Whitney Ransom

We just launched a new company where I work called FamilyLink.com. It’s really awesome! The purpose of this site is to have a location where genealogists can connect with one another.

For example, suppose I am doing some genealogical research, and I am searching for a place in France. With FamilyLink.com, I can go to the City Pages and discover other people who are doing research in the same area, or who live in France. From this point, from their profile, I can see if they are willing to do lookups (i.e. - go and take a picture at the cemetery, go pick up a document, etc.) I think it’s a great idea.

FamilyLink also allows the user to share photos, post pages about your ancestor, etc. When you post a page about your ancestor, an individual who shares a common line can contribute to your page as well. This helps the genealogy work go much faster. I am really excited about this new site.

If I didn’t mention it, the site is free to access. Membership is free. Everything is free. Sweet deal!

Go to FamilyLink.com and check it out today. We’re trying to tell as many people about it as we can. So, if you like the site, please tell your friends and family members.

Today I attended one of Paul Allen’s Internet marketing classes at Brigham Young University. Each student reported on things they had learned from creating a personal blog, and also by working on a marketing project for WorldVitalRecords.com.

Here are some tips they mentioned about blogs and Internet marketing:

• Keep information above the fold on your site.
• Use focused ads.
• Appeal to the consumer.
• Submit entries to www.digg.com.
• Be consistent in your blogs.
• Be specific in the content of your blog.
• Offer something for FREE.
• Update, update, update.
• Write about interesting topics
• Build readership by commenting on blogs from others.
• Referent Power (viral marketing) is the best.
• Traffic doesn’t come to you – you must go get traffic.
• Keep it simple.
• Be able to quickly make changes to your site.
• Select good domain names.
• People like Top 10 Lists.
• Make good use of Internet shelf space.
• Choose content that is specific to your audience.
• If you change your template, make sure your Google analytics work with it.
• It’s never too late to get started.
• Add links to your blogs.
• Have a good landing page.
• Original content is king.
• Global topics are great.
• Word of mouth is powerful.
• State an opinion in your blog.
• Stay current with new technology.
• Checking analytics is a necessity.
• Test, test, test - Find out what works.
• Viral marketing can be inexpensive and very powerful
• Use personality in your blogs.
• Pay-Per-Click campaigns are very volatile.

It’s true. On October 4, World Vital Records will be launching its subscription model. Before I go any further, I want to say that World Vital Records will always have free content on its site. However, when we launch our subscription with a billion records, a new world of content will be available. We are going to start selling subscriptions when we attend The Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference (FGS) next week. We are really excited about this conference. We are going to be sharing a booth with one of our partners, Everton Publishing.

Here’s our special subscription offer: The first 5,000 people who purchase a subscription to World Vital Records will receive two years for the price of 1! That’s right, it’s a two for one offer!!!. The cost for the subscription will only be $49.95, that’s less than $1 per week! As I have researched the genealogy market, I have seen yearly subscriptions that cost more than $300 per year, so I think $49.95 for two years is an incredible price. When Paul Allen, our CEO, told us about his vision for World Vital Records, he explained to us that he wanted to keep subscription prices low and affordable. In essence, he doesn’t want people to be restricted from finding their ancestors because they can’t afford it. Paul is a man of integrity and has kept his word.

I hope to see you all at the FGS Conference August 30-September 2. We will be selling our subscription online in September if you can’t be at the conference, but still wish to purchase a subscription.

Milton Mayeroff said, “Love is the selfless promotion of the growth of the other.” This thought ties directly to one of the books that Paul Allen, CEO, World Vital Records, recommends that all of his employees read: Love is the Killer App. This book is about becoming a “lovecat” in which you freely share your knowledge, networks, and compassion with others, without expecting anything in return. I think this is an excellent concept that really changes people for the better.

