Fan Chart and Family Search

I must give kudos to the LDS for offering an amazing resource for people do complete online and in person family tree research at their family history centers.  Familysearch.org is a free online service provided by the LDS Church for anyone to work on their family tree.

While they do family tree creation for a specific religious reason, the rest of us complete this research for various reasons including a desire to connect a bit with and know our roots.   At any rate, we are all fortunate to have this available.  Not all of their services are free but any fee based service is at a bargain price.

Recently, I logged onto the site and found changes.  I decided to add my basic direct line family tree back to my great great grandparents across the board.  What I found after I entered everyone was this wonderful way to display my family tree via a fan chart.  It looks rather sharp if you ask me.

So the above chart is much easier to read on a full screen.  I used the snip-it tool to grab it off the internet.  At some point, I will try to grab a better copy of it and may even consider printing it out.  For now, it lives online.

I must admit that after I completed these quick entries of my ancestors, I found a message on the LDS site that they were no longer offering IT support for this service and encourage people to seek out a different family tree software package in order to properly maintain their tree.  The ability to create this fan chart remains out there, though, and the LDS won't be taking it down.

The Comment Section and Feedback

I love hearing from people about my blog.  Whether the comment is posted on this blog or an email sent directly to me,  I appreciate feedback and support.  It motivates me to keep on going.

When it comes to the comments section directly on my blog for a given post, I do moderate and have to approve the comments.  I do this because of spam.  I haven't been spammed lately but it was happening off and on with some annoying level of volume in the past year.

In my recent posts, I have not received any spam.  I am hoping that my moderation of the posts has flushed out those who have felt the need to advertise whatever they are selling from skin products to various money scams.

The following guidelines were pulled from the Huffington Post.  They lend guidance for posting comments to blogs. 

1. Be respectful.
2. Add to the conversation.
3. Place your comments well and appropriately.
4. Don’t advertise.  Spam is just bad taste and will likely get your comment deleted or not approved for posting.
5. But, don’t forget to identify your business or yourself.  Without posting and advertising as spam, feel free to identify yourself with your blog sign-on. 

Give me a shout out in comments.  It helps spark my ideas.

More Summer Fun!

Yet another summer commitment has come to an end.  Swim team is fun for the kids offering great exercise, a team effort, competitiveness, and social aspects.  It truly is a great thing for children of all ages and skill levels.  Even as an adult, I will miss it until next year.  Now on the flip side, I might have more time to spend on genealogy.

Here's some fun swimming........

Bodega Bay



Another of our quick trips was to Bodega Bay.  Below is a photo from the deck of the house where we stayed.  It's a foggy sunset over the bay.  Do you see the deer?   The second photo is the dunes near Salmon Creek, CA.

Muir Woods

Again, life gets busy and pulls me away from my genealogy research.  Here's a bit of what I've been up to with the family.  We visited Muir Woods National Monument.  It is a protected park that contains old growth Coastal Redwoods.  It is such a majestic, beautiful place.

Photos alone do not fully give you the perspective of how tall these trees truly are but here is a quick example: