Photo courtesy of Christopher A Mattson
Utah Autumn Sunset
Our CEO, Bob Taylor, is a constant source of information and inspiration at The Family History Guide. He has such a vision of what we all need to get the work done in family history and genealogy. He knows the questions we seek answers for and he diligently and regularly answers them for us in his programing and writings.
One of his greatest talents is teaching sequentially and in a language we can all understand. Remember the old booklet type manuals you would get on the "how to" instructions of a purchase? Were they ever easy or did they just flow for you? They never did flow for me. Who wrote that stuff? People that didn't speak my language and that couldn't bring it down to a viable level for a novice about the product. Bob is the antithesis of that. He is a brilliant program developer with an incredible insight into what we need. He speaks the language of family history in an easy to understand and organized way. if you have program questions you can easily access a staff member or comment on your questions on social media and get a very quick response.
He writes great blog posts weekly and has recently started a few new series on Facebook.
This is a sample of what he's doing for us now. 4 Questions with 4 Answers. These questions are about the Country Pages https://www.thefhguide.com/countries.html
These short "Did You Know?" Posts on the Facebook page are coming out about once a week now. Remember you need a Facebook account to access this. If you don't have one go to facebook.com and follow the instructions. I can add them here as I have this time, if that works for those of you that want that. Just let me know in the comments section.
One of his greatest talents is teaching sequentially and in a language we can all understand. Remember the old booklet type manuals you would get on the "how to" instructions of a purchase? Were they ever easy or did they just flow for you? They never did flow for me. Who wrote that stuff? People that didn't speak my language and that couldn't bring it down to a viable level for a novice about the product. Bob is the antithesis of that. He is a brilliant program developer with an incredible insight into what we need. He speaks the language of family history in an easy to understand and organized way. if you have program questions you can easily access a staff member or comment on your questions on social media and get a very quick response.
He writes great blog posts weekly and has recently started a few new series on Facebook.
This is a sample of what he's doing for us now. 4 Questions with 4 Answers. These questions are about the Country Pages https://www.thefhguide.com/countries.html
These short "Did You Know?" Posts on the Facebook page are coming out about once a week now. Remember you need a Facebook account to access this. If you don't have one go to facebook.com and follow the instructions. I can add them here as I have this time, if that works for those of you that want that. Just let me know in the comments section.
"DID YOU KNOW ... #10
Country Pages Q&A
Q1. Where can I find country pages in The Family History Guide for doing research?
A1: The most obvious place is to use the Countries menu. The "All Countries" entry at the top (https://www.thefhguide.com/countries.html) takes you to the main Countries page, while other entries in the menu take you to continents with their sets of countries.
Q2: Does the Countries page list all the countries that The Family History Guide references?
A2: No, some of the countries are in "collector" pages, such as Eastern Europe Misc., So. America Misc., etc. Countries that don't have enough Goals and Choices in The Family History Guide are listed in these collector pages. For example, So. America Misc. includes Goals (but not Projects) for Ecuador, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Q3: What about other countries that aren't listed in the Countries page or in collector pages?
A3: In some cases you can find QUIKLinks for these countries at the end of collector pages. For example, at the bottom of So. America Misc. you'll see QUIKLinks to record collections for Bolivia and Paraguay, countries not included in the collector page. If a country has no page or QUIKLinks, it's because there aren't enough available records or research links for the country. This is the case in much of Africa and Asia, where record sources are scarce. As more information becomes available, we'll add the country to The Family History Guide as appropriate.
Q4: Where else can I find country links in The Family History Guide?
A4: Two places in the Intro menu: Topics, and Site Map. These pages list country links alphabetically, which may be helpful if you're not sure of which continent a country belongs to. Also, countries that are part of collector pages are listed individually in Topics and Site Map, for easy reference."
I love the way these four questions simplify and clarify what can be found on the Country Pages of the Family History Guide. I hope you will too. If you have never checked out a Country Page, they are found on the Homepage of the Family History Guide. Click on the first link on the top of this post on the left side of the page. Click on the United States and choose a state. It opens with a beautiful banner photo. Scroll down and see what you can access from the page. After you see all of that as you scroll down, you can also go up to the banner at the top and click on it and it will even take you to the Wikipedia page for that locality as well. It's just amazing! It would be a great way to plan a family history trip in advance.
I love the way these four questions simplify and clarify what can be found on the Country Pages of the Family History Guide. I hope you will too. If you have never checked out a Country Page, they are found on the Homepage of the Family History Guide. Click on the first link on the top of this post on the left side of the page. Click on the United States and choose a state. It opens with a beautiful banner photo. Scroll down and see what you can access from the page. After you see all of that as you scroll down, you can also go up to the banner at the top and click on it and it will even take you to the Wikipedia page for that locality as well. It's just amazing! It would be a great way to plan a family history trip in advance.
