Yvette Arts

Here’s a video with many genealogy enthusiasts (who are also my friends) talking about WorldVitalRecords.com.

Genealogy Video 

The first real snow of the season is falling. The children immediately run outside into the crisp morning, wrapped in whatever they can quickly grab. I put a pan of hot chocolate on the stove. The front door opens and closes several times, wafting bursts of cold air into the house.

Faint sounds of laughter and pain (“Mom, Michael threw a snowball at me!”) drift through steamed windows. In one of my peeks through the frost I see snow and leaves and scarves and gloves and bodies all mixed together.

Red noses find there way back to me. Words are spoken through shivering smiles. I help cold arms and hands remove damp clothing. As I set aside the coats, my stocking feet absorb the melted remains.

I invite the adventurers into the kitchen. I stir the chocolate milk.

As I dip a cup into the pot, a memory of my mother touches my soul. My arm becomes her arm, mixing and pouring. My heart becomes her heart….embracing and loving.

There are two books Paul Allen, CEO of WorldVitalRecords.com and FamilyLink.com, recommends to individuals to read before they talk with him about starting a business. The first book is The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki, and the second book is Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders. I read both of these books when I came aboard Paul’s team. And as I read, I came to understand Paul’s way of doing business, as well as how my mind should be focused to work with him.

Yesterday several members of our team had the opportunity to hear Guy Kawasaki speak at Salt Lake Community College to an overflow crowd of students, mentors, entrepreneurs, hopefuls, and admirers.

Takeaways? Yes. We are in a growth pattern here at WorldVitalRecords.com and FamilyLink.com and I was interested in what Guy had to say about taking services and products to a next step. Well, he didn’t call it “next step.” He called it “jump curves.” And better yet—“create a new curve.” So…his advice is NOT to produce slightly better products or to “duke it out on the same curve” with similar types of companies, but go deep, intelligent, complete, and elegant with what we do.

And our team is of a similar mind. We are working to “go deep” in the genealogy and family history space with “INNOVATIVE TOOLS TO CONNECT FAMILIES”—our new mantra (which Guy highly recommends for a company), as opposed to a mission statement (which Guy highly discounts).

Of course Guy had themes for some of his suggestions, like “Don’t worry, be crappy!” and “Don’t be afraid to polarize” all with the intent of helping us see what is needed to really innovate and get funding.

He said that the “new way” to get funding is to use as little money as possible to get where the “dogs are eating the food.” He said that in order to get a higher valuation for a company, organizations need to “show up with a growth history rather than growth projection”—show where a curve already happening.

Well, we are now at a point where we can show that the curve is already happening. We are now poised to jump curves and create new ones.

Last night I experienced Brigham Young University’s performance of Le nozze di Figaro—The Marriage of Figaro. Directed by Lawrence Vincent, this delightful opera thoroughly captivated my attention from beginning to end. The subtle phrasing, voice inflections, detailed hand gestures, disciplined movement, wonderful character development and subdued spectacle enchanted me so much I suspended any disbelief for over three hours!

Sam Smiley, the author of Playwriting: The Structure of Action (one of my favorite textbooks as an undergrad), said art can provide an “intense awareness of life” and that the formal term for this “full human response to art is aesthetic reaction.” I felt this aesthetic reaction, this “heightened consciousness” while watching the opera. I was so delighted by the interplay of all of the elements of the production. It was so intoxicating! And I thought several times during the performance that I hadn’t been so entertained in quite a while. And the entertainment was just good, clean fun!

The opera was also an impressive physical tour de force for the performers both on stage and in the orchestra pit. Kory Katseanes conducted the BYU Philharmonic, consisting of about 90 students. Backed up by a full ensemble of voices, the chorus beautifully rounded out the principal players. The audience responded with a long standing ovation and may other various screaming-with-delight types of sounds.

I am so appreciative of all who helped in any way to put together this production! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

A Sunday. The Sabbath. A day for family to gather and share memories about loved ones who have passed away. A day to do genealogy and family history.

At WorldVitalRecords.com (our data site), we are developing tools to allow users to have a rich experience with family history and genealogy and that will allow them to share that rich experience with their families.

We have two applications right now where users can upload their family tree and then invite others to help with the tree or just view the tree.

Our free social networking application, FamilyLink.com, has a Family Tree Viewer, which allows individuals to upload their family tree and expand it with the help of local genealogists from all over the world. When individuals upload their family trees, they can quickly connect with other genealogists who live in the same places they are researching who can help them extend their trees by finding records they could not easily access for themselves.

