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After I pointed out Lynn Turner’s Hispanic Genealogy blog recently, I received this e-mail from a reader:

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I enjoy learning about new blogs that might help me. I have grandchildren that have ancestors from Spain through Mexico and to the U.S. and some of their relatives would also like me to help them find more info.

I tried the translate this page feature and although it's not 100% correct, it's good enough to read and I'll try it for a while. You never know where you may find help.

ANNE

Dear Anne,

What a marvelous idea! Many of us find ourselves increasingly helping others doing Hispanic research. Using one of the many translation tools available for Internet pages is a quick and easy way to unlock Spanish research information to English readers.

Sincerely,

-- The Ancestry Insider

Google’s Translate Page

If you have the Google toolbar, then even without the Translate button, you can easily translate a page using the steps illustrated below. Right click on the page. Click on Page Info, and then click Translate Page into English.

This is one of many reasons to use the Google Toolbar. Highly recommended.

The Power of Standards

P.S. Gosh I love the Internet! This is one of many, many examples illustrating the principles espoused by keynote speaker, Phil Windley, at the last FamilySearch Developers Conference. The power of adherence to standards (in this case, HTML) has lead to a serendipitous application (in this case, page translation).

NFS Rollout News: Your Stake’s Listed!

Watchers of the New FamilySearch (NFS) rollout in Utah and Idaho have seen release dates appear by the names of Logan stakes in this table:

I’ve thought on several occasions that it would be neat when the day came that a table showed up with the name of my stake. That day arrived last week some time, along with this list of remaining temple districts:

Click on the name of your temple district and look for your stake. Unfortunately, unless you are in the Logan district, you won’t be seeing any dates in the “Release Date” column. However, each table gives the names and e-mail addresses of the Area Family History Advisers assisting stakes with the rollout of NFS.

Locations	Advisers
Cache and Bear Lake Valleys, Wasatch front north from North Salt Lake. Morgan. Wyoming: Afton and Thayne.	Brent and Dianne Russon
Salt Lake Valley, I-80 Evanston to Wendover, Kamas, Park City.	LaMar and Marjorie Westra
Nevada and Arizona (Page)	Jim and Janyce Miller
Northern Utah Valley to Lindon, BYU, UVU	Randy Bryson
Southern Utah Valley to Orem	Max and Ruth Seamons
St. George Utah temple district (stakes in Utah)	Keith and Emily Anderson
Boise Idaho temple district	Ted and Marilyn Hess
Idaho Falls vicinity, Moore and Salmon	Larry and Kathy Killian
Rigby, Idaho vicinity: Terreton to Ririe	Barry and Phyllis Lewis
Pocatello, Idaho vicinity: Blackfoot to Arimo, American Falls	John and Toni Faddis

 

Speaking of Logan release dates, since my last rollout news, here’s what’s new:

• Seven stakes in the Logan district were given a release date last Monday and went live today, 15 June 2009.
• As I write this, it hasn’t happened yet, but if things go according to pattern, today another group of stakes in the Logan district will be given a release date, probably for 22 June 2009.
• Also, the Ogden district received notice on 11 June 2009; leaders and family history consultants now have access.

As always, all the latest information can be found at “Temple Districts Using New FamilySearch.” Keep everyone informed by sending your news to AncestryInsider@gmail.com .

More FamilySearch and Ancestry.com bloggers

Last time I told you about a couple of blogs by FamilySearch employees. Today, I’ve got a couple of Ancestry.com employee spouse blogs. I was also going to share another FamilySearch employee blog, but decided the author revealed too much personal information. Young people these days. They share so much. Maybe I’m just old, but sharing so much personal information is just not my cup of tea.

All Things Kendall and Carolina

On the All Things Kendall and Carolina blog, Carolina identifies herself as "being married to an employee of The Generations Network (aka Ancestry.com, aka MyFamily.com)." That would leave Kendall as the Ancestry.com employee.

Kendall, I was thinking it was weird that your wife submitted a mitochondrial test on her father rather than doing it on herself. Duh! Am I stupid. Not stupid enough to submit mitochondrial tests on both myself and my mother, but stupid enough to not realize the two additional ancestral lines that can be tested by doing a mitochondrial test on my father and a Y chromosome test on a maternal uncle. Thank Carolina for me.

A Spot of Sun

I wrote about this blog post before, but somehow the article has disappeared. So here’s my previous article:

Another spouse identified herself shortly after a The Generations Network Christmas party several years ago. You have to read Brooke's account of TGN's holiday party to get the full flavor of her gracious, charming personality. Here's just a short quote.

