I’m not a natural at networking. In fact, I find it pretty painful. But I know I need to do it, so I do. And sometimes it pays off.

Genlighten and “Getting Real”

Last night I attended the Chicago Tech Meetup at OfficePort in Chicago. Jason Fried (of 37Signals fame) was the keynote speaker. Jason had plenty of cool stuff to say to the crowd of startup entrepreneurs, both the real ones (like Andrew Mason, founder of Groupon) and the simply aspirational (like me). Most of Jason’s advice was familiar to those in attendance who’d already read Getting Real, 37Signals’ manifesto on building a successful web application, or who follow Signal vs. Noise, their exemplary blog.

As Jason rattled off his key doctrines, I mentally checked off which of them Genlighten was adhering to:

• Bootstrap… start building your product on the side while keeping your day job (check)
• Charge for your product right away (check)
• Don’t be afraid to hire non-local people and let them work remotely (check)
• Don’t take VC money too early (check… though to be honest, we’ve never been offered any)

And then, in answer to an audience question, he said something like this:

Build something you would use yourself, whether or not anyone else ever does.

That one made me pause and ponder for a while. Does Genlighten fit that criterion? Jason was of course referring to Basecamp, the simple yet powerful project-management application that 37Signals built for itself before eventually selling it to others. But Genlighten isn’t like Basecamp.

The Chicken-Egg Problem

Here’s why. Basecamp was tremendously useful from day one. But Genlighten doesn’t start to be that useful until a certain amount of lookup providers sign up and offer their services. And to attract providers, we need clients, who in turn our unlikely to use the site if they don’t see lots of providers. That’s the Chicken-Egg problem. Or, putting a more optimistic spin on things, Genlighten gets better each time a new provider posts a new lookup offering. That’s an example of a Network Effect. Many startups have to climb this hill before they can really take off (think Facebook or Twitter) and we’re no exception.

Eating Our Own Dogfood

On the other hand, we do meet Jason’s criterion: Genlighten has already made my wife’s lookup business easier to manage, and we’ve both used Genlighten to further our own research. For example, we’ve ordered German translations from one of our providers, and Massachusetts death records from another. And with recently-joined providers now offering Maine and New York City lookups, we’ll be submitting more requests in the near future.

But sometimes, I find myself wishing I could just wave a magic wand and suddenly have providers for every county and country.

An Obituary for John Harper Reed

This brings me to this evening’s experience. I attended yet another startup-oriented meetup tonight, this one a casual get-together of Hacker News fans. As I made my way towards the long table set up for us in the back room at the Hop Haus in Chicago, I immediately recognized Harper Reed, the iconic former CTO of local startup success story Threadless. Harper is that rare web celebrity that lives up to his advance billing. I gratefully took a seat across the table from him.

We’ve talked briefly about Genlighten before, but this time Harper volunteered a query. Growing up, his parents had mentioned that he’d been named after an “uncle” from Colorado who had (so the story went) died in a car crash. Could Genlighten help him find out whether the story was true and how the two were really related?

As soon as I got home from the meetup, my wife and I went to work. A simple Ancestry search returned two Harper Reeds who died in Colorado. A USGenWeb site listed a John Harper Reed buried in an Evergreen cemetery in Colorado Springs, Colorado. To produce a quick happy dance, we’d need an obituary mentioning a car crash. The obvious sources did not immediately produce one online.

Could Genlighten help? Tonight, unfortunately, no. We don’t yet have any providers for Colorado. They’re out there, I’m sure, but we haven’t successfully recruited them yet.

You Can Help Us Leave Our “Chicken-and-Egg Problem” Behind

To fulfill Jason Fried’s mandate more completely, we’re going to have to work long and hard to build out our provider base. We’re trying to do that every single day. And we’d appreciate your help.

Please take a look at the states where we still have yet to recruit at least one provider. If you know someone in one of those states who knows their local records well, has the time and inclination to retrieve them, and is interested in getting paid to do so, please put them in contact with us. Especially if they can retrieve El Paso County Colorado obituaries. Thanks!

