I have been waiting a long time to share this wonderful news with you, dear readers! Legacy Family Tree Webinars has now added closed captioning for the Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing, and the hearing impaired to their live and members-only webinar recordings released since May 1, 2018. This has been a long time coming and something the Deaf and Genealogy communities have been hoping for. Read below to learn the details.
Closed Captioned Genealogy Webinars are a Sweeping Success
Legacy Family Tree Webinars, the leading genealogy and DNA webinar platform, announced some months ago the addition of closed captioning to its service. In their public statement they say, “Implemented as a full human-curated transcription via synced subtitles, closed captioning is now available as an option for all live and members-only webinar recordings released since May 1, 2018. In addition, the most popular 50 webinars on the platform and all MyHeritage-specific webinars have been captioned. Legacy will add captioning to all new webinars going forward.”
Geoff Rasmussen, founder and host of Legacy Family Tree Webinars, says, “We are committed to providing the best genealogy and DNA education for all, including people who are [hearing impaired]. Captioning is an excellent way to make online education more accessible, and is also a benefit to non-native English speakers who struggle with spoken English but have an easier time with written English.”
Legacy has exciting plans for 2019 too, which include the hosting of webinars in non-English languages, as well as, the translation of English captions to select foreign languages.
When we acquired Legacy last year, we promised to invest resources to improve the webinar platform and increase its reach, while maintaining its high quality and unique character”, said Gilad Japhet, founder and CEO of MyHeritage. “The addition of closed captioning makes good on this promise and, with translated captioning coming up soon, will help make the webinars accessible to millions of people in Europe and other countries, true to MyHeritage’s goal of making genealogy and DNA testing available to huge consumer audiences worldwide.”
How to Access Closed Captioned Genealogy Webinars on Legacy Family Tree Webinars
To access closed captioned genealogy webinars via Legacy Family Tree Webinars, visit the homepage or the list of captioned lectures, here. Those marked “Free” are available to all. Captioning is also available (for free) for all 24 lectures from MyHeritage’s recent LIVE 2018 conference which took place in Oslo, Norway.
Access to other captioned webinars require an annual or monthly webinar membership. To learn more about all the wonderful benefits to having a subscription to Legacy Family Tree Webinars, click here.
Once you have found a webinar you are interested in, viewers may click on the blue CC icon in the lower right-hand side of the video once it has opened.
Legacy Family Tree Webinars has a great list of upcoming live webinars for 2019. What new genealogy tool will you discover this year? Is there some new research technique you are anxious to learn? Legacy Family Tree Webinars is the perfect place to start off your new year. Happy learning, friends!
Please do not use the inappropriate term – hearing impaired (or impairment). If I tell people that I am hearing impaired, they think something is wrong with me. However, if I tell people I am deaf, they say nothing is wrong with me except that I can’t hear! Those two terms are not interchangeable.
Many deaf people who consider themselves to be just communicating through a different language (American Sign Language) can feel insulted when they’re identified as “impaired.” We are not disabled or impaired, we are a linguistic minority.
“Hearing impairment” suggests a deficit or a handicap that must be corrected.
We are not mute; we have a fully functioning, rich language through which we can express ourselves, learn and connect with one another. We are not impaired, we can access the world through our eyes instead!
Please remove this “hearing impaired” – thanks.
Louis, Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Would you feel it more appropriate to use the terms Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing instead of hearing impaired? It’s interesting…I have not been a part of the Deaf community in many years, but once upon a time, I was very much involved as a certified interpreter and a mother of child who used ASL as their only form of communication. In those years, hearing impaired was a term my Deaf friends actually used to describe a group of persons that were both Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing. But, I understand that things change and it is important to keep up with these changes. Thanks again for reading and commenting!
Yes, you may want to read this link: https://limpingchicken.com/2013/09/23/mark-levin-lets-eradicate-the-term-hearing-impaired/