All night long the snow fell outside the windows while we partied. It made for the perfect holiday atmosphere. But the real treat was the "surprise" Christmas gift from Matt—a night at the resort sans kids...

This is just one happy view on our drive home.

It is hard to explain the happiness of the day. It just felt so perfect and happy. By far my best Christmas present!

Unless you own a dictionary of Mormon jargon, you'll want to stop before you get into her church party and words like stake, ward, primary, sunbeam, LDS and testimony.

But you don't want to miss the link to her Colorful Utah website and the exquisite photographs there.

Other Employee Bloggers at FamilySearch

Long time readers may remember my “Don’t get hit by the train” series about The Cluetrain Manifesto and employee bloggers. In the last article of the series, “Employees: Don't Get Hit by the Train — Part 4,” I listed the blogs I knew about by employees of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. In the 20 months since that article, I’ve come across a few more.

Reformed(?) Hacker

Reformed(?) Hacker is about technology, not genealogy. According to Naymz.com, site owner Lynn Monson is a “software engineer and architect at FamilySearch.org.” Monson describes himself as “Lead Architect, Unified System, LDS church.” In his most recent post, “Fielded search vs unstructured text,” mentions he’s having problems convincing product managers that Google’s single-box search form is inferior to the typical genealogy website search form, with boxes for given name, surname, birth date, etc.

According to Monson,

To date, I have not been able to convince the PM folks. They simply retort that “google does it, why can’t we?”. The numerous examples I respond with — demonstrating that google, in fact, does *not* do it properly — have been unconvincing. In addition, I happen to know, from a trusted source, that Google receives numerous complaints from genealogists over the behavior of their search engine on genealogical sources. The whole endeavor is going to come to a head soon. I need to find ways to convince them.

Yikes! That’s scary! It’s especially scary because New FamilySearch and Record Search Pilot already have anemic search forms. They only allow a single life event! You can’t specify both a birth place and a marriage year, as one might learn from a census. Perish the thought that they’re going to get worse! Don’t product managers monitor the market? Surely they saw the uproar over at Ancestry.com when New Search eliminated some fields from search forms.

Lynn, make them put Google to the test. Take a record site that Google has indexed and compare the search results using the site’s fielded search vs. a Google search with the “site:” qualifier restricting Google.

I have an ancestor named Paris Raymond. Google is especially fond of people with the given name Raymond. His hometown is Lincoln. Google is especially fond of a president by that name. His wife’s hometown is Paris, New York. When you have both Paris and New York in the same search, Google is absolutely certain you’re talking about major world cities. When it comes to my ancestors, Google blows chunks. (Can FamilySearch employees say that without offending one or more readers? I guess I’ll find out.)

And eBay? An absolute nightmare. I’d like to be notified if the family Bible ever came up for auction, but the flood of false positives wakes me up at night in cold chills.

Hispanic Genealogy

Hispanic Genealogy is another blog written by a FamilySearch employee named “Lynn.” Lynn Turner’s user profile says,

I graduated from BYU in Family History and Genealogy in 2004. My areas of expertise include Spain and Latin American. Currently I work for FamilySearch as a Record Specialist. I hope you enjoy the blog!

Turner is an accredited genealogist. He previously worked as a Reference Consultant. He has taught Computers and Technology in Family History at BYU conferences and presented at genealogy conferences in the U.S., Spain, and Colombia.

Even though he’s a top-notch co-worker, I’ve never read his blog. Why? It’s in Spanish!

Tomorrow, a couple more blogs. Stay tuned…

Book Cover Images From Amazon.com

Warning: This article is off topic. I provide it for the benefit of other bloggers, and I need a handy reference myself.

Sometimes I need a book cover image for a blog article. And generally, I get it from Amazon. I can generally fall within the fair use doctrine of copyright law by

1. using the image for non-commercial, educational use,
2. limiting usage to just the cover of the book,
3. using a small thumbnail of the cover, and
4. not compromising the market value of the cover or book.

I also try and return fair value in exchange for the value I receive. I do this by linking the image back to the Amazon page where they sell the book. (I’ve heard the Amazon terms and conditions require this.) Oh; and to avoid stealing bandwidth from Amazon, I download the image and host it on my blog instead of linking to it.

