Virtual Family Reunions

This article was published in Ancestry Magazine and can be found online at: http://learn.ancestry.com/LearnMore/Article.aspx?id=12816

VIRTUAL FAMILY REUNIONS

By Esther Yu Sumner 01 July 2007Geography and busy lifestyles don’t have to completely separate family.

Distance and time may keep families from face-to-face contact, but thanks to technology, there are convenient and simple ways to keep in touch.

Darcy Montgomery Cole never intended to run a family website. But when her mother, Sue, died in 2006, taking over the family’s electronic meeting place seemed like the best way Darcy could honor Sue’s memory and her life-long devotion to the Denton family line.

For Darcy, however, inheriting a website hasn’t been easy.

Mom Sue started the Denton family website almost a decade ago. Originally Sue was just looking for a place to share the old family stories and tales of ancestors that she found exciting. It didn’t take long before the site took on a life of its own.

Sue’s goals became grander. She wanted, says Darcy, “to make it not just a genealogy site but a current site that is all about family.” And before her death, Sue largely achieved this goal.

Sue filled the website with details of the Denton family line, past and present: headstone photos, downloadable GEDCOMs, letters from the 18th and 19th centuries, literature written by or about Dentons, family photographs, lists of Dentons in the military, Denton artists, and current family events. While Sue collected a lot of this information herself, other Denton descendants who found the site began contributing as well. Now, more than nine years later, half a million visitors have made Sue’s site the Denton family’s virtual reunion.

Why They Bother
Search for “family website” on the Web and you’ll get a list of nearly 1 million sites. Some of them offer how-to information on creating a family website, others are services that give you an easy way to create a site, and still others act as links between famous families and their devoted followers. But the majority of those 1 million “family websites” are just that—places where ordinary families gather in cyberspace, crossing distance and time for their ongoing family reunions.

What each offers runs the gamut from strictly family history items to mostly current events. Electronic scrapbooks and photo albums, message boards, travel highlights, blogs, calendars, or simple links to find other family members looking for more information—anything goes with a family website. The goal of each is the same—to help strengthen family bonds. Sometimes, however, the sites inadvertently go a step further, becoming the catalyst that reconnects long-lost family.

That’s what happened to both Cyndi and Mark Howells. Cyndi, author of Planting Your Family Tree Online: How to Create Your Own Family History Website and creator of Cyndi’s List, started a family website in 1996. Over the past 10 years, 40 cousins, formerly unknown, have come forward.

Her husband, Mark, has also had family come out of the digital woodwork. A single post about Charles J. Aris, Mark’s seemingly elusive great-great-uncle, caught the attention of Charles’s only living descendant—a woman who had never thought of dabbling in family history. She just stumbled upon the website after conducting an Internet search on her own last name.

What’s the Price
It’s not easy running a family website, particularly one with all the bells and whistles the Denton family site offers. Darcy and her brothers share the financial burden. Technical details are handled by Roy Denton, a distant cousin whose initial contact with the family came through the website itself.

But Darcy admits that in spite of the time and money, the site is worth the effort. She receives e-mail from people around the world who have discovered the Denton family website. They want to share findings they made from following suggestions Darcy’s mother gave. They want to offer photos and information for everyone to view. Or they just want to know if they’ve found a missing branch of their family.

Results don’t always come quickly. While an occasional lucky researcher might find a match almost instantly, for Mark Howells, that one connection took over four years. Cyndi says that’s why it’s so important to be dedicated to your family site—and to approach the project with patience. “We have so much instant gratification with the Internet,” she says, but the person with the information you’re seeking “may not be a genealogist yet, or online yet.”

Who They Meet
Darcy tells a story of a relative of her mother’s: a man living in England who had been trying, unsuccessfully, to connect with relatives he thought he might have in the United States. Then he discovered Sue’s Denton family website. latives and even extended an invitation for him to stay at her house when he visited the United States.

“Her website was a way for her to help people and make contact with family,” says Darcy. What started with basic family history blossomed into something much larger, something that bypassed generations and geography. Something that, even after Sue’s death, continues on. That makes the hassle of running a website worthwhile for Darcy. “It was [a place] for her to celebrate current families as well as past families,” says Darcy. And the best part? It still is.

