Thursday, May 26, 2016

News Ketchup for 26 May 2016

Ancestry Insider KetchupBehind again. Time to catch up.

BulletTreeDrew Smith, the most recent recipient of the National Genealogical Society’s Filby Award, recently shared a fun genealogy version of Jeopardy. See https://jeopardylabs.com/play/genealogical-librarian. Challenge a genealogy friend to a match! I think you’ll like it.

BulletTreeThe Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy has announced several scholarships to attend their annual institute. “SLIG will be held at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center hotel, January 22-27, 2017. Fourteen courses of in-depth study on a wide array of genealogical topics are being offered to help students ‘elevate [their] genealogical education to new heights.’” For more information about the scholarships, see http://ugagenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/05/slig-scholarship-opportunities.html.

Bullet Ancestry.comAncestry.com has purchased Adpay, Inc., owners of Memoriams.com, an obituary submission website. Memoriams.com is a website that allows funeral directors to place obituaries in local newspaper and out-of-area publications in a single order. It supports 3,000 newspapers in the U.S. The website is designed for funeral homes and newspapers, so don’t look to use it personally. I don’t know if Ancestry will leverage the website to acquire obituaries for Ancestry.com, but I’m hoping it does. See the full announcement at http://corporate.ancestry.com/press/press-releases/2016/05/ancestry-acquires-adpay-inc/.

Bullet Ancestry.comEarlier this month Ancestry enhanced their DNA analysis software. The enhancement increases the precision of DNA matching while changing recall of correct matches. You’ll recall Ancestry vice president Kendall Hulet defined the two terms in his RootsTech 2016 luncheon. “Precision is finding the right stuff,” he said. In other words, some percentage of DNA matches are wrong and this enhancement decreases that percentage. Matching algorithms not only return a few bad results, they also miss a few good ones. The ability to match all the good results is called recall. The new enhancement changes the recall. A few good results that were previously returned now are not. If you starred or made notes about a match that no longer appears, Ancestry is allowing you to download them for a limited time. Click here for step-by-step instructions.

The enhancement is free for all customers and has already been applied to your results. For more information, see “AncestryDNA’s Cutting-Edge Science Gets Even Sharper” on the Ancestry blog. For a high level overview of the advances in the science, see “The Science Behind a More Precise DNA Matching Algorithm” on the Ancestry technology blog. For a deep dive into the science, see “AncestryDNA Matching White Paper,” a 46 page PDF file.

Bullet Ancestry.comSpeaking of AncestryDNA, Facebook reader Frank Guzzo has alerted me to a preliminary ruling in the trademark infringement case involving AncestryDNA and AncestrybyDNA. The court has denied Ancestry’s request for a preliminary injunction. Ancestry had asked that the judge make DNA Diagnostic Center (DDC) stop using the trademark AncestrybyDNA immediately. The judge ruled that DDC can continue using their trademark AncestrybyDNA while the case is litigated.

Ancestry registered the trademark ANCESTRYDNA on 22 January 2013. The ANCESTRYBYDNA trademark was placed on the Principal Register on 25 March 2008. However, Ancestry has asked that the DDC trademark be cancelled due to alleged fraud.

For more information about the case, see “Ancestry.com Files a Trademark Case Against DNA Diagnostics Center” on CeCe Moore’s blog, Your Genetic Genealogist. To read the judge’s order, see “Ancestry.com Operations Inc. et al v. DNA Diagnostic Center, Inc., Filing 60” on the Justia website. (Thank you, Frank.)

Bullet Ancestry.comAncestry spent $77.1 million in measured media advertising in 2015, up from $63 in 2015. During the first quarter, Ancestry.com had 8.3 million unique visitors. This is up from 7.4 million unique visitors for all of 2015 and 8.2 for 2014. For more information, see “Omnicom Adds Ancestry.com to Continue Winning Streak” at Adweek.

Ach! I didn’t even have time to catch up!

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