Paul expressed his passion for the ideas in this book by saying,

This book has changed my life more than any other business book that I have ever read. Tim Sanders is my hero: he has finally helped me to feel completely whole as a business person. He has taught me how to find joy and happiness at work as well as in my personal life. There are three keys. First, gain abundant knowledge (mostly through reading and marking up great books) and share it freely with everyone who needs it. Second, build your network and share it freely with everyone who needs to know someone you know. And third, show love and compassion in the workplace. Treat people with respect. Look them in the eyes. Shake hands warmly. Genuinely care about others. I have tried to follow Sander’s advice since my friend Jim Ericson recommended this book to me and I read it intensely. I gave away 10 copies of this book in April and will continue to recommend this book and give copies away to people I meet whose lives I hope to touch in a positive way. Highly Recommended!”

One thing I love about the family history industry is that people who perform this work have already latched onto these ideas about love, sharing, and caring. They are willing to share their genealogy and family history knowledge with others and do it without expecting anything in return. When I attended the Genealogy and Family History Conference at BYU, Elder Marlin K. Jensen, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church Historian and Recorder and Executive Director of the Family and Church History Department, gave the keynote address and discussed this very topic. He said the following:

Equally important is for you actively to seek out opportunities to share with others what you have learned and to assist them to master the basic technological and genealogical skills. I know in today’s world those who possess something of worth, tend to guard it carefully. They seek copyright, patent, and other legal protections and often attempt to profit financially from their knowledge or skills. Remember, however, that in the gospel of Jesus Christ to truly possess something, we have to share it with others. Becoming a friend, a mentor, a guide or in family history parlance, a consultant, for someone navigating the shoals of family history research for the first time is a Christian act indeed.”

I’m grateful to be working for WorldVitalRecords.com and within an industry that is full of “lovecats.” I know that if we all adopt a similar attitude of sharing knowledge, networks, and compassion we will be able to connect more individuals to their families and move this great work forward.

This past week we talked to nearly 400 people at the BYU Family History and Genealogy Conference. We really enjoyed telling everyone about one of our new features. Now, when you look at one of our death records, you will also see tombstone icons that are placed on a Google map.

The tombstones represent cemeteries that are located near the place where the individual died. I think this is a great resource because it gives people extra information as to where the individual may have been buried.

Here is how it works:

1. Go to WorldVitalRecords.com.
2. Fill in at least one of the fields labeled Surname, Given, Date, or State and click Find.
3. Next, click on the record that you wish to view.
4. You will be directed to a full-record page view, in which you will see a Google map, with the cemeteries located nearby.

Try it out. Use this new feature to discover where your ancestors are buried.

When talking to people this past weekend at the BYU Genealogy and Family Conference, I noticed that many of them were very anxious to receive records from Italy, Germany, Africa, Mexico, and various locations in Asia.

In fact one person I was talking to said that she had already found all of her ancestors in the United States and was simply waiting to get more information on some of her ancestors in Holland. Others would stop by our booth and say, “Do you have any records from Scotland?” We were really excited to hear this excitement for international records and also recognize that these resources are scarce and the need for these records to be available is great.

With the name World Vital Records, we intend to have data sets from all over the world! Of course we are not there yet, but I just want to make everyone aware that are plans are to acquire international records.

We are here having a great time at the BYU Family History and Genealogy Conference. We are sitting in the vendor section surrounded by several great companies: www.picturesandstories.com, Family History Live On Line,WriteMyHistory.com, and Acentra.

PicturesandStories.com takes your pictures and stories and combines them into a “biography”-style documentary and artistic book. They can also do videos. I have looked at several of these books, as well as one of their videos and the quality is really high. They capture the things that matter most to people, including their values and family, and important experiences that have happened in an individual’s life. Tom Taylor is the owner of this company, which he has been operating for 12 years. He definitely has a passion for helping people celebrate and commemorate their lives.

Shown above: Tom Taylor, President, PicturesandStories.com

The next company is Family History Live Online. The owner of this company is Robert “Tex” Crawford. He has been sharing fun stories and experiences with us since we set foot at the conference. Family History Live Online provides live support for people who need assistance while they are doing their genealogy. Their tagline is “Taking the Mystery out of Family History.”

Shown above: Sandra Jarvis,Tex Crawford, and Lynne Crawford

Across from our booth is WriteMyHistory.com. If you have a fear of writing, Robert Paxton and his team at WriteMyHistory.com can help. Robert provides tools to help people write their family histories, as well as complete writing services. They can pull a family history together in just a few weeks.