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Esther Yu Sumner, a professional writer and usability specialist, is a regular contributor to Ancestry Magazine. She can be reached at esumnertime@gmail.com.

“Sunset,” New Era, Feb 2001

I used to write a lot of poetry. I still do, but I write it just for me.
In this case, I shared it with the New Era, who purchased it when I was much younger, then waited until 2001 to publish it. They bought a second poem from me a year before but to my knowledge, they have never published it. I have only submitted something to the New Era those two times.

Find it online here:

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=2ef2e257075fb010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=024644f8f206c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

Esther Yu, “Sunset,” New Era, Feb 2001, 51

God painted me a sky today.
He used blues, whites, reds, and greens.
Yesterday He used purples too.
I guess
God is an artist
who likes to experiment with perfection.

Moving Forward - Launch: The Magazine for Utah Entrepreneurs - Fall 2007

Launch magazine published this article featuring some businesses that had won funding from college competitions a year to several years after they had won, and what successes and failures these companies had seen since.

The article is available on their site at: http://launchutah.com/article-feature-q42007.php

Moving Forward

College Business Competitions Turn Ideas Into Reality

By Esther Yu Sumner

Each year, hundreds of college students aspiring to be the next big entrepreneur in Utah, vie for first place in various state-wide business competitions. Participants may have an edge over other Utah startups. They benefit from the feedback, funding and networking that helps improve their business ideas.

But what happens to these competitors after the initial glory fades and the prize money runs out? Find out how previous competitors have leapt forward with their business plans and ideas.

Property Solutions

www.propertysolutions.com

Since the company was established in 2003, Property Solutions has become a nationwide business with customers in all 50 states. Initially, the original five members of the company worked hard to develop CEO David Bateman's idea into a winning company for the Brigham Young University Business Plan Competition (BPC). The company helps property managers to collect and manage rent payments online, as well as manage maintenance requests, fill vacant apartments, and maintain customized Web sites about a customer's property for prospective residents to view.

"We spent four months, day and night, preparing for the competition," Bateman says. They began developing software for their company so they could present the judges with a substantial product and real clients. They also established a development team, did extensive market research, and took a business plan writing class in the Marriott School at BYU before the competition.

Their hard work paid off when they won first place and the $25,000 grand prize. Property Solutions then went on to win the 2003 Fortune Small Business magazine business plan competition, a competition that was supposed to be limited to MBAs. However, since they beat out the MBAs at BYU, they were allowed to compete.

The company has raised more than $1 million in funding. They won $250,000 by taking first runner-up from the 2004 National Institute for Entrepreneurship's Venture Bowl, the nation's largest university business plan competition. They beat more than 300 teams from national graduate and doctoral programs. Funding stopped when they became profitable in 2007.

Property Solutions now has approximately 400 customers in the multi-family space, and approximately 4,000 customers in the apartment space.

"Although revenue growth is strong, we feel we've only started to scratch the surface," Bateman says. "There is a lot of room for growth."

Calle

www.callesoccer.com

The idea for Calle was born in July 2005 when Josh Robbins, Travis Winn and Steve Magleby turned their passion for street soccer into a business. The three based their business idea on their collective experiences living in Brazil, Spain and other places around the world where street soccer is common. The name Calle means "street" in Spanish.

In this sport, convenience reigns. Players compete wherever it's most convenient � not just in a soccer field, and use whatever goal is most convenient � a garbage can, for instance, would do the job. In addition, team sizes are flexible. Before long, Calle soon became a global brand, with products ranging from hats and apparel to Calle soccer balls.

Calle won first place in the 2007 BPC and was awarded with $50,000. Until that point, they had been operating on family loans. "The competition was definitely one of the most beneficial things we have done," says Robbins, director of finance. "We found holes to fix to make the company better."

After winning the BPC, the Calle co-founders realized that competitions were a great way to obtain funding for their company. They subsequently entered and won $5,000 as a runner-up (essentially second place) in the University of Utah's Utah Entrepreneur Challenge (UEC), plus an additional $5,000 for in-kind services.

Calle was also one of three finalists that qualified as a student team, and one of six finalists overall in the Fortune Small Business business plan competition. The company began making a big push to sell their products to retail businesses in May 2007, and, within five months, made $102,000. At press time (Dec 2007), Calle's products are in 39 stores in the United States and Canada, with new stores being added weekly.

