Ancestry.com Rethinking New Search?

Thanks to an alert reader, I’ve found out that last month Ancestry.com sent out a survey to a few of its users soliciting feedback about its search system:

If you have a few spare minutes, we would love to get your feedback on your experiences with search on Ancestry.com. Our goal for search is to make it easy for you to find all the records about your ancestor as easily as possible. Your responses to this short survey will let us know how well we are meeting this goal, and will help us to prioritize areas for improvement.

The survey was indeed brief. Ancestry asked about search usage, satisfaction, accuracy of results, and relevancy of results.

I’ve had many discussions with colleagues, both while at Ancestry and while at FamilySearch about Ancestry’s “New Search.” In these colleagiate discussions, the number of search results often came up. People who had no indigestion when Google returned 43,000 results experienced consternation when New Search returned 4,300. (Ancestry doesn’t expect you to review all 4,300, folks.)

In the survey Ancestry asked about the number of search results. Were there too many? Just about right? Too few?

(BTW, what’s up using the word “new,” as in “New Search” or “New FamilySearch?”Do these people think they will never replace the “new” system? How confusing was it when the new FamilySearch.org came out, making new.FamilySearch.org no longer new? 

I’ve got an idea. Let’s start calling FamilySearch Family Tree “Newer FamilySearch.”

But I digress…)

A premise behind New Search is that it is good to return results that only partially match the search criteria. These results are valuable, according to the premise, because they contain unexpected, but relevant records. The search is also more resilient against mistakes in records, such as indexing errors or mistakes by record creators. A name can be misspelled. A birthplace can be misreported. New Search could often find these records.

Ancestry asked outright if users “prefer for Ancestry.com to suggest potential record matches, even when they do not exactly match [the] search query.” They asked how well they are doing at finding records that don’t exactly match the search query and if Ancestry.com makes it hard to find intended records.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it sounds to me like Ancestry is reexamining the premise behind New Search. It will be interesting to see how Ancestry proceeds. Stay tuned…

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What’s your experience? Do they return too many results? Is the long list of results a price you’re willing to pay to find records with errors? How often does Ancestry find—correctly find—records you weren’t expecting?

MLK Monday Mailbox: NFS and Mustaches

Dear Ancestry Insider,

Is there any truth to the rumor that we have heard the the new.familysearch site will be left online as a read only site? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Thanks
Richard St Clair

Dear Richard,

I don’t know.

I hear things, but none from any authoritative source and none mentioned publicly. I’m guessing (hoping?) that it will be left online for some interim amount of time. There are things you just can’t get in Family Tree.

For example, while membership records from many Churches are available as Historical Record Collections, records for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are only available inside new.FamilySearch.org.

(Did I just say that out loud?)

Signed,
--The Insider

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Dear Ancestry Insider,

[Regarding the article, “FamilySearch.org Incremental Improvements,”]

I can't seem to recreate your first screen shot with the red arrows which gives the option to search immigration & naturalization, military, probate, etc. Can you provide steps to that screen? Thank you.

Signed,
Phyllis *

Dear Phyllis,

Sorry about that. My big, thick arrows, besides looking like a big, asymmetric mustache, obscure parts of the interface.

Underneath the First Names box it says, “Restrict records by.” To the right of that are three choices: Location, Type, and Batch Number. Clicking any of these links toggles the visibility of the option. To see the record types such as Immigration & Naturalizations, click on Type. To hide them, click Type again.

By default, Country is visible. If that is causing you problems, click Location to hide it.

Signed,
--The Insider

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Dear readers from outside the U.S.,

Some of you might wonder what M.L.K. stands for. Today we honor Martin Luther King, Jr., a clergyman, leader, activist, and iconic American who did much to advance racial equality in the United States. He was assassinated in 1968.

Signed,
--The Insider

Ancestry.com Fixes 1850 Errors

Many of you have complained about the misindexed abbreviations of Ancestry.com. Now Ancestry has gone back and reworked the 1850 United States Federal Census to correct these errors, among others.

