Access is not quite completely free. You must pay by disclosing your e-mail address to Ancestry.com, a proposition not nearly as costly as it was back in the bad days. If you already have a username and password, you can use them without registering again. This includes those with free member tree accounts and with expired subscription accounts.
Visit www.ancestry.com/immigration for more information and to try it out for yourself.
“My Accuracy” helps volunteers doing FamilySearch Indexing see how well their work survives the arbitration process. The feature was introduced in July. Your accuracy report appears as a new tab in the bottom right corner of the indexing start page. Your accuracy score reflects batches arbitrated in the last 90 days.
Click Review Batches to see a list of those batches. The Indexing application opens a browser page. Log in to see the list. Each line contains the index date, project name, description, accuracy score, and arbitration date.
Click a project name
The review page looks similar to the indexing application. The field list at the bottom shows your values and, for those different from yours, the arbitrator’s values. The summary tab in the lower-right shows the accuracy calculation for the batch. In the example below, the batch contained 304 fields and the arbitrator agreed with 299 of my entries. Dividing the former into the latter yields 98%.
My Accuracy is provided as a tool that invites learning. In the example above, my entries differed from the arbitrators in 5 instances.
I put “Carmino,” the arbitrator changed it to “?”. That is an obvious arbitrator error as a question mark signifies one illegible character. A more appropriate arbitrator response might have been “Ca*i*”, as these letters are quite obvious. 
I put “Grange,” the arbitrator changed it to “Orange.” This is an obvious handwriting interpretation error on my part. The O doesn’t look at all like a G. Both G and O occur elsewhere in the image. By using My Accuracy, I’ve learned that I am not being as careful as I think I am. 
I put “Cambridge” as the town, the arbitrator deleted Cambridge and left it blank. That is an arbitrator error. The town appeared on the back of the card and apparently the arbitrator hadn’t read the instruction to check there. In the arbitrator’s defense, FamilySearch has made it extremely difficult to learn the instructions for an indexing project. There are no less than six places that must be consulted to get all the instructions. 
I put 1863, the arbitrator changed it to 1865. Upon further review, I agree with the arbitrator. It looks like 3 was overwritten with a 5. There’s a case for specifying 186?. The problem with indexing it as 186? is, you’ve guaranteed a non-match for someone who searches for either 1863 or 1865. I would rather index this as either 1863 or 1865 and have a 50% probability of a match. (It is too bad that the search system can match ? to 3 or 5, but can’t match 3 or 5 to ?.) 
I left the state blank, the arbitrator changed it to Vermont. I see now that Vt appears after Shelburne, the town name. If you feel the arbitrator was mistaken, click the Feedback link next to the arbitrator’s value. This opens a popup with a Please Review checkbox that you can check if you feel your original value. Unfortunately, FamilySearch doesn’t allow you to enter an explanation, which could save the reviewer a lot of time tracking down the town name on the back, or the state abbreviation in the corner. Without an explanation, the reviewer is in much the same situation as the arbitrator.
Actually, the instructions don’t state that FamilySearch will review the value. What action will FamilySearch take? In 90 days somebody remind me and we can check the published collection. Vermont marriage of Grace Phelps and Albert Martin, 8 September 1859. We’ll check the bride’s father’s first name. Will it be “?” which the arbitrator specified? Will it be “Carmino,” as I specified? Will it be “Cassius,” as suggested by Ancestry.com tree contributors? Or will it be something else entirely?
After many months we’ll finally find out what FamilySearch does when you check the Please Review box.
Or tomorrow I I could ask the FamilySearch Indexing product manager…
Dear Ancestry Insider,
The email below was sent to me by one of my students. [Insider Note: I’ve removed identifying information from the student’s letter because I don’t know if Joanie had the student’s permission to forward it to me.]
AAACCCKKKK!
I have a private tree on ancestry.com. As part of my research I [find headstones on]findagrave and put the photo and a link on my private tree. I must have a couple hundred photos, all with the required documentation.