"It's catching on for sure," Robbins says. "I went to the grocery store yesterday and some guy asked me if I played �calle' and told me that his friends play all of the time."

Trapeze Media Solutions

www.trapezemediasolutions.com

Last year was the first year of the Tech Titans Innovation Challenge, a state-wide design and idea competition for undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a Utah college or university. Unlike with other business competitions, Tech Titans candidates only need a one- to two-page executive summary of an innovative and marketable idea, not a full business plan.

"The University of Utah Technology Commercialization Office (TCO) started Tech Titans as a statewide competition for graduates and undergraduates to really educate them about the integration between science and business," says TCO director Brian Cummings.

While the individual cash prizes are smaller than BYU's BPC and the UEC, the less restrictive entry rules encourage more and different students to compete. Scott Duvall, a finalist in the competition, was among approximately 100 competitors from eight different Utah colleges and universities. Though he did not win, Cummings said Duvall really stood out as a finalist.

Duvall, a doctoral student at the University of Utah School of Medicine, was frustrated that so many student presentations were placed on posters, then thrown away soon after. He proposed a technology that would allow individuals to save their posters into searchable documents. For example, a poster explaining published research and showing 500 data points on a graph would be saved in a manner that a researcher could actually see the details of the data points. This way, Duvall says, "The research can live on � it's academic poster preservation."

 "His idea was really novel and we felt he should be thinking about the next steps in his idea," Cummings says.

The TCO provided him with market research and mentors, so that Duvall could become an equity holder and a key decision maker in his idea without having to worry about the aspects of business that did not appeal to him. The TCO also handles the legal aspects of the business.

Duvall founded Trapeze Media Solutions in September. It recently won a University of Utah Next Stage Micro-Grant, which allowed it to finish development. The company was also selected by the Entrepreneur Center at the University of Utah to do market research. Trapeze will also be attending its first medical conferences this year.

Wasatch Microfluidics

www.microfl.com

When Wasatch Microfluidics won $40,000 by taking first place in the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge (UEC) in 2005, Josh Eckman, Bruce Gale and Jim Smith got the funding they needed to start their company sooner than expected.

Initially, Eckman approached University of Utah professor Bruce Gale about a patent that Gale had filed. The two decided to start a company, beginning with a business plan in late 2004. While turning to the Lassonde New Venture Development Center and center director Troy D'Ambrosio for help with market research and other assistance, Eckman met Smith, who then became a co-founder in the company.

Wasatch Microfluidics is a technology that allows researchers to print biomolecules on surfaces using microfluidics. This technology allows researchers to study how different molecules, like DNA and proteins, react to each other.

The company began building prototypes in spring 2005 in partnership with the University of Utah medical school. They have now built commercial prototypes that they are testing with off-site facilities.

"We hope to roll those out early next year," Eckman says. "We've already sold some instruments to pharmaceutical companies and have done some service contract research for pharmaceutical companies so we do have some revenue."

Wasatch Microfluidics completed their first round of outside investor funding in August 2007. They are now in the process of hiring senior management to help them prepare for the market release of their first product.

In addition to winning the UEC, Wasatch Microfluidics also won $5,000 in the New Venture Championship at the University of Oregon, beating out international teams and teams from Stanford and MIT.

Alianza

www.alianza.com

When Alianza won first place in the BYU competition in 2005, CEO and Founder Brian Beutler was determinedly seeking success for the company. He had already dedicated all his resources to his business, including quitting his previous job and taking out a second mortgage on his house.

"There was no swinging for the fences. I thought �This company will work out, this company will succeed,'" Beutler says.

Of winning the contest, Beutler says he greatly benefited from having many very sharp minds look for the weaknesses in his company as part of a friendly competition rather than as an unforgiving market.

"It's a great forum for fixing problems before you launch. It was instrumental in helping us avoid potential land mines or speed bumps," Beutler says.

Beutler originally developed Alianza, with the help of Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Scott Bell, to be a provider of value-added telecom services and applications directly to businesses in Mexico. However, after a year and a half, they realized that, though their business plan was successful, there was an even better way to do things.

