Smarter Searching from Cyndi Ingle

 

Last February the EWGS program featured Cyndi Ingle. Her (too-short) time with us was fact-and-tip filled and her 8-page handout was a thorough reminder of what she taught us that day.

I'm typing in purple because (if you couldn't guess) purple is Cyndi's favorite color!

Some quick-and-always-good-to-review points to keep in mind:

• Records were and are created by humans.
• Humans make mistakes.
• Humans misspell things.
• Humans are inconsistent.
• Humans miscommunicate things.
• Just because many more things are digitized now doesn't mean that searching is really any easier than it was before. 
• We MUST think about ow and why humans created any set of records and the circumstances of their times and methods in doing so.
• We must consider how archivists and librarians catalogued their records' collections. 
• We must consider HOW those records made their way into the digitized world. 

Cyndi also explained that mysterious word database. What is a database? A database is a container filled with records. Think of a phonebook; it's a database filled with records, no? So Ancestry is a database of records, right? Then to be worthwhile, a database must be indexed for the words, fields and records to be searchable. 

With a big smile Cyndi said that "every database is unique depending on the data it contains and depending on the software used to create it. Everybody did it their own way!"

Then search engines. These are tools we use to search databases. And as with databases, every search engine is unique depending on the software and hardware used to make it.

** While Cyndi's handout from that day is not still available on our EWGS website, I'd bet you could ask your EWGS friend for a copy of theirs. 

Nurture Your Family Tree Online Or On Your Device Or Both?

 

Cyndi Ingle (who "purples" everything) gave a bang-up and comprehensive talk for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. This presentation is in their archive/library and I strongly suggest that a $49 annual subscription to hear/view this and 1000 others is worth your money and time.

Cyndi began by asking "where are you keeping your tree? Online or off line.... as in a program on your own computer. Or both? There is no right answer to this question; it is a personal choice. It's your hobby and it's okay to do it your want. You are not right or wrong."

BUT.

A 6-page handout explains all the reasons Pro and Con for keeping or not keeping your tree online. Page six is a Comparison Chart of 14 different desktop software programs and the specifics for each...... cloud based? web based? crowd sources? mobile App? App system? Private/public tree? Fee/Free?

My take: I strongly suggest you think seriously about this. As I've said so often, do you want to leave a legacy or not? If you're doing family history solely for yourself, then don't worry about what will happen to your genealogy when you're gone. If you're doing it for your posterity, then MAKE SURE you're putting it/keeping it in a fashion that will be easy for descendants to find, to use and to appreciate. 

Cyndi Ingle Visits "Our" Archives

Cyndi Ingle, of www.CyndisList.com fame, was the EWGS presenter at our annual Fall Workshop. And she was, of course, wonderful.

As she arrived into Spokane on Friday, and had never been to the Eastern Washington Branch of "our" Washington State Archives, I arranged tours for her. Here is Cyndi with Lee Pierce (red shirt), archivist for the "downstairs" or paper archives part of the facility out on the EWU campus in Cheney, and with Harold Stoehr (green shirt) who manages and maintains the "upstairs" or digital archives part of the building. They were both so very gracious and informative and both Cyndi and I thanked them profusely for their time.

Cyndi was especially impressed with these two wrapped sets of disks.......... Harold took us into the very innermost vault and let Cyndi hold the external backup to the entire contents of the state's digital archives.  (Don't panic; there are multiple backups.) Cyndi was big-eyed-impressed with being able to hold such a treasure in her hands.

Cyndi hails from Puyallup and we here in Washington are very proud of our own home-grown bigwig celebrity in the world of genealogy. I was happy to show her some "eastern Washington" resources in person.

Cyndi Ingle is coming to town...................

Cyndi Ingle has been compiling and making available to us her CyndisList since she was a little kid in bunny slippers. I well remember attending my first seminar where she spoke..... we were all sitting there expectantly and in she waltzes from the back of the room in her fuzzy robe and bunny slippers. And her point was that using Cyndis List you can do genealogy from home "in your robe and slippers." That point was not lost on me!

Today she is a beautiful lady, with a son beginning college, and her Cyndis List has nearly 300,000 genealogy links! And she maintains this website mostly all by herself. 

CyndisList has links to something under every letter of the alphabet except X-Y-Z. For Antarctica--126 links.  For Free Stuff---407 links.  For Organizing Your Research---303 links. For Japan--107 links. For Africa---126 links.

Now if she has that many links to those presumably less requested topics, imagine how many she has for Research in Ohio or DNA Research or Cemetery Research.

CyndisList has been a goldmine for 30 years and continues to be one of the most valuable tools in our genealogy toolbox. 

For more information on the EWGS upcoming seminar on October 3rd with Cyndi Ingle, click to our website, www.EWGSI.org