Ancestry Killer, Six Years Later

Here’s something interesting I ran into recently in my tickler file:

LDS Church Building “Ancestry/MyFamily Killer”

Word on the street has it that the LDS Church [FamilySearch] is in the process of building a completely free service that will “bury” Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com. I’ve heard the board at MyFamily.com [Ancestry.com] is “freaked” because people inside the LDS Church working on the project have dubbed it the “Ancestry Killer”. I’d be a little nervous too.

According to my source, the LDS Church has put an incredible amount of resources toward the project. Apparently they have brought in top talent from Microsoft and Oracle to build the service. They have been working on it for sometime and are in the process of testing and transferring data to the new service from existing records. I don’t think this will bode well for any genealogy service charging a subscription fee including the newly minted worldvitalrecords.com. That would make the new service more than just an Ancestry killer. It would make it a category killer and that is one huge online category. …

Wow!

Can anyone else shed light on this issue? …

October 12th, 2006

From the wording, I’m pretty certain that this article speaks of New FamilySearch. For what it’s worth, nobody in my circles at FamilySearch considered it an Ancestry killer.

Well, a lot of things have happened in the past six years, but the death of Ancestry.com is not one of them. Quite the opposite. Ancestry has thrived. Perhaps someone from Ancestry could look up and post a comment with some stats comparing today’s numbers (revenues, profitability, subscribers, record count) with 2006’s.

FamilySearch Family Tree will soon replace New FamilySearch. At that time, ironically, New FamilySearch is scheduled to be terminated.

Echo King: Result Ranking Unveiled

Echo King presented “Searching Ancestry.com” at the 2012 BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy. King is director content product manager for Ancestry.

Relevance Ranking

“The way that we rank things [determines] the order in which we display things,” said King about how Ancestry decides the order of search results. Ancestry uses a system called relevance ranking to guess which results are most relevant to your search and display them first. As you proceed down the list, less and less relevant results are displayed.

“Behind the scenes we are doing all this scoring of different fields,” she said. “Different fields contribute differently.” A match on the last name is considered more important and is given a higher score than a match on given name. Date and place matches come next. Matches in other fields come last.

Scores are affected by partial matches. A misspelled name has a lower score. Estimated dates score lower. Anything inside a date range scores the same. For example, 1966 +/-1 gives the same score to 1965, 1966, and 1967.

There is a weakness in Ancestry’s ability to guess which results are the ones you are interested in. “The more fields that are indexed in a collection, the higher the score. That is not always a good thing,” said King. “That is why censuses are almost always at the top of the list.” City directories have very few fields, sometimes just first name, last name, and location. Lots of results with partial matches can show up higher than an exact match in a city directory, which has few fields.

Consequently, “don’t assume that you can do one search and find every record about a person,” King said. Consider two different search strategies. One is to start by specifying just basic information about an ancestor. Then iteratively add more information and examine the results. The other strategy is to start with everything you know about an ancestor and iteratively remove information. In either case, search specific collections where you feel your ancestor should appear.

There is another weakness you may encounter. “The drop down list [of locations] is not perfect. We’re working on improving that,” she said. If the location does not appear, she suggested putting the name in the keywords field. I always use the location field, since it allows entry of locations not in the list.

If you don’t want Ancestry ranking the results of your searches, the feature can be disabled by changing the view setting above the first result. Change the view from “Sorted by relevance” to “Summarized by Category.”

Ancestry has corrected a weakness you may have experienced in the past. Results outside a person’s lifespan are filtered. Results are filtered out that occur more than five years prior to birth or two years after death. If only the birth or only the death is specified, the person is assumed to have lived for 100 years.

Ancestry has fixed another weakness you may encounter: receiving results for the wrong country. Use the Collection Priority feature to limit results to a particular country. This setting is remembered and must be explicitly changed as desired.

Search Types

“There are lots of different ways to search the records,” said King.

Global search searches all collections. Global search is performed from the home page or from the search page.

Category search searches a group of collections that have a common theme such as all immigration records or all U.S. census records. “Why would you want to search on a category?” she asked. “Because you get fields that are specific to a category of records.” For example, a category search of immigration records allows searching by the name of a ship. If a field is not present, use the keyword field. I’ve used this to get all the names on a single page of a census. There are two ways to locate a search category. Hover over the search menu. Or click search and pick from the list of categories along the right-hand side of the page.

Collection search searches a single record collection. “I often use collection specific searches as well,” said King.

Other Points

• You can use a wildcard anywhere in a name, even at the beginning, but you must have at least three letters.
• “It can take up to 45 days for [a correction] to show up in the search [index].”
• If a census household has a mother-in-law with a different surname than the household head, Ancestry might add an alternate name for the wife because they think they know the wife’s maiden name.
• To print a record, don’t use the browser print. Click on print just above the image.
• Searching newspapers takes a different strategy because newspapers are indexed using OCR.

Monday Mailbox: Classroom Use of the Ancestry Insider

Dear Insider,

I read at the end of your article: “All content is copyrighted by the Ancestry Insider unless designated otherwise. See http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com for other important legal notices.” I know this sounds dumb, but does this mean that I can't copy and use it as a handout in my Sunday School Class on genealogy? I have to admit that over the last 40 years I have copied articles on genealogy and used them as handouts in my Sunday School Class. I always write on the top where I got it from so they could go and read it for themselves.

Now I read and hear that copying  anything is a no no. The trouble at Find A Grave sure stirred up a lot of trouble for us. I thought that because I was not making any money on it, It would be OK to copy. Now I think my thinking was wrong and I would like you to tell me that I can not copy anything. Or can I?

Thank you,
Gary White

Dear Gary,

I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is, you have my permission to make copies of my articles for your non-commercial classroom use. See the notice at the bottom of http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com. To quote, "For content copyrighted by the Ancestry Insider, permission is granted for non-commercial republication as long as you give credit and you link back to the original." (Note the use of “non-commercial” rather than “non-profit.”)

The bad news is that there is no easy answer to your question. Some mistakenly believe that fair use allows anyone to copy anything for non-profit, educational use. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Circular 21, "Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians," from the U.S. Copyright Office discusses this very complex issue.