Dean has a long day today and he asked if I’d like to take up Amy Coffin’s current “52 Weeks To Better Genealogy“ challenge and blog about it.

Assess yourself! You’re great at researching everyone else’s history, but how much of your own have you recorded? Do an assessment of your personal records and timeline events to ensure your own life is as well-documented as that of your ancestors.

I visited Geneabloggers, clicked through to a related post on Taylorstales-Genealogy blog  and was inspired by the idea of using timelines to document personal history. A number of years ago I created a date-focused Access database to help me wrap my mind around the complicated comings and goings of a family I was researching. This morning I thought, “Why not do the same thing for us?”

Creating an Access Database

So here’s what I’ve done so far:

First, after a bit of trial and error, I created a database with the fields below. I may tweak them, but it’s a good start.

ID
Day
Month
Month Name
Year
Name
Event
Place
Documents
Document Location
Notes

Entering Some Basic Timeline Events

I entered our marriage and the births of our two children and then I started to search out records that would have dated information for important family milestones. Google Calendar was my first stop.

The entry for Monday, 21 January 2008 reads “7 pm First Fiddle Lesson.” I saved a screen shot as “tl-001” and entered the information into the database, along with a couple of sentences describing how the lesson went. I’ve been happily learning to fiddle for the past two years and so that anniversary is on my mind. <smile>

A Filing Brainstorm

Then I went to the garage and retrieved a box labeled “Family History.” It’s neatly organized, but who knows what’s there?

A folder labeled “U of A Graduation” caught my eye and so I pulled it out to have a look. I found my diploma, graduation announcements for both Dean and me, and a graduation program. I entered information from each record and then had to decide how to file the papers.

At first, I was going to put them back in the box, thinking that I could organize them later, but then I had a brainstorm driving home from the grocery store. I decided to create a folder for each year entered in the database and any record that isn’t part of our “Very Important Papers” notebook, I will file there.

(Quite a few years ago, we created a notebook titled “Very Important Papers” and we use it to keep track of birth certificates, immunization records, and the like, storing it in a very accessible place in case we needed to get to it in an emergency.)

A Simple System

Once I had a few records entered, I took some time to work on creating an attractive report. I’ll most likely edit it, but for now, it works. As an example, I did a query for our daughter Amelia and took a screen shot of the resulting report.

It’s a simple system, but I think it might work for us. The challenge will be to find time each week to add things to the database.

Putting it Into Practice

Maybe I can work on it on Sundays when Dean is focused on organizing the genealogy-related papers that we’ve collected over the past thirty years.

I’ve always feel a bit of kinship with people whose date of immigration changes from census to census. If you knocked on my door and asked me to tell you what year we came to Illinois or which summer we lived in California, I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head and I’d have a hard time figuring it out.

Maybe it’s time to do something about that. Ask me in a month when we arrived in Wilmette and I’ll bet I’ll be able to tell you.

My wife and I have a tradition of visiting nearby cemeteries on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Several years back, our Christmas adventure took us due west of Chicago to the Shabbona Grove Cemetery in Shabbona, DeKalb County, Illinois.

We were looking for my wife’s fifth-great-grandmother, Polly Green GREENFIELD.

This was before we had a GPS system in our car, so we were relying on paper maps and the address my wife had dug up from somewhere. As dusk approached, we were going in circles and not finding any hint of the cemetery itself.

Our kids, who were fairly used to their wacky parents dragging them on these sorts of outings, were beginning to get restless.

We stopped at a farmhouse to ask directions. The family who answered the door was willing to help, but could only give hints on roads to try and potential landmarks to look for. About half an hour later, with a light snow swirling in the air, we finally stumbled on the cemetery.

Our kids scrambled out to search for headstones with the appropriate surnames. It was a tiny cemetery, so we quickly found the right one. It was badly worn, and the picture we hurriedly took in the fading light doesn’t show the inscription (or much of anything) clearly.