For example, suppose an individual has hit a brick wall who is doing genealogical research in Sweden. With a few clicks of the mouse, this person could easily find all the individuals who are currently researching Swedish records, as well as the individuals who are living in Sweden. Plus, once a family tree has been uploaded at FamilyLink.com, individuals can easily access on a single page the top surnames of their ancestors and find other genealogists who have interest in or who are researching the same surname with just one click. FamilyLink.com does all the work.

FamilyLink has a sister application in Facebook.com called We’re Related. By last Wednesday (October 17), after being available as an application for a few days, had 23,000 users. Now, only four days later, the user base has skyrocketed to 117,158 as of 9:40 a.m. MST, October 20. Over 27,000 users installed the application over the last 24 hours.

This growth is phenomenal!

The We’re Related app has several major features: First, it allows you to search through your friends on Facebook and find all your living relatives. You indicate how you are related. For example, you can scan through your list of friends and find an individual who is your cousin, or your brother, or even your sister-in-law.

If your friends or family members are using the We’re Related app, then it will show them images of their family members and suggest if you might be related to them as well. This is a great feature because you may have family members who are Facebook users who have not been added to your list of friends on Facebook.

Using the We’re Related app, you can also upload your family tree (GEDCOM file) and compare it with your friends to see if you are related to them.

You can add the application today. First, create a Facebook.com account. Then go to www.wererelated.com. After setting up your information, invite family and friends to share in your genealogy and family history experience.

This week I attended the Brigham Young University (BYU) faculty conference at the Marriott Center. The keynote speaker, President Cecil O. Samuelson, started the presentation by recognizing several faculty who were honored by their departments, colleges or other university entities. I was happy that I knew some of the faculty being honored. I delight in their excellence.

I came to hear President Samuelson speak because I knew he would speak about teaching and learning. I really am interested in keeping up with all of the latest developments in the teaching and learning arena. I know that teaching and learning are in the forefront of BYU’s academic mission. I also will be teaching part-time for the BYU Communications Department, so I am officially part of the academic life at BYU. Samuelson asked the faculty to cast their lot and future with BYU. He said that we (faculty) have a heavy responsibility to do what we can. Life, according to Samuelson, has its ongoing purposes and we (BYU) have not arrived to where we need to be. He also admonished us to “be planted in the land of [y]our inheritance.” Instead of comparing ourselves to other universities, faculty at BYU must recognize this is a great day of preparation, and that the preparation will go on throughout our lives. We need to compare ourselves to what we must become.

Along with all of the other requests, he asked us to “arise to the higher ground of excellence” and he backed up his statement by saying that the “Lord provides ‘a more excellent way.’” President Samuelson challenged the faculty to read/listen to all of President Hinckely’s talks that he has given at BYU. I decided to take this request to heart. I went to speeches.byu.edu and found the articles. Most have downloadable mp3s for FREE and offer a variety of different formats, suited to one’s particular media needs. There are about 40 addresses.

I decided to download the FREE mp3s and listen. And just in case anyone else out there wants to do the same or something similar, I’ve added the links to his material.

You can get the full list here.

An apostle from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was in Provo, Utah (my home town) earlier this week. Elder Richard G. Scott spoke at the Brigham Young University Education Week devotional. I went with a friend to hear him speak. I was uplifted and edified to hear his words. He spoke about learning and teaching. He said he was going to talk about how to “learn and teach effectively.” My friend and I smiled at each other when he said that was going to be his topic. We are both excited about learning and teaching.

Elder Scott said that the path to truth was spiritual guidance through the promptings of the Holy Ghost. He shared this principle:

Throughout the remainder of my life, I will seek to learn by what I hear, see and feel. I will write down the important things I learn and will do them.”

He talked about many other ways in which to be a learner and a teacher. I really love the field of instructional design and his words rang true to my heart. He promised that the Holy Ghost will provide “personalized instruction adapted to your individual needs.” That is also a task of an instructional designer and teacher! Of course, most professors in academia don’t pursue the “spiritual” side of teaching and learning in their classes. The closest I’ve come to teaching that caters to the spiritual side of the individual is through the work of Parker Palmer.

One of the main topics that hit my heart was that Elder Scott said that we will never be prompted to do something we cannot do. He also said that we can make many choices, but we cannot choose our final destination. Our actions do that. I really felt such a change of heart with these words. I know that my actions need to reflect what I know and feel. And I must share these feelings with my children and help them experience these same feelings so they can fulfill their purposes during this earthly experience.

Elder Scott admonished the audience to encourage interaction with those we teach—to promote participation. He said as teachers we should seek to help others follow the principle he outlined above and to help them qualify to be led by the Spirit.

So…I will test his words. Throughout the remainder of my life, I will seek to learn by what I hear, see and feel. I will write down the important things I learn and will do them.

