Episode 256 - Making The Most Out Of Your Ancestry.com DNA Matches / Nice Changes Coming For RootsTech 2019

podcast episode Oct 21, 2018

Host Scott Fisher opens the show with David Allen Lambert, Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org. Familly Histoire News begins with the story of a Swedish American girl who was playing in a lake in Sweden and made an astonishing discovery. Hear what everyone is so excited about. Then, it’s a new application for DNA. Yes, your deceased loved one’s molecular code can now be part of your tattoos! David explains. Next, a map created by the guy who is believed to have made the maps for Columbus has had technology put to use to reveal previously illegible text. Find out about the significance of this story. David then talks briefly about the link on ExtremeGenes.com to the story about 20 sets of twins separated at birth who choose either to seek or not to seek their missing sibling. David’s Blogger Spotlight this week shines on Rahkia Nance. Her site, TheLAConfidential.wordpress.com covers her journey to uncover the stories of her family’s past.

Then, Gretchen Jorgensen, a DNA specialist with Legacy Tree Genealogists, shares some great tips for maximizing your DNA matches on Ancestry.com. There may well be a few tools there that you don’t know about. But Gretchen does! Hear what she has to say.

Next, Tara Bergeson, Program Chair for RootsTech, the world’s largest family history conference, shares the latest for what to expect at RootsTech 2019 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tara reveals many changes that will cut down on lines and get you into more of what you want to see and do. Also, a RootsTech London is coming up next year! Tara will fill you in.

Then, it’s Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com, the Preservation Authority, talking about SD cards. What are they and how to they help you? Tom’s got all the skinny.

That’s all this week on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show!

Transcript of Episode 256

Host: Scott Fisher with guest David Allen Lambert

Segment 1 Episode 256

Fisher: Welcome to another awe-inspiring episode of Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show and ExtremeGenes.com. It is Fisher here your Radio Roots Sleuth on the program where we shake your family tree and watch the nuts fall out. And this episode is brought to you by BYUtv’s Relative Race. Nice to have you along genies! We have some great guests today. One of them is Gretchen Jorgensen. She’s with Legacy Tree Genealogists and she’s going to talk to us coming up in nine or ten minutes or so, and talk about maximizing your DNA matches on Ancestry.com. There are lots of little tools there that a lot of people don’t know about. You’re going to find out more about that from Gretchen. Then later in the show, Tara Bergesen will be here talking about 2019 RootsTech. Yeah, it’s coming right up and there are a lot of changes happening this year. If you are not familiar with RootsTech, it is the largest family history conference in the world! And it will be happening in Salt Lake City, Utah at the end of February and early March. And they’re doing another one in London by the way, next year in October, so we’re going to hear about that, what the changes are. You’re going to want to catch that later on in the show. And Tom Perry talking preservation is going to introduce you to SD cards, why they’re important, how to pick the best one. It’s all coming up at the tail end of the show. Hey, we’re having a lot of fun with our “Weekly Genie Newsletter.” If you haven’t signed up for it yet, it’s really easy to do, just go to our website ExtremeGenes.com. You can also sign up through our Facebook page, and we’ve actually doubled the price recently. It’s now zero, double zero, but nonetheless, lots of links to great stories. You’re going to enjoy past podcasts and a blog from me as well and it comes out once a week. So, get signed up. We would love to have you as part of our “Weekly Genie” family. And don’t forget to sign up also for our Patrons Club where you can support the show and get all kinds of great benefits, sign up also at ExtremeGenes.com. But right now let’s head out to a very happy David Allen Lambert who’s cheering on his Boston Red Sox. Let’s see how it’s going for the Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org.

David: Well, it’s going really well in Beantown for anybody who’s a member of Red Sox Nation. I’ll tell you that was quite a beating the Yankees got in the Bronx by our boys from Beantown.

Fisher: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t want to hear about that.

David: Oh come on, you’re a Mets fan.

Fisher: [Laughs]

David: What do you care about the Yankees?

Fisher: Yeah well, it’s New Yawk you know. What can I tell you about that? By the way, congratulations to my friend David. He’s got a book out that’s been around forever. It’s called A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries and it just was released in its third edition and I know it helps out a lot of people. You started that when you were really young, didn’t you?

David: Right out of high school. Started as a rolodex so, yeah, the third edition just went to the printer last week, so just in about a month we will have it here at American Ancestors, but I’m really proud of it. It’s gone from a rolodex to being a book over 300 pages long now for every cemetery, every town.

