Terri and David talk with Shane Clementson from Clanview about their 3D family trees and how easy it is to share with all generations. Giving them something more they can not only connect with, but can see where the information is sourced from and also click through to see images and movies if linked with the original gedcom file.
Special Guest
Shane Clementson – To describe Shane in one word, it would be “unconventional”. Why else would someone look at genealogy – an industry full of people blissfully immersed in nostalgia and entrenched in tradition – and decide “Something needs to change!” ?
Shane’s career in software development led him to the UK in 2005, where he started researching his own family history and immediately learnt it was not his alone. He knew the family history he was collating would be of interest to relatives of all generations, but any efforts to “print” and share conventional family trees and charts were largely met with problems, silence and apathy.
These problems needed fixing! Why do all this research only to keep it hidden? But how do you reach your “non-researcher” relatives with your shared family history?
Since 2016, Shane’s life has been consumed by the development of an independent service, free from any subscription to the “genealogy giants”, that would provide a solution to problems encountered with traditional family history publishing methods like printed family trees, long reports, giant charts and dry books.
The result is “Clanview” – an online service that automatically transforms the family history data you have gathered into an engaging 3D family tree that can be shared simply with your relatives. Each recipient opens it instantly on any device, explores it interactively and chooses to dig deeper into detail about the ancestors that interest them.
In early 2021, “Clanview VR” was launched, providing an accessible VR option using an Android phone and its browser app (along with Google Cardboard goggles) to explore your Clanview 3D family tree in virtual reality.
Show Transcription
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David: [00:00:04] Hi, I’m David Alan Lambert and I’m here with Terri O’Connell your Virtual Historians. We are really honored to have a guest from 12 hours in the future. So I guess VR and time-travel is our guests. We have Shane Clementson from Australia with Clanview, and I met Shane at RootsTech London, which seems like a million years ago now, Shane.
Shane: [00:00:34] It does, hello.
David: [00:00:35] Hi, welcome to the show, I know Terri and I are really excited to learn more about Clanview. I know our viewers are both VR enthusiast, historian enthusiasts, of course, family historians. Most of us have dabbled in our own genealogy one way or the other over the past. And I think that Clanview has a way of presenting a family tree more than just having it on a sheet of paper. So I’m going to let you tell us about how this all came about, because I’m kind of curious on the backstory and I know that we probably talked in London, but I figured everyone else wasn’t listening until now.
Shane: [00:01:12] Hi David. Hi Terri. And I thank you very much for having me. No, it does seem like a long time ago since we spoke David at RootsT ech London 2019, I think it was. The best way to think of Clanview really, it’s for anybody who’s done any family history research, whether it’s three weeks, three years or 30 years.
[00:01:30]Essentially it’s trying to find a convenient way for people to publish. And I guess it’s looking to replace some of the traditional methods that have been used. It doesn’t necessarily have to completely replace them, but it’s just trying to improve on how things have been done for a long time.
[00:01:44] So, yeah, so I kind of use really, it’s all about trying to publish , a family tree in a convenient way. So it’s a push button method. It’s it doesn’t require huge sheets of paper. It doesn’t publish things as a giant chart. It’s not a long sequential book. It does it as a three-day family tree.
[00:02:00] So it combines quite a few elements, but yeah, in a nutshell, it’s all about, saying, you know, it’s 2021. If you want to, you know, capture and publish your family history, then why not do it as a 3D family tree and use that as an interactive form that you can share with anybody and anyone who receives it.
[00:02:19]There’s no strings attached, basically. So it’s all about breaking down those barriers to sharing what, what, you know, what you’ve gathered. So yeah, the idea is you can share a link and people can open it up on any device and they start exploring their family tree in 3d and start digging into what interests them.
David: [00:02:36] You know, I think that’s one of the things about genealogy is we try to get the next generation interested, the kids. And I think the idea of being able to put on a VR headset and explore, I mean, it’s one thing to explore your family tree, but in Clanview you really are exploring that whole tree. I mean, you’re, you’re traveling the family tree, climbing it in a way.