They revised their strategy and began focusing on developing a hosted software platform that enables service providers to offer cutting-edge unified communications applications. In September 2007, Alianza announced the launch of PowerPlatform v3.0, the first fully integrated IP-based platform for delivering unified communications applications. Alianza's footprint has since broadened as well. They now offer their platform for delivering unified communications solutions to service providers across North and South America.

Beutler has a staff of 60 people, mostly in the United States, but also in his Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Argentina offices.

Since winning the BYU BPC, Alianza has raised $7.5 million in funding, with key contributions coming from the Utah Angels, and vSpring Capital. In addition, Alianza was recognized in July 2007 by the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum (UVEF) as the 16th fastest growing company in Utah in its annual "Top 25 Under Five."

Launch - Fall 2007

Avoid Employee Burnout - Business Connect magazine - September 2008

http://www.connect-utah.com/articles/avoid-employee-burnout


Business Connect Magazine published this article in their September 2008 issue. I wrote the main article but not the sidebar. However, I included it anyway:

Avoid Employee Burnout

You have a job, but do you have a life?

• Issue:September 2008
• Author:Esther Yu Sumner

Companies in Utah are demanding higher performance from their workforces. But consistently working long hours, sacrificing sleep, skipping meals, and neglecting family and friends almost always leaves employees exhausted, detached and prone to defecting to healthier job environments.
So how do you keep employees satisfied when they’re stressed? Here are tips to help balance the workload:
Give Praise
Good managers don’t take employees for granted. Recognition for a job well done can come in myriad ways. It can be as simple as pulling an employee aside to say that his or her efforts are noticed. It may also include public recognition in front of the company or team, devoting a special lunch for groups that worked late to launch a project, or providing some sort of monetary gift such as a bonus, extra time off or a T-shirt to commemorate the completion of a project.

Recharge the Battery
“People can sprint for short periods of time, but you can’t continually sprint,” says Max Neves, vice president of administration and human resources at 1-800-CONTACTS in Draper. “Employees need change, whether it’s a new project, a new rotation or a three-week sabbatical to recharge their batteries.”
In July 2008, the Draper company was recognized by the Utah Department of Workforce Services Work/Life Awards for its ability to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
“Our employees put in a lot of hours at times, so they are recognized. There’s no formal comp time but they are told to take a week off to recharge their batteries,” Neves says.
Lighten the Load
Reduce stress by creating an inviting work atmosphere. “One of our core values is a sense of humor,” Neves says. “We take our work seriously but ourselves lightly.”
1-800-CONTACTS also caters to its employees’ taste buds. The company has a company-subsidized gourmet cafeteria open from 6 a.m. until midnight. Employees who stay late can still eat well. However, the company will also buy them take-out on occasions like that so that the perk doesn’t become an excuse not to provide more on special occasions.
Other perks include special company events like sports tickets, movie days and bagel days.
Keep the Communication Open
Make sure managers and HR personnel take employee concerns seriously and are willing to consider long-term solutions to problems. Employees might need a change, whether it’s being moved to a different project within their own team, or shifting to a different job altogether within the company. They might just need a change that will excite and challenge them.
Also, many companies have routine annual or bi-annual manager-employee reviews that give managers a chance to recognize employee contributions.
Cathy Donahoe, HR director at Omniture, says it’s important to consider generational aspects, as well.
“Perks and solutions for overworked Generation Xers may not work the same for Baby Boomers,” she says.
Help employees feel needed and purposeful at the company. If they don’t feel any love from the company, why should they love it back?
[SIDEBAR]
Boost the Energy at Your Company
• Build “renewal rooms” where people can go to relax and refuel.
• Subsidize gym memberships.
• Encourage managers to gather employees for midday workouts.
• Suggest that people stop checking e-mails during meetings.
• Reduce stress by engaging in cardiovascular activity at least three times a week and strength training at least once.
• Eat small meals and light snacks every three hours.
• Take brief but regular breaks away from your desk at 90- to 120-minute intervals throughout the day.

You Can't Just Take Land ... Can You? Ancestry Magazine September 2007 issue

A Date is a Date is a Date - Ancestry Magazine March 2007

Ancestry Magazine published this piece in their March 2007 issue. You can see it on their site at:
http://learn.ancestry.com/LearnMore/Article.aspx?id=12644

A DATE IS A DATE IS A DATE

By Esther Yu Sumner 01 March 2007

EmailPrint

What, you say, that can’t be right. Ancestors’ birthdays don’t just change, do they?