It may be easier to contact authors than it is to understand the circular. I suggest that you ask authors for general permission to use their articles as handouts. If they are not comfortable with general permission, seek permission for individual articles.

--The Insider

Serendipity at the BYU Conference

Sue VerHoef is an archivist for the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Last week she had the pleasure of attending the BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy.

John Titford, a Londoner by birth, works as a writer, broadcaster, researcher, and genealogical bookseller. And he was asked to be a keynote speaker at this year’s BYU conference. He also gave several lectures, one being “Who Was Mrs. Williamson? An 18th and 19th Century Genealogical Detective Story.”

Of all the classes offered during that time slot, Sue chose to attend John’s.

On the first slide of the presentation he showed the first page of a 200+ page manuscript book that he picked up at a used book faire. It dated from about 1830 to 1840 and contained about 8,000 entries of servants seeking employment in Derby, England.

Sue’s Bridgart line came from Derby.

As that first slide flashed by on the screen, Sue thought she might have seen the Bridgart name.

At the end of the lecture, Sue very excitedly jumped up and asked John if he would go back to the first slide. “I think I saw an ancestral surname of mine.”

He went back to the first page and there it was. The audience broke into applause.

That was not the end of it. John had transcribed the book and happened to have a copy on the laptop he chose to bring. After the lecture he went back and searched the transcription. There he found several other occurrences of the family name to share with Sue.

“I'm still grinning from ear to ear,” said Sue. “it's something I'll never forget, nor will I forget how gracious Mr. Titford was to spend time sharing his work with me.”

That is what we call “Serendipity in Genealogy.”

Rod DeGiulio: All About Records

“It is an emotional thing for me,” said Rod DeGiulio, pausing for a moment. Rod DeGiulio is senior, executive vice president of records for FamilySearch International.

DeGiulio was sharing some of the exciting record acquisition projects underway at FamilySearch. One of them is an agreement with the Italian government to digitize all their civil registration records. The Italian project is near and dear to DeGiulio. Of Italian ancestry, he’s had a lifelong desire to research his Italian ancestors.

“I tried to put myself into a position where doors could be opened,” he said. One day he was approached by his superiors at Hewlett Packard corporation and asked if he might possibly accept a multi-year assignment in Italy.

That gave him the opportunity to travel to the small town where his ancestors lived. At their first meeting, the elderly parish priest would not allow him to see the records for trivialities such as family history. Over time, DeGiulio befriended the priest was eventually given access to the records. With excitement he opened records that had probably not been looked at for 50 or more years. Within minutes he had found his grandfather’s birth record.

“My heart was just turned in full,” said DeGiulio. In another hour or two he found his great grandfather. Eventually he was able to tie about 70% of the people in the area into his family.

DeGiulio put himself into position again when he took early retirement from Hewlett Packard. He was soon approached by FamilySearch to marry his knowledge of high capacity manufacturing with his love for genealogy. He has “responsibility for the acquisition, digitization, data treatments, and online publication of high value genealogical records from all over the world.”

It’s not a small task. It is estimated that of the 70 to 90 billion people who have ever lived, 10 billion of them have been documented and 60 billion records exist for them.

In India alone, today there are 1.2 billion people. The 2011 census occupies 36 linear miles of shelf space. By law it must be destroyed before the 2021 census. Records are perishing throughout the world.

In Guatemala, FamilySearch is imaging civil registration.

In Venezuela, FamilySearch is engaged in a project to digitize Catholic Church records of birth, baptisms, and death from 1800 to 2011. FamilySearch is operating four cameras. The local diocese and seminary are providing some of the indexing volunteers.

Leaders in Sierra Leone heard of our Guatemala project and wrote to Thomas S. Monson, president of FamilySearch sponsor, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, asking if they could do the same in their country.

The Italian project is an agreement with the government to digitize and publish online all civil registration records for the entire nation. They estimate there will be over 130 million birth, marriage, and death records. Over 20 camera crews are now in Italy. The project will take over six years to complete. FamilySearch has created a special page about Italian records and research.

Since 1938 FamilySearch has captured 3.1 billion, most stored on 2.5 million rolls of microfilm from 202 different countries. Twenty-three percent of the images in the vault have been digitized. They will finish in 3 to 4 years.

Six hundred million images from 1,225 archives have been published so far and FamilySearch is adding about a million images per day. They have published nearly 3 billion searchable names. They are adding about 1.1 million records a day with 1.7 million names.

They are adding 80 to 100 million per year using 210 camera crews in 48 different countries. One-third of them are senior missionaries. Many more are needed because FamilySearch wants to expand by several times in the next few years. No special skills are required and service opportunities are available locally and abroad. For more information, email TomlinsonKL@familysearch.org.

FamilySearch is attempting to shorten the time between record imaging and online publication. A year ago, it took seven months to process and publish the images. Today it takes between four and six weeks between click and publish.

FamilySearch originally guessed indexing the 1940 US Census would take from April to November. Now they are expecting to be done by the end of the month (August). Over 155,000 indexers have participated. In a recent indexing push, FamilySearch challenged indexers to break the old record of 3.3 million and index 5 million records in one day. Within the first three hours they hit the 5 million goal. By the end of the day, indexers had finished a whopping 10.5 million names.

More international indexing is needed. At current rates, indexing the Italian project will take 40 years.

Also, as the 1940 community project wraps up, FamilySearch hopes indexers will continue on with a new project: US Immigration and Naturalization records. See a progress dashboard for more information.

FamilySearch now has 60,000 books and periodicals in its online collection.

FamilySearch releases computer code every two weeks to make the website easier to use. Within the next several months, it is hoped that users will be able to add corrections to misindexed records.

DeGiulio made the remarks at the 2012 BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy.

The Ancestry Insider Honored as One of Best 101

I’m humbled and honored that the Ancestry Insider has been chosen as one of Family Tree Magazine’s 101 best family history web sites for 2012.I received the award in the “Best Sites for Getting Genealogy News” category. Other winners in the category are:

• Dear Myrtle
• Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter
• Genealogy Gems
• Genealogy Guys
• The Genetic Genealogist

“This lively, frequently updated blog delivers the scoop on what’s new at Ancestry.com … and FamilySearch,” wrote David A. Fryxell.