Many of us are familiar with seeing old style name abbreviations formed by leaving out intermediate letters and elevating the last letter of the name. Peter becomes Pet^r. James becomes Jam^s. Samuel becomes Sam^l. The propensity to abbreviate in this fashion seems to have applied to some place names. Florida was abbreviated Fla. Georgia was Ga. Pennsylvania was sometimes abbreviated Penna. Indiana was sometimes abbreviated Ia.

That style persists in many U.S. Postal Service two letter state abbreviations such as GA for Ga. and PA for Penna. Florida and Indiana are not among them. Fla. is now FL and Ia. is now IN.

Ia. is the wildcard that threw off Ancestry’s 1850 census. (See Geolover’s comment to “Monday Mailbox: Indexing Place Names.”) While back in the 19th century Ia meant Indiana to Indianans, to young people today IA is always Iowa.

Two years ago in my article “The World Has Had Enough of Silly Presentisms” I presented the case of John Houts, 2 months old, born in Ia, and enumerated in Shawnee, Fountain, Indiana. Both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org had it wrong:

This is how FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com used to look.

I’ve checked and Ancestry.com now has this case correct. Their indexing rule of “key what you see” probably made it relatively easy for them to re-expand all Ia abbreviations in the state of Indiana.

I’ve checked FamilySearch.org and they still have it incorrect. Their policy of having indexers expand abbreviations has left them no way to correct such errors. They don’t know if the original record stated Ia or Iowa. They also give users no way to provide corrections. But I digress…

What about your favorite errors in Ancestry’s 1850 census? Have they fixed them?

Ancestral File Tree View

FamilySearch recently released a pedigree view for Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource Files. So what do I think? (I’ll warn my friends at FamilySearch that now is a good time to don your thick skins.)

I confess I was a genealogy geek several years before I got out of primary school. In those pre-copy machine, pre-typing skills days I spent a lot of time hand copying family group sheets and pedigree charts from my parents.

Here is what one of them looked like (less the last inch).

This was one of the few pre-printed forms offered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint. It has full information on four generations: a birth and death date and place for each individual and a marriage date for each couple. The chart links by name and sheet number to the 5th generation. And it has the name of the principal person’s spouse. The consistent line spacing provided more than typewriter efficiency. The rigid binary layout made it easy, at a glance, to distinguish paternal and maternal ascendancy lines. One knew right where to look to see the mother’s father’s mother.

The chart is precisely optimized for ascendancy research.

With my background, I have a tremendous affinity to this chart. Prejudice regarding its form runs deeply in my veins. Giving an unbiased review of the current incarnation will be more than difficult.

Classic FamilySearch.org

Here is the pedigree from the now defunct, classic FamilySearch.

The classic FamilySearch.org pedigree chart was obviously designed by someone schooled in genealogy (or at least in its clerical aspect). It contained identical information to the printed form in virtually the same layout. Building on the strength of technology, it replaced the link to the 5th generation with a clickable link and it added a clickable link to the family group sheet of each couple. Thankfully, it had enough space for full, unabbreviated place names.

Finally, the information for the entire pedigree and associated family groups could be downloaded—with a single click—for further analysis. (Like some of you, I was bitten more than once by wholesale merging of the information. But I digress…)

Current FamilySearch.org

Here is the new pedigree view for Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource File:

It doesn’t include marriage information (except for the principal). It doesn’t contain place information for the 3rd generation. The mother is not positioned to line up with her parents, making quick interpretation less intuitive. The clearest deficiency is the lack of a 4th ancestral generation. After all, ancestry is the point of a pedigree, isn’t it?

It does contain the principal’s children, albeit without full information. It includes all the principal’s wives with a mechanism to choose which wife and children to highlight. This combines the utility of pedigree and family group charts. And it makes it easier to navigate for descendancy research. (Do you remember on classic how painful it was to navigate down the pedigree one generation?)

Above all, this is an improvement over not having a pedigree view at all.

So, what do I think about this pedigree design?