Fisher: Sweet. Awesome. Very nicely done. All right, let’s get going with our Family Histoire News today. Where would we want to begin David?

David: We’re going to begin in Sweden with a really cute story. Eight-year-old Saga is a young lady who went out into the middle of a lake. She found what she thought was a stick, put it aloft and she was holding a 1,500-year-old sword!

Fisher: Wow.

David: It’s amazing. They’re calling her the “Queen of Sweden” because the “Lady of the Lake” gave her this sword.

Fisher: [Laughs]

David: It’s an amazing artifact to pre-Viking era. They kept this location secret because they wanted to go back and have the museum look for more artifacts. They found a brooch and some coins. So, the level of the lake had been down and they are assuming that this may have been an area where the sacrifices were taken place, 1,500 years ago.

Fisher: Wow! Isn’t that something? And they actually had traces of leather and wood, meaning that the sheath was still on the sword, so they are in the process of restoring it. They’ve got it at a museum over there, and you’ll be able to see it probably in about a year when they make sure everything’s stabilized and they’ve got it looking the best it can look.

David: Especially since it’s been in the water for 1,500 years.

Fisher: [Laughs]

David: It probably has to have a little bit of work done to it, that’s for sure.

Fisher: Unbelievable.

David: Well, then listen to this story. Now this is about DNA-infused tattooing. So basically…

Fisher: What? [Laughs]

David: Yeah, exactly. I mean, back in 1977 the rock group Kiss had their blood mixed into the ink for a comic book. So, I don’t know if this has impressed on them or not to do this, but basically this company will take the hair from a beloved pet with the cremated remains of a deceased family member and mix it in with a chemical that comes powdered ink that allows it to be put into a tattoo, so you can always carry grandma with you in that heart you have on your sleeve.  

Fisher: [Laughs]

David: The company’s name is Everence, and apparently it’s becoming quite popular. I mean, we’ve talked about a variety of things. Remember the person who ate their ancestor’s cremains?

Fisher: Yeah, that’s right. It’s amazing what you can do with cremains, you know. [Laughs]

David: It really is and it’s one of those things that you just never know what’s going to be new in the industry. I have my dog’s cremated remains but I don’t think I need to have them on my shoulder.

Fisher: No, no, no.

David: Well, we just celebrated Columbus Day the other day and listen to this. A 500-year-old map that was done by a German cartographer called Henricus Martellus, which they believe is a similar map to what Columbus used, by technology, they have brought out legends and bits of descriptive text that have been faded for centuries, now they can actually read it. And it makes a little clearer sense how they were using it. So, this is kind of a nice leap for something from the past.

Fisher: Wow. The discoveries just keep on coming.

David: They really do. They’re either being pulled from a lake or they’re being pulled from a scanner. By the way, if you go to ExtremeGenes.com you’ll find a link to the story about twins separated at birth. In fact, it talks about fifteen people who are looking for their twins and five who chose not to. My blogger spotlight this week shines upon Rahkia Nance who has a blog called thelaconfidential.wordpress.com. In this blog she talks about her African American ancestors from Davidson County, Tennessee going back to a Henry Nance who was a slave and had been a runaway and who died in 1926. Follow her interesting story of her African American roots on thelaconfidential.wordpress.com. Well, that’s all I have from Beantown this week, but don’t forget, if you’re not a member of AmericanAncestors.org, you can use that great coupon code “Extreme” for savings of $20. Catch you real soon my friend.

Fisher: All right David and good luck to your Sox in the baseball playoffs.

David: Thank you. Thank you.

Fisher: All right. And coming up next, this is going to be a really good segment. Gretchen Jorgensen will be talking with me from Legacy Tree Genealogists about maximizing your DNA matches. And if you’re looking to extend lines or confirm some of your research, it’s a great way to go. And she’s going to share with you some tools you might not know are available on Ancestry.com. That’s coming up in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

Segment 2 Episode 256

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Gretchen Jorgensen

Fisher: Hey, welcome back. It’s America’s Family History Show Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com. Fisher here, your Radio Roots Sleuth and this segment is brought to you by FamilySearch.org. You know we always love talking DNA on the show and I’ve got Gretchen Jorgensen, DNA Specialist with Legacy Tree Genealogists on the line with me right now. Gretchen we haven’t met before but it’s great to have you on the show.

