Alan Mann on Person Pages

Person pages are the wave of genealogy future

By Sharon Haddock,Mormon Times,Tuesday, Apr. 27, 2010

SALT LAKE CITY -- New on the genealogy scene right now is the person page -- a feature that ideally would one day include every person who has ever lived on the earth.

Alan Mann, manager of Genealogical Community Services with FamilySearch.com speaking at the Conference on Computerized Family History and Genealogy on April 26 at the Salt Palace, said person pages is the most significant new thing in online family history.

Person pages are different from online pedigrees, he said.

Person pages allow genealogists and website users to link all kinds of information to a basic site -- information such as images of official documents, photographs, histories, government records, and comments from people who may have known the person.

Footnote.com could be easily linked to Ancestry.com, to FamilySearch and a variety of other web pages, saving on duplication of effort and providing a wealth of resources in one place.

Footnote currently has a free person page available, Mann said, that is simple to access and augment.

Footnote has already created a page for every person they have in their existing database and the home page is kept up to date with recent member discoveries and improvements.

Suggestions are made on the home page as to how to refine a search (a typical search brought back 99,570 matches) by place, category, collection, date, etc., expand a search and ideas about what could be added. (Would you like to see a census, add an image or a comment?)

Images and photographs already on a home computer can easily be imported.
Audio and visual images are probably going to be part of the menu in the near future, he said.

While some of the linked sites may require a fee for use, most do not, he said. Those who cannot pay the fees can access the pay-for-use sites through a public library or family history center.

And most records and documents are public records.

"Person pages is where we're headed and where we need to be," Mann said. "The ideal would be a page for everybody who has ever lived."

The Footnote information is not presently Google searchable and living individuals should not have person pages, he said.

Mann said in the future a gatekeeper would probably be needed and to him FamilySearch is the logical choice because FamilySearch is not trying to make money on their resources.