“Congratulations!” Allison Dolan, Family Tree Magazine Publisher and Editorial Director told me in a private email.

The full list of 101 winners and commentary can be found on the Family Tree Magazine website and in the September 2012 issue.

George Ryskamp: Apples and Oranges

George Ryskamp presented “Apples and Oranges: Trees on Ancestry and FamilySearch” at this year’s BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy. He gave an overview of the tree systems on each and then presented head-to-head comparison tables.

He began by warning us that all he could present was an overview (which I have further summarized). To make it worse, the Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org are moving targets.

FamilySearch

On the FamilySearch.org home page there are links to two different tree systems. Underneath “Discover Your Family” is the “Trees” link. This leads to “User Submitted Trees,” which are the Ancestral File and the Pedigree Resource File (PRF).

“Not only are we searching for the dead, but the submitters are dead too,” joked Ryskamp. Ancestral File and PRFs are so old, many contributors are deceased.

While an ancestor will not typically appear more than once in the Ancestral File, they may appear multiple times in Pedigree Resource Files. There is no pedigree view. There is no family group view.

The sources found in the PRF are usually not very good. In Ancestral File, there are none at all. There is no contact information. And there is no updating. [If it isn’t already possible, there is a plan to allow PRF submitters to replace a submission with a new upload.]

For those with access to the FamilySearch Family Tree, there is a “Family Tree” link at the top of the page.

Anyone can update the Family Tree. “All of us are hopeful that a sense of rationality will appear,” said Ryskamp. Otherwise, wars can develop where two relatives disagree on the facts. “It is exciting and hopefully it will eliminate duplication.”

Ancestry.com

Ancestry Member Trees are unique to the owner. You can have a whole series of trees. You can start a tree by uploading a GEDCOM, but you can’t upload a GEDCOM to add to an existing tree. Trees can be public or private. If a search matches an individual in a private tree, a notice is included in the search results and the searcher can request access to the private tree. The tree owner decides whether to grant access or not.

The tree owner controls who can make changes to the tree or who can contribute photographs and documents.

Member Trees have a pedigree view and a family view. Ryskamp that it was interesting that on the pedigree view the principal person’s siblings were labeled as such rather than as additional children of the parents. The family view is more conventionally known as a descendency chart.

For citations to sources on Ancestry.com you can easily click to get to the record. You can easily add source citations or upload images of documents.

In your trees Ancestry shows hints to records available on Ancestry. They are relatively conservative, so only a few reference incorrect records. They will show you hints in records and in family trees of others. You can review a hint before accepting. If accepted, the information is automatically copied into your tree.

Comparing Apples and Oranges Tables

Primary Purposes

ANCESTRY	FS TREES
*  Share Data	*  Do Temple Work
*  Research Support	*  Avoid Duplicating Temple Work
* Preserve Data	-  The Universal Tree
(And of course, make money)	*  Collaborate

Sourcing

ANCESTRY	FS TREES
*  Source Citation	*  Source Citation
*  URL Links	*  URL Links
*  Direct Link to Ancestry Records	*  Direct Link to FamilySearch Records
*  Document and Photo Upload	*  [FUTURE] Document and Photo Upload

Sharing

ANCESTRY	FS TREES
*  Able to Share or Not	*  Share and Edited by Everyone
*  Makes Available Photos and Documents	*  No Images
* System Setup to Contact Any Submitter (Although Not All Answer)	*  Contact on Family Tree Although Email Not Mandated. No Contact Info On AF and PRF

Compatibility with Other Programs

ANCESTRY	FS TREES
*  GEDCOM Compatible	*  GEDCOM Compatible
- No Ability to Add a GEDCOM File to an Existing Tree	- No Ability to Add a GEDCOM File to an Existing Tree ?
*  No LDS Temple Work Capacity	*  Full LDS Temple Capacity Coming
*  Family Tree Maker 2012 TreeSync	*  Integrated with Affiliate Programs

Display Functionality

ANCESTRY	FS TREES
*  Compact Data Display	*  Lots of White Space
*  Easier to Go Deep in a Couple of Clicks	*  Several Clicks to Go Deeper
*  Source and Photo Attachment Can Be Complicated	*  Source Attachment is Simple

Research

ANCESTRY	FS TREES
*  Encourages Research Through Hints	*  No Research Emphasis Beyond Sources
*  Direct Links to Ancestry Documents	*  Direct Links to FS Documents
*  Stories and Other Items Included	*  No Stories, But Possible Through URLs
*  Large Non-LDS Participation	*  Primarily LDS Participation
*  Sources Not Mandated	*  Sources Not Mandated

So which trees are best? “The advantages of Ancestry are definitely worth putting out a tree,” said Ryskamp. “The real answer: I use both.”

Census Indexing Update: And It’s Over

On 3 August 2012 Ancestry.com announced that they had finished indexing—and publishing—the 1940 US Census. “We are so excited to be publishing our index to the 1940 U.S. Federal Census for free on Ancestry.com,” said Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry.com.

Meanwhile, as of 8:30 that morning, FamilySearch had not published an index since the 18th of July. Their indexing completion percentage had risen to 99, and the status map indicated two states left to finish: New Jersey and Tennessee.

Later in the day FamilySearch announced that indexing was complete and six states would be published today, 6th of August. The announcement said that they would finish publishing the entire census by the end of the month. Despite the announcement, as of Saturday, 4th of August, batches were still available for “US, Puerto Rico—Censo Federal de 1940.”

The full text of the Ancestry press release can be read online, as can the announcement by FamilySearch.

Echo King: Online Trees at Ancestry.com

There are many advantageous of using Ancestry.com online trees (Member Trees), according to Echo King, director content product manager, Ancestry.com. She presented “Online Family Trees @ Ancestry.com” at the 2012 BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy.

As I write about Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, I’m always worried about boring you by repeating information I have already covered. I’ve written a lot about Ancestry Member Trees over the years. Here is some information I hope is interesting.

One advantage of using Ancestry Member Trees is the connections and collaborations made possible. Ancestry alerts possible relatives via its hinting system and its member connect features. “I love to get the stories and the photos,” said King. Collaboration features make it possible to discover stories, photos, and heirlooms shared by other users.