Gretchen: Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Fisher: How did you get started in specializing in DNA?

Gretchen: Well, about three years ago my husband and myself tested with AncestryDNA, and I mostly just wanted to see what all the fuss was about because I was hearing about DNA testing on message boards, on Facebook groups and I didn’t have any particular issue I was trying to solve. I just kind of wanted to see what the results looked like. And when we got them back it was just really fun, you know. There were some names that I recognized and were able to kind of fill in some holes and some lines that had been brick walls. So that’s how I got going, yeah.

Fisher: Wow. Yeah, the brick wall break through is always fun, isn’t it?

Gretchen: It is. Yeah.

Fisher: And DNA is the ticket for an awful lot of lines like that, or at least confirmation, right, of what you’re looking for?

Gretchen: Right.

Fisher: And that helps so much. So, you’ve recently written an article which is on the blog site for LegacyTree.com about understanding your AncestryDNA match results. And I thought maybe this would be a great opportunity for you to share some of those points because I think a lot of people would like to have a better experience.

Gretchen: Sure. Yeah, and I think that the results can be overwhelming at first, especially for people that maybe don’t know so much about their family history to begin with, or you know, maybe only know back through the grandparents or great grandparents. And if your matches are more distant than that it’s not atypical to not recognize anybody when you first look. [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs]

Gretchen: And that’s not really a comfortable feeling for most people, so I wrote that article just to kind of help get some strategies to figure out who the people are.

Fisher: Sure, and that’s really important stuff and it’s time consuming too, and especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. So, where would somebody start, would you say, when it comes to getting their matches, they’ve just got them in through AncestryDNA, you’re looking through the thing. I would imagine you’d want to start with people you know and say, “Oh, look at that. There’s Fred and that’s my cousin.” And you kind of get that sense of lay of the land, right and the idea that, “Oh, look at…that’s accurate.” You know? There’s a second cousin right in that range.”

Gretchen: Right, exactly. If you do see some people that you know, close relatives or even a little more distant, that’s ideal. If you’ve got somebody that you know how you’re related to them. Then you can start to figure out who else do you share DNA with that they also share DNA with and those people probably descend from the same common ancestor.

Fisher: Sure.

Gretchen: So it becomes kind of a filtering process. So, target testing some of your relatives can help with that. If you’re really at a loss, get one of your cousins to test and that will help, kind of sort it out for you.

Fisher: I mean, I don’t think there’s any more important button on the Ancestry site than that shared match button, right?

Gretchen: I agree. Yeah, absolutely. That’s the key thing that I use all the time in my work trying to find people’s families, and understanding those shared matches is a fair amount of importance.

Fisher: It’s really complicated sometimes though when you start going from okay, well, I’ve got a match to this one I’m still not recognizing. You go to the matches of the matches and sometimes you can start to break it open that way. Have you had that experience?

Gretchen: I have. That’s something that you need to be a little bit careful with. You don’t want to take too many hops and assume that the person is still related to the first person that you started with especially if you’ve got colonial U.S. ancestry with a lot of matches, that sort of thing.

Fisher: Right [Laughs] yeah.

Gretchen: But I do that all the time with my own matches. If I find somebody that I don’t recognize, I will mark in the notes field, “matches known,” you know, “Smith Jones descendant” or you know whatever line they are. And then I will look at the shared matches with that person and I will say match to matches of something. I typically don’t go any further than that with my own research.

Fisher: Sure.

Gretchen: But eventually that information can be really helpful especially if you’re working with more distant matches. Not everybody is going to match everybody else but that doesn’t mean they’re not related, if that makes sense.

Fisher: That makes a lot of sense. You know, there are a lot of little tools on Ancestry I think that are underutilized that I think are really helpful and you just mentioned one of them, that’s the little note area for matches. And people are worried maybe that some of these people will see that but of course you can’t see that. It’s just for your own personal notes on your own account.

Gretchen: Right.

Fisher: Then you can mark all kinds of stuff there, which means you don’t have to click into that to see how they’re related. Just click on the notes and you’ll see the whole thing. You can put in there how many centiMorgans you share, who you think this person might be related through, what the common ancestor might be, what the relationship is. I’ll often put in 3C2R for third cousin twice removed, or something like that. And by keeping track of that it just makes it a whole lot easier than going through and going, “Now where did we tie to that person again?”

Gretchen: Right. [Laughs] Absolutely, because you think you’re going to remember all of these things.

Fisher: You do.