The URL format for Amazon book covers is:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/iiiiiiiiii.01._oooo_SCsZZZZZZZ_.jpg

iiiiiiiiii is the 10-digit ISBN with the dashes removed. If you examine the URL when viewing a book product page on Amazon.com, you’ll likely see an alternative code of the form /I/xxxxxxxxxxx. While I don’t know what it means, be advised that this identifier can change over time.

_oooo is an option which you can leave out, or include one or more of

• _PAm,x,y,b – shadow: m=margin; x,y=offset right,down; b=blur (example: _PA10,5,5,10)
• _PB – shadow below and left
• _PC – shadow below and right
• _BOw,r,g,b – border: w=width; r,g,b=color (0-255) (example: _BO5,255,0,0)

If you see any of the following options used on images on Amazon, you generally want to remove them to get rid of the icon from the cover image:

• _PGaaaa – place icon aaaa along bottom of image
• _PHaaaa – place icon aaaa along top of image
• _PIaaaa,o,x,y – place icon aaaa at x,y relative to origin o.

SCsZZZZZZZ is the size code and can be

• SCTZZZZZZZ – tiny (85 x 121)
• SCMZZZZZZZ – medium (124 x 176)
• SCLZZZZZZZ – large (389 x 550)
• SXx – set width to x (example: SX50)
• SYy – set height to y (example: SY50)
• SLs – set size of longer dimension to s (example: SL50)
• SSs – set size of longer dimension to s, then white fill to get a square image (example SS50)
• AAs – same as SS. Change to SL to eliminate whitespace.

Be forewarned that the size specified will be the final size of the image, and the book cover will be reduced in size to account for any adornments added such as shadows and borders.

Enjoy!

For more information, see Nat Gertler, “Abusing Amazon images,” AAUGH.com (http://aaugh.com/imageabuse.html : accessed 9 June 2009).

See the Insider at the SCGS 2009 Jamboree

The Southern California Genealogical Society (SCGS) Genealogy Jamboree is coming up Friday-Sunday, 26-28 June 2009 at the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel and Convention Center. And I’m going to be part of a panel discussion, “Summit 2: Son of Blogger,” Saturday Morning from 9:30 am to 12:00 noon!

Son of Blogger participants are:

• George G. Morgan, Moderator
• DearMYRTLE
• Leland Meitzler
• Dick Eastman
• Stephen Danko, Ph.D.
• Lisa Louise Cooke
• Schelly Talalay Dardashti
• Craig Manson
• The Ancestry Insider – I’m also listed alongside FamilySearch heavyweights Paul Nauta and David Rencher, but it should be noted that I am not representing FamilySearch. I’m attending as a myself. Or my other me, if you know what I mean…

It is indeed an honor to be asked to participate. However, audience feedback from last year warns us not to spend time worshiping the noted bloggers in the group. Since we’re not supposed to during the event, may I just say that I’m blown away to have so many competent writers both on the podium and out in the audience. Other noted bloggers such as Randy Seaver will be in attendance. (Go easy on us, Randy!) This should be a great event. Come by and say hello! I love meeting the real people at the other end of the network cable.

“Ancestry Insider! You just attended the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree! What are you going to do now?!?” “I’m going to Disneyland!!!”

But I digress…

Would you like to submit questions to the blogger panel? Now’s the time. Send your questions to Paula Hinkel at phinkel@pacbell.net .

Next Monday, 15 June 2009, is the last day to preregister or sign up for banquets or breakfasts. Register at www.scgsgenealogy.com . For additional information about the jamboree, visit www.genealogyjamboree.blogspot.com .

NFS Rollout News: IOUs, IOUSs and IOSs

It has been a little while and I owe you (IOU) an update on the rollout of New FamilySearch (NFS) to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Since our last update, the following has occurred:

• Last Thursday family history consultants from the Salt Lake and Bountiful temple districts received word that they were beginning the transition to NFS.
• Five stakes in Logan went live on 2 June 2009 and another ten today.

As always, all the latest information can be found at “Temple Districts Using New FamilySearch.” Keep everyone informed by sharing your news at AncestryInsider@gmail.com .

Individuals of Unusual Size

IOUSs (individuals of unusual size) is the term used to describe the software glitch that held up the deployment of NFS to Utah and Idaho. I call this the red zone because my rollout map utilizes green, yellow, red traffic semaphore colors. When the rollout stalled last year, all the world was green (using NFS) except Las Vegas, which was yellow (in transition) and Utah and Idaho districts, which were all red (not yet in transition).