Ancestry File and Pedigree Resource File are not purposed to facilitate new research, but to communicate genealogical conclusions. This makes good charting capabilities and information transfer of prime importance.

Perhaps I am not representative of the genealogical community at large and newer genealogists are not prejudiced by old designs. Perhaps this page was never intended to serve as a pedigree chart, but as a navigation aid. Perhaps better charts are still to come. Perhaps scarce resources are better allocated to improving other aspects of FamilySearch.org.

Regardless, I feel this is a tremendous navigational improvement, a slight presentational improvement, but a tremendously wanting pedigree solution.

What do you think?

(Please leave a comment rather than replying to my e-mail.)

FamilySearch.org Incremental Improvements

I’ve noticed several improvements in FamilySearch.org recently. One is pretty major, the other two small increments.

Restrict Records by Location or Record Type

On large websites like FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com one challenge is reading the mind of the researcher. Sometimes a researcher is interested in casting a wide net, finding all mentions of an ancestor, such as a parish record of English birth, a record of immigration to the United States, a U.S. census record, and marriage and death records. And not just his own, but the researcher would like the records where the ancestor is mentioned as a parent in the marriage and death records of his children.

On the other hand, sometimes the researcher is looking for the ancestor’s English christening record. The complaint is often heard,”Why are you giving me U.S. census records?”

FamilySearch now allows restricting records by country and record type. By default, the country fields is visible but the record type checkboxes are hidden. Click the link to make the respective section visible.

This is a welcome, major addition.

Image Load Time

On my DSL connection at home images used to take near a half-minute to load. Now images start to appear in a couple of seconds, albeit fuzzy. It only takes a few more seconds for the image to finish loading. Meanwhile, detail is often clear enough I can start zooming in on an area of interest.

It also feels like I can zoom in further. Does anyone else feel that way?

Catalog

The new FamilySearch catalog (as opposed to the old, classic FHLC catalog) can be searched by multiple criteria.

For example, in the old catalog a surname search (now called a Last Names search) for Gates returned 259 results. But adding an Author name of Gates cuts the results to 25.

Click on a “Search by” option to reveal the respective search box.

I like incremental improvements. I know some people don’t like a website constantly changing. They would rather have a website stable for years at a time, with all the changes saved up and released all at once. Me? I’m an incrementalist. I’m glad we have these new improvements sooner than later.

FamilySearch Increasing Camera Operations by 60%

Missionary Brent Heineken carries box of records
in Tacoma, Wash.
Image: Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

The Church News of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently ran an article about record preservation missionaries manning cameras for FamilySearch. (FamilySearch is wholly owned and operated by the Church.) Here’s information and quotes I’ve gleaned from the article.

FamilySearch has 200 teams in 45 countries capturing digital photographs of historical records, according to Paul Nauta, FamilySearch marketing communications manager. (If I understand correctly, FamilySearch still has a couple of microfilm cameras still in operation. But I digress…)

“FamilySearch plans to significantly expand its digital preservation efforts starting this year,” he said. About 80 of the teams are missionary couples and FamilySearch hopes to increase that number to 200 this year and even more in 2014 and 2015.

“We're now producing, online, about 400 million digital images a year,” Nauta said. “The bulk of that, about 250 to 300 million images, is coming from vault conversion.” As the conversion of microfilm in the FamilySearch vault tapers down, FamilySearch hopes to maintain the 400 million annual publication rate by increasing the number of camera teams in the field. About 80 million historic images came from the field last year and the number is expected to increase to about 100 this year.

Most of the article is a pitch to retired couples of the Church to volunteer as record preservation missionaries.

“We need volunteers to go out and help us now as we continue to gather new records,” said Nauta. “They will handle priceless historical documents — in some cases older than the U.S. Declaration of Independence,” he said. “In essence, they are helping preserve the literal heritage of a nation and the world for future generations.”

“Records preservation missionaries can serve for one to two years,” he said. “They can serve locally or internationally and choose where they want to serve.”