Shown above: Robert Paxton, President and Personal Historian

Acentra is a new company that is simply awesome. They take images, documents, videos, cassettes, and convert them to a digital format. They say that it takes a consumer approximately 45 seconds to scan a single-sided standard document or photo. Acentra claims to be able to scan a double-sided standard document or photo in 1 second! That’s pretty fast!

Shown above: Dave Low and Jordan Smith, Acentra sales team members

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BYU Family History and Genealogy Conference Starts Tomorrow

Monday, July 31st, 2006

I am really excited to attend the 38^th annual BYU Genealogy and Family History
Conference tomorrow in Provo, Utah. This year’s theme is: Strengthening Ties That Bind Families Together Forever. The conference lasts from August
1-4. More than 100 classes will be offered at the conference on various topics, such as: Beginning Family History, Family History Center Support, Computers, Europe/Nordic Research, British Research, U.S. Research, Methodology, and Publishing Family Histories. Key note speakers include Elder Marlin K. Jensen, executive director of the LDS Church and Family History Department, as well as Jay L.Verkler, associate managing director of the LDS Family and Church History Department.

Everyone is invited to the WorldVitalRecords.com booth to enter our drawing, pick up one of our latest newsletters, learn about our photo contest, and share thoughts about
genealogy.

Go to http://ce.byu.edu/cw/cwgen/ for additional information about the conference. It will be great.

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24th of July Parade Experience

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006

WorldVitalRecords.com experienced its first parade yesterday in Logan, Utah. It was a great experience. There were several thousand people in attendance at the parade, and it was really neat to hear the reactions people had to our tagline that said, “Building the #2 Genealogy Site.”

Here are a few pictures from the parade:

Jared McKenzie ties the WorldVitalRecords.com banner to his pickup, in preparation for the big 24th of July parade.

Shown from left to right: Amy Rhoads, Director of Research and Development and Community Building; Jared McKenzie, Parade Driver, WorldVitalRecords.com fan; Whitney Ransom, Director of Corporate Communications

Shown from left to right: Darla Seamons, Director of Content Acquisition; Jared McKenzie; Yvette Arts, Executive Vice President

During the parade, several members of our team passed out flyers about our Web site. We also announced a contest we are having. Here are the details:

Pioneering into the Future Contest

Show your pioneer spirit and break new ground by uploading a photo at WorldVitalRecords.com. You will receive one entry for every old photo (before 1950) you upload to WorldVitalRecords.com from July 25-until midnight on August 25. (There is no limitation on the number of photos an individual can submit.) Winner will receive a gift certificate to have 25 scanned photos for FREE and will be notified on August 26. Check out the rest of the contest details at this URL: http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/training.html

We are excited to receive these photos, which of course, will remain in our free section, visible to anyone who wishes to view them.

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3 Exciting News Items For The Day

Tuesday, July 18th, 2006

Today is the big day for our first newsletter launch! Hooray! Just to give you a sneak preview, some of the items we will be talking about will include a section on what you can expect at WorldVitalRecords.com, the meaning of the word “vital” in our company name, a section about some of the databases we have launched, as well as the datasets we will launch the rest of the week. We have also highlighted what you can do with geocoded SSDI data. I better stop before I share everything that will be in the newsletter. Look for it later today on our Web site. If you prefer, you can also sign up to receive it by sending an email to <subscribe@worldvitalrecords.com>.

The second piece of exciting news is that tomorrow WorldVitalRecords.com will be switching over to a different management system. This statement means a lot to our programs, and to users, well, check out our site tomorrow, and also read our blog in which we will talk about the new functionality.

Last, but certainly not least, we launched the Florida land records dataset today, containing 81,560 records. What is the importance of these land records? One reason is that they can be useful to researchers in helping them place an individual in a certain time and place, connecting them with families and neighborhoods. It also provides additional context into the life of your ancestor. That’s right, one land record could help you determine the history of the area in which your family lived (perhaps even the exact house), the neighbors that lived nearby, as well as the stores where they shopped. Land records certainly provide rich information that can be vital to your genealogy.

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