Can ancestry just remove them all? How does ancestry.com know that I wasn’t the one who took the photo to begin with?
I am a member of findagrave.com. I have contributed 1000s more photos than I will ever copy. People write me and ask me for permission and I give permission for use of photos I have taken.
HELP!
Signed,
Joanie Hanion
| The letter first received by the student from Ancestry.com: |
|
| Student’s reply to Ancestry.com: |
|
| Ancestry.com’s reply to Joanie’s Student |
|
Dear Joanie,
I spoke with Ancestry.com. They are not targeting Find A Grave submissions. They act according to requests from individual copyright holders. Let me illustrate with the case in hand.
Copyright © 2009 by Jackie Wilson Goddard. All rights reserved. The photograph may be used solely for personal, informational, and internal purposes. The photograph may not be modified or altered in any way OR posted on any other web-site for any purpose.
Lessons learned?
Let me take that back. Don’t hate me. Now that I’ve published your letter, Ancestry.com knows you’ve posted hundreds of potentially illegal photographs. Maybe you’ll get a letter after all…
Signed,
-- The Insider
We depend upon records to reveal the “truth” about our pasts.
Yet sometimes records have anomalies.
Some are amusing or humorous.
Some are interesting or weird.
Some are peculiar or suspicious.
Some are infuriating, even downright laughable.
Yes, “Records Say the Darnedest Things.”
I’ve written before about Ancestry.com's use of Chinese indexers. In the early days of FamilySearch Indexing I commonly heard of FamilySearch volunteers “checking” their interpretation of indecipherable names against Ancestry.com’s Chinese produced indexes. Perhaps learning to read 20,000+ Chinese characters in several different calligraphy styles leaves the Chinese workforce well qualified in figuring out a couple dozen poorly written Latin characters.
Ultimately, the more context you have, the better your ability to interpret what you’re reading. (See “Indexing Errors: Test, Check the Boxes.”)
…which is exactly why native speakers do a better job indexing unstructured text. Consider this example from Ancestry.com. Somehow I don’t think that on 27 April 1871 Miss Sophenia Bowan married “Holy Matrimany.”
This is also why an index without images is never a good idea. If you consult the image, you will find:
Yes. Records indexed by non-native-speakers say the darnedest things.
“Missouri Marriage Records, 1805-2002,” database and images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 June 2009), entry for Holy Matrimany and Miss Sophenia Bowan; citing Missouri Marriage Records; Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, Missouri.
Ancestry.com will retain Footnote’s current non-military content, according to spokesperson, Heather Erickson. “However we do currently have some 3rd party content on Footnote (mainly newspapers) that could be removed in the future at the content owner's discretion.”
If I understand Corporate-Speak correctly, that translates as, “Newspapers will go away when our contract expires unless the owner gives us a screamin good contract extension.”
If both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch are making the index available for free, I wonder if there is any chance they will combine their efforts. It’s a crying shame if they redo each others’ work. That’s especially true if you are an Ancestry.com subscribing, FamilySearch Indexing, tithe paying member of FamilySearch sponsor, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You will pay for the 1940 census thrice: once with your subscription dollars, once with your tithing dollars, and once with your indexing hours.
Just how does a computational biologist analyze a product developer, I wonder.
What, exactly, will Ancestry.com do to improve their source statements? The only specific Macklin mentioned was the addition of “Reproduced by permission” to books they republish under license from HeritageQuest.
These are the 16 databases:
| Title | Records |
| 15,502,589 | |
| 2,314,954 | |
| Web: Netherlands, Genlias Marriage Index, 1795-1944 (in Dutch) | 2,193,568 |
| 898,163 | |
| Web: Netherlands, Dutch East India Company Passenger Lists to India, 1699-1794 (in Dutch) | 797,691 |
| 637,272 | |
| 458,755 | |
| 319,238 | |
| Web: Netherlands, Genlias Baptism Index, 1811-1902 (in Dutch) | 262,585 |
| 230,787 | |
| 108,479 | |
| 85,931 | |
| 69,972 | |
| 28,102 | |
| 6,363 | |
| 2,204 |
“We should not confine ourselves to the brick and mortar walls of our family history center,” said Art Johnson in his session at the 2011 BYU Family History Conference. Family history center staff members and family history consults should reach out to enrich the world. Johnson manages FamilySearch support. (That’s 1-866-406-1830 and support@familysearch.org, if you were wondering.)