Gretchen: And then you know, a week goes by and I’m like, “Did I look at this before?” So yeah, that record keeping stuff is fairly important. With my own matches, if I know the relationship, you know, third cousin or whatever, I’ll put that in, I’ll put the number of centiMorgans that we share so I don’t have to look that up again, common ancestors that I know of.

Fisher: Right.

Gretchen: And then I will put in my match’s entire ancestral line from the common ancestor to themselves. Those are the nice things to not have to keep go back to.

Fisher: Looking up again and again and again.

Gretchen: Right.

Fisher: Yeah, absolutely.

Gretchen: One thing I just wanted to add. You talked about not having to click into the match and being able to look at the notes from the main page. There is an extension for the Chrome browser called MedBetterDNA that makes that even easier that you don’t even have to click on the little notes icon. You can configure that to display all of your notes on the page when you look at your main match page.

Fisher: Oh sweet.

Gretchen: Yeah. It’s awesome. And then that makes it a little easier to do some searching. I like to do that especially with my first page of matches. I’m always kind of looking at that, who’s new, what’s different, who don’t I know, who they are. Those are the ones that really kind of get under my skin. If somebody that’s in my first 50 matches that I don’t know who they are, when I can see all the notes then I can see who I don’t know.

Fisher: Sure.

Gretchen: And those are the ones that I kind of tend to focus on a little more.

Fisher: I’m talking to Gretchen Jorgensen she’s a DNA Specialist with Legacy Tree Genealogists. And Gretchen, how far back do you typically like to research your matches?

Gretchen: Well, it kind of depends on how closely they’re related they are to me or to the person that I’m researching. So, you know, if they share 60, 70 centiMorgans they’re probably a third cousin, and so I want to go back at least till their great, great grandparents.

Fisher: Um hmm.

Gretchen: Sometimes you can go not so far and the connection becomes clear, but often you have to go at least that far or maybe even a generation back. I don’t research everybody that I encounter to fourth or fifth grandparents because there aren’t enough hours in the day for that. [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs] Yeah, right.

Gretchen: But there is a fine line between not spending too much time on everybody, but going far enough so you’re not missing something on a key person.

Fisher: Yeah. I’m just thinking you know, when you go to break open brick walls, which I think is really the primary purpose of finding these matches other than confirming maybe what you think you already know.

Gretchen: Right.

Fisher: When you get back to the fifth, the eighth, boy it really gets complicated. And so many of them to try to sort through on mom’s side, dad’s side, which line, and sometimes they’re tied to multiple lines because you’re from the same area. It gets really tricky. But if you can find them to the fourth cousins and at least break open your brick walls to the third great grandparent level, that’s pretty exciting stuff.

Gretchen: It is. And yeah, I think I misinterpreted your previous question. But yeah, the fifth to eighth cousins, I look at some of them. I don’t look at most of them. And I hear people comment of their total number of matches including all of the distant matches, you know, “Oh I have twenty thousand matches. I can’t look at them all.”

Fisher: [Laughs]

Gretchen: Well, of course you’re not going to and that shouldn’t be a goal.

Fisher: No, ever.

Gretchen: I will focus on some that are in the fifth to eight if they come up on a surname search and then I’ll explore that a little more, and you know hopefully, they might have some shared matches with some other people who are in my fourth cousin or closer list and then that kind of gets my attention.

Fisher: Right. And it’s important for people to know by the way, if you’re trying to match people who are first through fourth cousins, they won’t show you the matches you have in the fifth to eighth cousins.

Gretchen: Right.

Fisher: But if you go to the fifth to eighth cousins and click on matches, it will show you any closer relatives you have up to fourth cousins.

Gretchen: That’s true. And that is a point of frustration for many Ancestry users. Although I have to say now three years into this, I really have come to see the wisdom of that decision on Ancestry’s part. I think a 15 centiMorgan cut off would be nice as an add-on but the processing power involved with that I don’t think it’s going to happen. But I think it’s better not to have your shared matches list muddied with seven or eight centiMorgan matches. I think that ultimately creates more confusion than clarity.

Fisher: Yeah that’s true. It makes it difficult though when you’re trying to work on something a little bit further back.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Fisher: It would be nice to have the option, although I’m thinking if the option is there then it’s basically going to be all in or not, right?