Another advantage is backup. Ancestry backs up your tree for you.

You can access your tree from anywhere you have Internet access.

One big advantage of Ancestry Member Trees is that Ancestry searches for you and gives you hints (shaky leaves) to Ancestry’s large collection of records. Ancestry has found that successful searching is happening more from tree hints than from home page searches.

Ancestry.com limits the system to confident hints, so there are often less obvious records to be found. “I always do a search after I’ve handled the hints,” said King. When you click on Search Records on the person page, the search form is preloaded with all the person’s information, including relatives. Long-time readers know that I am a big fan of such tree-based searching.

Another advantage of Ancestry Member Trees is the ability to attach documentation and photographs. While there is no limit to the number of photographs, there is a limit to the total space. King could not remember what the limit is.

It’s true that member trees contain lots of duplicate, erroneous data. “I love to use them for the hints,” said King. But don’t assume anything. It is possible to turn off the shaky leaf hinting from other member trees but she couldn’t remember exactly where that was done.

Start your free tree from the home page. You can enter information manually or upload a file of type GEDCOM, FTM, PAF, or Legacy.

Ancestry provides both pedigree view and descendency view (they call it family view). From either view, hover over a person and click on Profile to see the person view. Hidden somewhere along the right side of the person view is the “Family Group Sheet” button. Click on it for the traditional family view.

Ancestry Member Trees can be synchronized with your desktop Family Tree Maker tree. When asked if it was possible to sync with FamilySearch Family Tree, King said no, “we have a gap right now. I think it is something we need to work on as an industry.”

There are some limitations to Member Trees. It is not possible to export or import a branch of a tree. It is not possible to merge persons, although that is being worked on. There is no relationship between Member Trees and RootsWeb trees. There is no way to search for a tree by tree name, but under member connect you can search for members by member name.

If you have problems or questions, call the Ancestry hotline at 1-800-ANCESTRY.

Ron Tanner: Lick from the Same Lollypop

“We built exactly what you wanted,” said Ron Tanner about new.FamilySearch.org (nFS). “How are you liking it?” Audience members groaned. “You said you didn’t want anyone changing your stuff.” Users wanted their contributions to be safe so that others could not change their work. “You have my-tree-itus,” he said.

Ron Tanner is the product manager for nFS and the new Family Tree. He spoke at this year’s BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy on the topic, “Introducing FamilySearch Family Tree.”

Tanner showed a long list of birth facts for his ancestor, Henry Martin Tanner. “I ask you. How many times can you be born?!” Since the introduction of nFS users have experienced deep frustrations in the inability to fix even the most obvious of errors. Only the contributor of an opinion can fix it, but many times it is impossible to contact the contributor.

Elder J. Thomas Fyans, a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1978 said,

It is apparent, then, that ours is a shared ancestry. We shouldn’t think back and say “mine, mine, mine”; we should say “ours, ours, ours.” The farther back we reach, the greater the chorus swells.

It has become apparent that genealogical research efforts are being duplicated. To determine the extent to which such duplication exists, I took my genealogical records to a professional research institute. They compared my records with their name pool and determined that they already had ninety-five percent of my records in their file. (Ensign, November 1978, 28.)

“We have to do something different,” said Tanner. “We have to work together.” The new Family Tree allows anyone to change anything. Tanner called it open edit. “We’ve got to lick from the same lollypop.”

The open edit system has:

• sources - “Make sources king.”
• reasons – users must explain each change made
• discussions - “its a place to talk it out”
• change log – can roll back bad changes
• notifications – notified when someone makes a change

FamilySearch plans to add automatic detection of warring. If a value is toggled back and forth too often, the system will freeze it for two weeks. There will be a way to report abuse.

To compound the problems in nFS, FamilySearch filled it with bad data. ““I content that no human would do to a tree what we did,” said Tanner. FamilySearch took Ancestral File, Pedigree Resource File (PRF), and the International Genealogical Index (IGI) and applied computer algorithms that combined and corrupted the data. “We did that.” FamilySearch plans to remove all the extra values on the details tab that came from Ancestral File, PRF, and the IGI. Only the summary values will remain (and all non-vitals).

Family Tree doesn’t use the combine system that was the hallmark of nFS. Family Tree returns to the more familiar merge operation. When you merge two people, you will have to choose one by one each fact. Then one of the people goes away. However, the merge can be undone. Merge is not available yet, but FamilySearch is working on it now.

Until nFS is retired, changes made to either nFS or Family Tree are copied to the other. The two different architectures makes the copy problematic. “New FamilySearch must be turned off as soon as possible,” said Tanner.

“Family Tree is to be the world’s genealogy.”

Richard Turley Opens BYU Conference

“Clearly it meant a lot to her as it means to all of us as we research our families’ past,” said Richard Turley of Barbara Walters’ reaction to receiving her family history. Turley told the story during his opening keynote at the Brigham Young University (BYU) 2012 Conference on Family History and Genealogy.

Turley had the opportunity to share Walter’s family history with her when he appeared on the View in July 2001. At the time, he was serving as managing director of the Family History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–day Saints. Walters thanked Turley immediately after the segment as they left the set. Several minutes later Walters sought him out in his dressing room and thanked him again, making it apparent that she truly appreciated the gift.

During his tenure as managing directory Turley experienced many ups and downs. Several occurred in the year 1999. In March he appeared on the Today Show. In April a gunman showed up at the Family History Center and began shooting. Turley said that the gunman put his gun to the head of Nellie Leighton, one of the greeters, and fired. Miraculously, she survived. Today at the age of 93, she’s still greeting visitors.

In May, the Church launched FamilySearch.org. “Today people are used to having family history online, but in 1999 it was truly revolutionary,” said Turley. They didn’t know how many people would use the service. For a beta launch, they expected a million hits a day. The address leaked out and they got five million hits. For the public launch, they thought they were overly optimistic planning on 25 million. They got 100 million and had to limit people to 15 minute sessions.

In August, Salt Lake City experienced a freak tornado. Turley was at lunch with several aunts for their regular genealogy session when a strong storm hit. He stepped out on the balcony and saw debris swirling on all sides of him as the tornado bore down. He saw it drop a tree behind him and calmly announced to his aunts that it was a tornado. One suggested that perhaps he should move away from the window. He came inside, sat back down—his aunts hadn’t even moved—and they continued their work. “We weren’t about to be interrupted from discussing our family history.”