FamilySearch is doing their part to reach out.
“The idea is to provide to the community help where they want it,” said Johnson. With so many people on Facebook and other social websites, it is natural to have a presence on each.
FamilySearch is reaching out on Facebook where they’ve currently established research communities for nine states
and 6 countries
Research community pages join existing Facebook pages:
While FamilySearch is creating Facebook pages, family history centers (FHCs) are encouraged to create pages in the FamilySearch Wiki rather than establishing their own Facebook presence.
FamilySearch is also reaching out on Skype, where they’ve created a number of Skype chats for genealogical research.
Johnson said that FamilySearch doesn’t make it a policy to run the communities, but to enable their existence.
I’m not familiar with Skype but it appears there is no way to search for group chats. Apparently, you must contact a creator or host who adds you to the group. Instructions on joining one of the FamilySearch Skype chats are found in the FamilySearch Wiki article, “Join a Skype Research Community.”
FamilySearch is also reaching out via Twitter, where it posts news items using the username @FS_News.
FamilySearch recently announced a newly redeveloped YouTube channel.
Staff members at smaller family history centers often find themselves with no patrons to help. Johnson encouraged family history consults to reach out and help via these social networking websites as well as FamilySearch’s own Forums and Wiki.
There is a mistaken idea that we as centers, as consultants, are not supposed to interact with societies. Not true! We have different purposes but we can help one another.
“Take an opportunity to turn your work inside out,” said Johnson. “Become more extraverted in helping others.”
Dear Ancestry Insider
I copy and paste Family History Library catalog entries into a bibliography and into search lists for counties where my ancestors lived. In the old catalog, I could view the printable version, select and copy the films, and paste them into my application. Multiple reels would each display on a separate line.
In the new catalog, which doesn’t have a printable version, when I paste multiple films, all are displayed in a single paragraph with no hard returns. For entries with multiple reels, splitting the reels onto separate lines can be quite time consuming.
Signed,
Lemon Egg
Dear Lemon,
How the film list looks when pasted into another application depends on both the browser and the application. For example, when films from “Marriage records of Utah County, 1887-1966” are copied from Microsoft Internet Explorer and pasted into Microsoft Word, Word puts them in a table like this:
| Marriage applications, 1-966, Jan 1897-Sept 1899 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482939 | |
| Marriage applications, 967-1194 Sept 1899-June 1901 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482940 | |
| Marriage applications, 1192-2187 June 1901-Dec 1903 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482941 | |
| Marriage applications, 2186-2576 Jan 1904-Sept 1905 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482942 | |
| Marriage applications, 2577-2845, 1-261 Sept 1905-June 1907 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482943 |
Firefox is extremely picky about what text you select. If you select only lines with films, when you paste into Word you lose the line breaks:
Marriage applications, 1-966, Jan 1897-Sept 1899 FHL US/CAN Film 482939 Marriage applications, 967-1194 Sept 1899-June 1901 FHL US/CAN Film 482940 Marriage applications, 1192-2187 June 1901-Dec 1903 FHL US/CAN Film 482941 Marriage applications, 2186-2576 Jan 1904-Sept 1905 FHL US/CAN Film 482942 Marriage applications, 2577-2845, 1-261 Sept 1905-June 1907 FHL US/CAN Film 482943
To avoid this when copying from tables in Firefox, you must include the beginning of the table. Then when you paste into Word you get:
| Note | Location | Film | |
| Marriage applications, 1-966, Jan 1897-Sept 1899 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482939 | |
| Marriage applications, 967-1194 Sept 1899-June 1901 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482940 | |
| Marriage applications, 1192-2187 June 1901-Dec 1903 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482941 | |
| Marriage applications, 2186-2576 Jan 1904-Sept 1905 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482942 | |
| Marriage applications, 2577-2845, 1-261 Sept 1905-June 1907 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482943 |
Some pasting problems can be resolved by first pasting into Windows Notepad. Then copy from Notepad and paste into your app. This breaks the films onto separate lines like this:
Marriage applications, 1-966, Jan 1897-Sept 1899 FHL US/CAN Film 482939
Marriage applications, 967-1194 Sept 1899-June 1901 FHL US/CAN Film 482940
Marriage applications, 1192-2187 June 1901-Dec 1903 FHL US/CAN Film 482941
Marriage applications, 2186-2576 Jan 1904-Sept 1905 FHL US/CAN Film 482942
Marriage applications, 2577-2845, 1-261 Sept 1905-June 1907 FHL US/CAN Film 482943
Hope this helps,
-- The Insider
At the 2011 BYU Family History Conference Robert Kehrer, FamilySearch product manager, said that the Family History Library Catalog (FHLC) has been rechristened as “the FamilySearch Catalog.” The name was changed because FamilySearch is gradually adding holdings from family history centers.