[00:02:59] And I think that’s really what was fascinating. And I know there was a great amount of a crowd around your booth, during roots check London. And I wish that I had more time, we chatted a bit and I said, we need to talk more about this. And even back in 2019 VR Historians hadn’t even come about. And I do, of course, Extreme Genes and I thought to myself, I said, this is great. We have to talk about this. And I mentioned when we did a recap of roots tech, one that I talk about the exciting things. I’m sorry. And there, you know, my top six things, you guys are in it. And I I’m really thinking that how long has Clanview been out? I mean, it was, you were there RootsTech London in 2019 was a totally new product then.
Shane: [00:03:42] So it did have a long lead time in development. So, you know, essentially this is our fifth year, so there was, about, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a pretty long road, innovating a new product. There’s a lot of development of prototypes and trial and error. We try to work, you know, work with other groups.
[00:04:01]I started the company in 2016, we developed a prototype in 2017 and started working with people and getting them to try it. And then really, we started getting the word out there in 2019. So with things like RootsTech, obviously visiting, conventions and expos and things like that to, get the word out.
[00:04:18] And then I guess in earnest, we really started, trying to spread the word more in 2020. So, so yeah, no, so it’s going great. We’ve I mean, we’ve had over. 2000 signups in the last 12 months.
David: [00:04:30] Excellent. Excellent.
Shane: [00:04:31] Yes. So that’s, that’s really promising and, and it’s exciting to say, just having people interested in it and people, you know, what, from what we’ve seen, people are searching for ways to find new ways.
[00:04:42] It’s as they’re saying, well, I tried printing out my family tree that was a five or 10 meter long container. Only 300 people in the tree. And then they’re trying to find a solution. Is it a giant circular chart, that, you know, is fixed and if maybe difficult for other people to read and, yeah, we’re just, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s definitely a challenge.
[00:05:02] People do resist change and people are comfortable with things like paper, but we’re saying you don’t have to just replace those methods. We can actually, try something new and yeah. And as you say, there’s, a whole range of generations that you can interest. Without those obstacles to them that I’m looking at it.
David: [00:05:20] Now, just out of curiosity, is there an actual limit?
[00:05:23] So over here we use the term gateway ancestor to someone who may have a potential Royal line and, you know, and then all of a sudden you’re going back 40, 50 generations on some lines, you know, whether or not they’re valid. But the idea of being able to see beyond say your great-great-grandparents, is there a generational limit on Clanview ?
Shane: [00:05:42] Well at the moment we limit it to 20,000 people, but that’s really a product based choice at the moment. So we have, I’ve tested with, family histories as large as 50,000. So 50,000 people. I mean another reason why Clanview was invented because it’s in the 3d space, right. It’s in that virtual space.
[00:06:01] So you essentially explore and expand branches, for as far as the eye can see that in that virtual space. So again, that’s one of the core principles of trying to use Clanview in that 3d virtual space is, I know there’s, there’s really no limit at the moment.
[00:06:14] It’s, as I say, it’s a product based choice and we found 20,000 people seems to cover. You know most
David: [00:06:20] It will fit mine cause I still have brick walls, even though I’ve been doing this for 40 years. Terri, I know that you test drove Clanview for the first time just recently, you want to give any input or questions that you have.
Terri: [00:06:35] So I spent some time this afternoon on it. I uploaded my gedcom and I just want to say kudos to whoever did your page for that because they gave directions for wherever your tree might be. That’s brilliant. Cause I’m always the one that my mom calls, Hey, how do I do this?
[00:06:54] And that, that was really smart because sometimes people really just don’t know. It took moments really to upload my gedcom I wanna say on my trial. It only uploaded a thousand people, I think was the max they were doing.
Shane: [00:07:10] That’s right. For the free trial. It’s submitted to a thousand then.
Terri: [00:07:12] Okay. So I let it do that.
[00:07:14] And I clicked on the little button. It took me to the 3d view of it and show the little worlds kind of moving around. And it was really simple to go generation to generation, just, you know, click, click, like look an arrow. If you want to go further back. And like that, but what I really liked and it’s the silliest of things is that every little 3d person, their clothing was the flag where they were born.