Here’s what we think we know about Polly (courtesy of a Greenfield cousin):

Polly GREEN was born about 1791 in Rensselaer County, New York. She married Joseph Rogers GREENFIELD. She died on 9 October 1875.

If you know anything more about Polly, we’d love to hear from you.

When my wife and I first sketched out what we wanted Genlighten to become, our “target provider” — the prototype for the kind of person we hoped to recruit to retrieve and digitize records — was Molly Kennedy. Molly’s been offering reliable, reasonably-priced Illinois genealogy lookups  to satisfied customers for quite a while. We’re thrilled to have her as a provider on Genlighten, and we’re pleased to be able to spotlight her this week.

From MollyKennedy’s profile

Molly specializes in Illinois-based genealogical and historical research for hobbyists, heir-locator services, and authors.

Nine Questions with Molly

1)      How did you get started doing genealogy lookups/research?

Like most others, I imagine, I started researching my own family lines. In the late 1990′s through 2002 I was a volunteer for Random Acts, and I learned so much more about the different types of records available to me here in the Springfield Illinois area.

I have a form of eiditic memory — not for faces, nor names (although that would have saved me in many a social situation~) — but for the printed word, dates and numbers (such as Census findings).

Finding birth-families of adoptees… 13 so far – using public records.  In most states, adoptive records are sealed in perpetuity, but usually there’s a clue or two that can be tracked using public records.

It’s difficult to answer this question..   For efficiency, brevity is always good~  However, a lengthier description is often necessary, especially if the requester is unsure as to what types of records might be available to me.  Open communication is very important, so I don’t end up duplicating their own research efforts.

For facts – statistics – names & dates, I’d have to say the Illinois State Archives.

Once armed with the names, dates & locales, I’m then able to find & read news stories about these people & places & times, in microfilmed newspaper holdings of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.  Reading about them ”puts flesh on the bones” (little genealogical humor~)

Desktop PC using Windows XP; LexMark scanner/copier/printer; Kodak digital camera.

Considering adding to my Genlighten offerings, the ”Fishing Expedition” option.

“Fishing” = a small (i.e., “not found”) fee, for each IL death certificate (1916-1947) that I would check, but NOT print, if the info on the death cert does not match the info provided me.  If the right certificate is found, the regular “Found” fee would apply to that cert.

Very helpful & affordable, when the requester is trying to find an ancestor with a common name, i.e., members of a Smith family in Chicago~

Learn EVERYTHING you can about access to the records in your area!  The biggest questions in genealogy are: ”Who’s got the records?”  “Where are the records?” and “How can I get copies?”   Sign up as a lookup volunteer, if still in the learning process.

Family, puzzles & reading (mostly detective/forensic fiction).

Lookups MollyKennedy offers:

Molly can retrieve death certificates for any Illinois county (for the years 1916-1947). She can also do Illinois obituary research at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum from over 5,000 Illinois-published newspapers.

I’ve been working on Genlighten’s TechStars application this weekend. I’m enough of a realist to recognize that our chances of getting accepted are slim, but I’m also enough of an optimist to forge ahead anyway. Here’s one of the key questions on the application and part of my draft answer thus far:

What’s new, interesting, or different about what your company will do?

Most genealogy websites offer popular document collections like the 1930 US Census – the “hits” of the online genealogy market. But the majority of records genealogy enthusiasts need aren’t online at all… they constitute the “long tail” of genealogy sources. Genlighten makes those records accessible. Our site enlists local researchers in communities across the US, Canada and Europe to perform on-demand retrieval and digitization of these obscure but crucial “offline” genealogy documents.

I’m not super pleased with this yet (too wordy, as my early drafts always are) but I think I’m on the right track. I see our ability to bring offline genealogy documents online as one of our key points of difference. And I think the concept of The Long Tail does an excellent job of explaining the significance of this difference to the genealogy market.

What is “The Long Tail”?