Map of current, full time opportunities.
Source: https://familysearch.org/serveandpreserve

According to the article,

Couples interested in serving in the records preservation effort can learn more about it by going to the website www.familysearch.org/serveandpreserve. There they may watch an explanatory video titled "A Day in the Life of a FamilySearch Records Preservation Missionary."

They may also contact coordinator Tim Law (for part-time opportunities) at (800)453-3860, extension 24963; or coordinator Karma Tomlinson (for full-time opportunities) at (800)453-3860, extension 24546.

To read the article in its entirety, see “Family History: Preserving the World’s Records,” by R. Scott Lloyd.

National, Regional, State, and International Conferences

If you’re interested in attending genealogy conferences (and you really should be), check out Jen Baldwin’s Conference Keeper website.

I’m lucky to live close to a number of conferences, and to have an employer that permits me to attend them. Here’s Conference Keeper’s listings for several I hope to attend.

Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy

January 14 - 18, 2013: Salt Lake City, Utah
Website

 

RootsTech 2013

March 21 - 23, 2013: Salt Lake City, Utah
Website

 

NGS Family History Conference

May 8 - 11, 2013: Las Vegas, Nevada. 
Website

 

44th Annual BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy

July 30 - Aug 2, 2013; Provo, UT.
Website.

 

Federation of Genealogical Societies Annual Conference

Aug 21-24, 2013; Fort Wayne, IN. 
Website

Searching FamilySearch.org

Searching FamilySearch.org is not a one size fits all. Depending on what you are searching for, you need to use a different search system. Don’t think that because you’ve searched from the FamilySearch.org home page that you’ve searched everything that FamilySearch has to offer.

I’ve heard FamilySearch criticized on that point. Here are the different search systems. Searching any of these does not search any of the others.

• Searching historical record collections
• Searching user submitted IGI records
• Searching Ancestral File, Pedigree Resource File, or other patron contributed trees
• Searching the FamilySearch Family Tree
• Searching the titles of collections
• Searching the catalog formerly known as the FHLC (Family History Library catalog)
• Searching family and local history books
• Searching for centers formerly known as FHCs (family history centers)
• Searching the research wiki
• Searching the online genealogy courses
• Searching the Q and A forums (one down)
• Searching the blog
• Searching the Help knowledgebase

While some of these systems could or should be combined, many should not. Why?

1. Context, context, context

A Google search for [Saint Mary] is almost never going to return what I am looking for. Google will desperately grasp at context. Past the Wikipedia article of Saint Mary, mother of Jesus (always a good Google guess), Google uses my location in Salt Lake City to return an article about “Saint Mary’s Home for Men of Salt Lake City.” Then it uses my search history and returns a link to this article, since I often select articles on http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com. Beyond that, Google pretty much depends on a popularity contest with no idea of what I am looking for.

Things change on FamilySearch.org. I might do an exact search of the 1940 census for last name Saint Mary. I might do a location search in the catalog for Saint Mary. I might do an FHC search for Saint Mary. I might search Family Tree for first name Mary and last name Saint. I might search immigration record collections for a ship named Saint Mary. (OK. Actually, I can’t do that on FamilySearch, since they have yet to implement collection-specific search fields. However, I can do that on Ancestry.com. But I digress…)

In each of these cases each search system uses its context to determine my intent.

If one unified search system could read my mind, a combined search would be great. But somehow I want my search system(s) to know the difference between a person and a place. I don’t want my search system to give me results in poorly documented conclusion trees when I intend to search census and vital records. Nor do I want results from the English BMD indexes when I want a pedigree. I don’t want a golfer’s ancestors when I am searching for an online course about handwriting.

2. Error rate

Ancestry.com has been down the single search path before and learned some things. Because of what they learned, they separated these three search types—search for a person in a record, a person in a tree, and a person in a book—into three buckets that can be individually searched.

One measure of error is the number of false positives. A false positive is a search result that is wrong. Ancestry found that the false positive rate for books and newspapers was extremely high. Correct results from record collections (like census and vital records) were buried in false positives so deeply they never saw the light of day.

So should any of these searches be combined? I think so.