Yvette at the Forbidden City

When talking about my trip to China with anyone who asks, I always say that the experience was “life-changing.” Of course then the person wants to know what was so life-changing about it all. I don’t have a short, pat answer to offer. I just don’t want to gloss over any details that contributed to my learnings when I relate the adventure, for each piece contributed to the journey.

I do know I have come back a better person. My mind and heart have expanded to hold the country of China and her entire population. I happily survived the heat and humidity, the variety of items served up as food, the sanitation facilities, the cultural differences, the several modes of transportation, and the construction that seemed to be going on everywhere we turned.

Whitney, Yvette, Robyn and Brooke at the Great Wall.

First of all, this trip was made possible by the three other people (Whitney, Robyn and Brooke) in the picture above. Whitney invited me on the trip, Brooke spoke Mandarin and so this gave us access to many people and places most tourists don’t get to see, and Robyn’s curiosity and questions kept us all in a good spirits. So…the best part of the journey was being with the people in this group. I gained a deep respect for Brooke who not only negotiated us into several good deals for food, entertainment, and market glee—she also took responsibility for most of our itinerary.

Yvette at the orphanage in Beijing.

One place she arranged for us to go was an orphanage. As we arrived, the children gathered around us. We mainly played with them on their playground. We also talked with the wife of the minister who runs the orphanage. I was touched by her life story and her kind heart.

Whitney and Yvette above Hong Kong.

I did do some work while in China, including a side trip to Hong Kong to explore what is being done in family history and genealogy. I loved being in Hong Kong because it was clean and not as crowded on the streets as I had imagined.

The days are indeed winding down to Monday when we head to China. We will be visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, Guilin, Yangshuo and Hong Kong. We have been researching to find out the best contacts in these areas. I’ve learned much about the Chinese way of doing genealogy since we started on this quest to find the family history movers and shakers who have connected with their past.

Did you know traditionally women were not listed in Confucious’ genealogy? Confucius was recorded in the Analects as saying: “Women and people of low birth are very hard to deal with. If you are friendly with them, they get out of hand, and if you keep your distance, they resent it.” Professor Liu Shifan, vice president of the International Association of Confucianism, states that the “new” way of compiling Chinese genealogy is to include women in the family tree. Kong Lingren, a 76th generation descendant of the Confucian family and former vice chairwoman of the All-China Women’s Federation, said she was delighted to hear of the inclusion of female descendants in the family tree. (This information was taken from a July 7, 2006 report in the Shanghai Daily.)

According to a news report from Tan Xian in the Shanghai Daily, (thanks to our WorldVitalRecords.com member D. Fish who alerted me to much of this information) the Shanghai Library should finish putting together the world’s largest Chinese family tree index by the end of this year. The work is the collaborative effort of many Chinese-language libraries in different countries and the Genealogical Society of Utah.

The Shanghai Library has a room dedicated to genealogical researchers. The library’s collection covers several hundred of the 5000 Chinese surnames. The library is first compiling the index into a series of books which will include millions of names and more than 50,00 family trees. The library will later convert the index into an online service so that anyone (not just the library patrons) can access the information from their home or local library. We will visit this library next week. We’re so excited!

When I was in high school, I heard a talk about China. A fact was mentioned during the talk that seemed to indicate that 1/4 of the world’s population spoke Mandarin. I immediately thought that I should learn the language and have something to do with the people of China sometime in my life. I dreamed that I would one day influence the Chinese people in a positive way through use of media.

That dream began over 25 years ago. I did take a class in Mandarin in college but it was difficult for me to learn the language. I took a history course on China. I worked in Los Angeles for a couple of prominent Chinese business people.

I now work for a fast-growing Internet genealogy company. We have two web sites. The first web site is an online database of genealogical and historical resources found at WorldVitalRecords.com. The second site is a free social networking site for genealogists and family historians called FamilyLink.com. Our goal is to help every genealogist in the world be more successful. This means that the Chinese people are included in that goal. There has got to be some interest in genealogy in China!

For the next couple of weeks I will be researching to find out any connections with genealogy and China. I want to know who does genealogy in China, to what extent has online genealogy has permeated the market, how a social networking site for genealogists should be adapted to fit the culture, and any other information that would be helpful.

And why am I doing this? I will be going to China in two weeks from today! Although I will be going there mainly for a vacation, I want to maximize my time while I’m in the country. This dream of positively influencing the Chinese people just won’t go away. And I think that connecting people through family history and genealogy can have such an amazing effect on people’s lives.

So…if you have any ideas, suggestions, information that relates to genealogy and family history in China, please contact me at yvette.arts@gmail.com.