I believe that IOUSs continue to be the limiting factor in the velocity of the rollout to the Red Zone. Lately, we’ve seen a variety of methods used to control the rollout speed.

We’ve seen:

• An experiment in Vernal. The nature of this experiment has never been mentioned publicly, but I understand it is over. All members of the Church in Vernal now have full access to NFS.
• As previously covered in this column, the publicly available Product Support pages of FamilySearch.org documented giving members in Utah “read-only access” to NFS. Shortly after that article appeared, the list of temples that would get read-only access disappeared from the site. Read-only access is perhaps just an uncertain experiment planned for the future or held in the past.
• In St. George, the rollout invitation originally went to the Church’s family history consultants only and required consultants to finish training lessons before gaining access to NFS. Presumably, this would smooth out the number of new NFS users over time instead of having all the new users hit the system simultaneously. If I understand correctly, this experiment ended and all consultants in the St. George district now can register for NFS.
• In the Logan district, consultants in five of its 43 stakes were given advance access to NFS to allow training and familiarization before the membership at large was given access a few weeks later. (A stake is a geographic subdivision of a temple district, somewhat comparable to a diocese.) This pattern was repeated for ten more stakes who received full access today. Stake-by-stake rollout will continue in Logan until all stakes have access.
• In the Mount Timpanogos temple district, the temple semi-retired TempleReady today and has started using NFS, even though members don’t have access to NFS. (TempleReady was a software program used by members of the Church to request temple ordinances for their ancestors.) The ramification on members in the Mount Timpanogos district is immediate and if you’re not prepared, it can be a little disconcerting.

Note: While I attempt to explain jargon specific to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for you, my friends who are not members, the remainder of this article is unlikely to be of any interest outside Church members.

If not TempleReady, What?

As in the Timpanogos district today, when a temple converts to NFS prior to the temple’s patrons, the method for making ordinance requests changes. Instead of taking a TempleReady disk to the temple, patrons take a Family Ordinance Request (FOR).

To assist patrons in the preparation of FORs, family history consultants at family history centers (FHCs) and in local wards have been given NFS accounts and a special feature called “Sign in to Help Someone Else.” In “NFS’s Helper Feature” I discussed misinformation going around stating that consultants shouldn’t use the Helper Feature. Some of this information comes from official sources, such as KB 105521 which currently states, “Signing on as a helper in the new FamilySearch when someone is not registered can be risky.” Another, KB 100546, can be misinterpreted if not read carefully. While support missionaries are instructed not to make changes for users when using Helper, family history consultants can and should.

IOSs to the Rescue

In the Timpanogos district today, and in other districts utilizing this split mode—temple on NFS, patrons not—patrons will follow this process to request temple ordinances for ancestors:

Your membership record number is located near
the top of your Individual Ordinance Summary.
Image Credit: © 2009 IRI, All rights reserved.
1. Ordinance requests are now tied to a Church member’s membership. The Church will know who submitted the offending request the next time someone submits ordinances for President Obama’s parents. Consequently, you will need to bring your membership number with you when you come to create a temple submission. The number recorded on your temple recommend may or may not be correct. The safe approach is to get an Individual Ordinance Summary (IOS) from your ward clerk. Your membership record number is located near the top, as shown to the right.
2. Meet with your family history consultant at the family history center (FHC), your home, or another location where you have (preferably high-speed) access to the Internet. Bring your membership number and your genealogy.
3. The consultant will log in to NFS using his or her own account. Then the consultant will “Sign in to Help Someone Else” as explained in this knowledge base article. The consultant will need your full name, date of birth, and your helper access number, which is the last five digits of your membership record number. Note that confirmation date is not necessary to be helped.
4. Using the skills the consultant has learned in the training lessons, the consultant will help you search NFS to prevent duplication of the ordinances you desire to submit.
5. For ordinances that haven’t been completed, the consultant will help you enter the information about your ancestors. As each is entered, select the option to print later. This allows you to combine all the names onto one submission. (See “Include More Than One Person on a Family Ordinance Request.”)
6. Once you have checked and entered all the ancestors for your submission, the consultant will then help you print a Family Ordinance Request (FOR) from the Temple Ordinance tab of NFS. The FOR takes the place of a TempleReady disk.
7. Take the FOR to the temple. The temple will print ordinance cards for you.

See “Switching from Personal Ancestral File, TempleReady, Ancestral File, and the Pedigree Resource File” for more information.

Ancestry.com California Death Index

I recently received this e-mail from one of my readers:

Hi! Been reading about the Ancestry.com search and the frustrations therein. Thought I'd send along a great example.