Could the searches of all tree systems be merged? Yes, I think that would be great. (I’d have to think about it, but you might be able to throw in user submitted IGI also.)

Could searches for places in the Wiki and online learning courses be merged? I think so. Place names in collection titles? Yes. What about catalog place search? Maybe. A good UI (user interface) might make all this work.

Until then, be aware that searching from the home page of FamilySearch.org does not search everything.

FamilySearch Mobile Indexing App Withdrawn

Image Credit: © Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

“In February 2012, FamilySearch quietly launched a beta test of a FamilySearch indexing mobile app for the IOS and Android platforms,” Michael Judson, FamilySearch Indexing spokesperson, said last month. “At this point, we feel we have enough beta testers and have decided to restrict the app from further downloading.” The withdrawal of the app from the app store occurred mid-December.

I briefly mentioned the existence of the app back on 3 February 2012 and reviewed it in June 2012. (See “FamilySearch Indexing on iPad,” “The Betaness of FamilySearch iPad Indexing,” and “FamilySearch Indexing App Q and A.”)

Judson went on to say something that made me wonder if the beta program is winding down. He said that current mobile indexers could continue to do, but only a limited number of new snippets would be produced.

I’ve wondered if and when collections indexed might be published. Judson said, “all information indexed on the mobile app will eventually become part of the searchable collection on FamilySearch.org.”

When you say “beta test” to me, as an old software developer, I think of a final test before a product is released. This was not the case for the Mobile Indexing app. The purpose of this beta test was to

• gauge overall interest in mobile indexing,
• get feedback on the product design,
• and determine the relative effectiveness of the mobile approach vs. the traditional desktop indexing approach.

Interest was deemed to be high. The app was downloaded more than 150,000 times and more than 21,000 individuals used it each month.

FamilySearch received feedback and Judson promised it would be used to help improve the product.

Relatively, the production of mobile indexers was discovered to be far less than desktop indexers. Further, the cost of preparing indexing batches of name snippets is expensive.

So what is the future of mobile indexing from FamilySearch? “We know the beta test has raised the anticipation level for some,” he said, “so we ask for patience as we continue to work toward delivering a truly effective mobile solution. FamilySearch is committed to getting this right.”

Other FamilySearch Indexing Numbers

As of 14 December 2012, the regular FamilySearch Indexing program had produced:

• 950,826,364 total records completed
• 255,339,985 records completed in 2012 (at this rate the grand total will surpass one billion in 2013!)
• 337,355 contributors in 2012
• 197 current projects

Ancestry.com Discloses 2013 Plans

Ancestry.com recently disclosed its plans for new databases coming in 2013:

• More yearbooks and detailed 19th-century student lists from select U.S. colleges
• Occupational records from railroads in the U.S. and engineers in the UK
• More New York state census years
• More World War II draft cards
• Interactive census experience for 20th-century censuses from the U.S., UK, and Canada
• More birth, marriage, and death records from the Northeast.
• “Deeper connections to early ancestors with AncestryDNA.” (Whatever that means.)
• Additional African-American military records and newspapers
• Jewish records created in the U.S. and overseas.
• Puerto Rico records
• Asian immigration files
• Upgraded mobile app able to search Ancestry.com
• Additional birth, marriage, and death records from the UK, Germany, and Sweden
• UK divorce records
• Lord Morpeth’s roll from Ireland
• More Canadian military records
• Quaker church records
• A collection of Texas death certificates
• Confederate casualty lists
• Prisoner of war registers from the War of 1812
• American Loyalists’ claims
• Canadian ship muster rolls and paylists
• Additional alien depositions
• Alien draft registrations from the southwest U.S.
• Lists of passengers arriving in Canada from the St. Lawrence Steamboat Company
• Updates to the Hamburg departing passenger lists
• All new departures from the UK
• Associated Press records
• Civil War death records
• Land records from Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia
• Enhancements to Family Tree Maker that will let you update your family tree from multiple computers

Ancestry.com Celebrates New 2012 Collections

I am taking the week off so I forgot to tell you about a special offer from Ancestry.com. They are offering free access this week to 30 collections new or updated this year. To access the collections, visit Ancestry.com/2012. As usual, to access free collections on Ancestry you must provide your name and email address to obtain a free account.