The Long Tail (Image taken from Andrew Hargadon's blog.)

Chris Anderson, the Chief Editor of Wired Magazine, popularized the term in an October 2004 essay. The primary examples he used to illustrate it were retail ones: Amazon and Netflix.

Booksellers have historically focused on delivering bestsellers to their customers. Movie theatres — no surprise — are desperate to book the blockbuster hits that will sell millions of movie tickets. But online retailers like Amazon and Netflix have changed the game. Sure, they still make tons of money off of bestsellers and hit movie rentals. But they also have made it possible for the average customer to discover obscure books and movies that they otherwise would never have encountered.

These titles — appealing as they do to only a tiny market niche — don’t seem like they’d even be worth having in inventory. Yet there’s so many of them, that even if each one sells or rents to very few people, Amazon and Netflix can still make money from them.

What’s this Got to Do with Genealogy?

That’s what I was just about to explain. I want you to try to think about genealogy documents for a moment as media products, like CDs, books or DVDs. What would you say are the “Billboard Top 10″ of genealogy records?

For my part, I’d go with the various collections of US Census Records: 1930, 1900, 1880, etc. If you’re from England maybe it’s the 1911 Census. These have an incredibly broad appeal to all types of genealogists. So maybe the 1900 Census is sort of like Elvis, while the 1911 Census is more like the Beatles. Or Coldplay. Whatever. These represent the “head” of the genealogy marketplace in the diagram above. So it’s no coincidence that Ancestry and Footnote feature these records prominently on their respective sites: they basically justify the price of a subscription.

What’s in the Genealogical Long Tail?

I’d argue that there’s a huge number of historical document collections that appeal strongly to a very small niche of genealogical consumers. Here are some examples of what I mean:

• A transcription of the parish register from a German church in Redwood, Jefferson County, New York
• A compilation of headstone inscriptions from a cemetery in Franklin County, Maine
• Otoe County Nebraska obituaries from the Morton-James Public Library in Nebraska City

I’m sure you can think of your own examples. In fact, I’m betting that a few of your major brickwall breakthroughs came when you managed to come across exactly this type of obscure, long tail record.

These records might not make economic sense for the major for-profit websites to digitize anytime soon. They might not make it to the top of FamilySearch’s Record Pilot priority list for a while either.

So How Can I Find “Long Tail” Records?

At Genlighten, we think the answer lies in building a network of local researchers in towns large and small across the world, who have access to obscure records of genealogical importance and can digitize them on demand. There won’t always be professional genealogists in every tiny community, so we feel we need to recruit providers who don’t yet have a CG or an AG after their name, too. It hasn’t proven easy thus far, but we’re determined to make it happen.

We Could Use Your Help

First, I’d appreciate any critiques to my Techstars application answer. But more importantly, if you’d like to help make “long tail” offline genealogy records available online, we’d love to have you as one of our lookup providers. You can start by clicking that “Register Now” link on the upper right of this page. Thanks!

Last week I listed my my father’s RICHARDSON line; this week I turn to my mother’s side. Here’s what I know (or think I do!) about my direct KNAPP ancestors:

1. Dean Richardson

2. Roberta Knapp

3. Kenneth Guilford Knapp, born 07 Jan 1906 in Worcester, Worcester County, MA; died 08 Sep 1974 in Bradenton, Manatee County, FL

4. Walter Ferdinand Knapp, born 16 Oct 1872 in Easton, Aroostook County, ME; died 04 Dec 1906 in Worcester, Worcester County, MA

5. Hiram Loring Preston Knapp, born 1844 in Kingfield, Franklin County, ME; died 1927

6. Benjamin Franklin Eastman Knapp, born 04 Jan 1822 in Freeman, Franklin County, ME; died 14 Sep 1885 in Lowell, Middlesex County, MA

7. John Knapp, born 02 Oct 1792 in Leeds, Androscoggin County, ME; buried in Freeman Ridge Cemetery, Freeman, Franklin County, ME

8. Joseph Knapp, Jr., born 1763 in Easton, Bristol County, MA; died 07 Aug 1839 in Freeman, Franklin County, ME

New FamilySearch identifies further generations in the Knapp line including Joseph Sr., Benjamin and Aaron Knapp, but I have not yet explored the NFS data tor those individuals in detail and I can’t support the assertions in NFS with any of my own research or documentation.