Looking for Fredrick Murphy, born 1902 and died in California.

If you follow the links below, you will find that he does come up when you search RootsWeb’s California Death Index, but does NOT come up when you search the same database in Ancestry.com.

* sigh *
Cherie in OC

• http://vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/search.cgi
• http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?rank=0&f1=fredrick&f2=&f0=murphy&sx=&f4Day=&f4Month=&f4Year=1902&f6=&f5Day=&f5Month=&f5Year=&f7=&f10=&f9=&f3=&f8=&prox=1&f4=++1902&f5=++&db=cadeath1940&ti=0&ti.si=0&gl=&gss=ERROR&gst=&so=3

Dear Cherie,

Thanks for your question. Problems with the Ancestry.com search software are one thing. Problems in the databases which are searched by that software are another. The deficiencies of the Ancestry.com “California Death Index, 1940-1997” database have been discussed several times by genealogists. See for example the long discussions started with each of the following messages.

• Phil Carnahan. “Ancestry California Death Index.” NORCAL. RootsWeb mailing list. 24 June 2008. http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/NORCAL : accessed 25 May 2009. Message 1214357113.
• R_J_S [Randy J Seaver]. “California Death Index - Ancestry vs Rootsweb.” APG. RootsWeb mailing list. 6 February 2007. http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/APG : accessed 25 May 2009. Message 1170791828.

According to the post by Randy Seaver, the Ancestry.com database has 8,194,784 records, which is smaller than the RootsWeb database by 13.5%. Almost a year ago Phil Carnahan asked Ancestry.com for comment and was told:

We appreciate your message. We apologize for any inconvenience. At this time we are working to complete the posting of information in the California death index . We do not have an official release schedule for future postings. Certain information may not currently be available due to varying issues. These include (but are not limited to) research, rescanning, and quality assurance matters. We will complete the posting of this database as quickly as possible, but there will be some delay before the entire project is completed. Thank you for your patience.

PLEASE NOTE: In addition to the above issues governing when more information is added to this database, this data is supplied by a third party. Periodic updates to this database are provided to Ancestry.com as these are made by the organization responsible for collecting this information. However, the frequency of these updates varies.

Another poster, EdrieAnne Broughton attributes the missing entries to California privacy laws.

This [Ancestry.com] database cannot be updated due to California privacy laws and I doubt they are going to waste manpower and resources to pick up the missing [names] from the first transcriptions.

Other Online Sources

The California Death Index (CADI) is available from several other sources online.

While the RootsWeb.com “California Death Records [1940-1997]” database has 9,366,786 records, it is not without its problems. One poster noted a wrong birthplace in the RootsWeb CADI and a correct birthplace in the Ancestry.com CADI. Carnahan noted in a later post,

I tried a search for anyone born in 1900 on RootsWeb and found none. I tried the same search on Ancestry and found many. I then jumped over to the CDs issued by the state and guess what, there are no births listed on the death index as 1900 on any of the CDs. I checked a couple Ancestry said were born in 1900 and the CDs had them listed as being born in 1901. I finally found a death listed in the Ancestry CADI which was also listed in the SSDI [Social Security Death Index]. The RootsWeb CADI and CDs gave a birth year as 1901 and the Ancestry CADI and SSDI gave a birth year as 1900. I guess we're all forewarned! None of these resources can be fully trusted to be correct.

The source listed for the RootsWeb CADI is “The California Department of Health Services Office of Health Information and Research vital Statistics Section.” Carnahan’s post makes it appear that this source is the set of CDs issued by the state of California. The source for the Ancestry.com CADI must be something else.

The SFgenealogy.net “California Death Index (1940-1997)” database contains 9,366,409 records (5,130,708 males and 4,235,701 females). This total is a smidgen less than the RootsWeb.com database, which makes me wonder if they have the same source.

I wasn’t able to identify how many records were in the www.familytreelegends.com “California Deaths, 1940-1997” database, although I was able to search the database for free. It does have births from 1900. Apparently, their database was previously published by Pearl Street Software in 2004-5. Beyond that, I don’t know the source of their data.

I am also unable to identify how many records were in the www.vitalsearch-ca.com “1940-2000 Death Index Summary,” which can only be searched by “Premium Search Members.”

Source of the Sources

This information makes it clear there are at least two separate sources for the different online California Death Indexes. One is the set of CDs previously mentioned. Phil Van Camp gives a titch more information about the CDs in a post.

