Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Ancestry's Keying Tool "Achieves Its First Milestones"

Image Ancestry uses to brand its World Archives Project Participants in the limited beta test of Ancestry's World Archives Project keying tool received an e-mail last Tuesday informing participants that "the World Archives Project achieve[d] its first milestones." Ancestry shared these project milestones:

  • "Limited beta test has 650 active keyers
  • More than 100,000 records have been indexed
  • Our top keyer has indexed over 17,500 records
  • The Wisconsin mortality records project is more than 60% complete and [is] on track for a September completion date"

Ancestry has also added several enhancements to the keying tool. Since the tool is not web-based, the executable files on the user's computer have to be updated to get the enhancements. However, when the user starts the program, the update occurs automatically.

Keying tool is automatically upgraded when needed

Ancestry mentioned these new enhancements:

  • Update field highlights by dragging
  • Wildcards for finding name suggestions
  • Auto-complete feature
  • File > Options to set highlight color, other options
  • Dashboard showing individual, project and top-performers progress

The new World Archives Project dashboard

As of last Friday (I'm writing this several days before you'll read it), the top keyer has gone way past the 17,500 figure from the e-mail. As the dashboard shows, above, she's now past 23,500!! That's an additional 6,000 names in 3 or 4 days. Wow! I know that when you try it you find it more fun than it sounds. It's actually kind of addicting. But that's a lot of work for in any case!

If you'd like to get in on the fun, you may not have to wait much longer. Ancestry plans on opening the beta test to the general public shortly. To register your interest, click here. Since the Windows-based Ancestry keying tool runs on your computer, Mac and Linux users will have to stick with FamilySearch Indexing for now.

1 comment:

  1. 650 people who would buy shares in the Brooklyn Bridge if you offered them for $100 a pop. They pay to be subscribers and then work for them for free. Congrats to Ancestry for finding so many suckers.

    Note my comment mainly has to do with indexing for Ancestry instead of for Family Search. At least FS will have a class of indexers who get access to images in return for their work. What do Ancestry indexers get? That's right. A pat on the back and next year's subscription bill with no discount.

    Mike

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