Several of my Knapps (including John listed above) married into the Wing Family, for which many books and websites are available (e.g., The Wing Family of America.)

Data for John and Joseph Knapp, Jr. above is from the book A Genealogical History of Freeman, Maine 1796-1938, by George A. Thompson and Janet A. Thompson, Heritage Books, Inc. 1996.

If any of my potential Knapp cousins are reading this and think you might tie in to the line I’ve described (or if you have evidence contradicting the details I’ve given) I’d love to hear from you. Thanks!

Well, if you live in Australia or New Zealand you can, anyway. Thanks to @CaroleRiley on Twitter for pointing out that researchers “down under” can now submit orders online for microfilm from the Family History Library.

As part of the ordering process, patrons select a local Family History Center to which the film will be shipped. Online registration is required; payment is via credit card. A User’s Guide explains the procedure in detail. One cool feature: you’ll be able to check the status of your film order online too.

The obvious question: when will this service be available in the US, Canada, and elsewhere?

This week for Follow Friday I’d like to highlight Harold Henderson’s Midwestern Microhistory blog. True to its title, MM focuses on Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin research. Those areas are interesting enough by themselves, but it’s Harold’s in-depth coverage of obscure but highly relevant sources, repositories, and historical books that keeps me coming back for more. Frequent themes at MM include:

• Thoughtful summaries of the best articles from Midwestern genealogical society publications
• Carefully-chosen quotes from the broad sweep of historical texts that Harold has read (317 are listed in his LibraryThing widget)
• Surveys of key repositories (e.g, the Newberry Library) including new resources they offer, both online and offline
• Highlights from recent genealogical conferences in the IL/IN/MI/OH area.

Harold has also been kind enough to link to several of my wife Cynthia‘s blog posts on Chicago genealogy sources, including the Chicago Burial Index and Insurance and Bankruptcy in Chicago.

His tone is always friendly, upbeat, and encouraging. He teaches good research techniques and source considerations by quiet personal example, rather than from atop an ivory tower. I suggest you consider adding Midwestern Microhistory to your genealogy reading list.

Back to the WPL

Last week I visited the Wilmette Public Library and checked out their collection of genealogy books and reference materials. For this week’s 52 Weeks To Better Genealogy (hereafter 52WtBG) challenge, Amy Coffin asked us to return to our local library and this time check out the Local History Room and/or Special Collections area.

WPL’s Local History Room Closet

While the WPL is being renovated, their Local History materials are temporarily stored in a closet behind the reference desk. The reference librarians were nice enough to open it up and let me take a few pictures on the night I visited. When will everything be back to its rightful place? “Spring,” was the wistful answer from the reference staff.

What’s in the Local History Room?

Here are some of the materials  housed in the Local History collection that sounded particularly useful to genealogists:

• Biography Files — interfiled obituaries, wedding announcements, letters, and general news items clipped from the local paper in alphabetical order
• Business Files and Directories — individual files on historical businesses in Wilmette, along with Wilmette Chamber of Commerce business directories for 1968-69, 1987-89, and 1999-present.
• Clubs and Associations –includes directories from groups like the Woman’s Club of Wilmette (1913-1915, 1922-1965) and the Wilmette Garden Club (1940s-present)
• Histories — published histories of the Village of Wilmette and Cook County. Only the most unique and fragile of these are housed here instead of on the regular library shelves.
• Photographs — All identified photos owned by the library of local residents, buildings and events are filed by topic and indexed. An online database of these photographs is in the works.
• Polk City Directories — The WPL has these for 1893, 1927-28, 1933, 1935, 1937 and 1939.
• Taxpayer Lists — Published lists for 1909, 1913, 1924 and 1931-1936 are organized roughly in alphabetical order by name with address.
• War Memorial — Info on Wilmette residents who died in war, and whose names are on the Village War Memorial, is maintained in notebooks which include biographies of each soldier.

