Both of my maternal great grandmothers came to Canada, one from the U.S. and one from the UK, in the early 1900’s and both eventually settled in Western Canada.  My grandmother’s mother is my namesake, Annie Louisa Smith, so I am especially fond of this side of my family.    My grandfather and his father both served in the Canadian military; I can still picture my grandfather proud in his uniform at my grandparents 50th Anniversary.  They gladly served their country and fought for our freedom.  So how did I end up being born in the U.S.?  My mother attended college in the U.S., married an American and after many years in the U.S. had a desire to return home to Canada.  What a wonderful impact this decision had on my life as I grew up and eventually followed in her footsteps. (I haven’t yet convinced my husband to move to Canada though…)

As I reflect upon my heritage I am reminded that I need to sit down and write more of my history, the stories behind the records.  I want to pass along the gratitude and love I have for my ancestors so their lives can be brought to life for future generations.

Although my families Canadian roots aren’t deep we are very proud of our Canadian heritage and so today I bid you all a Happy Canada Day! 

You will now see hints for Ancestry.com appearing in both the individual and pedigree views for persons in your tree(s).  These hints will alert you to possible record matches for the individuals on your tree in databases on Ancestry.com.  Clicking on the link, or leaf will bring you to a list of hints; in order to see the records you will need to be signed in to Ancestry.com. 

Hints on the Individual page

Hints on the Pedigree page

Prior to today we had encountered some errors that are now resolved, the result being that the message board posts will now be updated weekly.

The graphics can indicate that your family tree has been posted on WorldConnect, that your site is hosted on RootsWeb or they can link to mailing lists and message boards.  Each graphic has instructions for how to add it to your site and in some cases there are also instructions for how to customize the graphic.  If you currently have an old graphic on your site we encourage you to update it. 

We appreciate your participation in the RootsWeb community!

• February 27-28, St. George Family History Expo, St. George, UT
• May 13-16, NGS, Raleigh, NC
• June 26-28, SoCal Genealogy Jamboree, Burbank, CA
• August 28-29, SLC Family Expo, Salt Lake City, UT
• September 2-5, FGS, Little Rock, AK

 
One of the people who has been a RootsWeb fixture behind the scenes is Elaine – she has lovingly managed the message boards for many years and is now moving on.  We hope you join us in giving Elaine a huge THANK YOU for all of the work she has done over the years and in sending her our best wishes as she pursues other endeavors.

 
With big shoes to fill we are excited to introduce you to David Coleman.  David has taken on the Message Board and Mailing List responsibilities creating a one stop connection for Board and List administrators.  We hope that this makes life a little easier for our volunteers. 

 
And who else is there behind the scenes?  Along with David, Mike and Gerhard respond to help tickets, manage the features of the site, keep the RootsWeb Review on time and do many other things that we don’t see.  Randy and Bill manage the servers, fix the bugs, develop new features and keep the site going.  Lastly David (yes, we now have 2 David’s on the team) and I work to fill in the cracks and coordinate the management of the site.   

 
We are looking foward to a spending a great 2009 with you, our RootsWeb family!

You will not need to do anything to change your site so the new banners will appear.  If you are noticing difficulties with your site,  or another site, please email our support team.

The World Archives Project is still in the Beta testing stages.  So when you are using the tool and you see something you think could be improved, or if you run into errors please use the “Provide Feedback” link at the top of the page to let our team know about your experience.  We consider this a community effort and want to work together to make keying a good experience.

The second item I want to note is in regard to the benefits of the project.  Not only will the indexes be free to everyone, but active participants (those who key 900 or more records in a quarter) will have access to all of the images that are part of the World Archives Project.  In the future active participants will also be able to vote on what collections they would like to index.

Another benefit to the World Archives Project is the opportunity for genealogical and historical societies to partner with Ancestry in sponsoring data sets.  Partnering societies will have their logos and a link to their site displayed on Ancestry.com; we hope that this will bring more traffic to the society and to the project.  These societies will also receive a copy of the index and images for their own use.

If you want to read more about the project see the links below,

Ancestry Weekly Journal article 

World Archives Project Blog

World Archives Project Message Board

 
Please feel free to email questions that you have to worldarchivesproject at tgn.com.