Projectkin’s Ride Along with Lynda Heines

With so much happening on site in Salt Lake ahead of the RootsTech conference, my cat Zarabeth and I were so grateful to see you Linda Teather, Bill Moore, Diane Burley, Kathy Stone, Deborah Carl, Kristin Rapinac, Jane Chapman and all of you who took the time to join us from your homes and offices around the world.

I can’t tell you how much it means to us to see you join us from across the planet. Your thoughts, comments, and encouragement are the glue that holds this global community together. Were you there? Did I miss you? The chat isn’t captured, but your additions can be by dropping them into the comments below.

Projectkin programming is offered free with the kind support of our Patrons worldwide. Explore our story and join us 👇.

Today’s Tips and Takeaways

With Relatives at RootsTech on everyone’s mind, it’s not surprising that we were quickly comparing notebooks about relationships and discoveries. A few notes:

Ride Along Announcements:

We’re running all of this so fast and loose that crazy ideas happen all at once. As the on-site folks meet at DearMYRTLE’s suite for a joint Geneabloggers + Projectkin lunch, all of us are brown-bagging it at home. YET… we have a few other ways we can play along:

* Group Photoshoot for the Ride Along!

How you might wonder can we take a group photo when we’re not all in the same place? Kudos to Paul Chiddicks for suggesting it… so, here’s the idea (and stay tuned for the plan.)

Friday, March 6

* The crew on-site will meet at the Ride Along Partners’ Booth at #1600 Society Hall at 12:15 (Mountain Time). Watch the linked ☝️ calendar event for details.

* The crew online can choose either of two convenient time slots (Atlantic or Pacific) to join a quick Zoom call for a joint photo moment (ya know, screenshot of the gallery!)

Your choices will be 30 minutes before Projectkin’s usual start times on Friday in Am/Euro or Saturday in Asia/Pac:

* Atlantic-friendly hour at 9:30a/12:30p/5:30p PT/ET/GMT

* Pacific-friendly hour at 3:30p/7:30p/11:30p PT/ET/GMT and 10:30a/12:30p AEDT/NZDT

See the calendar for your local time and watch there for the Zoom registration link. These will be quick, as we have competing events!

* Ride Along Watch Parties!

Relatives at RootsTech

* While the numbers make us all dive in and try to increase the metrics, we’re discovering that sometimes the most interesting connections come from the small numbers.

* Jane Chapman shared that with just 271 relatives, she’d discovered not one, but two 2nd cousins!

* For great tips on how to follow up with connections you make with Relatives at RootsTech, don’t miss the series of “Cousin Hunting” livestreams that Kyla Bayang and Bill Moore have done. Here’s an example from the series:

Jennifer Jones and Crystal Lorimor dove into the series as well with their cousin connection to Crystal’s Creighton Cabin in Belmont County, Ohio. I’m even related through this connection!

* Jennifer started two livestreams to discuss:

* Registration numbers have suddenly started to bloom as the topline number now exceeds 310K.

You can check this number any time at your personal “connect” page at FamilySearch. You can find it at FamilySearch.org/en/connect/….. a sequence of numbers uniquely identifies you. The /en/ is something they use globally to designate preferred languages.

* To see if you’re a relative of mine, visit MY connect page. I’ve created a redirect for mine at Projectkin.org/relatives.

* You’re very welcome to share your “Connect” URLs in the comments below 👇

As we all discover more cousins, it’s helpful to remember that this is just a short-term program from FamilySearch. To keep the connections alive with all of us as committed family historians and genealogists (on Substack, or on any platform), consider

* Joining a private group I’ve set up on RelativeFinder.org, the product of the Family History Technology Lab at BYU. With API-access to the FamilySearch database, they’ve created a way to not only see if you’re related to friends, but also see ALL the ways you’re related.

* Just visit Relative Finder, tap groups, search for “Projectkin” and request access!

* If you have ancestors in the period of Westward migration in the United States, consider visiting the Original Landowners of the Northwest Territory, a project of the GIS team and Crystal Lorimor’s colleagues at Belmont County, Ohio. They also have API-based access to the FamilySearch database. Learn more at this Projectkin event.

More about Lynda and her Substack publication:

RootsTech Ride Along Livestream Series

As I noted earlier, I’m trying to make my notes a bit shorter, highlighting elements and links in the conversations. I haven’t quite managed that but you also won’t want to miss past episodes, from my conversation with Emma - Journeys into Genealogy just yesterday, follow this link:

Ride Along Ready! 🚙💨

From the start, Geneabloggers and Projectkin have shared a passion for family history and storytelling since the beginning. We both see the extraordinary value of pursuing this work with the support and encouragement of a community. So, with RootsTech approaching, it only made sense to do this together.

Tomorrow’s the big start to RootsTech with Keynotes starting in the Asia/Pacific Thursday morning. See the schedule at RootsTech.org to check local times. For our special events, see the Ride Along calendar! Wow. Even if you can’t join us for all of them, do pop in on the recordings and comments. This is already more fun together.

Have suggestions for this Ride Along? Visit the RideAlongPartners.org page and tap that “Add” button. Think others might benefit from all of this? Everyone’s welcome, feel free to share it with a friend:

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