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The next meeting of the Windham County Genealogical Interest Group will be held via Zoom at 10 a.m. this Saturday. The focus of the meeting will be the ongoing RootsTech workshop presentations.
RootsTech, a major global genealogical conference, was held online this year in February due to the pandemic. In its first week it attracted over 1 million visitors from 242 countries who viewed over 2,000 sessions. Although RootsTech Connect has ended, the conference lives on all year long, which means anyone can still watch the keynote sessions and educational classes.
Jerry Carbone and Wayne Blanchard will use part of the Zoom meeting to review a few of the sessions that they found helpful. Participants who are interested could also share some of their own experiences.
Everyone’s trying Deep Nostalgia to bring old photos alive
MyHeritage genealogy platform introduces a wildly popular made-in-Israel feature enabling users to animate faces from the past.
Screenshot from MyHeritage Deep Nostalgia
Only two weeks after online genealogy platform MyHeritage
debuted its jaw-dropping Deep Nostalgia photo-animation feature, more than 43 million faces have come to life and a few thousand more photos are being animated every minute.
The Israel-based MyHeritage licensed this sophisticated Live Portrait technology from another Israeli company, D-ID.
“When we released Deep Nostalgia last week at RootsTech Connect 2021, we knew that lovers of family history would be thrilled to see their beloved ancestors’ faces come to life. We also knew that it had the potential to go viral, and we hoped that would happen, but the extent of its success exceeded our expectations,” Esther of MyHeritage blogged on March 4.
Photo by RootsTech Connect 2021
The RootsTech Connect 2021 conference held over 1,500 sessions covering different categories and cultures; and a BYUH alumna speaker at the event said family history can help people find meaning in life and improved well-being.
According to Church Newsroom, FamilySearch hosts the conference every year. More than 1 million family history enthusiasts attended this year s RootsTech Connect, which made this the largest gathering in the conference’s 10-year history. Participants from more than 235 countries attended the event held from Feb. 25 to 27.
The event was the largest “celebration of family” and the sessions of the conference covered nine different categories including topics such as traditions and heritage, DNA, finding ancestors, records and tools, according to its website. Some sessions were about general family history topics, while others are focused on specific cultures and genealogy and were found in 39 different languages.
When asked to describe the biggest change in her daughter, Elizabeth Thornton beamed with motherly pride.
“She’s always been a bright, happy, wonderful person, but it’s like, she’s getting more bright and more happy and more able to share her awesomeness,” her mother said. Related
A short time later, her bishop called all the youth in their ward congregation to index names on FamilySearch.org.
Thornton was eager and willing, but was it easy to get started? She shakes her head with an emphatic, “No.”
Just accessing her FamilySearch account was frustrating. She kept getting “username or password was incorrect” prompts on her screen.
: taught by
“
Cherie Bush,
“
: panel discussion hosted by
Allison DePrey Singleton,
MA, MLS, Sr. Librarian, Genealogy Center, Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The CDC estimates that 20% of people age 55 years or older experience some type of mental health concern. The most common conditions include anxiety, severe cognitive impairment, and mood disorders (such as depression or bipolar disorder) - see: https://www.cdc.gov/aging/
pdf/mental health.pdf. Research has shown that loneliness and social isolation can result in long-term negative health outcomes. Studies also illustrate the health benefits of using photos to reduce loneliness, stress, and anxiety, as well as the recollective benefits for those that suffer from early-onset of dementia, dementia, and Alzheimer’s.