Calif[ornia]'s dept of Vital Statistics was selling it, a set of three CD's [covering deaths] from 1940 - 1979 for approximately $100, last I heard.

Unfortunately, last I heard, those CDs are no longer available for purchase. According to the Family History Library Catalog, the CDs are available for use at the Family History Library. Pt. 1 covers 1940-1979 and Pt. 2 covers 1980-1997.

Another source for the CALI is a set of microfiche. See “California Death Index” by Sandra Harris and Dan Mosier on www.sfgenealogy.com. According to this article, some California libraries that have parts of the fiche set are:

• Oakland Main Library, 1940-1987
• Sacramento, California State Library, 1905-1990
• San Francisco Main Library History Center (6th Floor), 1940-1987
• San Francisco Sutro Library, 1940-1993
• Santa Clara Library, 1940-1987
• Thousand Oaks, Thousand Oaks Library, years not stated

Film and fiche for 1905-1994 are listed in the Family History Library Catalog. There are no notices excluding lending to local family history centers (FHCs), so I’m guessing that these films and fiche can be loaned to your local FHC. However, some of the fiche are in sets of 100+ fiche with loan fees of $.15 per fiche, so you are looking at more than the standard $5.50 film rental rate for some dates. Once the FHC has the fiche, it may keep it indefinitely.

Name counts for Newspapers

Last Friday I was excited to see Ancestry.com had added a whole lot of new newspapers to its collection. I took especial notice of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle of Bozeman, Montana and immediately checked it out.

You’ll be happy to know that if you need the Daily Chronicle for 14 October 1926, you’re in luck because that is the only issue in Ancestry.com’s collection. I previously complained about Ancestry.com’s Salt Lake Tribune database. Number of issues at the time? Two. (I’m pleased to find as I write this article that they’ve beefed up the Tribune considerably. However, according to the card catalog, the database has never been updated. That may be why the additions were never announced on the New and Updated Databases page. But I digress…)

The new card catalog can be used to identify the leanest newspapers in the Ancestry.com collection. Sort by record count and page through to the end of the list.

Interestingly, all the sizes are multiples of 60. If one investigates the last newspaper in the list, one finds it is comprised of a single page from a single issue. One can also verify that the papers with size of 120 have but two pages. Continuing, one finds that the number of pages is equal to the reported size divided by 60.

Title	Size	Pages
Chicago Daily News (Chicago, Illinois)	360	6
Weekly Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada)	360	6
Decatur Daily Review (Decatur, Illinois)	360	6
The Daily Mail (Charleroi, Pennsylvania)	300	5
The Southern Immigrant (Cullman, Alabama)	300	5
The Hancock News (Hancock, Wisconsin)	240	4
The State Sentinel (Decatur, Illinois)	240	4
East St Louis Journal (East Saint Louis, Illinois)	240	4
Californian (Monterey, California)	240	4
Bulletin Sentinel (Decatur, Illinois)	120	2
Bridgeport Sunday Post (Bridgeport, Connecticut)	120	2
Weekly Decatur Magnet (Decatur, Illinois)	60	1
New York Times (April 15th, 1865)	60	1
The Mountain Democrat and Placerville Times (Placerville, California)	60	1

 

Why does Ancestry.com claim newspaper sizes 60 times larger than actually size?

You may recall we previously saw an anomaly in the new card catalog that led us to the assumption that the size displayed by the card catalog is a name count rather than a record count. (See “Extras in the Ancestry.com New Card Catalog.”) Ancestry.com needs to identify what they mean by “Size.”

So what is the probability that each page of these newspapers has exactly 60 names?

Not very likely, is it? In response to my article “Unbelievable Name Count Claims,” Paul Allen of WorldVitalRecords.com commented that vendors sometimes estimate the number of names in a database.

Name counts in OCR databases

Estimation is necessary for non-table-style databases such as books and newspapers because the index is an every-word index, obtained via OCR. OCR, optical character recognition, is a software process wherein a computer program attempts to read the images and create a matching document with all the words found on the image.

After the task of recognizing words, the computer still doesn’t know what the words mean. What you and I easily recognize as a person’s name is beyond the computer’s ability to identify with any degree of certainty. Thus, newspaper vendors must estimate the number of names present.

Obviously, some pages will have more and some less. To be sure, the subject of a news article will likely be named multiple times. Should a vendor attempt to count unique names? That will undercount the actual number of names. Should a vendor attempt to count unique people? Equating and differentiating people requires intelligence well beyond that of machines.