Gretchen: Right. Yeah. And in a former lifetime I wrote software for a living and so I’ve thought a lot about the implications of that sort of thing. So I would say don’t hold your breath on that one. [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs] Yeah. What kind of improvements would you like to see on Ancestry?

Gretchen: Adding more colors to their stars would be huge.

Fisher: Yes. And more stars.

Gretchen: Right. That, to me, is surprising that it hasn’t been implemented yet because it seems like it wouldn’t be that difficult of a change. And I think it would be a real crowd pleaser for their customers.

Fisher: Totally.

Gretchen: So that’s one, and I would really like to see more search capabilities. You know, we’ve got the surname search. You can search a location.

Fisher: But you can’t do both.

Gretchen: You can’t do both. And the ability to put in a first name, you know, when you’re searching other people’s trees especially if you have a really common surname that you’re looking at. One of my husband’s ancestral lines is Bates. And I can search Bates from Virginia but it’s just overwhelming.

Fisher: Sure.

Gretchen: And most of them actually end up matching some of their line completely when I look at the shared matches. And if I could put in the first name and date of birth and that sort of thing, that would be incredibly helpful.

Fisher: Well, some great ideas and great advice. Gretchen Jorgensen from Legacy Tree Genealogist, thanks so much for coming on the show!

Gretchen: Well, thank you. This was fun.

Fisher: Hey and believe it or not, RootsTech is closing in on us again. We’re going to find out the latest on what to expect for our 2019 edition from Tara Bergesen coming up next.                    

Segment 3 Episode 256

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tara Bergesen

Fisher: Hey, welcome back genies! It is America’s Family History Show Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com. I am Fisher your Radio Roots Sleuth. One of the most exciting times of the year for anybody interested in family history and developing their family tree, finding stories, and connecting with relatives, is RootsTech. It is the biggest Family History Conference in the world! And it’s going to be happening this coming year February 27th and 28th, March 1st and 2nd. It’s a four day conference and I have the Program Chair for RootsTech 2019 on the line with me right now. She’s Tara Bergesen. Tara, welcome back to Extreme Genes! How are you?

Tara: I’m great. How are you doing?

Fisher: You still sound energetic considering I know all you must be doing even though RootsTech is still several months away.

Tara: Oh, it is several months away but our team is always full of enthusiasm and excitement. I don’t know that we’ve ever hit a low or a dead period.

Fisher: Yeah, but you’ve got another one now too because you are doing a RootsTech in London in October of next year.

Tara: Right. Yes. So not only are we having RootsTech in Salt Lake but we have added an event six months later in London. So we will hold RootsTech London in October of 2019 and what an exciting opportunity this is, not just for RootsTech but also for those that have not been able to come to RootsTech Salt Lake. We’re able to take this fabulous opportunity on the road.

Fisher: Yeah, lots of European friends will be able to make it there, many of whom we’ve met at RootsTech over the years in Salt Lake City, Utah. All right, so let’s go through this. There are a lot of thoughts last year about so many people that’s become so popular they couldn’t get into rooms with some of the more popular classes. You’ve made some adjustments this year for RootsTech and I’m excited to hear about them.

Tara: Yeah, we definitely had some growing pains. One of those was our rooms. That is why people come. They love the sessions, the knowledge, and the learning that they’re getting. So, one of the things we have done is we’ve removed the badge scanning. All rooms will not be scanned but we do have a few things that need to be scanned, labs and lunches, anything someone has paid additional money for we will need to scan those.

Fisher: Sure.

Tara: But for most of our attendees, the majority of them, those rooms will not be scanned. So that will help significantly as far as getting into classrooms. The other big one is we’ve created a massive room that will seat 3500 attendees.

Fisher: Wow!

Tara: Yeah, as I’ve done the schedule and worked on that for the last couple of months. The classes that we’re putting in there are the ones that are the hottest topics. Lots of DNA sessions. Lots of sessions from FamilySearch, Ancestry those things that people are craving more knowledge on and really want to learn from.

Fisher: And then I love what you’ve got going on with the “Power Hours” explain what that’s about.

Tara: So, this is a new thing that we’re adding for 2019. We wanted to be able to add as many sessions as possible, but we also know that people consume information in very small snippets now. There are a lot of studies about this and 12 to 15 minutes is where people are really captivated and after that we all are kind of like, okay forward this to support.

Fisher: [Laughs] Yeah.

Tara: So we’re introducing what we call power hour. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at RootsTech we’ll have sessions that start at 8am. I know that’s super early because that’s super early for me.