The tornado passed the Church Office Building, which houses some personnel of the Family History Department. As it passed, it lifted a large concrete tile and thrust it through the window of one of Turley’s colleagues. The office furniture was crushed against one wall. Fortunately, the man was not in his office at the time. (Coworkers tell me the tornado damaged cars in the Family History Library parking lot, but the library was not damaged.)

Even though there are now billion of records online, “we have all focused not on the billions, the millions, the thousands, or even the hundreds, but the individuals,” said Turley. “Genealogy and family history are really about individuals when it comes down to it. In the end we find our hearts turning to individual ancestors.”

 

Richard E. Turley Jr. currently serves as assistant Church historian and recorder for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–day Saints.

The BYU conference continues through Saturday. Day registrations are available.

Ancestry.com Versus FamilySearch Indexing Quality

I’ve warned before that no matter what index you use, you’re going to find your relatives misindexed. You have better context than cold indexers. (See the Indexing Illustration in “Indexing Errors: Test, Check the Boxes.”)

To demonstrate the point, I thought I would compare the 1940 U.S. Census Indexes of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch for the state of Utah. I figured FamilySearch’s large Utah indexing workforce would have a big advantage over Ancestry’s offshore workforce. I searched for all people named Alonzo. The name is unusual (because I didn’t want a name with too many matches), and offshore indexers were likely to be unfamiliar with it. I didn’t think about it at the time, but it can be challenging to recognize the z and to differentiate o from a.

The exact search on Ancestry.com returned 124 results.
The exact search on FamilySearch.org returned 163 results

Ancestry had seven results that FamilySearch did not, giving a sample size of 170. Four of the Ancestry results did not live in Utah as requested (their 1935 addresses were in Utah). However, the four were in states published by FamilySearch, so I was able to include them in the sample set.

Here are the results:

	Given Name(s) Correct	Surname Correct	Both Names Correct
Ancestry.com	125 (74%)	150 (88%)	114 (67%)
FamilySearch.org	159 (94%)	167 (98%)	157 (92%)
Both websites wrong	3 (2%)	2 (1%)	4(2%)

As I mentioned, the results for the given name Alonzo were stacked against Ancestry. Ancestry’s keyers made some egregious errors: Alanna, Alenae, Alomo, Aloms, Alorysw, Alorze, Donzo, and Hanzo. Ancestry also had several errors caused by combining Alonzo with a middle initial (Alonzob, Alonzoe, Alonzor, and Alonzos). It made me wonder if one or more of their keyers were not following instructions.

However, the sample set contained a random sampling of surnames, so the results for Ancestry keyers should be given some consideration. Here, Ancestry suffered a 12% error rate.

FamilySearch’s 2% error rate for surnames should be given less consideration, since Utah is FamilySearch Indexing’s “home court.”

It has been said many times that there is value in having more than one index. This test shows that to be true. The FamilySearch index got the full name correct 92% of the time. But if one checks both the FamilySearch and the Ancestry indexes, the success rate goes up to 98%.

 

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Notes:

• Judging the difference between a and o in Alonzo was difficult, so the results for given names should be taken with great caution.
• Even though I cross checked some values against the 1930 census or other collections, I considered the “correct value” to be what the image indicated, whether that was truly right or wrong. Otherwise it becomes too painful to try to differentiate enumerator error and enumerator handwriting.
• Where letters were illegible, I ignored them when scoring.

Monday Mailbox: Olympics

Dear Ancestry Insider,

Do you think the Ancestry Insider might be interested in republishing a blog post?

“In celebration of the London 2012 Olympics starting this week, FamilySearch is pleased to announce…”

http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&MS_AdvCB=1&db=1940usfedcen&rank=1&new=1&MSAV=2&msT=1&gss=angs-

Thank you for your consideration!
Nathan

Dear Nathan,

Sorry. The Insider does not republish other people’s blog posts.

--The Insider

Monday Mailbox: Catalog Corrections

Dear Ancestry Insider,

How does one get changes made in incorrect titles to some Historical Records in the FamilySearch Card Catalog? This affects both the process of ordering useful microfilm and creating accurate source citations.

Signed,
Geolover *

Dear Geolover,

To submit catalog corrections, contact FamilySearch Support or use the Feedback function of FamilySearch.org. The feedback button is located on the right side of the website window.

The options for contacting FamilySearch support can be found at http://contact.familysearch.org. Use Live Chat, send a message, or call. I assume support@familysearch.org still works. I prefer it so I have a copy of my request in my e-mail system.

Signed,
--The Insider

Ancestry.com Laps FamilySearch in Indexing Horse Race

While the FamilySearch indexing map looks good,
Ancestry.com has published twice as much.

Amidst growing reports that the Ancestry.com index has large numbers of errors, Ancestry’s release of 12 additional states on Thursday vaulted their position in the horse race to twice that of FamilySearch (as of 11:00 AM, Thursday). Ancestry has published indexes for about 70% of the 1940 U.S. Census compared to FamilySearch’s 35%.

Since my last update, Ancestry has published indexes for these states: Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Utah. During the same time period, FamilySearch did not publish any, but did finish indexing Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

In terms of number of states, Ancestry has only published six more states than FamilySearch (38 to 32, respectively). The size of their lead is a result of publishing bigger states than FamilySearch. Of the ten biggest states, Ancestry has published seven. FamilySearch has finished indexing six of the top ten states but has only published one.

How quickly it can clear its backlog will decide the winner of this horse race.

Quality

Meanwhile, the question of quality looms large in users’ minds. Many users are reporting problems in the Ancestry index. I contacted Ancestry for comment and got answers to some of your questions.

“We are confident that our index, delivered in record time and optimized as it is to work with our proprietary system,  provides the best and most powerful 1940 experience on the market,” said Todd Jensen. Jensen is senior director of document preservation services at Ancestry.com.

Several of you asked where Ancestry’s keying vendors are located. “We used four vendors to key the 1940 Census,” said Jensen. “Two were located in China and have been involved in Family History record transcription for many years. Another was located in Bangladesh and the fourth in the Philippines.”

