Family History Technology Laboratory
We are dedicated to making simple, usable and enjoyable family history applications!
fhtl.byu.edu
Family History Technology Laboratory
The BYU Family History Technology Lab is a non-profit student research lab sponsored by Brigham Young University's Computer Science department.
We're dedicated to lowering the entry barrier into family history work by providing simple, usable, and enjoyable family history apps.
Come to our Booth
Our Students Make the Difference
Students in the lab
Calvin McMurray
Jeremy Hodges
Benjamin Jones
Curtis Wigington
Ryan Mortensen
Joseph Gillespie
Jacob Harmon
Michael Crowther
Jared Cook
Chris Arnold
Hailey Watters
Kevin Olmstead
Nate McGrew
Samuel Litster
Isaac Riley
Jacob Fisher
Jesse Williams
Kristopher Miles
Scott Corbitt
Tanner Eastmond
Spencer Seeger
Susan Yungfleisch
Taieno Kaiser
Andrea Vukorepa
Andrew Hirschi
Bobby Alger
Bruce Stoutenburg
Iain Lee
Mitchell Sotto
Relative Finder
Ever wonder if you’ve got some long-lost cousins out there? Relative Finder allows you to see how you are related to friends, coworkers, prophets, historical figures, and more! Use our community features to connect with your relatives from around the globe!
Relativefinder.org
Relative Finder History
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Relative Finder also features a handy maps feature, allowing you to connect instantly to relatives around you.
Take advantage of this unique family reunion to connect or reconnect with your long-lost cousins!
relativefinder.org/#/locator
One Page Genealogy
One Page Genealogy is the place for you to view, customize, and download your family tree all in one page! View up to 20 generations of ascendancy or descendant. Change colors and tree styles. Download and print to show your family and friends!
Virtual Pedigree
Virtual Pedigree allows you to navigate your family tree with a new and revolutionary fluid interface. Simple click (or touch!) and drag, and begin exploring ancestors and their descendants! It gives you hints and help as you explore your tree, and now includes LDS Ordinance information. Take it for a spin!
Features
Descendancy Explorer
https://descend.fhtl.byu.edu
Search Results
Features of Descendancy Explorer
Pedigree Pie - No Spit Required
25% American. 75% Irish. 100% You. Pedigree Pie shows your international heritage in a single easy-to-read chart. Click on the chart to view details about where and when your ancestors lived, and to trace back your family's path through history!
Geneopardy
What is a game that tests your knowledge of your family tree? Geneopardy! If you think you know your relatives in your family tree, try out this fun game and prove your knowledge to your friends and families. Enjoy hours of entertainment in Family Home Evenings, at family reunions or just on your own.
Wheel of Family Fortune
It pays to know your family history. Wheel of Family Fortune is the classic party game that tests how well you know the names of the relatives in your family tree. Play alone, or add other players to create a fun game for the whole family!
AncestorGames
Ready for some family-centered fun? AncestorGames uses information from you family tree to give you personalized crossword puzzles, wordsearches, coloring pages, and more!
Matching Game (Memory)
Family History Coloring Book
Family History Crossword
Family History Word Search
Family History Word Scramble
Record Quest
Do you want to learn how to do family history in a fun and interactive way? Record Quest will teach you a large number of family history tasks while you play an engaging game. So, when your kids want do play a video game, give them something engaging that will also build their family history skills.
Beta Release
recordquest.fhtl.byu.edu
Genealogy meets Gaming
Record Quest is a joint endeavor between BYU’s Family History Technology Lab and BYU’s Family History Program.
Family history work is often thought of as something “only old people do.”
Record Quest is designed as a teaching tool built with youth in mind - using their medium-of-choice to teach them the basics of family history research.
An Engaging World
Players will also be able to visit with relatives, experts, and others to get help with their research
These conversations offer key opportunities to naturally inform youth about family history
A Challenge
The game also features expansive levels and puzzles for players to be able to navigate in search of key records
An Adventure
Other game mechanics help create interesting scenarios that make the game fun and help build critical thinking and problem solving skills.
Teaching Tactics
To facilitate learning,
Record Quest incorporates interactive experiences that allow the player the chance to learn and practice key principles
Teaching Tactics
Record Quest offers
A wide variety of learning activities, including times in which players will be asked to engage with sample records and learn their purposes
Teaching Tactics
Quizzes are used to help reinforce concepts, helping players internalize knowledge
How it works
Record Quest uses a variety of modern technologies to make a fun, interactive, and meaningful game
Future Development
To enhance players’ learning experiences, Record Quest will also have the ability to integrate with information from FamilySearch ©, making it easy to apply their skills to real situations
Future Direction For Record Quest
Tree Sweeper
Have you ever found that a particular ancestor was born before their parents? Tree Sweeper will help you to find unlikely or erroneous parts of your tree and will help you to fix them.
tresweeper.fhtl.byu.edu
Tree Sweeper
Family Calendar
Your family history is made of up important events like births, deaths, immigrations and more. Family Calendar makes it easy to create a custom calendar with all of the important events from your family history. Your calendar can then be exported to Google or Apple Calendar.
calendar.fhtl.byu.edu
Family Calendar
Brownie
Brownie is designed to make quality genealogy simple and step-by-step. It carefully analyzes what research needs to be done for a family or individual and creates to-do lists that link you to the resources you need! It also tracks what research you’ve done so that you don’t get lost or forget what you were doing. In short, Brownie does family history faster!
Coming Soon
Brownie is currently under development
Where are we going?
But what about
73
Deep Learning for
Handwriting Recognition
Convolutional Neural Networks
&
Long Short-Term Memory Networks
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The READ Dataset ICDAR 2017 Competition
- German
- French
- English
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Handwriting Recognition:
�
76
7%
25%
Character
Error
Rate
Handwriting Recognition:
�
77
15.6%
Median
Error
Rate
0 Errors German Handwriting Recognition
Automated Transcription
0 Errors German Handwriting Recognition
Automated Transcription
0%
French Handwriting Recognition
0.1% CER .77% WER
Automated Transcription
French Handwriting Recognition
0.1% CER .77% WER
Automated Transcription
.77%
German Handwriting Recognition
5.8% CER 15.6% WER
Automated Transcription
German Handwriting Recognition
5.8% CER 15.6% WER
Automated Transcription
15.6%
German Handwriting Recognition
49.25% CER 71.93% WER
Automated Transcription
German Handwriting Recognition
49.25% CER 71.93% WER
Automated Transcription
71.93%
fhtl.byu.edu
Update your Tree
Michael
Sederberg