“Every month over a thousand living people are listed by Social Security as dead, according to an investigation by WFLA 8 (Tampa, Florida).” The results are disastrous. Credit cards stop working. Pensions stop coming. Insurance is cancelled.
See the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl0xKyxooP4.
Is it just me? I seem to have problems using FamilySearch.org several times a week. It runs so slow, it is hard to use. But last Wednesday night at my local Family History Center? It was embarrassing. And it was excruciating.
We had a youth group come in to learn about family history. There were three leaders (who did nothing but talk among themselves) and five young men. I tried to teach them how to use Family Tree while doing research.
Everything we did required five or more refreshes. The pedigree view wouldn’t show up. Or expanding a branch wouldn’t work. Or clicking on a name would bring up a blank person card. Or View Person would bring up a form with no information filling in the blanks. Or the right half of the merge page would be blank.
Trying to interest a group of teenage boys in genealogy is tenuous at best.
One of the boys didn’t have a Family Tree login account and was quickly lost to his cell phone. A second one sat behind the rest and unswervingly wrote in secret code in a small notebook.
The third boy showed the most interest. With much diligence he got to the point where he needed to merge two people in his tree. I worked with him for several minutes but the merge page kept coming up empty. I left him with standing instructions to hit Retry every 15 seconds and holler when the screen came up. I never heard from him again.
The fourth boy was able to push through far enough to find a man in a collateral line that listed a wife but no children. I had the fifth boy bring up FamilySearch.org historical record collections. (The All Collections list takes upwards of 30 seconds. If I scroll down while I wait, I find the first 30 entries area listed, but it takes forever for the remainder to show up.) He found the man in the census, complete with children.
But it did the fourth boy no good because the system was so slow, he couldn’t get to the point where he could add the children. He finally gave up so I sent him off to Ancestry.com where he enjoyed finding a portrait and a gravestone photograph of this ancestor.
Engaging another generation in genealogy is tricky. Last Wednesday night at my Family History Center, the FamilySearch.org website did more disengaging than engaging.
Click these images to enlarge
Home Page
Recent photos
Editing a tag
People in photo linked/not linked to Family Tree
Photo appears on the Person Page
The photo feature makes it possible to upload your photos, identify people in the photos, and link the people to Family Tree.
I took a minute last Saturday to check it out.
I started by uploading a 5 MB photograph (that I had Ancestry.com scan for me at a conference in 2010). I received an error when I tried to upload a PNG file, even though the site said that PNG and JPEG are supported. I switched to JPEG and started the upload. I have a slow (DSL) connection at home, so it took some time.
Be careful what you name your photos as the filename is visible to all. I had the name of a living individual in mine. Oops.
I tagged four people in the photograph and then attempted to link them to the tree. The system automatically searched the tree for a person matching the name tag. The result listed six results, none of which were my ancestor. I clicked the search button, hoping to reveal a search form giving me more options, such as birth date. No luck; the same six people were shown. Then I noticed you can enter the person by FamilySearch person ID. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want a more robust search. If this is an attempt to make the user experience simpler, it’s back firing.
I brought up Family Tree to walk my pedigree to find the person ID. Unfortunately, Family Tree was on the fritz; a living person was missing from my tree leaving me unable to walk the tree. I flipped over to New FamilySearch (which I hope they don’t shut down too soon, given the buggy nature of Family Tree) and found the ID.
I copied and pasted it into the search box back in FamilySearch Photos and hit the search button. Nothing happened. Fortunately, I’m familiar enough with computers to think to search for spaces on the end of the ID. Since I copied and pasted it, it’s not uncommon for that to happen. Once I removed the trailing spaces, the search returned the proper ancestor. Someone with less experience would probably give up.
On my second person, the search also failed. This time F5 (refresh) brought the page back to life.
Once I associated the photo with a person, I could click to see all the photos containing that person, including a photo uploaded by someone else. The photograph also appeared on the Family Tree person page.
Much remains to be explored, but that gives you a flavor of the new FamilySearch Photo feature.
Dear Ancestry Insider;
I was using FamilySearch Saturday afternoon [26 January]. I was searching within the Cook County Illinois birth certificate images when suddenly I received a message to try back later. Well, an hour later I tried again only to discover that all the Cook County databases where images were previously available were now ALL only showing indexes. Having them all disappear does not look like normal maintenance downtime although that may be the case.
It is now Sunday morning and nothing has changed. This is a huge and valuable collection and I hate to see it disappear, the reason being ??????
Maybe all will be restored by Monday . . . maybe not. Maybe you have covered this previously and I missed it, for which I apologize. If none of this is the case would you please be able to call upon your Family Search contacts and find out if this is temporary or permanent. And possibly WHY. I so hate to think this may be another local government money grab at work.
Thank you,
Lori
Dear Lori,
I poked a little bit and found this message posted in the FamilySearch Wiki article, “Illinois, Cook County Death Records (FamilySearch Historical Records).”
Image Visibility
Due to the provisions and guidelines of a newly revised contract with Cook County, FamilySearch has removed all images for Illinois, Cook County vital records from its historical records collections online; free indexes to the collections will remain.
As part of our new agreement, FamilySearch will receive an additional 4.7 million records for FamilySearch patrons from the over 9 million free indexed records in the Cook County collection. The following collections are affected by the change:
- Illinois, Cook County Birth Certificates, 1878-1922
- Illinois, Cook County Birth Registers, 1871-1915
- Illinois, Cook County Deaths, 1878-1922
- Illinois, Cook County Marriages, 1871-1920
Original images can be ordered or viewed through the following mediums.