It would seem from our table above that Ancestry.com assumes an average of 60 names per page across all the pages of a newspaper. In my career, I’ve seen samples justifying higher numbers, when repeated names are included. Overall, I think 60 is very reasonable.

My recommendations to Ancestry.com and FamilySearch (and other vendors) are to be completely transparent in your size claims:

• Don’t report a size number without identifying if it is a record count or a name count
• Report record counts, name counts, and image counts
• For table-style databases, report the actual number of names present
• When an estimated count is published, designate it as such (I favor use of the approximation symbol (≈) to identify estimated numbers)
• For estimated counts, document how the estimate was obtained

Ancestry.com’s New Newspapers

Here’s the entire list of new newspapers posted Friday:

Genealogy Database Title	Posted
Deming Headlight, The (Deming, New Mexico)	5/29/2009
Star Herald (Scottsbluff, Nebraska)	5/29/2009
Bozeman Daily Chronicle (Bozeman, Montana)	5/29/2009
Dundee Record (Dundee, New York)	5/29/2009
Daily Journal (Herrin, Illinois)	5/29/2009
Boone Svenska Herald (Boone, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Cherokee Daily Times (Cherokee, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Dyersville Commerrial (Dyersville, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Evening Journal Farm Edition (Washington, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Gladbrook Tama Northern (Gladbrook, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Grinnell Herald Register (Grinnell, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Hopkinton Leader (Hopkinton, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Humboldt Republican (Humboldt, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Jewell Record (Jewell, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Lake City Graphic (Lake City, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Leon Journal Record (Leon, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Lone Tree Reporter (Johnson, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Manchester Democrat Radio (Manchester, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Manning Monitor (Manning, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Marshall County Time (Marshall, Iowa)	5/29/2009
North Iowa Times (McGregor, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Sac Sun (Sac County, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Schaller Herald (Schaller, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Story City Herald (Story City, Iowa)	5/29/2009
The Alabama Courier (Athens, Alabama)	5/29/2009
Bruce News-Letter (Bruce, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Green-Bay Intelligencer (Navarino, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
The Fairfield Daily Ledger (Fairfield, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Indiana Progress (Abbeville, Alabama)	5/29/2009
The Western Telegraph (Rossville, Ohio)	5/29/2009
Chicago Heights Star Sports (Chicago Heights, Illinois)	5/29/2009
Belmont Gazette (Belmont, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Oconomowoc Democrat (Oconomowoc, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Yellow River Lumberman (Necedah, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Oconto County Enterprise (Oconto, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Du Buque Visitor (Du Buque, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Winnebago Anzeiger (Menasha, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
The Maiden Rock Press (Maiden Rock, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
The Rice Lake Times (Rice Lake, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
The Benton Advocate (Benton, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
The Revealer (Bloomington, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
The People's Champion (Ellsworth, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Prison Press (Waupun, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
The Fairchild Graphic (Fairchild, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Fox Lake Representative (Fox Lake, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
The Wisconsin Standard (Geneva, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Voice-Herald (Hales Corners, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
The Breeze (Pardeeville, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Beloit Journal, of Politics, Literature, and General Intelligence (Beloit, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Agitator (Wellsborough, Pennsylvania)	5/29/2009
Arizona Silver Belt (Miami, Arizona)	5/29/2009
Charleston Daily Mail (Charlestown, West Virginia)	5/29/2009
Fort Dodge Messenger And Chronicle (Fort Dodge, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Horicon Argus (Horicon, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Lockhart Post-Register (Lockhart, Texas)	5/29/2009
Marble Rock Journal (Marble Rock, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Monroe Sentinel (Monroe, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Mt Pleasant News (Mt Pleasant, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Natrona County Tribune (Casper, Wyoming)	5/29/2009
Neenah Bulletin (Neenah, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Newcastle News-Journal (Newcastle, Wyoming)	5/29/2009
Northwestern Record (Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Reedsburg Herald (Reedsburg, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Richland County Observer (Richland Center, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Mt Ayr Journal (Mount Ayr, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Fayette Journal (Fayetteville, West Virginia)	5/29/2009
Lebanon Daily News (Lebanon, Pennsylvania)	5/29/2009
West Eau Claire Argus (West Eau Claire, Wisconsin)	5/29/2009
Milford Mail (Milford, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Terril Record (Terril, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Lake Park News (Lake Park, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Spirit Lake Beacon (Spirit Lake, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Adams County Free Press (Corning, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Desert Hot Springs Sentinel (Desert Hot Springs, California)	5/29/2009
Aiken Standard (Aiken, South Carolina)	5/29/2009
Tyrone Daily Herald (Tyrone, Pennsylvania)	5/29/2009
Daily News (Huntingdon, Pennsylvania)	5/29/2009
Tyrone Star (Tyrone City, Pennsylvania)	5/29/2009
Evening Chronicle (Marshall, Michigan)	5/29/2009
Sioux County Capital (Orange City, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Alton Democrat (Alton, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Boyden Reporter (Boyden, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Sioux Center News (Sioux Center, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Hospers Tribune (Hospers, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Ireton Ledger (Ireton, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Maurice Times (Maurice, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Sioux County Index (Hull, Iowa)	5/29/2009
Avalanche (Lubbock, Texas)	5/29/2009
Laredo Times (Laredo, Texas)	5/29/2009

