Lasbury Family History

By Kathryn Grant

When members want to begin working on their family history, one of the first questions they usually ask is, “Where do I start?”

For many, the best answer to that question is, “With yourself and your immediate family!”

In a 2014 general conference talk, Elder Quentin L. Cook said, “In the worldwide membership of the Church, fifty-one percent of adults currently do not have both parents in the Family Tree section of the Church’s FamilySearch Internet site. Sixty-five percent of adults do not have all four grandparents listed.”

If you’re helping those with empty trees or mostly empty trees, completing their first four generations in Family Tree will likely reveal temple work that needs to be done. It will also create a solid foundation as they continue to build their family tree.

You can follow these steps to help members complete their first four generations in Family Tree:

1. Start by asking them about their family history goals. They may want to do a particular family member’s temple work or to learn more about a great-grandparent. When they are successful in accomplishing their goals, members are more likely to keep working on family history and adding people to their lines in Family Tree.

2. Get access to the member’s tree through the consultant planner. It is important to know if someone’s tree is truly empty or if it just needs to be connected to branches that are already in Family Tree.

3. Prepare before your meeting. Pray to know what you should share, and ask those you’ll be meeting with to pray for you as well. Using the consultant planner, create a simple lesson plan to guide you in the meeting. You can print the lesson plan and give it to those you help at the end of the meeting so they can remember the steps they followed.

   You may be impressed to ask them to prepare in advance as well, seeking vital information on an ancestor through family documents like birth certificates, funeral programs, or family Bibles. They may also need time to contact other family members for information.

4. When you meet, pray for the Holy Ghost to help you as you fill in information about their family. Avoid the idea that adding the first four generations is a race. Adding one family member at a time, reviewing recordsattaching sources, and recording memories can be an enlightening and even tender experience that helps members feel a bond with their family on the other side.

   

   Be sensitive to any complicated family situations you may encounter. Some members may have been disowned by their families upon joining the Church, or their extended family may be hesitant to share information if they’re unsure of what will be done with it. You can be a support in such cases by:

   • knowing the guidelines for reserving temple ordinances,
   • helping the member identify the family member they are most comfortable approaching,
   • assisting in determining what to say, and
   • offering to role play so they can practice.

   These steps, along with your prayers, can all provide great comfort in such situations.

5. Point members to the temple. Members can have a rich spiritual experience as they complete temple work for those they have grown to love. They also receive divine protection and strength. For those who do not have the opportunity to attend the temple personally, help them understand the importance of their contribution. Help them share the names they find with the temple, or identify other members who may be able to perform the work for them.

6. Encourage members to find others to teach—they can show a family member how to find and add a name just like they did when you helped them. This experience can assist them in completing their first four generations. It may also help ancestors be safely gathered to the temple sooner as families help each other.

Completing their first four generations in Family Tree can be a beautiful, heart-turning experience that helps members feel closer to their ancestors and ensures that all are safely gathered in.

 

We’ve added additional records to our landmark US marriages collection. They’re from California and Nevada and are online for the first time ever.

One of the cornerstones of our North American records collection,

United States Marriages

has grown again with the addition of over 4.3 million more records from counties across California and Nevada. When complete, the collection will be the largest online collection of US marriage records anywhere.

This latest tranche of new records are all online for the first time ever, only at Findmypast.

What’s New?

Here are the highlights from the latest additions. Many more records have also been added in smaller numbers to other counties across the two states.

Our coverage of exclusive records now stretches across the United States with more records expected in the coming months.

States with exclusive marriage records on Findmypast

If you’ve struggled to find your ancestors in American records these new additions could be exactly what you’ve been waiting for. Start exploring them now and see who you can trace.

From This Day Forward…

Pressing the “Publish” button for this blog post was one of the most exciting, nerve-wracking, and exhilarating things I’ve ever done and is indeed the biggest step forward we’ve ever made with our company. You read the title correctly – we have merged with MyHeritage.

While Legacy has a new home – everything is staying the same…just better. In our new home the walls are whiter, the ceilings are taller, and the views are greater. Putting aside the analogies, our Legacy software and webinar series will continue just as they always have. But from this point forward, we now have access to the manpower, financial resources, and a customer base of more than 91 million users. We now have everything we need to ensure that Legacy and our webinars will continue to flourish in the years ahead.

Below you will find the official announcement plus answers to questions we thought you would have.

=====

Dear Legacy user,

We are proud to share with you the biggest step forward we have ever made with our Legacy Family Tree software and our FamilyTreeWebinars.com webinar series. We have entered into an acquisition agreement with MyHeritage, a leading global destination for family history and DNA with 91 million users in 196 countries. The acquisition will provide the resources and cutting edge technologies to advance and expand both our #1 rated software and our #1 rated webinar series. Think Legacy is good now? Watch out future – here we come!