[00:07:44] It was really cool.
[00:07:47] When you clicked on, like, let’s say, I clicked on my great grandfather, Dennis O’Connell. If you get his little card and as you scroll through the card of his information, you get down to all the sources. So it has all my ancestry sources connected to it. So it really is a cool way to show a younger generation, maybe get them interested, but have all that pertinent data there too.
[00:08:10] So important.
Shane: [00:08:12] You’re struck on a few things there, I mean, that’s all right. We display a figurine, which represents each person or each ancestor, we display them in their the flag of their country of birth and it’s all about the visual.
[00:08:23] So it’s one of these things where you can look at different views that you can display as you expand. It can be an ancestor view or a descendants view or. Multi-unit or, you know, multiple marriages yeah, there’s various views. And essentially by looking at a particular branch, whatever, you immediately get an impression of what’s happened.
[00:08:40] You might see how ancestors have moved from one country to another, and you can see the flags changing and you haven’t even read anything yet. So that’s one of the big things we want to do. So it’s an interesting thing to talk to people who are also especially passionate about, you know, researching their family history because, you know, they love it it’s their hobby. They really get into it. But with Clanview we’re trying to think about everybody else. Everybody has an interest, you know, , it’s unavoidable. It’s you know, I think it’s built in and we don’t want to overwhelm people when they are when they are faced with DNA also it’s a family tree.
[00:09:10] So information like I was going to say information on like researching DNA, for example, can return enormous amounts of information. With DNA tests. And also just, just things like the stories for an ancestor or the details that you’ve discovered about how they lived and those sorts of things.
[00:09:30]We, we try to keep a very simple view to start with. And like you pointed out you essentially dig deeper into the detail for those people that are, that are of interest. So, so that, that Clanview that you’ve created. That’s got its own unique link. You can now send that to David or to whoever you wish.
[00:09:44]It’s impossible to guess. They click on it. They open it. If they’re on their iPad or they’re on their, you know, their Android tablet or whatever they’re on, they are going, they start exploring it, but they’re not immediately hit with a wall of text with a whole lot of information. It’s not presented in a serial manner sequential manner. It’s it’s there for them to start exploring and and then they find somebody interested in, they open up the detailed dialogue, and then they can start reading through the stories. And if there’s links, they can open those things to photo albums or articles from when they served in a war or, or something like that.
[00:10:19] So you’ve touched on some of the things we’re trying to achieve with Clanview.
David: [00:10:22] Yeah. That’s excellent. And now one of the things I was saying to Terri earlier is that historians are always trying to find a way to engage an audience. I mean, you go into a, say a colonial home in new England and you can look at paintings on the wall, or you can see a flat chart. What an amazing thing to have a terminal there that people could say. Well, I think that my family may have lived here and then search through it or to see all the families that live there. So outside of your own, Plan view for your family.
[00:10:56] I think this has a lot of application uses for our house museums or for a historical society, or for perhaps a presentation that someone’s doing to a family association or, you know, or even to explore this, if they were going to publish a book on the family and they had to go before a zoom meeting and say, listen, this is what I’ve done.
[00:11:19] It’s a lot more impressive in my personal feeling is to see it visually, like what you’ve produced than it is to say here’s another chart and then just on the chart, you can move into it, you can explore it. So I really think the sky’s the limit. And I really think that VR, the component of sliding, you know, your phone into it.
[00:11:42] Have you looked into anything where like I know right now, Terri and I both use an Oculus and we can go on to the web. Can I go onto the web right now? And if I had a tree up there, can I view it that way?
Shane: [00:11:56] Yeah. Yeah. So we support about five I think, you know, proprietary devices, I guess , the headsets but how main goal.
[00:12:06] So yeah, essentially if those devices run a browser, just like you have on your phone or your personal computer and Yeah. If they’ve got a browser and yeah, and, and they’re compatible, then you click on the link and and you open it. Yeah. You open it in the, in your, in your VR device. So what, what we were very keen to do was to make sure it worked with Android phones.
