendants he or she has, creating a very compact layout that can easily be extended as new generations are born.

"The new Sun Chart is a perfect example of MyHeritage's unique approach," said Uri Gonen, Senior VP of Product Management at MyHeritage. "We bridge together cutting-edge technologies and an appreciation for the wisdom of generations past. When our research on the genealogy of the community in Corfu revealed an unusual and highly useful family tree format, we decided to harness our technological abilities to bring the benefit of this style of family tree chart to as many people as possible, and added personal photos to make it even more appealing."

Sun Charts provide extensive configuration options to control photo size, font size, and level of included detail, so users can customize each chart to their needs. MyHeritage has developed an algorithm for compacting the charts, which calculates every person's position precisely in order to result in the smallest possible chart.

Personal photos are included in the chart, helping to bring the family tree to life, and creating a visualization that is more appealing and interesting.

After generating the chart, users can download it in PDF format and print it themselves at home or at any printer, or email it to their family members. MyHeritage also provides an integrated poster printing service that is useful for charts of unusual size, with worldwide shipping.

Sun Charts are free. To generate a Sun Chart, users can sign up on MyHeritage for free and start a new tree, or import their existing tree as GEDCOM.

About MyHeritage

MyHeritage is the world's fastest-growing destination for discovering, preserving and sharing family history. As technology thought leaders, MyHeritage is transforming family history into an activity that’s accessible and instantly rewarding. Its global user community enjoys access to a massive library of historical records, the most internationally diverse collection of family trees and ground­breaking search and matching technologies. Trusted by millions of families, MyHeritage provides an easy way to share family stories, past and present, and treasure them for generations to come. MyHeritage is available in 42 languages. www.myheritage.com

Contacts

MyHeritage

Aaron Godfrey, VP Marketing

Phone: +1­-347­-542­7902 Email: aaron@myheritage.com