Personal Life Media

Transcript

PHOTOLOOM

Scott Huskey is a pioneer in the micro-computer field: he began avidly programming his home-built computer in 1976, and went on to found Huskey Engineering in the early 1980’s.  As a sophomore in college, Scott created the animated strategy computer game "FLIP-OUT," produced for the Apple II computer in 1983, and later developed and programmed "SHOOT THE MOON” – the first retail “True 3-D” full-color computer game for the Atari ST.

A 19-year veteran of Intel Corporation, Scott has always been focused on making software easier to use.  At the same time Scott caught the family history bug and he’s brought these passions together at Photoloom.  His techno-pioneering spirit, his user-centered design philosophy, his amazing project management experience, and his dedication to preserving family history all combine in perfect balance – to create Family Photoloom, the ground-breaking online family photo-history solution. 

I recently caught up with Scott at a national family history conference and had a chance to sit down and talk with him about Photoloom, how it came into being, and how we as family historians can bring our family trees to life online.  I’m a very visual person so Photoloom is a particularly exciting tool for me because it allows you to work with your family photos online, really creating a dynamic visual representation of your family tree. 

Scott’s passion for Photoloom really comes through, but you really have to see this website yourself to really appreciate what it can do visually.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and it’s been fascinating to work with. 

I really think if we’re going to get our loved ones, our kids and grand kids to embrace their heritage and the work we are doing to uncover our family tree, we have to tell them a story they can really appreciate and enjoy.  And Photoloom allows your photographs to tell your family’s story.   We’re going to be talking more in future episodes about the importance of engaging our family and creating a family history legacy that will last, as well as the power of storytelling.

Go to Photoloom.com and try the free trial and start having some fun with it.  And check out their blog at photoloom.blogspot.com where you’ll pick up some great tips on digitizing your photos and all the new innovations coming in the future.

GENE TREE

Gene Tree is a networking website designed to help people understand where their personal histories belong within the greater genetic story.  The GeneTree site offers another opportunity for connecting with living family members, and sharing meaningful information to help preserve your family history. 

The vision for GeneTree was conceived back in 2006 by principals at several Sorenson companies who were curious about where they came from, and recognized that others shared the same curiosity and would want to connect and share family histories. So the GeneTree beta website was formally launched in October of 2007. 

I had a chance recently at a genealogy conference to talk with Sasha Masick from GeneTree about what you can do at the website and the role that DNA testing plays. 

It’s so great to have a variety of options to choose from when it comes to sharing your family tree online.  I’ve been impressed with how all of the websites we’ve explored: Ancestry, Photoloom and GeneTree are all very conscious of helping us share information while making personal security and privacy a top priority. 

I really don’t think you have to limit yourself to using just one of these options. Each one has a different strong suit.   If you already have a subscription to Ancestry and having been locating records on the website then it makes a lot of sense to upload your family tree database file to their family tree tool and use it to connect with other researchers as well as tapping into their Hints feature, which is what it does best.

Then to create a really fascinating visual representation you can use Photoloom to manage all of your photos, which is its strength.  Chances are that your non-genealogist family members might be a bit overwhelmed by Ancestry’s tree, but they would get very excited at seeing the Family tree you’ve built in a visual form with all the wonderful family photos on Photoloom.

And finally, for those of you who want to get your DNA tested and participate in DNA surname studies and get involved in that arena, uploading your database file to GeneTree would the way to go.  Again, don’t limit yourself.  A gedcom file is very easy to export from your genealogy database and upload to any of these sites.  For many genealogy databases you can just look in the Menu of the software, usually under FILE and there should be a selection for EXPORTING your database.  You will want to export your database file in the gedcom format, which is sort of the generic format that all the different software programs and websites can understand.  And that’s great because then you don’t have to retype everything.  Click on the link above in the sidebar to read more about gedcom files

So have fun with these sites, try out the free trial offers and start sharing and connecting.  That’s really the key.  Just to get started – I think you’ll reap great rewards and have a lot of fun too!