The 30 collections are:

• 1940 United States Federal Census
• Border Crossings: From Canada to U.S., 1895-1954
• Border Crossings: From Mexico to U.S., 1895-1957
• California, Railroad Employment Records, 1862-1937
• Canada, Nominal Rolls and Paylists for the Volunteer Militia, 1857-1922
• Canada, Voters Lists, 1935-1980
• Galveston, Texas, Jewish Immigration Records, 1901-1917
• Lancashire, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813-1911
• Lancashire, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1986
• Lancashire, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1936
• London, England, School Admissions and Discharges, 1840-1911
• Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988
• New South Wales, Australia, Convict Indents, 1788-1842
• New South Wales, Australia, Police Gazettes, 1854-1930
• New York, Naturalization Records, 1897-1944
• New York, State Census, 1892
• New Zealand, Maori Land Claims, 1858-1980
• Pennsylvania, Church and Town Records, 1708-1985
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Immigration Records, Special Boards of Inquiry, 1893-1909
• U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls, 1798-1958
• U.S. National Cemetery Interment Control Forms, 1928-1962
• U.S., Buffalo Soldiers, Returns From Regular Army Cavalry Regiments, 1866-1916
• U.S., Burial Registers, Military Posts and National Cemeteries, 1862-1960
• U.S., Confederate Pensions, 1884-1958
• U.S., Records of Aliens Pre-Examined in Canada, 1922-1954
• U.S., World War II Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files, 1942-1948
• UK and Ireland, Masters and Mates Certificates, 1850-1927
• United States, Atlantic Ports Passenger Lists, 1820-1873 and 1893-1959
• War of 1812 Pension Application Files Index, 1812-1815
• Washington, Marriage Records, 1865-2004

For the 1940 census, Ancestry has indexed additional fields:

• House owned or rented
• Value of home or monthly rental if rented
• Attended school or college
• Highest grade completed
• Employment code
• Hours worked the week prior to the census
• Duration of employment
• Occupation
• Class of worker
• Occupation code
• Weeks worked in 1939
• Income
• Income from other sources

The 1940 census asked additional questions for two people on each page. Ancestry has indexed these fields for those individuals:

• Father birth place
• Mother birth place
• Native language
• Veteran
• If child, is veteran father dead
• Military Service
• Usual occupation
• Usual industry
• Usual class of worker
• Usual occupation code
• If a women have they been married more than once
• Women age at first marriage
• Number of children ever born

May your ancestors always be those two individuals. (And may the odds always be with you.)

My Christmas Card to You

I still have my The Generations Network Christmas shirt as you can see in the photograph to the right. I wear it once a year, even though Ancestry.com changed their name.

FamilySearch. did something interesting with their logo—see below—in a Christmas greeting they recently sent me.

If FamilySearch can play with their logo, so can Ancestry.com. Here’s what Ancestry did for a recent email campaign:

 

 

On a serious note, recent tragedies have underscored the importance of family, friends, and community. I pray you and yours will have a very, merry Christmas and a happy holiday season.

--The Insider

Ancestry.com Opens and FamilySearch Closes

In separate announcements Ancestry.com announced it is opening a public forum and FamilySearch announced it is closing theirs.

“While the Ancestry Message Boards are for finding people and places,” said Ancestry spokesperson, Matthew Deighton, “our new Support Communities is the place to go to get answers to product questions, and to find tips and solutions submitted by community members.”

The top three issues on the Ancestry Community Forum thus far are:

1. My subscription will end—what will happen to my tree?
2. Problems with sign in
3. Received DNA results…confused

Meanwhile, FamilySearch’s Janell Vasquez announced that “due to user feedback, we are discontinuing these forums as of December 31, 2012… We apologize for the inconvenience that this will cause for those of you who have come to enjoy your collaboration with each other on these forums.” Vasquez suggested users join FamilySearch Facebook groups or contact FamilySearch support. Several users posted comments that they didn’t trust Facebook. A couple of users announced that they will probably stop indexing because of the change.