They might, if you’re looking at the wrong calendar.

Most of us are familiar with a single calendar—the Gregorian calendar, the one we use today. But, depending on the country, not all that long ago, your loved ones might have been living with the Julian calendar.

Setting a Date
Just like our current Gregorian calendar, the Julian calendar was based on the vernal (spring) equinox. But the Julian calendar listed March as the first month of the year. Leap years were employed to help keep months aligned with the seasons, but one leap year every four years wasn’t sufficiently accurate.

The Gregorian calendar, on the other hand, ensured that dates would be more accurately aligned with seasons. The Gregorian calendar also fine-tuned the leap year idea by removing three leap years out of every 400 years and by switching the first day of the year to 1 January rather than 25 March.

Confusing? Well the good thing is that calendar changes probably won’t affect you today—unless you’re a family historian. That’s when all of those date discrepancies and shifting numbers add up to a lot of confusion.

Consider this. An individual country may have adopted the Gregorian calendar any time between 1582 and the early 1900s. During the year the calendar was adopted, the country would have dropped 10 or 11 days from the year. But just like not every country adopted the Gregorian calendar at the same time, neither did any single country’s residents. And how those 10 or 11 days were dropped was completely up to the country making the change.

Take, for example, the calendar change that occurred on 4 October 1582, when Spain, Portugal, and Italy skipped 10 days, and each bumped their calendars to 15 October 1582. While 12 October 1582 did not technically exist in those countries, finding a document with that date while researching isn’t necessarily inaccurate—it could just mean that document was created by someone who waited a month or so to adopt the change.

So an ancestor’s birth date reading 5 October 1582 in one record and 16 October 1582 in another record may not signal a recording error. And double dates, recorded with slashes such as 15 March 1700/01, aren’t old-school typos—they’re used to show both Julian and Gregorian calendars.

Muddling Through
One of the greatest challenges a family historian finds when facing date changes is knowing—and understanding—when each ancestor’s country changed to the Gregorian calendar. The British colonies, including North America, didn’t move to the Gregorian calendar until 31 December 1751, which was then followed by 1 January 1752 (the Julian calendar would have read 1 January 1751—the year would have changed in March). The 11 days of inaccuracy from the Julian calendar were accounted for by omitting 2–14 September 1752. Alaska, which belonged to Russia when North American colonies made their switch, didn’t change to the Gregorian calendar until 1867.

Canada switched to the Gregorian calendar on 2 September 1752 and skipped immediately to 14 September 1752. France made the switch on 9 December 1582. The Catholic regions of Germany made the switch in various months of 1583 while most Protestant regions made the switch between 1615 and 1668. China never used the Julian calendar but started using the Gregorian calendar in 1912.

Adding Confusion
Quaker dates can be especially confusing since Quakers typically dated by number and because there was no official day on which every Quaker switched calendars.

“Before 1752, Quakers were using both calendars at the same time,” says family historian William Dollarhide. Using a number system, you may come across a date like 2/10/1720—on the Julian calendar, that date would be 10 April 1720; Gregorian, it would be 10 February 1720.

“I have come across a case where the only way I could tell if they were using a Julian or Gregorian calendar was to look through every other date in the record book to find some other numbers and see if those were Gregorian or Julian,” says Dollarhide. “It was a revealing experience to understand that for Quakers in particular you have to really watch the dates.”

Quaker dates may not be the only problematic ones you come across. But you can still get through calendar changes without too many problems, especially if you keep a couple of things in mind—how and when the country you’re looking at addressed calendar changes; and that a date, while perplexing, is still just a date.