Fisher: [Yawn] Yeah.

Tara: But it’s okay, bring your caffeine or whatever you need to get going in the morning and as you come to these sessions each room will be dedicated to a specific topic such as DNA. So, you’ll go into a room where we’re teaching on DNA and it will be three quick, short sessions on DNA. It might be, you know, someone who talks about all the DNA stuff that are on the market, someone who talks about what DNA is, maybe we need a basic DNA lesson and then a third person who might talk about an experience they had with DNA but short, quick, no longer than 15- 20 minute sessions. Three of them taught in an hour every morning.

Fisher: Yeah. It’s going to be fun. I’m part of Amy Johnson Crow’s team. She’s going to be teaching Curt Witcher and I’m going to do a segment all on stories and collecting, saving, and recording them, and all that. It’s going to be so much and I really can’t wait for this event. Now, you have another thing here, I love this. You’re feeding everybody on the first day of the conference. Free lunch Wednesday. [Laughs]

Tara: Yeah, free lunch Wednesday. We know that getting through to the Salt Palace is a struggle and you are in Salt Lake in the winter it’s a little cold and chilly to walk around downtown Salt Lake but one of the things we’ve changed this year is every attendee will be provided a box lunch on Wednesday, so that there’s a place that, 1) they’ll be able to sit. We’ll make sure all the rooms are available so that anyone can sit that needs to and, 2) everyone has food that’s available to them.

Fisher: Sweet. And the library of course is open late.

Tara: You can’t miss the library if you’re coming to Salt Lake.

Fisher: No.

Tara: It is the family history capital, right? Everyone wants to come there. The knowledge and information that’s available at the Family History Library just will knock your socks off. Yeah, they have later hours.

Fisher: I want to say 11 o’ clock. I mean that I think historically what it’s been.

Tara: It’s late. I don’t know if they finalized those hours yet but we’ll make sure that the RootsTech website has that updated information so that you can go find your next family member, your new cousin.

Fisher: Yeah absolutely. That’s going to be so much fun. All right, talk about the “Ultimate Pass” that’s another new thing this year. 

Tara: It is. We want to give some people the opportunity to live and breathe RootsTech almost like we live and breathe it. So, we’ve offered an ultimate pass. The cost on that pass is $499 but included with that is guaranteed to get into the classes that you want. So, we have that problem with rooms. This is one way that will get you into any class that you’re looking for. We’ll also have special meet and greets available and we will have a group of people there to help you, if you need water we’ll be there for you, and make sure your experience at RootsTech really is an ultimate experience.

Fisher: Very nice. All right, now do we have any speakers that you can yet announce?

Tara: Well, Steve Rockwood of course is on the docket as our CEO of FamilySearch. He’ll kick off RootsTech on Wednesday and he will be joined by a group called Edge Effect. They’re an acapella singing group. They’ll bring in some fun and excitement during our opening session on Wednesday. We have kind of tweaked our keynotes this year. Our schedule, because of the power hours and other things, we decided to move our keynotes session from opening each day to the lunch hour.

Fisher: Ooh.

Tara: So, all our keynotes will be at 11am, instead of 8:30 as in previous. The only one that’s different is on Wednesday of course we’ll end off the day with Steve Rockwood’s keynote and Edge Effect and then of course we’ll go into the opening of the Expo hall for that two hour preview on Wednesday evening. But all other keynotes will be at 11.

Fisher: And my good friend Jason Hewlett is going to be emceeing most of those events in the big Hall. So, that is going to be so much fun. And Tara by the way, you have a special code for Extreme Genes listeners and I love that. What have you got?

Tara: We do. We have a ten percent off any time you register between now and the conference. You can come and register on the site if needed. They’ll receive ten percent off the current price and that code is 19INTERVIEW. (INTERVIEW all capitalized.) So, it’s, 1-9-I-N-T-E-R-V-I-E-W.

Fisher: Sweet! And that’s at RootsTech.org, yes?

Tara: Yes. Just click on the registration button on the upper right hand corner.

Fisher: Perfect. How many booths are we looking at this year, by the way? For people who have never been to RootsTech, I mean the Expo hall is just packed and it gets bigger and bigger every year with new products and new ideas, and new experiences for you to enjoy as well. And then of course the big Family Day is still in effect for Saturday, yes?

