Tuesday, March 24, 2020

End of free colorizing of black and white photos?

I have been enjoying colorizing old black and white photographs at https://www.myheritage.com/incolor/

But from their latest email, this feature will end next month.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hi William (Bill),

"Here at MyHeritage, we want to do our part to help the genealogy community keep busy and even have some fun during these challenging times. That’s why we’re giving all users free and unlimited access to MyHeritage In Color™, our new feature that automatically colorizes black and white photos, for an entire month. Ordinarily only 10 photos can be colorized by users who do not have a Complete plan, but now, you can colorize as many photos as you’d like for free.
Try it now

"Colorizing photos is the perfect activity for those of us isolated at home. It gives us an opportunity to look again at our old family photos, bring them back to life, and reminisce. The results can be shared online with the whole family, which will delight your relatives and evoke warm memories. We invite you to pull out your family photo albums today and join in the fun. 
,,,"

"Enjoy MyHeritage In Color™ for free until April 22, 2020."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a wonderful free service. I urge you to use it while it is available. Start with those photos that are most precious. My first choice is usually portraits. The results are sometimes stunning.

Saturday, March 21, 2020

System is currently unavailable

Question:
"When looking at my family tree and expanding it for a few minutes I then get a "system is currently unavailable" sign and everything goes blank. This has happened many times in the last week. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong or what?"

Answer:
A recurring error message may mean that it is time to clean the browser's hidden cache folder, ie, The underlying error may have been cleared up but the browser keeps bringing up an old error message.from its cache. See How do I delete all of the cookies and temporary files stored by my internet browser? (53752) 
If that does not resolve the issue, try using a different browser to see if the issue persists. Generally Chrome, Firefox and the totally new version of Edge should work best.
Another alternative is to use a non-caching browser session such as Chrome's Incognito mode. 

If none of those helped, you may have an issue with your internet connection. Maybe run a speed test or turn the power off and then on your modem or router to reset the connection. 
To test Internet connection speed, go to any of the following sites:
 http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
 http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?flash=1
 http://www.speedtest.net/
 https://fast.com    Powered by Netflix.
We hope this helped! We encourage you to continue your work in FamilySearch Family Tree and correct any errors that you can document. The Help Center in the Help menu, provides answers for many of the common questions. For less-common questions, we encourage you to use the Help center to contact us by telephone, chat or email.  If you are having trouble with a record in Family Tree, please provide the unique ID for the record to make it easy to find.
Note:
Following these steps allowed the patron to resolve the issue.

Pandemic and research

Recently I have done a lot of research for a distant cousin. Fortunately , his ancestors came from England, where I have researched my own family lines. I am comfortable using many of the research tools available. Recently I discovered a useful trick for systematically checking Ancestry's Suggested Records list on the right-side of the screen. The issue I was having was that each time I looked at one of the suggested records I lost track of which one it was in the long list. This led to viewing the same record multiple times and missing others. The solution was so simple that is should have been obvious right from the start. Start at the top of the list and open each one in a new tab, For example:

Suggested Records
Northamptonshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1912
Alice Pullen
England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975
Alice Pullen
England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975
Alice Pullen
1891 England Census
Alice Pullin
Northamptonshire, England, Church of England Burials, 1813-1912
Alice Pullen
England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915
Alice Pullen
(etc)

Then check each tab for useful information. Easy peasy! No time is wasted and no Suggested Record gets missed. 


Pandemic
As we do family history research we come across a previous pandemic. The Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919 is said to have killed more people than World War I, which immediately preceded it..My great uncle and great aunt lost two adult children in the space of two days.

Elizabeth Jane Buchanan Livingstone, aged 25 died 10 Nov 1918 leaving a husband and an infant daughter.

John James Buchanan, her older brother died 11 Nov 1918, at age 34.leaving a wife and 3 children.
They shared a funeral service. 

Many families lost loved ones during that pandemic. The same is happening around the world during the current pandemic. So far, the effects have been minor in my corner of the world, but unfortunately that will change, Please help your loved ones to stay safe. May this be a chapter of your family history (and mine) that will have a happy ending.

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Is there a way to correct or add information to this genealogy?

The patron's question was specifically about Family Tree, not the Genealogies area of FamilySearch.

Yes, Family Search Family Tree is open-edit. So you can easily add information and correct most of the errors that you find, These articles will help.
1. A person in Family Tree has the wrong spouse (53976)
2. How do I correct parent-child relationships in Family Tree? (53985)
3. How do I undo a merge in Family Tree? (72004)
4. Wrong name, date, or place: Click the error and then click Edit. (Do not use this feature to change a person into a different person, as this causes ordinance issues.)

During the current COVID-19 crisis, we hope that our patrons will stay safe, and that they will enjoy success in family history!