FamilySearch said it is “transitioning our Forums into a new question and answer tool.” Information will be posted this week with instructions on how to help test potential replacement software.

The idea behind a community forum is that ordinary people like you and I answer questions that others have. In my mind there is some question if the genealogical community is large enough or interested enough in helping vendors support their products.

Stay tuned…

Monday Mailbox: FamilySearch Family of Websites

Dear Mr. Insider,

I have noticed a number of web sites for FamilySearch.org. Is there some place that lists all of the different variations/locations that are connected to FamilySearch.org?

Signed, Jerry

Dear Jerry,

Believe it or not, you can navigate to almost all FamilySearch websites from http://familysearch.org. The few exceptions are specialized websites or websites that can’t be reached because of broken links on FamilySearch.org.

• http://new.familysearch.org – for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here, new means old.
• http://consultant.familysearch.org – for family history consultants of the Church

Signed, The Insider

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What Jerry really needs is a good site map. Too bad FamilySearch won’t provide an official one. Here’s a quick attempt.

• Search
• Historical Records
• International Genealogical Index
• Genealogies (including Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource Files)
• Catalog
• Classic Catalog (FHLC)
• Books
• All Historical Record Collections
• Family Tree (visit invite link first)
• Learn
• Getting Started
• Another Getting Started (you must login)
• Research Wiki
• Research Courses
• Discussion Forums (stay tuned for tomorrow’s article)
• FamilySearch Centers (and FHCs)
• Order Microfilm
• Indexing
• Blog
• TechTips
• User
• Settings
• Source Box
• Help
• General
• About
• Feedback
• Privacy
• Terms
• Other
• Affiliate Products
• Archivists
• Careers
• Developers
• Labs
• England 1851 Jurisdiction Maps
• Community Trees
• Press
• Television
• Volunteer

Talking Photos No Longer Limited to Hogwarts

LegacyStories.org recently announced it had become the first certified web application to read the new FamilySearch Family Tree.

This special certification allows our LegacyStories members to search for and bookmark their writings, photos and oral narratives to ancestors found in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree.

In early 2013, FamilySearch is planning to launch the revolutionary TreeConnect feature. At that time our members will be able to easily link their bookmarked stories to the Family Tree.

LegacyStories.org’s “Talking Photos” feature allows users to record a narrative on their computer’s microphone and associate it with a photo.

The entire press release can be read on the web.

NARA’s Bill Mayer Speaks About Genealogists

William A. “Bill” Mayer became Executive for Research Services on 18 June 2012. In a recent interview Mayer made comments of interest to genealogists.

With so much changing in terms of digital access through our partners like Ancestry.com and FamilySearch, I’d be very interested to hear from the genealogy community how their practices are changing. … I’d also welcome discussions that highlighted ways the genealogy community could support NARA as well: deeper more effective citizen archivist programs; citizen scanning projects; sharing of expertise from our most expert public researchers – any other ideas?

Did he say “citizen scanning projects”? That sounds intriguing. I wonder what that means.

On online access Mayer said,

"Access" in general, regardless of format, is a primary mission for NARA, and Research Services especially. I see methods that focus on both the in-person and the online as critical to our work today and into the future. But to be realistic, there’s simply not enough funding to do everything we see necessary to provide comprehensive, high-functioning systems for access. So choices need to be made. Arguably, digitization enables a broader reach for records than ever before. But what about the guidance and pathfinding through the maze of information found online? How do we support that?

Mayer expanded on that topic.

Access to information is never done well by a "one size fits all" approach. Digital access is an excellent method for expanding the reach of the record and exposing the record to wider audiences – but that access has to be coupled with excellent customer services that make the most of the connection between the record and the researcher. My top-level plans are to focus our work on the key areas of Discovery (finding what we have), Access (getting to what we have), and Preservation (ensuring content is available for generations to come).

