Report on WorldVitalRecords Press Conference at NGS 2007

WorldVitalRecords Announces Partnerships: FamilySearch™, Ellis Island, & Quintin

Yesterday WorldVitalRecords.com hosted its first press conference at the National Genealogical Society (NGS) conference in the Greater Richmond Convention Center in Richmond, Virginia. The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, FamilySearch™ (formerly the Genealogical Society of Utah sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and Quintin Publications participated in the conference.

Shown above from left to right: David Rencher, Director, Records and Information Division, Family and Church History Department, Walt Fuller, President, Everton Publishers, David Lifferth, President, WorldVitalRecords.com, Phil Quintin, President, Quintin Publications, Leland Meitzler, Managing Editor, Everton PublishersLink to press address: QuickTime Movie

The first announcement was read by David Lifferth, President, WorldvitalRecords.com, and came from Steve Briganti, President/CEO of The Statue of Liberty Foundation-Ellis Island who was unable to attend.

Shown above: David Lifferth, President, WorldVitalRecords.comLink to press address (Steve Briganti): QuickTime Movie

This announcement included a three-way agreement between WorldVitalRecords.com, The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, and FamilySearch™.

As part of this agreement, more than 25 million records of individuals who immigrated from the Port of New York to Ellis Island between 1892-1924 will be available online, free of charge, at WorldVitalRecords.com.

“The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation is pleased to announce this partnership today whereby the historic passenger arrival records for the Port of New York and Ellis Island will be freely available through WorldVitalRecords and FamilyLink. This expanded availability continues our long-standing commitment to helping families better understand their personal connection to the history of American immigration,” Briganti said.

Since first being made available online in April 2001, this collection of nearly 25 million records has proven to be one of the single most-important and popular record collections anywhere in the world. Arrivals through Ellis Island represent more than 150 different ethnicities, reinforcing the worldwide importance of these records.

“As a nonprofit Foundation, we continue to be thankful for the support of individuals and corporate sponsors whose generosity makes it possible for us to continue our important work of preservation, restoration, and education. We also appreciate and recognize our long-standing partnership with FamilySearch and the work of their wonderful volunteers who made possible the original launch of these historic records in 2001. As we now welcome World Vital Records to our successful alliance, we are excited that an even larger worldwide audience will be reminded of the importance of the Ellis Island records,” Briganti said.

The second announcement between FamilySearch™ and WorldVitalRecords.com was that WorldVitalRecords.com will soon be available for free at more than 4,500 family history centers throughout the world.

”We are extremely pleased to be working with WorldvitalRecords.com. We are trying to make information more widely available. We are also very interested in others who can facilitate and grow this industry. They are doing a great job of putting up records that we would prefer that we don’t have to put up. WorldVitalRecords is a key component, along with several other companies that will help up post records and make them available,” said David Rencher, FamilySearch ™ .

Shown above from left to right: David Rencher, Director, Records and Information Division, Family and Church History Department, Leland Meitzler, Managing Editor, Everton Publishers, David Lifferth, President, WorldVitalRecords.com Link to press address: QuickTime Movie

The final partnership was announced in which Quintin Publications will provide WorldVitalRecords.com with more than 10,000 books and articles, which will go through an OCR (optical character reading ) and indexing process, and made available to members at WorldVitalRecords.com.

“Quintin Publications is very excited about this venture with Paul Allen, Yvette Arts, David Lifferth and the rest of the crew at WorldVitalRecords.com. I think this will greatly improve accessibility of research in family histories for generations to come. My Father, Robert J. Quintin would definitely be left speechless for the attention his hobby has received,” said Phil Quintin, President, Quintin Publications.
Shown above: Phil Quintin, President, Quintin PublicationsLink to press address: QuickTime Movie

WorldVitalRecords.com previously partnered with Everton Publishers, one of the oldest genealogical publishing companies in the US, last year. Walt Fuller, President, Everton Publishers and Leland Meitzler, Managing Editor, Everton Publishers also participated in the conference.

“I am excited about this for a number of reasons. First off, this is wonderful for genealogists. WorldVitalRecords.com has put up the Genealogical Helper. It is the first time that it has been indexed in the history of the magazine. It is going to be available at the family histories. We never could get 4,500 family history centers to buy the Genealogical Helper, but now we have got it in there anyway. Now the Helper and all of the pedigree and family group sheets that are totally unique to Evertons will be available to thousands of genealogists free of charge. I’m pretty fired up about everything that is going on. Congratulations to everyone involved,” Meitzler said.

Shown above: Leland Meitzler, Managing Editor, Everton PublishersLink to press address: QuickTime Movie

The Genealogical Helper is the oldest continuing publication in the industry. It was started in 1947. The Everton Genealogical library is one of the largest private genealogical collections in the country.

”As a WorldVitalRecords.com partner, Everton Publishers is both pleased and very proud to be a part of these announcements,” said Walt Fuller, President, Everton Publishers.

Great announcements for WorldVitalRecords at NGS

WorldVitalRecords.com held a press conference yesterday and announced several important industry announcements. This was somewhat of a novely, because there aren't that many press conferences held in the genealogy and family history indstry. I think that some people showed up just to see what the excitement was all about.

I think that these are industry changing announcments and demonstrate the growth and progress in the Genealogy and Family History communities.

Our three announcements were:

1) The three-way partnership with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Foundation, FamilySearch (formerly the Genealogical Society of Utah sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and WorldVitalRecords.com to provide the index of 25 million immigrants that came through the Port of New York and Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924 on WorldVitalRecords.com.

This is the statement that I read from Stephen Brigante the CEO of The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation:

"The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation is pleased to announce this
partnership today whereby the historic passenger arrival records for the
Port of New York and Ellis Island will be freely available through
WorldVitalRecords and FamilyLink. This expanded availability continues our
long-standing commitment to helping families better understand their
personal connection to the history of American immigration.

Since first being made available online in April 2001, this collection of nearly 25 million records has proven to be one of the single most-important and popular record collections anywhere in the world. Last month, the Foundation celebrated the 100th anniversary of the busiest day in the history of Ellis Island – a day when 11,747 passengers were received through the Great Hall that now serves as a museum and research center for millions of visitors each year. Arrivals through Ellis Island represent more than 150 different ethnicities, reinforcing the worldwide importance of these records.

As a nonprofit Foundation, we continue to be thankful for the support of individuals and corporate sponsors whose generosity makes it possible for us to continue our important work of preservation, restoration, and education. We also appreciate and recognize our long-standing partnership with FamilySearch and the work of their wonderful volunteers who made possible the original launch of these historic records in 2001. As we now welcome World Vital Records to our successful alliance, we are excited that an even larger worldwide audience will be reminded of the importance of the Ellis Island records." said Stephen Briganti, President/CEO of The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation

Wayne Metcalfe, Vice President of Records Services for FamilySearch commented, “We were pleased to provide assistance to the Foundation for the opening of their family history center in 2001 and are equally excited to see the expanded availability of these important records via the Internet. We were equally pleased to work in conjunction with World Vital Records in our new Records Access program. World Vital Records is part of a growing group of new breed online genealogical service providers who are seeking to promote the needs of records custodians and foundations like Ellis Island around the world.”

Link to press release: blog.worldvitalrecords.com/?p=186

2) Agreement between FamilySearch (formerly the Genealogical Society of Utah sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and WorldVitalRecords.com to provide access to the subscription databases on WorldVitalRecords.com in ovre 4,500 family history centers throughout the world.

“We are looking for a new breed of genealogy websites that are willing to work
with FamilySearch to meet the needs and interests of record custodians and our
patrons. WorldVitalRecords.com was uniquely positioned because of its rapid
growth in the industry and potential for success, along with additional
genealogical providers to fill this void. We are certain this agreement with
WorldVitalRecords.com will greatly benefit a worldwide audience of genealogists
with this free service,” said Paul Nauta, Manager of Public Affairs,
FamilySearch ™.

“Our mission at WorldVitalRecords.com and FamilyLink.com is to make high value resources and tools available to genealogists and family historians throughout the world. We are enthusiastic about the opportunity to fill the void left by Ancestry in the FamilySearch operated Family History Centers,” said David Lifferth, President, WorldVitalRecords.com.

