"Light within all living beings," by Stefan Perneborg via Flickr; free to use. I bow to the light within you: namaste.  Before traveling to India to speak at a student conference a few years ago, I became aware of the Indian customary greeting, and what it meant. An Indian friend said, well, we don't think about the full meaning, it is just a respectful hello. However, while in India I felt deeply welcomed and respected by each person I met; many of them offering gifts upon meeting me. I treasure those gifts and the way each person made me feel.  I try to treat people like that, and life is generally better when I do. Over the past year, I've been trying to clean up my Ancestry tree, and since mulling over this practice of namaste, to see what "beginner me" was trying to accomplish years ago. I made lots of mistakes, but the repair project has taught me so much.  However,  I'm still struggling to honor the light within some of my ancestors and their re...

Grumbles and Thanks  Online you will find both, as people discuss the new FamilySearch search interfaces, just in time for Family History Month. Change is always difficult! Fortunately they have created a new landing page to get users oriented.  New Landing Page In the image below, there is a circle around a big change, underlined one way to get back much of what you might miss from the old page, and pointed an arrow to a link to get a whole lot more help.  Circled: Birth or Death year - This can be a time-saver when you know only one date.  However, the underlined link is usually where you will start: MORE OPTIONS. MORE OPTIONS screen If you want Exact Search for any field, the arrow shows where to enable it. Usually this is only useful if you know precisely what you want to find.  The images above are the top of the new page. Scroll down just a bit, and there is more.  TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE SEARCHES on the left leads to a separate page called  Best prac...