Lisa Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems, presented 10 tools to “Soothe Your Tech Tummy Ache” at RootsTech and provided new ideas and great reminders how we can use technology to avoid tech issues and accomplish our family history goals.
Great technology reminders included the need to backup our files. Cooke recommended that everyone should use automated, cloud-based backup services to ensure important files and memories are not lost. She also encouraged attendees to consider getting a tablet - that can serve as a camera, video camera, and scanner. In addition, tablets are great to edit and repair photos, record interviews and access your files.
Cooke also taught about how several web services can be leveraged for use in family history research. Number one on her list is Google search and alerts. She encourages researchers to use asterisks (*) as wildcards in searches and to save important searches as Google Alerts. Google Alerts searches the web for new and updated results and emails you according to your preferences.
To ensure you are never far from an important document, Cooke recommends that researchers use a cloud-based storage service for file storage, transfer and sharing. There are several companies that offer this service including Google Drive and Dropbox. In addition, she recommends that you set up remote access service -- her recommendation is Chrome Remote Desktop.
A wonderful free resource that may be beneficial for many researchers is WorldCat.org -- a site that allows you to search over 70,000 libraries from a single web site and then find the closest library that has the title you are looking for. Most local libraries offer interlibrary loan services when the closest library is still too far away.
Cooke’s last recommendation is to use You Tube to find videos related to your family history research -- perhaps an ancestral location or surname.
Cooke said that she hopes her “technology tools will help you bypass tech overload and get back to your genealogy research.”