Summary

The WPL’s Local History Room definitely deserves consideration by anyone researching a Wilmette ancestor. The unique resources it offers remain largely accessible during renovation and the knowledgeable reference staff are eager to help you get the most out of a research visit.

On pretty much any page on Genlighten, over along the far right edge of your browser window, there’s a bright red tab that says “Feedback”. You’ve probably noticed it before. What’s this tab do, and why should you use it? Read on to find out!

You Like Us! You Really, Really Like Us! (We Hope)

Ever wondered what keeps people who run web startups up at night? Besides the usual stuff, it’s questions like these: “Do people like our site? What do they like? What don’t they like? What can we change so they’ll come back more often (and order the occasional lookup while they’re at it!) What’s frustrating them so they don’t come back? What’s broken, and what works well?” The Feedback tab is designed to help us get answers to these questions.

When Should I Click on the Feedback Tab?

It’s designed to handle four basic situations:

1. Ideas. In the course of using Genlighten, you say to yourself, “Boy, it’d sure be nice if they’d just add _______.” In other words, you have an idea for how we can improve the site.
2. Questions. You try to use the site to perform a particular task, and it’s not obvious what to do next. You’ve got a question, and you’d like a quick answer to it.
3. Problems. Something goes wrong on the site. An error message pops up, or something clearly doesn’t work the way you expected. Basically, there’s a problem we need to fix.
4. Praise. You have a really satisfying experience with Genlighten and you’d like to tell us about it.

Note that the feedback tab isn’t designed for you to rate our lookup providers or give specific feedback to them. You do that on the Genlighten page associated with your lookup once the provider has uploaded your documents.

If you click on the Feedback tab, you’ll see the pop-up window shown here. This window is generated by a service called Get Satisfaction. They basically exist to help websites offer a simple, useful form of customer support to their users.

How Does the Feedback Process Work?

Notice the four links at the top left of the pop-up window: Idea, Question, Problem, and Praise. Depending on what kind of feedback you want to offer, click on the link and enter your message into the box provided. Sum it up with a short title, then add more details if you want. Click on the “Continue” button when you’re ready to submit your post.

Has Anyone Else Left Similar Feedback Already?

Just in case, Get Satisfaction checks to make sure someone else hasn’t already left feedback similar to yours. If so, you can add your voice to theirs. If not, just click on “None of these fit, post my idea”.

But First, Please Let Get Satisfaction Know Who You Are

Even though you may already be logged in to Genlighten when you click on the Feedback tab, the Get Satisfaction site doesn’t know who you are, so it asks you to log in or create a separate account. There’s no charge for this and you won’t get any unwanted email from them by registering.

To make things quick, you can just register using your Facebook or Twitter credentials. Get Satisfaction won’t spam your friends or your followers, but it will ask you to connect with the service you choose. If you’d rather not go that route, go ahead and create a Get Satisfaction account. You’ll just need to enter your name/Email and choose a password. That’s it!

Once you complete Get Satisfaction’s login or registration process, your feedback is posted for us to see. By default, your feedback is visible to the public as well, though you can keep it private (just between you and us) if you’d prefer.

Thanks for the Feedback!

We hope you’ll use the Feedback tab to share ideas, ask questions, report problems, or give praise to the team here at Genlighten. We sincerely want to make the site better and better. With your help, we’ll be able do just that.

Feel Free to Contact Us Directly, Too

If you’re more comfortable emailing us or speaking to us over the phone instead of using the Feedback tab, that’s just fine. Feel free to email us at support@genlighten.com, or call us between 8 am and 8 pm Monday-Saturday at 888-845-9990. Thanks!