Link to press release: blog.worldvitalrecords.com/?p=188

3) A partnership with Quintin Publications to host over 10,000 of their CD based databases on WorldVitalRecords.com. Quintin Publications’ partnership with WorldVitalRecords.com, an international genealogical company, will provide increased exposure to thousands of out of print volumes that Quintin has converted into PDF files. Some of these works include an extensive French-Canadian started by founder, Robert J. Quintin, who recently passed away.

As part of the partnership, Quintin Publications will provide WorldVitalRecords with more than 10,000 books and articles. WorldVitalRecords.com will OCR (optical character reading), and index the material, and then make it available on its site.

“My father would definitely be left speechless at this point by the attention
his hobby has received. This partnership opens a new avenue for the next
generation to realize that we are out here and still available.

“We chose to partner with WorldVitalRecords.com because we have watched their solid pattern of growth and felt it would be an excellent venue for the material we have collected and enhanced during the past 30 years,” said Phil Quintin, President, Quintin Publications.

Link to press release: blog.worldvitalrecords.com/?p=187

Problems with our Immigration Policies

There has been a lot of discussion over the past dozen years of the problems associated with US immigration policy. Some, including myself, have been accused of being soft on immigration because of our pro-business and pro-economic development growth positions.

I have been consistent in my statements that we need to control and monitor immigration and keep the bad guys out, but that we need to do it in such a way that we don’t ruin the economy in the process. In reviewing history, there was a period of time that the US did not have any immigration problems. If we want to stop immigrants from coming to the US we can just re-create the economic conditions that kept people from immigrating: we can have another depression just like we did in the 1930s. If there is not economic demand, people won’t come. However creating a depression to keep people from immigrating is the wrong step to take to solve this problem.

Let me share my personal recent experience in dealing with US immigration policy.

I am the president of an internet technology company. I employ some of the best and brightest mind in my industry. Let me tell you about one of my employees. He is a BYU graduate. He is an absolute genius. He knows Internet marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), keyword campaigns, Omniture, and other key technologies better than almost everyone on the planet. He is amazing. He is a soft spoken guy that we can bill out at his time at over $100 per hour. He is extremely valuable to us and we consider him part of our competitive advantage in our industry.

Oh, did mention that he is from Spain. His wife if from Japan and they have 3 small children. Both he and his wife came to the USA legally on their appropriate education visas. They are law abiding citizens and have spent countless hours and thousands of dollars to make every attempt to be legal and law abiding residents while here in the US. My company has spent thousands of dollars to make sure that we are also legal and law abiding as an employer.

Now that my employee from Spain has graduated he has applied for a worker visa that would allow him to work in the United States and contribute to our economy. Unfortunately, he has been denied a worker visa that would allow him to continue to work in the United States. I will explain the process that he went through to try to get a worker visa below. However, US immigration policy has just denied a valuable and brilliant person from contributing to our economy and to my company specifically.

He came in ‘through the front door’ and now being asked to leave. He did not cross our borders illegally, he did not sneak to get in, he did not use fake documents, he is not posing as someone else, he has done everything the right way, legally, and completely above board. He has been educated in our university system, he has learned a great deal about our internet technology industry, he is extremely valuable to my company and our economy, and now he is being told to leave our country and go provide a benefit to another country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

I know that there is a considerable amount of political energy focused on immigration. There are some that say send them all back where they came from. There may be some that say that my employee is taking the job of a US citizen. The reality is that it will be a hardship on my company to find and train some else with his specializations. My company will probably miss opportunities because he is no longer allowed to work for us in the US.

One of the most absurd events in this process of my employee trying to get an H1b visa was ‘the lottery.’ An H1b visa is the visa that allows people from foreign countries to work in the US. There were approximately 160,000 foreign nationals that applied for an H1b visa. The requirements for these visas are very high and include a college degree. However the number of H1b visas that are allowed has been reduced to 65,000. Therefore, only 1/3 of the applicants were selected by the random selection process. This means that there were about 100,000 foreign nationals with college degrees that have been told to leave our country.

It is a sad state of affairs when we are exporting some of our best and brightest to other countries so they can compete against us on both a company and country level.

I will soon be in the Washington DC area on business. While I am there I will take the time to talk to my elected representatives to request that we improve our immigration policy so that we are not hurting ourselves in an effort to solve the immigration problem.