[00:12:28] So that’s obviously that’s a Google Cardboard solution which is you know, that goal to make VR, universally accessible. It’s about and that’s very much aligns with what we’re trying to do with. With clam, you were trying to make it that there are no obstacles or where do you want to explore it as a simple 3d diagram, or you want to be immersed within that 3d space in the VR space, then then, you know, open that link on, on the browser and on whatever you’re, whether you’ve got the Android phone with a Google Cardboard headset or when you’ve got the other VR device that’s compatible and yeah.
[00:13:00] And just start exploring that way. So it’s always hands-free because that’s how. That’s how it works. You don’t have the hand controllers like you do with. You know, the the dedicated VR headsets, but within, with an Android phone, you can still explore it around. But yeah, but just trying to make that as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.
David: [00:13:17] That’s excellent. Well, I know that a lot of people are going to want to actually try this, so, and Carrie and I will have that link available. Is there anything that’s going on right now? Like if people try it out, is there a special that you have running. For any certain amount of time or anything going on that people should know about.
Shane: [00:13:37] No. Thank you. Yeah, no. Yeah. When we do have a promotion on a promotion on at the moment so we’re just encouraging people to, to sign up for our free version and, and try it out. And so the free version gives you a , limited free trial with access to all the features. You just need to publish a Clanview. And then that gives you essentially $20 off a purchase. So yeah, so it’s a promotion we’re running at the moment. It’s a huge drop. So you can essentially get kind of your instead of 29 90 us dollars, it drops down to $9 90. And that is that’s that’s indefinite access. So that’s some limited.
[00:14:15] So the idea is it’s, it’s, it’s intended to you think of it like a print buttons, so about certain parts of publish clam view action. So the idea is once you’ve signed up for the claim of your products and you’ve got the full version you have, you can publish your latest family tree data as many times as you wish you can share it with as many people as you like, which is just simply sending them that, link of the, of the latest one, that unique link they, each, that each plant has. And they can open it and explore it on, any device for as long as, as long as they wish. So for as long as you have that published plan view available, We don’t misuse people’s data where I’m very conscious of that.
[00:14:53] We the, the user has the research has ultimate control. So yeah, if you choose to get a product you’re within your hands to publish the Clanview, sorry. At the plan is you wish to have available. And delete them when you, you don’t want it to be available anymore, that data’s permanently deleted. And yeah.
[00:15:10] And so just trying to make that as convenient as possible and as safe as possible. So it’s about that balance of yeah, we removed the information about the people, for example. So by default, when you, you upload your family history data the check box, is set to make sure that we remove information that can identify. Personal information that can identify living people. And then, like I say, we, we just keep that data for as long as you wish. And then when you’re done with it, you delete it and you can publish another Clanview later, whenever you like.
David: [00:15:38] Excellent. Excellent. Well, I know that I am definitely interested in uploading mine and giving it a whirl.
[00:15:43] And so this is excellent and we’re really delighted that you came on well, this and Shared clanview with our viewers. And hopefully most of our viewers will try a little sample of their own family tree, upload it up. I mean a thousand, I think that’s pretty generous just for, even for a free, and of course with the special you can’t really complain that I don’t think of fast food meal is gonna probably set you back any cheaper. So, and you’ve got to do that. You can share with your family and friends and I think that’s, great,
Shane: [00:16:18] it’s a one off purchase now as well. There’s no, there’s no subscriptions is there’s no lock-in or anything like that. So, yeah. And you know, and the, you know, when for people who have more than a thousand, more than a thousand people enough in their family history data you know, the free version, we’ll just we’ll just stop at a thousand and it’ll it’ll, you don’t need to be too careful about how you export your data.
[00:16:39] So there’s that, there’s that one simple step, I guess, to explain, but people who, who maybe don’t see the connection essentially can be works with any with almost every existing family history research tool or service. So whatever that may be, whether it’s an online service or a program you download and install, once you’ve collected all your data there or virtually all of them have a button to export that data and yeah.