Tara: Yes. We’re still having Family Discovery Day on Saturday. Those tickets are going fast. Faster than normal as all of our RootsTech tickets are this year. It’s been a great year so far but yeah, 300 plus booths in the Expo Hall. It’s massive in size and continues to grow. They’ll more than likely sell out, so if you’re an exhibitor looking to come to RootsTech, you need to get that application in quickly so that you don’t miss out on a booth in our Expo Hall.

Fisher: She is the Program Chair of RootsTech 2019. She’s Tara Bergesen. Tara, I can’t wait. RootsTech’s coming right up! It’s going to be a great time again.

Tara: Thanks so much.

Fisher: All right, thank you Tara. And coming up next we’ll talk to Tom Perry our Preservation Authority from TMCPlace.com in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

Segment 4 Episode 256

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: All right, back at it, talking preservation with Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com, our Preservation Authority. How're you doing, Tommy?

Tom: I'm super fabulous!

Fisher: Yes, you are. And here we go, the holiday season really is upon us right now. I mean, it’s just crazy. Here it is, October and yet, we've really got to be thinking about these things, because family history gifts are not normal Christmas gifts or holiday gifts. You've got to put a lot of thought into them, you've got to put a lot of effort into them, there's often a time lag in between planning a project, executing it, putting it together and creating the gift, and then figuring out how you're going to deliver that gift, right?

Tom: Exactly, that is so true. And a lot of things we need to really remember is, remember in the old days we bought a toy for one of our kids and they got it they were so exited and then… "batteries not included."

Fisher: You're right. [Laughs]

Tom: You didn't have the batteries.

Fisher: That's true!

Tom: And so the same thing goes with storage, whether you're making brand new memories or whether you're taking old memories and making them available to other people. One of the biggest things we deal with today are SD cards. SD card is like a portable disk type thing, but they're very, very small. Almost every camera takes them, computers you buy nowadays, whether it’s a Macintosh or PC, has little slots to put in SD cards, almost every camera now takes SD cards. A lot of people have Smartphones and they think, "There's no slot for an SD card in my phone, so I guess it doesn't affect me." Well, you can buy adaptors that plug into the bottom of your iPhone or your Android and then put an SD card in it, so that makes it really easy to share things.

Fisher: Boy that sounds so much easier than the process for a lot of storage! And a lot of the solutions of course have more to do with the cloud. So what's the advantage of an SD card over cloud storage?

Tom: Well, the thing with an SD card, it’s instant. And it’s not just for storage. An SD card is actually what it writes to. If you have a video camera and it doesn’t have a built in hard drive, it writes to the SD card. And there are so many different flavors of SD cards. You need to make sure you have the right one, because if you go to something really important like a big Christmas party and you have the wrong SD card, you can't say, "Oh, hey let's do the party in an hour from now. I need to run to the store and try to find one that's open with the right SD card."

Fisher: All right, so there are different types of SD cards. So how do these apply?

Tom: Okay, basically there'll be printing on them that helps you a lot. There'll be like SC, HC, XC, which stands for Standard Capacity, High Capacity, Extended Capacity. If you're just storing small things, you don't need a big fancy one. But if you're shooting video, if you're shooting something like photos that have, you know, 4k or something that's going to take a lot of memory, then you want really, really fast cards. Like I always use at least an XC, which is 32 Gigabytes to an entire terabyte on one little SD card. And the thing I like about those, it stores it in a format that's called exFAT, which is how we always do videos for people that want to be able to take their old film and edit it on their computer, because it has the best storage and it’s really, really fast.

Fisher: Wow! So we have these different sizes then. What do you think would be the most appropriate if you were shooting, say, a family history interview with grandma or grandpa?

Tom: You know, that's a good question, because everybody understands CDs and how audio works for instance, like the standard CD records at like 150 kilobytes per second. And if you find an SD card that has 8x on it or 10x or 14x, it means it goes that much faster than a CD. So if you're recording only audio, about anything with an x after is going to work. But I'm the kind that always wants to make sure the glass is a little bit over half full, so I go with an XC, because I know for sure I'm going to get the speed I need, even where in most situations an SC will work. And another thing you need to be careful of, always check the card in your camera before you use it, because most SD cards come from Panasonic, Toshiba or ScanDisk, they're the biggies, and if you use the wrong card, it may not even work in your camera. So, always test drive it before you plan on using it.

Fisher: Oh boy that would be the worst, right? You set up the whole thing, you've planned weeks in advance and then the SD card doesn’t work.