Country		End Julian Calendar	Begin Gregorian Calendar
Albania		Dec 1912	Dec 1912
Austria
	Tyrol	Oct 5, 1583	Oct 16, 1583
	Carinthia, Styria	Dec 14, 1583	Dec 25, 1583
Belgium
	Spanish Provinces	Dec 21, 1582	Jan 1, 1583
	Liège	Feb 10, 1583	Feb 21, 1583
Bohemia (Czech Republic)		Jan 6, 1584	Jan 17, 1584
Bulgaria		Nov 1, 1915	Nov 14, 1915
China			Jan 1, 1912
Canada		Sep 2, 1752	Sep 14, 1752
Denmark		Feb 18, 1700	Mar 1, 1700
	Færø Islands	Nov 16, 1700	Nov 28, 1700
Egypt		1875	1875
Estonia		Feb 1, 1819	Feb 15, 1819
Finland		Feb 17, 1753	Mar 1, 1753
France		Dec 9, 1582	Dec 20, 1582
	Alcase	1648	1648
	Strasbourg	Feb 5, 1682	Feb 16, 1682
Germany, Catholic Regions
	Augsburg	Feb 13, 1583	Feb 24, 1583
	Baden	Nov 16, 1583	Nov 27, 1583
	Bavaria	Oct 5, 1583	Nov 16, 1583
	Cologne	Nov 3, 1583	Nov 14, 1583
	Jülich	Nov 2, 1583	Nov 13, 1583
	Mainz	Nov 11, 1583	Nov 22, 1583
	Münster, Strasbourg	Nov 16, 1583	Nov 27, 1583
	Trier	Oct 4, 1583	Oct 15, 1583
	Würzburg	Nov 4, 1583	Nov 15, 1583
Germany, Protestant Regions
	Hildesheim	Mar 15, 1631	Mar 26, 1631
	Kurland	1617	1617
	Minden	Feb 1, 1668	Feb 12, 1668
	Neuburg	Dec 13, 1615	Dec 24, 1615
	Osnabrück	1624	1624
	Paderborn	Jun 16, 1585	Jul 27, 1585
	Prussia Aug 22, 1610 Sep 2, 1610
	Westphalia Jul 1, 1584 Jul 12, 1584
Germany, All Others		Feb 18, 1700	Mar 1, 1700
Great Britain & American colonies		Sep 2, 1752	Sep 14, 1752
Greece		Sep 14, 1916	Sep 28, 1916
Holy Roman Empire		Jan 6, 1584	Jan 17, 1584
Hungary		Oct 21, 1587	Nov 1, 1587
	Transylvania	Dec 14, 1590	Dec 25, 1590
Iceland		Nov 16, 1700	Nov 28, 1700
Italy		Oct 4, 1582	Oct 15, 1582
Japan		1873	1873
Latvia		Feb 1, 1918	Feb 15, 1819
Lithuania		Feb 1, 1918	Feb 15, 1819
Moravia (Czech Republic)		Jan 6, 1584	Jan 17, 1584
The Netherlands
	Holland, N. Brabant	Dec 21, 1582	Jan  1, 1583
	Gelderland, Zutphen	Jun 30, 1700	Jul 7, 1700
	Utrecht, Overijssel	Nov 30, 1700	Dec 12, 1700
	Friesland, Groningen	Dec 31, 1700	Jan 12, 1701
	Drente	Apr 30, 1701	May 12, 1701
Norway		Feb 18, 1700	Mar 1, 1700
Poland		Oct 4, 1582	Oct 15, 1582
	Silesia	Jan 12, 1584	Jan 23, 1584
Portugal		Oct 4, 1582	Oct 15, 1582
Romania		Mar 31, 1919	Apr 14, 1919
	Transylvania	Dec 14, 1590	Dec 25, 1590
Russia		Jan 31, 1918	Feb 14, 1918
Spain		Oct 4, 1582	Oct 15, 1582
	American Colonies	1584	1584
Sweden		Feb 17, 1753	Mar 1, 1753
Switzerland
	Lucern, Uri, Schwyz,	Jan 11, 1584	Jan 22, 1584
	Zug, Freiburg, Solothurn, Wallis	Feb 28, 1655	Mar 11, 1655
	Zürich, Bern, Basel	Dec 31, 1700	Jan 12, 1701
	Schaffhouse, Geneva, Thurgovia, Appenzell, Glarus, St. Gallen	1724	1724
Turkey		1927	1927
United States
	British Colonies	Sep 2, 1752	Sep 14, 1752
	Alaska	Oct 5, 1867	Oct 18, 1867
Yugoslavia		Mar 4, 1919	Mar 18, 1919

Calendar courtesy of Karl Hagen www.polysyllabic.com