Whatever you call it, FamilySearch recently brought the contents of the new catalog—the one on www.familysearch.org—up to date with the old catalog—the one on classic.familysearch.org. Did you know the new catalog was not being kept up to date? I was surprised when I found out. Kehrer said they are in the process of putting together a system to update the new catalog nightly but it isn’t in place yet.
That’s not the only reason to keep using the old catalog.
Kehrer was quite apologetic about the state of the new catalog. “Our implementation of the FamilySearch catalog on the new website is not complete,” he said. “There are some very key features that are not yet implemented.” He listed several for us. Here are some shortcomings that bug me:
| Expected Results for Utah | New Catalog Results for Utah |
| Utah - Archives and libraries | African Americans - Utah - History |
Kehrer said FamilySearch will “keep the old catalog up until we get those features in.” Are there other catalog features you want added to the new catalog before FamilySearch shuts down the old one? Leave a comment below with your list and I’ll make certain he sees them.
Kehrer said that FamilySearch has tested and refined a great catalog design that he thinks “will delight you.” The old catalog design had a lot of “click depth.” The new design is meant to make it much “shallower.” I take this to mean that it takes a lot of mouse clicks to find what you want in the old catalog and Kehrer has a new design that takes fewer clicks.
I’m not in a position to know why FamilySearch would try to write their own catalog when there seems to be companies that specialize in catalogs. These companies probably have dozens of fulltime programmers that work full time on cataloging software and will do so year-in and year-out long after FamilySearch calls it quits on their catalog. Catalog companies know all the nuances. They’ve learned all the hard lessons. They keep up with the state of the art in library science and in technology. They amortize development costs across dozens of libraries. Why would FamilySearch think it can singlehandedly do it better and cheaper?
On the other hand, I don’t like 90% of the library catalogs I’ve used. OK, FamilySearch. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Go ahead. Delight me.
“Our goal at FamilySearch is to make as much genealogical data available for free as possible,” said Robert Kehrer, senior product manager for search technology at FamilySearch. Kehrer spoke about FamilySearch’s genealogical data at the 2011 BYU Family History Conference.
“We are adding new record collections almost every day or augmenting records to existing collections,” said Kehrer. This point was proved in the second session when Kehrer noticed that the collection count had increased from 680 to 681.
Toward their goal, sometimes FamilYSearch publishes collections without free access to images, according to Kehrer. As I’ve mentioned before, sometimes record custodians limit what FamilySearch can show. (See “South Davis Fair: Selective Blindness.”) Kehrer presented various limitation scenarios. Here are some of them, with an illustrative collection.
Kehrer says that FamilySearch has asked people if they think that FamilySearch should still publish the collections, even with such limitations. “They always say, ‘Yes, give me what you can.’”
Kehrer emphasized that FamilySearch never charges to see the images on FamilySearch.org.
