FamilySearch Indexing The week of November 7th I gave three different lessons on indexing. For one of them I used the first 30 minutes of the informative webinar given by Jim Ericson http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/webinars.asp, followed by the Indexing "Test Drive" at http://indexing.familysearch.org/newuser/nuhome.jsf?3.7.8 then some hands-on help. For the other two lessons I concentrated on the Test Drive... it does such a wonderful job of letting people experience indexing! From Jim Ericson's presentation, I gather that there are 2.4 million micofilms, 1 million microfiche, and a total of over 3 billion pages of records on film. Indexing makes them available for free on the internet any time people want to use them. At the current rate, it may take 10 years to digitize these records and 300 years to index them so that they can be searched by computer. We need more help! Laminate Flooring During that week I also helped one of my sons install laminate flooring in his family room (about 12.5 feet by 22 feet). It was different than the other two types of laminate I have installed. The pieces didn't click end-to-end, just side to side. It went together much easier and much faster and looked better than previous kinds. It seemed just as solid too. We completed the project in one day, whereas I had expected it to take two days! Of course using his electric miter saw instead of my jigsaw made a big difference too. (I have already booked the use of the miter saw for when we replace our baseboards!) Personal Ancestral File 5 and PAF Companion Last Thurday's lesson was on this topic. This software is getting old, and only drew two students (3 counting the FHC director). Still, it meets my needs really well. I love the auto-completion feature for the place names and the unlimited size of notes. And I can instantly find anyone in my database! On my website you can find a PAF overview that I used as an outline for my lesson. http://billbuchanan.byethost17.com/ (lower left part of the screen) I also demontrated the use of multimedia, including the best locations for the media folder, the process of linking media files, the scrapbook, and photo charts in PAF and PAF Companion, using PAF to generate web pages, and running PAF from a flash drive. It was a fun session! www.new.FamilySearch.org This coming Thursday will be about new.FamilySearch.org. I will report how my lesson went.