Archive for October 2009
I was driving to school last week and I saw something that made me do one of those TV-like double takes. That is where you look at something, look away, and then immediately look back once you’ve realized something is not quite right. It was a girl lying under her car—doing maintenance, probably changing her oil. She looked like a normal girl and it was a normal car, and I immediately felt bad for thinking it wasn’t a normal thing. This situation reminds me of taking math, science and programming classes. I have had semesters where I walk into the classroom and a quick scan shows 3 out of 140 students to be female. I used to think “so much for finding my future wife in one of my classes!” Almost all the women in my math classes were going for a math education major or math major, none that I knew of aimed to be physicists, engineers, computer scientists, etc. The worst part is that more often than not, the women in those classes are the hardest working students who got the best grades. We need them in engineering! We need them in computer science! Paul De Palma, on writing about why girls avoid computer science, suggested that we teach girls how to program simple, functional, logical programs at a young age. I think this a great idea. If I have any daughters, I’ll give this one a try and I’ll let the world know my results in whatever social media platform is popular in 15 years.
A Facebook application titled “We’re Related,” produced by FamilyLink, had over 20 million people use the software this month alone. This summer they hit a milestone of over 50 million links; that is, 50 million people have established family relationships with one another. While this is not a “family tree” per se (it doesn’t really account for those are not on Facebook), it is becoming a very effective tool at linking the human family to one another. Without even realizing it, those who participate in defining their familial relationships with one another on Facebook are subtly becoming genealogists. Being an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints automatically associates me with genealogy, because of our peculiar belief that everyone has a chance to hear the Gospel—including those who have passed on. The Church has some of the world’s largest genealogical resources available to the public, and most of it is now accessible at FamilySearch.org. One cool part of FamilySearch is Ancestry File, which allows individual genealogists to upload his or her own family tree. The main goal of Ancestry File is to provide a single, universal family tree. I believe there is a lot of potential to combine FamilyLink’s collection of living, breathing links to Ancestry File’s database of those who have passed on. Not only would you be able to see your distant relatives, you would also learn much about your family history, all with providing relatively little information. This, I believe, will help ignite the spirit of family history in millions more people.