While Ancestry doesn’t share details about their quality and audit methods, Jensen calls them “rigorous” and explained the process generally. If the quality tolerance is not met for a batch, it is sent back to the vendor for rework followed by another, separately sampled audit. “We can say that throughout this process we have taken every effort to ensure accuracy by holding our keying partners to high quality thresholds and implementing new and advanced quality assurance processes.”

Ancestry’s search system takes indexing errors into account. “Once batches are passed,” said Jensen, “there is extensive post production work which occurs. Index data is further augmented to maximize its chances of being ‘found’ in a search or through hints. Even names which have difficult handwriting have a chance of being found with our proprietary systems.”

Jensen acknowledged the comparisons being made between Ancestry’s and FamilySearch’s indexes. As reader AnnieB has pointed out, Randy Seaver has done one such comparison. I plan to do my own as soon as time permits. “Whilst we don’t discount such reviews,” said Jensen, “evaluation of indexes of this size is problematic with even large samples being statistically unrepresentative of overall quality.”

Jensen remembers statistics a little differently than I do. Large samples can be quite representative of overall quality. The problem with most reviews—including the one I will do—is that the samples are not random. That, not the size of the 1940 Census, makes it unwise to generalize results to the entire index.

Still, such reviews, as well as your individual experiences, have meaning and value in their own sphere. Leave a comment and tell us what you’ve found. Is anyone having positive experiences with Ancestry’s index? Or dare I ask, negative ones with FamilySearch?

BYU 2012 Family History and Genealogy Conference

In times of distraction we might describe ourselves as being “half there.” I confess that for the first half of the month, I was only “half here.” The posts I made during that time were written before I left for a two week Mediterranean Cruise. But I wasn’t able to escape completely. Out sailing on the Mediterranean I ran into none other than John Best, organizer of the 2012 Brigham Young University (BYU) Family History and Genealogy Conference. I am presenting at the conference and he said he was there to check on my preparations. The conference is scheduled for 31 July to 3 August 2012.

It’s truly a small world after all.

One of the keynote speakers is Rod DeGiulio, director of FamilySearch Data Operations. DeGiulio’s division “manufactures” the record collections found on FamilySearch.org so it should be pretty interesting. Also scheduled is Ron Tanner, product manager for new.FamilySearch and the new Family Tree, slated for public release later “this year.” (Sorry; I couldn’t resist placing the parentheses, given FamilySearch’s intention of releasing the tree to the public every year since… well, since I can remember.) Anyway, Tanner will be filling us in on Family Tree.

If you’re in the Provo area, it may be well worth your while to attend. If you are a family history consultant, you are eligible for a $25 discount on the $180 price. To learn more or to register, visit http://ce.byu.edu/cw/cwgen/.

Fold3 Discount for NGS Members

The National Genealogical Society (NGS) recently announced a discount to its members on the purchase of a Fold3 membership. Fold3 is a subscription website owned by Ancestry.com. According to the announcement, “Fold3 features over 94 million historical records from US institutions including the National Archives. Military records, naturalization records, and city directories are just a few of the different collections found on Fold3.”

NGS members can subscribe for the special price of $39.95, which is half the normal price. Additionally, Ancestry.com will donate 30% of the sale back to NGS.

To obtain the discount, members should go to http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/fold3 after logging into the www.ngsgenealogy.org website.

Read the full text of the announcement on the NGS website.

Monday Mailbox: Ancestry.com Indexing Inaccuracy

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I hope that the accuracy rate for the FamilySearch 1940 Census Indexing is better than what I have experienced with Ancestry.com.

Today looked up about 20 families in Michigan and found errors on five of them including wrong places. One was listed in Briley, Montmorency Co, Michigan and should have been Evergreen Twp, Montcalm Co, Michigan. Another had Pine Twp, Montcalm Co and should have been Day Twp. They had the name Meek for Mark and Lealia for a man named Leslie and Shurn instead of Shurr. All were clearly legible in their correct form.

Happy they are being speedy, but I'd rather have more time taken to proofread the transcriptions...

Cherie
Orange County, California

Dear Cherie,

Your experience echoes that of many. See for examples, comments made to my article last Thursday.

Signed,
--The Insider

Kehrer Webinar: Future of the New Catalog

I’m sharing some of my notes from the 21 June 2012 webinar by Robert Kehrer, senior product manager, search technologies. The webinar was titled “FamilySearch Historical Records and Library Catalog.”

---

Robert Kehrer presented a glimpse of future catalog features.

(Genealogists have a litmus test which we use to determine if a product manager understands the old catalog. Someone who really understands the old catalog knows the importance of showing for a place, what place it is within and what places are within it. From the “Upcoming Features” slides, I can see that Kehrer understand the old catalog.)

When asked the time frame for these new features, he said he can’t really give a date. (These things are very dependent on competing features, competing products, backlogs, and bug fixes. There are lots of good reasons why a product manager can not give an expected release date.)

 

This concludes my series on Kehrer’s webinar. For more information, see the entire webinar.

Ancestry.com Takes Lead in 1940 Census Race

For Ancestry.com, Friday the 13th was a lucky day. With the release on that day of indexes for 15 additional states, Ancestry took the lead in the 1940 U.S. Census horse race.

“We are working hard here at Ancestry.com to bring the 1940 US Census to the public,” said Ancestry spokesperson, Matthew Deighton, “and are now very well ahead of schedule from our initial completion predictions.”

Ancestry has published indexes for 26 states, accounting for 2.1 million pages, or 55% of the entire census.

Since my last update, and as of 18 July 2012, the FamilySearch coalition released the District of Columbia (Washington, DC), Minnesota, and Rhode Island. This brings their state count to 32 and their page count to 1.3 million. That is 35%, 20 points behind Ancestry.

MyHeritage is still working on their second state, New York. According to calculations based on record count, they have published just 7% of the census.

Ancestry’s move into the lead is unexpected considering FamilySearch’s commanding lead in indexing where it has finished 3.4 million pages. One FamilySearch manager used a vending machine analogy to explain how FamilySearch can be so far ahead in indexing but behind in publication: You can have enough coins to buy a coke, but if you divide them among multiple vending machines, you’ll end up thirsty.

