The following news release is from Paul Nauta, FamilySearch.

SALT LAKE CITY—Recipients of the 2010 FamilySearch Family history Software Awards were announced at the FamilySearch Developers Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. The 14 family history award recipients were recognized for their outstanding and innovative work in advancing products and technologies that integrate with FamilySearch’s emerging suite of products and services in the family history market

The annual FamilySearch Software Awards has been established to encourage and recognize software development that benefits the growing demands and needs of family history consumers. “The awards formally recognize the software achievements of those developers and companies that are making important contributions to the family history and genealogy industry,” said Gordon Clarke, FamilySearch developer services product manager.

The Best New Product awards were given to applicants in different platform categories. Products with specific features deemed important to the growth of the industry received the Best New Feature award. Community Player awards recognized individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the software developer community.

The following recipients were announced and awards presented at the FamilySearch Developers Conference:

Best New Product Awards

• The MagiKey for the “Best New Windows” product
• Arcalife for the “Best New Family History Web site”
• MobileTree for “Best New Mobile” product
• FamilyInsight for “Best New Macintosh” product

Best New Feature Awards

• OurFamilogy for “Best Research” feature
• SharingTime for “Best Collaboration” feature
• Genetree for “Best DNA” feature
• Ancestral Hunt for the “Best Geo-Mapping” feature
• FamilyPursuit for the “Best Groups” feature
• Photoloom for the “Best Media” feature
• FamilyChArtist for the “Best Print” feature
• AppleTree for the “Best Celebrity Tree” feature

Community Player Awards

• Gaylon Finlay, Incline Software, “Bug Hunter” award
• Michael Booth and Bruce Buzbee, Roots Magic, “Trailblazer” award

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Patrons can access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

We've all got a ton of photos, emails, files and Family history hanging around on our computers, but at the end of the day what happens to all this rich family history ?

Arcalife.com the Family History site announces full integration with FamilySearch.org. This integration further deepens the features and capabilities between the two sites.

arcalife.com was established as an online family history community where members can preserve their ancestry, scrapbook their memories, and securely share rich life content all in one place. arcalife has developed a wide range of tailored family history tools and services to allow members to capture their ‘past’ and ‘present’ life content for ‘future’ generations. 

The concept for arcalife.com was born from the most basic of human needs; to leave a lasting imprint of our lives and experiences. arcalife has developed a range of tools and services to enable members to research their family history, build a family tree, and securely share and collaborate with family members in building a ‘Digital Estate’ to pass to future generations.

FamilySearch is the largest family history organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. For over 100 years, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide. 

Aside from access to millions of free records, the integration will bring a host of new resources to arcalife members. Furthermore, FamilySearch members are now able to use arcalife.com to do more with their records, research, and family tree- including:

·         Add rich Media Content to Trees and Events - Photos, Videos,  Records, Documents, and Timelines

·         Synchronize Trees and Events Between the Two Sites

·         Make Family History Scrapbooks, Biographies, and Printed albums from memories, experiences and events

·         Print large size color Family Trees with a few clicks, up to size 36.1 in × 51.1 in

·         100% Secure & Encrypted, Gated Site for Storing and Sharing Family History 

 “…We’re excited about this new integration as our members will now have access to a wider range of records, and FamilySearch members can do more with their existing family history research on our site” says Paul Taylor, arcalife.com CEO.

Hi, and welcome to my weekly blog! The big news in the genealogy world at the moment relates to the news that the Chief Executive of The UK National Archives is leaving to take up a new position at the Financial Ombudsman.

The question on everyone's lips is what direction the institution will take under her successor? Given the upheavals witnessed recently, it is to be hoped that the emphasis on access to online collections is coupled with a return to core archival values, and a prioritization for cataloguing, specialist knowledge and onsite services.

I'm also involved in a campaign to retain public access to electoral lists, which is under threat from a government review. Hopefully I'll have more on this next week.

A couple of months back I was talking with Peter Van Garderen about personal and public archiving projects. One of the things that came up is that there seems to be a gap in how private companies like our family history site arcalife and the public / not for profit organizations can work together.  Peter and I shared the view that some of this is as result of profit making companies targeting national and provincial resources. Some of the attempts to secure exclusive access to national assets are badly thought out and not in anyone’s interests.  Still the appeal is there; for local, provincial and national archives the opportunities are significant in terms of the preservation of records and the benefits for companies are obvious – Is there a model that works for everyone?
 
Mistrusted motives is only a part of the problem in my view. A few months ago we realized that we had been spending a large part of our time and resources building our membership on a global basis, and not much time in our own back yard. Once we figured this out we started to create a program to reach out to family history and genealogy organizations inside of Canada. Maybe naively, with us being a Canadian company, I expected a warm welcome. People have of course been friendly enough, but disappointingly a bit ambivalent in their dealings with us.  Despite major success in a global context, it seems that forging links and partnerships with Canadian organizations is an uphill struggle.
 
I think this is because some not for profit organizations have the view that it is unethical to work with profit making companies. This idea is an anathema to me as we are based around a free membership [no time limit] and our offering is founded in a strong personal motivation. This is to encourage all of us to secure our family history, memories and experiences for future generations, either in a personal digital estate or as part of a wider contribution to the Canadian cultural record. I would be very surprised to hear any not for profit organizations say that my motivations are not genuine and from the heart.
 
I think these kind of objectives are important enough for us to overlook the difference in our profit making structure and I will continue to reach out to Ontario Genealogical Society and New Brunswick Genealogical Society with the hope that they will talk with us one day. Over the coming days and weeks, we hope to make some friends at Manitoba Genealogical Society, Family History Society of Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta Genealogical Society, Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island Genealogical Society, Québec Family History Society and the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society.
 
 And we look forward to working with you at the British Columbia Genealogical Society and the Alberta Family Histories Society.

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