Tom: Exactly! So after the break, let's go into a little bit more detail, if you get an SD card, you might see a "C" as in Charlie on it, a "U" and in universe on it or a "V" as in Victor. I'll explain these after the break.

Fisher: All right, coming up in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America's Family History Show.

Segment 5 Episode 256

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: Hey, we're back at it for our final segment of Extreme Genes, America's Family History Show. It is Fisher here your Radio Roots Sleuth, talking to Tom Perry. He's our Preservation Authority from TMCPlace.com. And we've been talking about storage and SD cards and speed, and frankly Tom, you're way over my head, but I'm getting a little bit of this. That's why we often go back and listen to the podcast version of the show, right, to pick up some of these details. And also, check out the transcript of the show that you can always find at ExtremeGenes.com when it comes out. So, talk to us about speed now. You’ve talked about size and storage, and speed and these things somehow have to come together. And once again, an SD card is a tiny little drive essentially, right?

Tom: Exactly. In fact, anybody that owns a smartphone actually had an SD card type of thing inside the phone that tells it, "This is your phone number. This is how you work." But they can only be used through AT&T or whoever your provider is. Whereas an SD card is built on the same principle, but it can be a storage device, it can be a temporary holding device. It can be a lot of different things. And in the first segment, we talked primarily about size, which size really does matter when you're talking about SD cards. We also need to talk about speed, because if you have a great, big, huge card, but yet you have a really slow speed and you're trying to do like 4k video or film, it’s not going to work for you. So that's why the evolution of SD cards came up with the designations of "C" and in Charley, "U" as in universe, "V" as in Victor. If you see a C with like a 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 in it, it means that's how many megabytes per second it will record. If you go to the next step, which is the U, it will have a 1 or a 3, which usually means 30 or 10 megabytes per second. If you go to the alter, which is usually a V as in Victor, you'll see a 6, a 10, a 30, a 60 or a 90 inside the V, which means it’s like 90 megabytes per second. So that's screaming fast if you're doing 4k video. Again, if you're just doing audio recording and you've got a little recorder that takes SD cards, you can get by with the slower speeds, because you're just doing regular audio. So you need to find the balance between size and speed. So you need to find out what your ultimate goal is and then work back from there, so you get the right kind of card.

Fisher: All right, so let's talk about the cost of the cheapest ones, the slowest ones, the least storage available ones would be around what price range?

Tom: Oh, you can get those for like, you know, $10, $15. Sometimes they're even on sale on Amazon where you can get them even less than that. And I always recommend, go with a brand that you trust. If you don't know, stick with Panasonic, Toshiba or ScanDisk, because theirs are always good quality.

Fisher: So how am I overspending in this situation? If I get the real fast one, the big storage one, what's the high end on price?

Tom: Okay, if you look at something like a 32 gigabyte, which is an XC card, which says the exFAT system and then you go to, say, a V90, you're going to have this huge card that's screaming fast that you can probably buy a used Volkswagen for the same price.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Tom: So you want to be really, really careful, it’s way over storage. If you're just using audio, there's no way in the world you're going to need a 1 terabyte. Just like on your computer, if you're doing small things, you don't need a terabyte hard drive to take with you, you can get by with small ones. If you're playing gaming and things that use a lot of memory, you need a big card, just like you need a big hard drive. And then the speed is important. If you're doing video editing on your computer or you're transferring your own home movies or videos, you know you need a fast processor or your computer won't keep up with the speed of your tape. So that's where the C, U and V comes in. It ties the speed in with the size of the card.

Fisher: All right, Tom, great stuff as always. And you’ve given us a head full, but you've also given us something to look up and examine a little bit more and get ourselves educated on. Thank so much, and we'll talk to you again next week.

Tom: My pleasure.

Fisher: Wow, we covered a lot of ground this week! If you missed the show, make sure you catch the podcast on ExtremeGenes.com, on iTunes, on iHeart Radio. Of course we talked about DNA and better ways to utilize your Ancestry.com results to find matches, to extend your family lines and find more family stories and photographs. Hey, if you haven't done so yet, make sure you sign up for our Weekly Genie Newsletter. Just go to ExtremeGenes.com, you'll find the link right there. It’s absolutely free. Talk to you again next week. Thanks for joining us. And remember, as far as everyone knows, we're a nice, normal family!

Subscribe now to find out why hundreds of thousands of family researchers listen to Extreme Genes every week!

Email me new episodes