Every genealogist has a book collection.  Eventually the collection becomes large enough to need it’s own “space” and we start building shelves.  There are a few books that I find I reference enough to deserve a spot at my desk.  Some may visit for a while, but very few get a permanent spot.  “Genealogy Standards” created by the Board for Certification of Genealogists or BCG is one that has earned the “arms reach” approval.  I have an older version as well as the brand new  “50

This is a book that all genealogists from beginner on up should read.  The overview of “Genealogical Proof Standard” is immensely important.  I truly wish I had this tool when I began my family tree, now with the proliferation of family research on the Internet it is all the more important.  Research that hasn’t been properly vetted can now be spread all the easier, replicating a weak link over and over.  It’s also so very tempting to accept something at face value because it would fit so perfectly in our family tree.  This book will remind us why it is important to adhere to the standards.

There is much more to this book, so don’t stop at the beginning, but if you don’t have it please consider adding it to your collection.

This book can be purchased at

BCG Site:
http://www.bcgcertification.org/index.html
 http://Amazon.com

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I’m now getting down to the nitty gritty.  My connections are in alphabetical order, and seem many are individuals that are lower on my research priorities.  That’s just bad luck and I won’t blame Mocavo for that.    I will however use one as an example for Google Vs Mocavo:

Let’s take two of my fellows. George Day, father and son of the same name.  They are probably my ancestors, but this is based mostly on published books, some of which had dubious citations, and I haven’t had the time to prove it all yet.

According to what I have is George Day I born 1640 Connecticut, Died 1684, Newark, NJ had a son named George Day 1668-1720 born and died in Newark N.J.  Mocavo brought up the following:

Three instances of the same manuscript collection at the NJ Historical Society, which includes some correspondence by a descendant of George Day, in the mid 1800’s.  It is on my “to-do” list but pretty far down, but fair enough it is a match.  There are two family trees, which is nice but I rarely use other people’s trees.  Mocavo delivers on what it states it will do; I’m just being picky.  When I search Google, George Day 1640 Newark the results are about 5 pages of family trees, a PDF file that looks interesting (saving for later), and mid-point on page, 5 a Newark “Gentlemen’s” club opened during the day.   Both results are different; Google seems to bring more in this case, Mocavo is all genealogy related though.

Privacy is a big issue these days.  We must be vigilant not to compromise data related to people that are still living.  I uploaded two gedcoms and marked one not to include the search.   The one family tree that I didn’t want to be searchable wasn’t even listed.  However the gedcom that I wanted to be viewable was a bit quirky. Although it is listed in family trees, when I click on it Mocavo brings me back to the listing of family trees, first page.  I’ve logged out and tried it, no luck getting details, yet other entries allow for me to view the individuals.  I will need to work on this to see what is going on.  For now I know all my data is secure.

A very nice feature is the email update.  Once a week I get an email letting me know new matches have been found.  This is nice for those of us that get busy doing other things; we now get a nudge that we should visit our matches.  Once a week is a good choice in my opinion, I am more apt to follow-up than if I am barraged daily.

I’ve also submitted my genealogy website to Mocavo and it appears to be working well.  I did a quick search on my one ancestor Emeline Church of Connecticut, a blog post from my website was on the top of the page, so it’s in the search path in less than a week.

Overall Mocavo appears to be a nice tool but still in it’s infancy.  I am not sure it is ready to replace Google at this time, but certainly can be used in conjunction with it.  I will be watching Mocavo over the next year and judging if it will be worthy of the subscription price.  I like the concept so I hope so!

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