The Family History Guide: 2017 in Review
Looking back, 2017 was quite a memorable year for The Family History Guide. We’ll do a Top 20 countdown of accomplishments in this post, but before we do, we simply must recognize the outstanding work that our new Management Team members have done this year. They all joined the team in 2017, and they have made a world of difference for us.
New Management Team Members in 2017
- Bonnie Mattson, Social Media Coordinator
- Melanie Bosselman, Director of Training
- Angelle Anderson, Family and Outreach Coordinator
- Scott Anderson, Director of Public Relations
Thanks for all you continue to do! And now for the list …
Top 20 Countdown
20 – English county pages. 36 pages were added for counties in England, from Bedfordshire to Yorkshire, with Goals and Choices for each.
19 – Content Review page and process. Volunteers can sign up to review content in The Family History Guide by checking out pages and sending in comments and suggestions.
18 – Pinterest page. Our Pinterest page is brand new, but we are expecting some great boards and pins in the coming year.
17 – Features Help. This page gives a helpful descriptions of features in The Family History Guide. It’s great for those new to the site, but it also reveals some tips for more experienced users.
16 – Top 40 Things to See and Show. You can conduct an entire training session for The Family History Guide with this document. The instructor version has presentation tips; the learner version does not.
http://www.thefhguide.com/40-Things-to-See.docx and http://www.thefhguide.com/40-Things-to-See-learner.docx
15 – Quick Tour video. The website experienced a lot of change over the year, and the Quick Tour video was updated to keep pace. It’s 6 minutes long and is now hosted on YouTube.
14 – Open/Close for Choices. Now you can click an individual Choice to hide its content, or click it again to show it. Closing Choices helps you see the available Choices in a list. There are also Close Choices and Open Choices buttons in the Goals lists.
13 – Quick Start. This page is in the format of “what would you like to do now?” with links to a number of activities and tasks to get started with.
12 – YouTube Channel. We have 8 videos posted so far, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Many more videos will be coming to the Channel in 2018.
11 – Exercises for Goals. In the Projects, you can complete exercises that point to a Good or Proficient skill level and then use those levels in your Tracker proficiencies. For example, see the end of Goal 1: http://www.thefhguide.com/project-1-family-tree.html#goal-1
… and introducing the Top 10 developments in The Family History Guide in 2017 …
10 – Home page redesign. You asked for it, and you got it – simpler, cleaner design with easy-to-find links to the essential features of The Family History Guide. Also, all footers have a new design.
9 – Twitter page. It has a refreshing, old-school look to it, with new tweets and followers coming regularly.
8 – Facebook Group for trainers. It’s the go-to place to learn the latest training tips for The Family History Guide, as well as a great spot for hanging out and sharing ideas with fellow family historry buffs.
7 – Activities pages. Find fun and engaging family history activities for families, singles, youth, and children. Links are also provided to Partner pages in The Family History Guide.
6 – The Blog. It was launched just over three months ago, but already we’ve had over 80 posts on a wide variety of topics. It can be viewed from inside The Family History Guide or externally.
5 – New menus and Goal links. You’ll find the two tiers of menus on every page in The Family History Guide, with Goal links in the header area of each Project page. Navigating has never been easier!
4 – Online Tracker. This powerful online database helps you easily track your progress in The Family History Guide, with slider bars for skill levels and notes area. It was recently enhanced to include Goals and Choices for Partner and Country pages.
3 – Partner pages for Ancestry, MyHeritage, and Findmypast. We’ve added 7 Projects for Ancestry, 7 for MyHeritage, and 6 for Findmypast. These complement the existing 8 Projects for FamilySearch, making The Family History Guide a comprehensive learning tool for the top genealogy platforms. For example, http://www.thefhguide.com/project-2-family-tree-an.html
2 – Official training resource for FamilySearch on LDS.org. The Family History Guide has been approved as an official training resource by FamilySearch, for learners, trainers, consultants. etc.
1 – We are now an official Public Charity organization. The IRS has granted this status to The Family History Guide Association, which enables us receive tax-deductible donations. This is a huge step towards filling our mission to bring family history to many more people around the world.
What an exciting year! And 2018 looks to be even better …
