Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Stories I Would Blog On If I Had the Time

I'm so behind. Lately I haven't had enough time to post breaking genealogy news and my special, insightful commentary. To catch up, here's a short word or two on many news items of the past several weeks that I would have liked to write entire articles about.

[From the Ancestry Insider's staff: The Insider thinks you're highly disappointed that you will not get the full scoop from him. We realize you're actually ecstatic. We know we are.]

PAF

The official word on PAF is It's not dead; it's only mostly dead. Presenters from FamilySearch at a recent conference said that "PAF was dead." No further development is planned. [See an article on the most excellent Renee's Genealogy Blog. —The Staff] The official stand by FamilySearch is that PAF is not dead, will continue to be supported and training in its use should continue. Renee follows up saying 3rd parties are still developing enhancements to PAF.

1900 U.S. Census Indexing

My 1900 U.S. Census Indexing article continues to draw lots of attention after Dick Eastman mentioned it in his newsletter. You might enjoy reading the passionate comments readers posted responding to his article and to mine. Thank you, Dick.

Godfrey Library

FamilySearch will be partnering with the Godfrey Library and digitizing portions of their collection according to the library director's son-in-law, Daniel Hanks.

DNA: It's Big

A Salt Lake City Deseret News article attributed a five-fold expansion of Sorenson Genomics facilities to growth estimates associated with increased business from The Generations Network (TGN), owner of Ancestry.com, and the non-profit Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation.

A new button was added to the Ancestry.com navigation bar this last week: "DNA." However, the DNA Ancestry website still indicates it is in the beta stage. As far as I know, anyone can participate in the beta. I'll post a review when I get a chance.

Ted Barnett identifies ProductCore as the company that helped build Ancestry's new DNA Ancestry service.

The Generations Network News

Ancestry.co.uk has announced it will make available for the first time 18 million important UK immigration records

The Generations Network (TGN) has been granted a U.S. patent according to Dick Eastman. The patent lists several current and former employees of the company. The importance of the patent is elusive to non-technical readers. Maybe some day I can blog about it.

TGN announced it launched a Swedish-language website. (OK, that one's slightly older than a couple weeks, but not by much.)

Get Ancestry Library Edition at Home?!?

An Eastern States public library has posted a working link to the Ancestry Library Edition (ALE). Oops. That's a violation of their contract.

I thought Tom Kemp showed integrity when he advised,

Please do not pass along or use that website. It is not up as a free service to the world. The library licenses are very clear and do not permit a library to broadcast a paid service to any/all that want to use it.

This is obviously an error. We should not be involved in passing along this information as it is an abuse of the system and not appropriate for FHCs or members to take advantage of their mistake.

He increased my opinion of human nature.

I plan on doing an article contrasting the different Ancestry.com institutional editions: ALE, Family History Library Edition, Family History Center Edition and maybe some others. Until I get around to it, click here for Rick Crume's explanation of the ALE. Ignore the FHC description; it is no longer valid. Click here for Robert Raymond's comparison of ALE and HeritageQuest Online.

2 comments:

  1. PAF may be dead, but Ancestral Quest, who for years been the one program that uses PAF-format databases, is alive and kicking and has just released their version 12. www.ancquest.com

    I'm sure they plan to step right in and fill the gap that PAF users feel they have. AQ's always been a good program, and I bet they'll benefit heavily by the "demise" of PAF.

    Louis Kessler
    See my genealogy software links:
    www.lkessler.com/gplinks.shtml

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Louis,

    How correct you are. See my Sunday post, Beta Test New FamilySearch Affiliates.

    -- The Insider

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.