New features coming to FamilySearch Indexing

Tuesday, 26 May 2009, FamilySearch announced that new features were coming to FamilySearch Indexing. Friday, they announced a delay in the downtime previously scheduled for 1 June 2009.

New features in FamilySearch Indexing

Several new features are included in the upcoming FamilySearch Indexing version 1.7.

Tip of the Day. A popup titled “Tip of the Day” will come up when you start FamilySearch Indexing.

 Passwords. You can choose a password that doesn’t include a symbol. However, passwords still require at least one numeral.

Project Preferences. You can select preferences for the indexing projects you wish to index:

• the difficulty level and
• the languages you can read.

Project Selection Dialog Box. The Download From... Project Selection dialog box (below) includes three new features.

• The project Selection dialog box will have the option to show only those projects that match your preferences.
• The Project Selection dialog box will also display the difficulty level of each project.
• Double-clicking a project will be a short-cut that will download a batch.

Batch Sharing. This feature allows someone to view a batch you are working on so they can help you. For example, if you have a question that you need someone in Support to help you with, you could share the batch with them. Or you could share the batch with a friend who could help you with the handwriting. However, only the original indexer can save changes to the batch.

Prior to sharing a batch, you should save your work. Then click on File and Share Batch. FamilySearch Indexing will display a message reading

Contact the person you want to share this batch with and give him or her the following number: XXXXX.

Give this number to the person you want to help you. That person views your batch by taking the following steps:

• Open the FamilySearch Indexing application.
• Click the File menu, then select View Shared Batch…
• Enter the sharing number and click OK.
• To display the latest data typed and saved by the indexer, click on the File menu, then click Retrieve from Server.

Image Type. Image Type will be the first field in every batch. You will select the description of each image (such as Normal, Blank, or Duplicate) from the list provided.

New Icons. The icons used to mark a field or record unreadable will have a blue question mark on them instead of a red slash.

Header Data Tab. A new tab in the data entry area will enable indexers to enter information that applies to an entire document just once. Not all batches will include this tab, but if it is included, it will open first when you download a batch. I believe this is a feature available in Ancestry.com’s World Archives Project.

Mid-batch Quality Check. Click the Quality Checker tab before getting to the last field of the last record and you can see and correct all errors up to that point. You won’t be warned, however, about empty required fields until you do the final quality check.

Fields Marked for Review. To mark fields for review, you can choose to display either the red wavy line as in the past, or the colored background. (Is that what the Ancestry.com World Archives Project uses?) You can also change the color and transparency.

You can read more in the Help article, “FamilySearch Indexing: What’s new in indexing for release 1.7.”

Click the Start Indexing button on the
FamilySearch Indexing web page if you
have problems after the upgrade.

Downtime postponed

Along with the new features, FamilySearch announced an associated downtime when the new features would be rolled out. Friday, they announced that the downtime previously scheduled for 1 June 2009 from 9 AM to 5 PM (MDT) would be delayed for as much as a week. FamilySearch will post a notice during the week giving at least 24 hours warning before the downtime actually occurs.

Usually, when a new version of FamilySearch Indexing is available, it will download to your computer automatically. But if it doesn’t, you may experience problems using FamilySearch Indexing. During this week, or the first time you index after this week, if you experience problems, close FamilySearch Indexing, go to the FamilySearch Indexing web site (http://indexing.familysearch.org) and click the Start Indexing button (see illustration above or to the right). This should download the new version 1.7 to your computer if it hasn’t already. This will fix any problems associated with using the old version on your computer after FamilySearch headquarters is using the new version.