On the seemingly opposing goals of access and preservation, Mayer said,

Protection and Preservation of our holdings does not mean we can’t facilitate easier access. That’s why you see such a rise in digitization efforts.

Asked about when the content digitized by Ancestry.com and Fold3 would be available free to the public, Mayer said,

Those are rolling dates depending on the collections being digitized and the agreements that govern each collection. New records are released regularly, and free access to the public is available at every NARA facility nationwide the moment the collections are available on the partner sites. There are quite a number of these collections, so I’ll look forward to sharing a more explicit listing for future communications.

In other news, NARA has announced the addition of census reference reports to the existing set of genealogical research reports consisting of African American, Military, Native Americans, and Immigration. Reference reports are one to four page papers describing research strategies for frequently used records.

Monday Mailbox: Please Tell Me Your Name

Dear Ancestry Insider,

Please tell me your name so that I may know who I am looking for in Las Vegas, ok?

Signed,
Ron Bremer

Dear Ron,

You thought I’d fall for that old trick? Straight up asking?

Ask me in my 2013 NGS Annual Conference session and I will tell you my name. But you don’t have to wait until then. Several people approach me each conference to tell me that they recognized me from my picture.

Signed,
The Insider

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Dear Ancestry Insider,

Hi, I guess you can not enter the Ancestry.com contest if you don't own a cellphone!

Not everyone has a cell phone and not all cellphones have an app capability or camera. I'm one of those people.

Diane H.

Dear Diane,

As was I until September. I hear you. However, my previous smart phone had gotten dumber and dumber. When it broke, I took the plunge. But it’s more expensive and not everyone can afford that.

Signed,
The Insider

FamilySearch Family Tree is Coming

I found a video on YouTube that demonstrates the basic functionality of FamilySearch Family Tree. It is titled “Family Tree from FamilySearch.” It was not posted by FamilySearch, so it does not give official pronouncements. For example, it states that, “Later in 2012 this massive database of family information will be made available free to everyone” Still, in my opinion it gives excellent information.

After all the rumors about FamilySearch Family Tree’s public availability (or lack thereof), I thought I’d check the FamilySearch blog for the latest news. I searched for [Family Tree Is Coming]. I found an article available to the general public that was posted 19 November 2012 and is titled “Family Tree Service on FamilySearch.org Coming Soon.” While throughout the year FamilySearch has stated that Family Tree would be available to the public by the end of the year, this article seems to be squirming in that regard. The article starts off by stating that “Within the next few months, FamilySearch will make Family Tree available to everyone on its website.”

Stay tuned…

Ancestry.com Holiday Contest

Ancestry.com is running a holiday contest. Prizes are: a six month US Deluxe subscription, an AncestryDNA kit, a copy of Family Tree Maker 2012, or a gift membership. To enter the contest use your camera phone and Instagram. Take a photograph and tag it with #ancestryholiday.

Instagram is a free photo sharing app for Apple iPhones and Google phones. For more information and for links to the respective app stores, visit the Instagram website.

NGS 2013 Conference Registration Opens

Blame the 2013 annual conference of the National Genealogical Society.

You’ve noticed I didn’t post many articles in November. I’m teaching a session at the conference and preparations have been so fun, I’ve spent all my free time working on it.

In “Do It Yourself Photo Restoration” I teach how to use a free and simple program, Paint.NET, to do basic photo restoration. I’m having a hard time tearing myself away to write articles, do genealogy, and work on extra-curricular professional activities.

The 2013 NGS Conference will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada from May 8th until May 11th at the Las Vegas Hotel and Casino adjacent to the Las Vegas Convention Center and one block off the Las Vegas Strip.

The weird thing about this conference is that I’ve been asked to be a luncheon speaker on Saturday. Isn’t that weird? Other than you few, nobody’s ever heard of me. It’s audience participation, so please come and help me out.

Register now for the early bird discount. For more information, visit the NGS 2013 Family History Conference page of the NGS website. Visit the Online Conference Program to see me (and other speakers, I suppose). While you’re at it, see the conference brochure and register for the conference.