[Genealogy] Law and Full-Text Search Updated Webinar

Tue Jun 23 12:23:57 CDT 2026

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23 June 2026

Genealogy Update

** Law
** Full Text at FamilySearch Update

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Law
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"Law."
That's what my Dad called his Aunt Luella. It was never "Aunt Law" (at
least that I remember). It was always just "Law." We called her Aunt
Luella. My Mom called her Aunt Luella--or maybe "your Dad's Aunt Luella."
It's been 46 years since Aunt Luella passed so my memory of exactly what my
mother referred to her as is gone. I'm not certain that "your Dad's" would
have been a necessary modifier anyway as I only had one Aunt Luella.
She was my Grandma's oldest sister and by the time my memory starts, she
lived in the town near where my grandmother's farm and my parents' farms
were located.
She was the only relative I knew who lived in an apartment and it always
seemed so strange to me. She had an upstairs apartment and the stairs were
somewhat difficult to navigate. The only other thing I remember about the
apartment is that she had an "Oil of Olay" bottle of cream on a counter.
Aunt Luella must have been able to drive as she would come and visit
Grandma--sometimes while Grandma was babysitting me. According to Grandma,
Aunt Luella was feeding me one time and she couldn't get the green beans in
my mouth fast enough. And she came to help Grandma put up corn when my
Dad's sweet corn "patch" was overly productive and the entire bed of the
pickup was filled with ears of sweet corn.
She got to where she could no longer navigate the stairs of her apartment
and we helped her to move to little house where she could live on the
ground floor.
There's more I remember, but I won't bore you with it here. But what I have
started is on Word document where I'm writing what I remember about various
relatives. One section of the document for each person--yes there may be
some overlap.
I'm writing what I remember--either directly or what I was told (if it was
something I was told I'm indicating (if I remember) who told me or at least
it was something I was told as opposed to something I remember
experiencing. I'm not looking things up. I'm not doing any research when
I'm writing these memories. That's a distraction and research isn't the
point--I'm wanting to get my memories down.
And I'll be skipping around. After all, I may think I've written all I
remember about Aunt Luella, but then later something else may enter my
head. I'm not editing these at this point. It's free-flowing text. I just
want to get my memories down. I'm not worrying about putting them in
chronological order. I'm not worried about grammar errors. The only thing
about this document that is in any order is that the focus people (usually
my direct ancestors and aunts and uncles at this point) are listed in
alphabetically.
I realized that I have memories of people who were born as far back as 1895
and that many of those memories no one else has but me.
So what I'm writing in this document is not a genealogy with names, dates,
relationships, documents, evidence, and proof. I'm writing what I remember
or what I experienced and NOT what I read in a document, book, or the like.
To be perfectly honest, I am jotting down a few notes for further research
as I write these things down. I had to tell myself to NOT look in my files
as I wrote down what I remembered about Aunt Luella.
I don't ever remember Grandma and Aunt Luella having "words" or being on
the "outs" (that was not the case with the other sister--sorry
Grandma...you know it's true). But I remember Grandma and Aunt Luella
laughing and generally having a good time when they were around each other.
There's something to be said for that.
Your memories matter. Even if you have no descendants. My descendants may
not be interested in what I remember about Aunt Luella, but that's not the
point. Aunt Luella has descendants and at some point, someone may be
interested in what I remember about her. And even if she didn't have
descendants, there's nothing wrong with preserving what I remember.

Full-Text Searching at FamilySearch
July 2026 Update
*our most popular presentation*

*informal, thorough, & easy to understand and follow*

*Michael brings thirty years of actual teaching experience to the
presentation*

We’re excited to offer this revised presentation on the full-text searching
at *FamilySearch*--reflecting changes made to the site since our last
recording in January of 2026. We’ve redesigned our presentation as this
functionality continues to change. And…we have an extensive handout
complete with forms to help you find more people.

If you have purchased an earlier version of this presentation--email me at
mjnrootdig at gmail.com for the code to order this revision for $10.
Fully Utilizing Full-Text Search: Revised

Your purchase includes:

   - *A 90 minute (or more presentation)* you can view as often as you want.
   - *Detailed handout* with charts and forms to help organize your
   searches. Charts and forms sent as separate files you can edit and
   customize and not as a locked PDF you have to re-create yourself as a new
   document.

We’ll be including and discussing:

*Determining what is in Full-Text Search—*what you can access at home and
what you will have to be in a FamilySearch facility or affiliate to access.

*Seeing How AI Transcriptions are different*—they aren’t like the
transcriptions made by humans. That can change your approach.

*Remembering that Full-Text means every word*—approaches need to differ as
we aren’t looking up a name in an index any more.

*Asking Who* is in the record? We aren’t just searching for the main person
like we did with traditional indexes. We’ll discuss how to determine who
could be mentioned in a record.

*Determining How to search?* There are a variety of ways to search and
filter results. We’ll see how each one works to help determine the best
strategy.

*Creating search strategies*—how full-text search changes your approach and
why just dumping terms in search boxes is not always effective.

*Determining what you found* The interface does not always make this clear.
We will show you how to get beyond the confusion and help you get enough
detail for a citation.

*Creating effective problem-solving approaches*—what to do when you cannot
find something you want.

*Demonstrating practical examples*—completely new people and families from
our previous presentations.

Pre-order for $25 <https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/67D7Z5H4ZQHJA> (release
date 1 July 2026).  Price is $32 after release date. Complete handout
included and additional forms.

-------------------------
NotebookLM
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At very long last...

Don't Wait:

NotebookLM (Google's AI Toolkit)

-------------------------------------------------------------

At Long Last--NotebookLM for Genealogy Problem-Solving is Coming 1 May

-------------------------------------------------------------

Take your use of NotebookLM beyond the basics. In this session, we will
look at ten examples of using NotebookLM for genealogy research. This
presentation assumes you’ve got a working knowledge of NotebookLM either
through experience or our presentation. We emphasize the responsible use of
AI in genealogy and being reasonably critical of AI-created content. Our
approach is to use NotebookLM to assist in the refinement of ideas and
research process not to have AI create content and call it our own.
NotebookLM can be the research assistant you always wish you had—although
an imperfect one.

Release date: 28 June

Pre-order at $21
<https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=NX3QCCNRYLTSN>.
Regular price $28.

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------------------------------------
Michael John Neill
Genealogy Tip of the Day
PO Box 17, Henderson, IL 61439
http://www.genealogytipoftheday.com
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