The FamilySearch.org collection list shows a camera icon next to each collection with images. While it doesn’t currently differentiate among these scenarios, Kehrer said that in the future there would be some indication.
Collections are shown with the number of indexed records or the annotation “Browse Images.” Kehrer compared the latter to “digital microfilm.” Without an index, you have to browse through the images, sometimes one at a time, to find a record of interest. FamilySearch provides waypoints to facilitate browsing. Waypoints are like signposts marking off sets of images. Depending on the record type and organization, waypoints might divide up the images by location, date, or surname.
New collections are marked with a brown asterisk. Kehrer said that collections are marked new for about 2 weeks.
Kehrer didn’t know the answer, but I do. No; they are not online.
This is a hot button for me. I think of these family group charts like family bibles created by Mormons in the the ‘60s and ‘70s as part of the “four generation program.” Better than many family bibles, the charts specify the relationship between the informant and the husband on the chart. This gives an indication of how accurate the information might be. A couple even list sources. For descendency research, these records contain information not yet made public in state vital records or the U.S. census. For more information, see “Family Group Records Collection” in the FamilySearch Wiki.
Kehrer directed the audience members to the two programs that subsequently replaced the Four Generation Program: the Ancestral File and the Pedigree Resource File (PRF). Both of these are online. In fact, a new version of each was just published on www.FamilySearch.org. (See “The July 2011 Release of FamilySearch.org.”)
He is also looking to a distant future when each collection will have coverage information. He showed an example, but warned it hasn’t really been designed. Here’s my stab at what it might look like:
| Alabama Death Records 1908-1935: Available Online (Search Records or Browse Images) 1,858,819 Records, 504,847 Images Publication History: 18 Aug 2010: Initial 1,038,919 Records & 305,975 Images 23 Nov 2010: Added 200,142 Records & 101,525 Images 04 Feb 2011: Added 645,365 Records & 497,186 Images 1935-1970: Available on FHL Microfilm (See Catalog or Order Microfilm) About 2,000,000 Records Currently Being Indexed (Help Index) 1970-Present: Individual Records Available from the State (See Instructions) Alabama Center for Health Statistics P.O. Box 5625 Montgomery, Alabama 36103-5625 http://adph.org/vitalrecords (Order online from 3rd party vendor) |
I’m sorry; did I just drool? Hurry, Robert, hurry!
“My generation clicks on anything just to see what it does. Your generation doesn’t click on anything unless you know what it does,” said Ancestry.com’s Crista Cowan at the 2011 BYU Family History Conference. “I’m giving you permission to explore,” she said. Ancestry.com Public Profiles is one area we can explore. Profiles allow other researchers to find and approach you. (You don’t have to be a subscriber to create a personal profile. You can do it with a free account. )
Cowan’s own profile includes a picture and a couple of paragraphs about herself. She said that a picture and information make you more approachable. Particularly members of the younger generation don’t trust those who aren’t willing to open up a bit about themselves.
In your profile you can list how you’re willing to help others. You can list what surnames you are researching; you can narrow the focus by specifying the locations and date ranges.
Because “Last signed in” is broke, Cowan frequently updates her profile to show that she’s currently active.
You can list information about yourself: your gender, age group, other characteristics, and favorite websites. (Private message to Crista: The link to your home page is broken.)
Your profile shows your World Archives Project indexing activity. (The World Archives Project is Ancestry.com’s counterpart to FamilySearch Indexing. If you don’t find a project you wish to index on FamilySearch, consider checking the Ancestry.com projects.)
Cowan includes a link to a Facebook page she created for an ancestor, Daniel Shipman. I don’t have time to relate the Facebook portion of her presentation, but it is worth checking into the page so you can see what can be done.
To discover and collaborate with distant cousins, remember Cowan’s admonition: “I’m giving you permission to explore.”
A new version of the FamilySearch.org website was released last week and Kehrer showed several new features at the recent 2011 BYU Family History Conference.