FamilySearch indexers have indexed considerable amounts of states that aren’t yet 100%. That work is reflected in indexing totals but won’t be reflected in publication totals until the states are complete.

This raises the question as to whether or not Ancestry can retain its lead. Have they increased their indexing capacity? Or is this a temporary situation that the FamilySearch juggernaut will overwhelm?

Stay tuned…

Kehrer Webinar: New FamilySearch Catalog

I’m sharing some of my notes from the 21 June 2012 webinar by Robert Kehrer, senior product manager, search technologies. The webinar was titled “FamilySearch Historical Records and Library Catalog.” Look for my comments in parentheses.

---

The holdings listed in the Family History Library Catalog (FHLC) are expanding beyond those included at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. So it is only natural that the new catalog is called the FamilySearch Catalog.

The new catalog is still called a beta. There are key features missing. “If you don’t need those missing features,” said Robert Kehrer, “then I highly recommend you use the new catalog.” The data is the same between the old and the new. And some things are better in the new catalog.

FamilySearch has tried to optimized the number of pages you must pass through to get what you want. (I care less about the number of pages and more about the number of mouse clicks.) Kehrer demonstrated the page savings. What used to take five or more pages is now done in two. (Here are my measurements, including clicks and keystrokes.)

Action	Old Catalog	New Catalog
Select search type (Place name)	1 click 1 page	2 clicks 0 pages
Select location (Texas)	5 keystrokes (depending) 2 clicks 2 pages	3 keystrokes (depending) 2 clicks 1 page
Select record type (Vital records)	1 click (minimum) 1 page (minimum)	1 click (minimum) 0 pages
Select title (Texas death records)	1 click (minimum) 1 page (minimum)	1 click (minimum) 1 page
TOTAL	5 keystrokes (depending) 5 clicks (minimum) 5 pages (minimum)	3 keystrokes (depending) 6 clicks (minimum) 2 pages

What used to take five (or more) pages now is done in two. It is not necessary to type in the entire place name. As you type, a drop down list presents matching names. As soon as your desired place shows up, click on it.

(The old catalog has a slight edge on the minimum number of mouse clicks. However, the actual number of clicks is highly dependent on the amount of scrolling needed through long lists of subjects and titles. What the new catalog gains in reduced page count it loses in the long length of the pages.)

View the webinar to see a demonstration of the new catalog, or to get more information about all the features I’ve mentioned in this series of articles.

Kehrer Webinar: Refine Your Search Results

I’m sharing some of my notes from the 21 June 2012 webinar by Robert Kehrer, senior product manager, search technologies. The webinar was titled “FamilySearch Historical Records and Library Catalog.”

---

When last we left you, Robert Kehrer had just done a parent search for father Samuel Martin and mother Lovina in Vermont.

Along the edge of the window, to the left of the search results, is the Refine Form. Here you can refine your search terms.

“Below the Refine Form we have some filters which are tremendously powerful,” said Kehrer.

One feature offered by filters is result counts. Clicking on a filter name reveals a list that indicates result counts. For example, after the parent search above, click on collections. The little “fly out” square indicates there are 33 results from collections that record births, marriages, and deaths. It also indicates there are 11 results and census collections.

Clicking on Births, Marriages and Deaths immediately filters the results to those of that collection type.

Clicking on the resulting collection type, activates another fly out which can be used to further filter the results. For collection types, individual collections are listed. In the example above, Kehrer noticed that in addition to eleven children in Vermont, there are an additional two in Wisconsin.

Filtering can be performed on a variety of things like birth, marriage, and death information, as shown in the image to the left.

 

Stay tuned…

Kehrer Webinar: Parent Search

I’m sharing some of my notes from the 21 June 2012 webinar by Robert Kehrer, senior product manager, search technologies. The webinar was titled “FamilySearch Historical Records and Library Catalog.”

---

Robert Kehrer said, “One thing that people often ask is, ‘How do I do a parent search?’” With a parent search, you enter the names of the parents to get search results with all the children.

To conduct a parent search, start by clicking the word “Parents” on the home page.

This opens an area on the search form where you can enter the parents’ names.

Kehrer searched for father Samuel Martin and mother Lovina in Vermont. The results return their children, with birth dates spaced as expected.

Stay tuned…

Kehrer Webinar: Wildcards and Exact Search

I’m sharing some of my notes from the 21 June 2012 webinar by Robert Kehrer, senior product manager, search technologies. The webinar was titled “FamilySearch Historical Records and Library Catalog.”

---

Robert Kehrer started his search demonstration by searching for his great grandfather, Franklin Bernard Allor. In the live presentation he demonstrated use of a wildcard. For the first name he typed in “Frank*”. Notice the asterisk on the end. This will match Frank, Franklin, Frankie, and so forth.

FamilySearch’s search system also employs a name matching system, matching Allor equivalent names like Euellar, Ellare, Ehelhar, and so forth.

Kehrer demonstrated how to turn this matching off. The box next to the name turn on “exact matching.” WIth the box checked, “Allor” is the only name that will match. Searching the 1910 census for “Franklin Bernard Allor,” without the box checked, returns 46 results. With the exact match box checked, searching returns four results and the top result is Kehrer’s ancestor.

Stay tuned…

Mr. Darnedest Street

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.”

Records Say the Darnedest Things: Mr. Darnedest Street

It is exciting to see indexes to the 1940 census coming online. It is also funny to see therein the names that uncaring parents give or unlucky brides inherit. Elmer Zink shared one on the FamilySearch blog that some may find hilarious and some may find horrific.

Mind you, each record is indexed twice. If the two indexers differ, then the record is sent to a third person, an arbiter, who can change any value in the batch to anything he chooses.

Two bad indexers or one bad arbiter, can do a lot of damage.

Observe:

I’m actually 2nd cousins with the Streets, so I know a little about this crazy family. He was named Here at the hospital on Main Street, after his four grandparents. His Main line ends End, but not Here. Got that? A dead End left his grandmother a widow. To hear Here, you’d think Here shares his name here with the numerically named 500 great-grandparents on his mother’s side. They were poor and lived on the Streets. In dire Streets, the Ends justified the Mains.