[00:17:04] And then a Clanview takes it and uses it to publish. Oh yeah. So the, your online account is what you sign up for, and then you use that account to create the Clanview. So once you’ve got that exported data, which is export it as a gedcom file then Clanview just works with that and it’s all automated from there.
[00:17:22] So it’s a push button process from that point. Yeah.
David: [00:17:25] Excellent. Well, I know that it sounds really point and click from way Terri talks to, she had no issues with whatsoever and Terri’s very technologically advanced, so I wouldn’t think it would stump her, but would you think it’s something that someone who’s not computer savvy could easily do Terri, based upon your.
Terri: [00:17:45] I mean, it’s pretty simple. You, you see the arrows, so yeah,
David: [00:17:52] so, and all of you out there that live in your VR headset and you want to do your research and you want to explore your family tree or your historian out there that wants a new way of bringing material to students. Give Clanview a try. It doesn’t sound like you will be disappointed in the least.
[00:18:11] Well, Shane, thank you so very much for sharing part of your day with us today and Being part of the Virtual Historians as we launched new technology, that will be interesting for genealogists for historians and of course, for those that are VR enthusiasts. So thanks again.
Shane: [00:18:29] One other thing I wanted to mention, which was around cloud-based repository. So when I say cloud-based, I’m referring to how people are storing their photos, how they might. You know, capture and digitize documents how they might reference articles about ancestors.
[00:18:47] So they might have a blog, for example. So they’ve found interesting stories in the published it as as different blog articles, they might refer to a Wiki article from one of their. From an event in history that one of their ancestors participated in you know, and as well as things like Dropbox folders or I guess cloud-based folders that I use for photos, you know, capturing old letters or telegrams or any old documents, those, those sorts of things.
[00:19:13]They all have the capability to be shared. With elements of security online. So Clanview tries to support and embrace that approach. So we’re not talking about obviously repositories, which contain highly personal information and confidential information.
[00:19:27] We’re talking about these artifacts that you digitize that you’ve put into a folder. These artifacts from history that you’ve put into a folder. And that you can provide a unique link to that, that your family will be interested in. So the way we, the way it works with Clanview is whatever research tool that you use. Whether it’s an online research service or a program, if you include the link to those folders and repositories, then Clanview preserves those. So once you’ve published a Clanview, when you share it and people are exploring the 3d family tree, they click on. The ancestor that they’re interested in and they can see those links so they can open up that that cloud-based folder, which contains, you know, photos of that person.
[00:20:10] Or they could click on that article or that website, which I, which opens up and shows them the house where they lived or which has some historical significance. So yeah, I don’t, I just think it was worth mentioning that that’s in that way, Clanview becomes, you know the window to to all of the, all of that rich family history and, and because of how it works, it’s up to the individual to, I guess, explore and uncover that in terms of what interests them.
David: [00:20:39] Excellent. Well, I think that cloud-based storage is really one of the things a lot of people have to embrace with the world we live in now with more digital files. And I know that I’m collect countless thousands of files during the course of the year may be just by emails or photographs. And of course, Clanview now offers another way of preserving that and displaying, that’s wonderful.
[00:21:02] It’s great to know that it has that capability as well.
Shane: [00:21:07] That’s that’s excellent. I mean, and we just hope, people will give it a try and and find out for themselves. So we, as I say, we take care to look after people’s data. We don’t expose personal information and the user has full control.
[00:21:18] So the researchers in control of, of what’s available and what’s not. So even if people want to try it out for a short period, that’s absolutely fine. So yeah, we hope people will give it a try.
David: [00:21:28] Well, I hope that some of the VR, enthusiasts historians genealogists out there give Clanview a test drive.
[00:21:34] I think the price is right. And you think you really can’t complain for something that would cost you less than most average, fast food meals these days. So Shane, thank you for coming and being with us today.
[00:21:46]As Virtual Historians, we are delighted to welcome somebody from the future, 12 hours in advance, and we’re really pleased that you took your time today to share this with us. Well, that’s all we have for this episode of Virtual Historians.
[00:22:03]Until next time, virtually yours, take care.
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