FamilySearch added features to the list of historical record collections. As soon as you start typing in the search box, the titles displayed are filtered down to just those containing what you’re typing. For example, I typed in “par.” The number of listed collections dropped from 681 to 21 containing one of the words parish, Paraguay, or departure. Adding an i dropped the list to 18 parish register collections.
I selected United Kingdom as a location to further filter the list. Unfortunately, adding a place, date, or collection type clears the title filter. That’s annoying. I retyped “pari” and found that filtering by United Kingdom dropped the number of titles from 18 to 6. Additional filters are available for time frame, record type, and image collections.
Kehrer also showed that clicking on one of the column headers (Title, Records, and Last Updated) sorts the results using that column. This is handy. (I hope in the future FamilySearch will allow clicking a column a second time to reverse the sort order.)
The July release contains updated releases of two classic FamilySearch record collections: Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource File (PRF). Ancestral File on Classic.FamilySearch.org contained about 25 million records. The new release contains 40 million. The additional records come from Ancestral File submissions made before the program was shut down, but after the last release. The last version of PRF on Classic contained 120 million records. This latest release on FamilySearch.org contains 200 million records. This release was refreshed from the original submissions.
I appreciate the efforts to improve the source citations for these collections. An insider tells me that they are consulting with industry expert, Elizabeth Shown Mills. Because of increased privacy concerns FamilySearch can no longer include a key piece of information: the submitter. This further erodes the value of these large, suspect collections. Information providence is essential in judging evidence strength.
I understand that FamilySearch.org is trying to give us every reason to move from Classic to the latest FamilySearch.org. A 66% increase in the size of the Ancestral File and the Pedigree Resource File is a pretty big carrot for users of these record collections. Now if they only had pedigree and family group charts…
“Ancestry.com is an animal,” said Michelle Ercanbrack of Ancestry.com at the BYU Family History Conference. Ercanbrack’s session was “Tips and Techniques in Searching for Ancestors in Ancestry.com.”
“Ancestry.com is an animal. It is a huge resource,” she said. You’ll want to check back often to see new databases. Ercanbrack said that they are adding thousands of records each month. A box on the Ancestry.com home page features significant new collections.
For more, click the link “View all new records.” (Note: The widget looks differently if you are not logged in and the link is “See all new content.” I wonder if there is a good reason for the inconsistency?)
The list of collections can be filtered by country. Upcoming collections are highlighted in a box to the right of the list. Slated for this month are Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes census schedules and new mortality schedules. New U.S. Yearbooks are planned for next month. I noticed that on this page at least, Ancestry.com was moving away from the techie “database” moniker to the user friendly “record collection” terminology employed by FamilySearch to describe a collection of records. I’ll keep an eye out to see if the change is intentional and site wide.
I thought it significant that Ercanbrack took precious minutes away from her presentation to warn attendees about OCR databases. I have never done justice to my dislike of OCR databases. “These titles do not have manually created indexes,” said Ercanbrack. “Rather the computer ‘reads’ the digital image and offers matches it thinks best meet your search criteria.” She warned that “sometimes when you’re getting funky results it’s because of OCR databases.”
Ercanbrack suggested using global search (available on the home page or on the main search page) if you are new to Ancestry.com or to find “low hanging fruit.” Otherwise, you should consider searching a category or an individual collection. To find available collections, use the card catalog.
She said emphatically that we should give up old search. “New search is so much better as far as the results you get.” New search gives finer control of the search engine. You can specify geographic adjacency. (You must use advanced search and you must select the location from the Ancestry.com match list.)
You can specify name-matching criteria. (Catherine alone has over 800 variations.) Old-old search constrained you to exact matches; new search gives you field by field control. If you are hooked on old-old search’s presentation of search results, change the View to “Summarized by category.”
Ercanbrack pointed out that “member trees are a fantastic search tool.” You can use tree entries to auto-populate a search with all the information you know about a person.
I’ve said that for a long time. That’s how I do most all my searches on Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com may be an animal, but tree-assisted search is the cat’s meow.