Don’t even ask who was on second…

Kehrer Webinar: International Genealogical Index

I’m sharing some of my notes from the 21 June 2012 webinar by Robert Kehrer, senior product manager, search technologies. The webinar was titled “FamilySearch Historical Records and Library Catalog.” Look for my commentary in parentheses.

---

The International Genealogical Index (IGI) mixes two types of records: community indexed records and community contributed records (formerly called patron submissions). There are about 461 million names in the former and 205 million names in the latter.

On the new website (which I call “the current website” to avoid confusion with the “new FamilySearch” website—boy won’t we be glad when new.familysearch.org goes away) on the new website the two types of records are separated. (I’m very glad to see that. The evidentiary value of the two types is too different to leave together in one database.)

The community indexed records, also called extracted records, have been divided into 185 historical record collections and are available alongside the 1005 other historical record collections on FamilySearch.org.

For compatibility with the old website, it is possible to search just the 185 extracted IGI collections. In the record collection list, scroll down to the special “International Genealogical Index” collection.

Kehrer questioned why anyone would want to search just the 185 collections instead of all 1190 collections. “I recommend strongly that anyone searching for their ancestor search not just the IGI,” he said. Search all historical record collections from the FamilySearch.org home page.

In the transition to the new website (no animals were harmed and) no records were “lost in transition.” (Actually, the community contributed records have been temporarily lost.) The community contributed records will be available shortly.

From the special IGI collection page, it will soon be possible to search either the extracted IGI records or the community contributed IGI records.

Stay tuned for more from Robert Kehrer’s webinar…

Census Indexing Horse Race Update for 30 June 2012

The big news this week is that Ancestry.com has released six new states!

Pennsylvania	9,900,180 records
Ohio	6,907,612 records
Tennessee	2,915,841 records
Virginia	2,677,773 records
Colorado	1,123,296 records
Vermont	359,231 records

“These states will join four other searchable states and Washington, D.C,” said Ancestry.com spokesperson, Matthew Deighton. The previously searchable states are Delaware, Maine, Nevada, and (the biggy) New York. These eleven make up more than 39 million records of the 132 million total records.

According to Deighton, Ancestry.com will finish the project this year and the records will remain free through 2013 on Ancestry.com.

Features of the FamilySearch Collection List

This week I’m sharing some of my notes from the 21 June 2012 webinar by Robert Kehrer, senior product manager, search technologies. The webinar was titled “FamilySearch Historical Records and Library Catalog.”

I’ve diagrammed some of the features Robert Kehrer showed on the collection list page.

Stay tuned…

Monday Mailbox: Fantastic Webinar

Dear Ancestry Insider,

A fantastic webinar a couple of weeks ago revealed this gem: both old and new catalogs now access the same database, and thus there is no difference in frequency of update.

The webinar was made available live via the FamilySearch Blog and has now been made available for viewing at your pleasure at http://broadcast.lds.org/eLearning/fhd/Community/en/FamilySearch/Product_Webinars/Robert_Kehrer_-_June_21_2012/Player.html. In it Robert Kehrer also gave some good information on some in-process changes at FamilySearch! Its a "must watch" for all serious users of FamilySearch; well worth the hour it takes. I highly recommend it!

And perhaps, if you are one of those folks who have been continuing to use the old catalog for all your work, it will motivate you to give the new catalog another look.

Signed,
Mike St. Clair*

Dear Mike,

I too enjoyed the webinar very much. Robert Kehrer is one of my favorite product managers. I echo your endorsement. Actually, he’s redone the webinar. (He showed his own tree, with information about his immediate family, in the original broadcast. I recommended he avoid that.)

For those that can’t budget an hour, this week I’ll share with you some of my notes. Here’s the first snippet:

Historical Record Collections Update

FamilySearch now has

• 1190 collections
• 800 million images
• 1.3 billion records
• 2.875 billion names

Stay tuned…

 

Remember: Letters to the Insider are edited for length, style, and content.

Five Million Records Would be a Record

FamilySearch announced last Saturday its challenge that the community set a new record for records indexed in one day. The old record sits at 4.9 million records indexed on 30 April 2012. The goal is to index 5 million records between 6 pm MDT Sunday, and 6 pm MDT Monday. (For you techies, that’s midnight to midnight, July 2nd, Greenwich Mean Time.)

If you are a Facebook user, check the event page for more information.

Census Indexing Horse Race Update for 27 June 2012

Perhaps horses are the wrong metaphor for the census indexing race. Not even marathons take this long. Yet another week has passed and there is no change from racers Ancestry.com or MyHeritage. Even the juggernaut FamilySearch coalition is taking months to complete the race.

Nonetheless, this week the coalition hit several major milestones:

They finished California! It was the 5th largest state in the union in 1940. Only New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio were bigger. California is the largest published state to date.

Also published in the last week: Iowa, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Washington. The status map is filling in quite nicely.

FamilySearch seems to have worked through the backlog of states done but not published. Only Rhode Island sits unpublished at 100%. Minnesota hit 100% briefly before dropping back to 99.

There’s more good news. After a brief turndown last week, indexing rates are back up over 30,000 pages per day.

You know what would be cool about now? Doing a new one-day indexing push. The Super-Bowl Super-Indexing Day was a lot of fun. I’ll bet now we could blow through those old numbers?

Stay tuned…

Classic Family History Library Catalog is Preferred

While FamilySearch.org contains a new catalog, FamilySearch continues to prefer users use the classic catalog. The FamilySearch.org catalog page states that “[the new] FamilySearch Catalog is in BETA. You can still visit the previous version.”

While it can be hard to see, the words “previous version” are hot-linked to the classic catalog.

This is the only working URL to the classic website of which I am aware and it is not very visible. To get to the old, preferred catalog, bookmark this link or add it to your favorites:

• http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp

Even though http://classic.familysearch.org no longer works, I have found several catalog links still work. The ones I use the most are:

• The Catalog
• Place Search
• Surname Search
• Keyword Search
• Film/Fiche Number Search

One nice thing about these URLs is they all contain “fhlc”. Once I have visited these URLs, my browser remembers them. When I start typing “fhlc” into the address bar, the browser lists one or more of these links, for easy clicking.