How will all this affect you? Entirely positively. Here’s a flavor of what you can expect in the future:

• A host of new features in Legacy software – we will be developing future versions of Legacy together. We have already started working on the new Tree Sync feature (to optionally have your Legacy file in a private or collaborative tree at MyHeritage)
• Improved webinar platform to surpass the 1,000-virtual seat limitation we currently have
• Significant discounts on MyHeritage services and DNA kits for Legacy users and webinar viewers not available anywhere else
• Most importantly, you can expect the same high-quality support and service that you have come to expect from us. The entire Legacy and webinar teams will continue on at MyHeritage in our existing roles.

“The more I’ve learned about and experimented with MyHeritage, the more I have felt we need to partner together,” said Geoff Rasmussen, founder of the FamilyTreeWebinars.com webinar series and “the face” of Legacy Family Tree software. “The technology behind their online trees and historical records is incredible – second to none. MyHeritage has positioned itself to become the leader of the future of the genealogy industry and we can be a part of it. It’s the perfect match – our software and webinars combined with their resources, technologies, and international reach will help both of us accomplish our mission – to help the world find their ancestors.”

Just as we are excited to contribute to the success of our new owners at MyHeritage, they, too, are anxious to elevate our Legacy software and webinar series to levels that have been beyond our reach.

To celebrate the acquisition, we are offering a limited time, never-offered-before discount on Legacy 9 software and annual webinar memberships. Through Sunday, August 13 (Geoff’s birthday), take 50% off:

Legacy 9 software – from $34.95  $17.48

1 year webinar membership (or extension) – $49.95  $24.98

Click here to get Legacy software or webinar membership at 50% off.

Thank you all for your continuing support as we enter this exciting new chapter in the Millennia story.

Best regards,

Dave, Ken, Geoff, and everyone at the Legacy Family Tree / Millennia team

=====

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Is this a friendly or hostile acquisition?

A. Friendly, in every way. Both parties were keen on doing it and consider it a great combination. MyHeritage is interested in expanding its services to the Legacy users; and after operating independently for 20 years, Legacy is interested in the stability, financial security, and expanded technical resources that MyHeritage provides.

Q. Why did Legacy sell to MyHeritage and not to someone else?

A. The Legacy founders Dave, Ken and Geoff saw MyHeritage as a perfect fit, a company that shares their vision and care for genealogy. Another potential buyer, Ancestry.com, shut down their Family Tree Maker product, later found a buyer for it in Ukraine, and then sold it off. We wanted to ensure that our future partner had as much care for our software and our customers as we do. MyHeritage believes that genealogists deserve to be cared for and continues to maintain and improve its own desktop software, Family Tree Builder. They were the best fit.

Q. What happens with the Legacy Family Tree team after this acquisition?

A. MyHeritage is retaining the entire Legacy team and giving them better terms so they could focus on improving Legacy. No more accounting and payroll for Dave! No more server maintenance headaches for Ken! They can now concentrate fully on improving Legacy without the countless distractions a small business has to cope with. Just like Geni — MyHeritage acquired Geni 5 years ago, and many of the original Geni team members are still on board today and have been happily improving Geni ever since.

Q. Is MyHeritage acquiring Legacy Family Tree in order to kill it?

A. No. Legacy Family Tree will continue and is already planning together with MyHeritage the next version, Legacy 10.

Q. What will Legacy version 10 include?

A. It’s still being planned but one of the contemplated features will be a tool to optionally to sync trees with a private or collaborative tree using the MyHeritage tree platform.

Q. Will Legacy version 10 support Unicode?A. Sadly, no. That would require a complete rewrite of the Legacy software from scratch and such a rewrite is not planned. Version 10 will include improvements and features requested by users, not inside-out changes.

Q. Will Legacy users enjoy any benefits from this acquisition?

A. Yes! Legacy users will receive discounts on MyHeritage DNA and MyHeritage subscriptions not available to anyone else, and which have never offered before – anywhere. These will be announced separately next week. Additionally, Legacy is celebrating the news by offering discounts on Legacy 9 to everyone, starting today.

Q. What will happen to the Legacy webinars after the acquisition?

A. MyHeritage is planning to improve the webinars. For starters, deploy improved infrastructure that allows more concurrent users. MyHeritage will promote the webinars to its own users and increase their audience, and will have more resources to bring on speakers, who will receive more exposure thanks to the increased audience, and higher royalty rates. The webinars will remain as Legacy webinars, managed by Geoff. They will not become a voice of MyHeritage. Although they are expected to include more content about MyHeritage than before, the webinars will continue to include a wide range of topics of interest to genealogists.

Q. Is MyHeritage changing things around at Legacy?

A. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This is MyHeritage’s approach with Legacy. Minimum changes. MyHeritage did ask Legacy though to stop selling external products unrelated to genealogy such as magnabrite readers, to improve focus.

Q. Will Legacy continue to participate in genealogy shows/seminars?

A. Yes.

Q. Will Legacy operate the cruise promised for 2017?

A. Yes.

Q. I have another question not listed here. Where can I ask it?

A. We’ll host a webinar about the acquisition in a few more weeks, and anyone is welcome to join, ask any question and get candid answers.