1. Microfilm and microfiche from the Family History Library are available via Online Film Ordering in most parts of the world. The film number is included in the source information found on the index of the record. https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Ordering_Microfilm_or_Microfiche
2. Illinois, Cook County web site http://cookcountygenealogy.com/ (pay site)
3. Request a digital copy of items found in the Family History Library catalog services from the Family History Library (photoduplication). Include source information found on the index of the record in your request. https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Photoduplication_Services
It sounds like you are correct, Lori. However, I wouldn’t think too harshly of the Cook County government. The recession has hit everyone hard, particularly record custodians and archives.
Thanks for alerting all of us to this disappearance.
Signed,
--The Insider
It sounds like this is a lose-win situation. (Not as good as a win-win, but hey, sometimes you have to take your wins where you can find them.) While the images have disappeared, we are gaining access to an additional 4.7 million records.
I was also glad to learn about the FamilySearch photo-duplication service. That’s pretty handy stuff. There are lots of records on FamilySearch.org that don’t include images but do mention a microfilm number. I’ll probably use it myself rather than walking across the street to the library.
You may call it laziness, I prefer efficiency.
In response to my article, “FamilySearch Values Sources,” I received this comment.
Dear Ancestry Insider,
I Googled “world population vital records” and came across an interesting chart on page 3 of: http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/WhoCounts2.pdf (inadequate source - - right?) The chart indicates that 70 (100-30) percent of the countries in the world have inadequate or no birth records. Americas 47 percent, Africa 95 percent, and in South-East Asia 99 percent of the countries have inadequate or no birth records.
Should we stop attempting to build a one-world tree where so many of the branches will, by some, be considered “Mythology”? Obviously the answer is a resounding “No”. Will accredited genealogists need to get used to seeing a high percentage of the branches in the tree unsourced? They will have to answer that for themselves.
Perhaps we need to consider replacing the statement, “Genealogy without sources is Mythology” with a statement such as “Genealogy without sources is 100 percent better than No Genealogy”. At least there will be a tree where the tree decorators can come along and hang on a source ornament (if one exists).
Signed,
Demer *
Logan FamilySearch Library
Dear Demer,
I’m sure I must be misunderstanding your comments in some regard. Let me address each point in turn and you can leave a comment explaining where I’ve misunderstood.
I Googled “world population vital records” and came across an interesting chart on page 3 of: http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/WhoCounts2.pdf (inadequate source - - right?) The chart indicates that 70 (100-30) percent of the countries in the world have inadequate or no birth records. Americas 47 percent, Africa 95 percent, and in South-East Asia 99 percent of the countries have inadequate or no birth records.
I assume you are aware that other sources exist besides vital records. You probably know how recently vital record laws were enacted in this country and have research strategies you teach patrons of the Logan FamilySearch Library for ancestors born before then.
I concede your point that some people lived but were never recorded in any source. I trust you are not suggesting that we try to account for them. That is exactly what Abigail did. (I’ll leave off her last name, even though you can look it up in New FamilySearch.) Her submission, father to son, is given below. Birth and death years are in parentheses.
One can argue that each of the people in this tree really did exist because every son had to have a father. However, notice that each generation is separated by 25 years and some names are inexplicably from the Book of Mormon. It is not surprising that no sources are provided, as no records exist for some of these time periods. One must assume that this information is fraudulent.
Should we stop attempting to build a one-world tree where so many of the branches will, by some, be considered “Mythology”? Obviously the answer is a resounding “No”.
You are certainly right that some will consider Abigail’s branch to be mythology. I hope you are part of that group. Let’s attempt to build a one-world tree, but let’s do it with sources, not mythology.
Will accredited genealogists need to get used to seeing a high percentage of the branches in the tree unsourced? They will have to answer that for themselves.
Slamming accredited genealogists does nothing to advance your argument.
Perhaps we need to consider replacing the statement, “Genealogy without sources is Mythology” with a statement such as “Genealogy without sources is 100 percent better than No Genealogy”.
I respectfully disagree. Abigail’s genealogy is not 100 percent better. It is 100 percent worse.
At least there will be a tree where the tree decorators can come along and hang on a source ornament (if one exists).
You’ve missed one of the most important, driving factors for the creation of the tree: eliminating the duplication of research. Why make someone else duplicate your research to find the source you used? If you didn’t make up your information, why wouldn’t you specify your sources?
Some people will argue that Abigail’s submission is an aberration, that most people aren’t fabricating genealogies. More pernicious than Abigail’s submission is the wrong information that isn’t obviously wrong. Most are innocent mistakes, but the intent of the submitter doesn’t change the effort necessary to detect and correct the errors.
Help me out here Demer. I know you don’t want a tree with fabricated information. I know you don’t want people to withhold the sources of their information. I hope you know that vital records are not the only sources that can be specified. I know you don’t want to force others to duplicate research just to specify the sources that the submitter could have specified themselves. What am I missing?
Signed,
--The Insider
RootsTech will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah on the 21st through the 23rd of March. Early-early bird pricing is $149 for a full conference admission. This rate goes through the 15th of February. Early bird pricing, $179, continues after that for “a few weeks” according to FamilySearch spokesperson, Amy Smith. Eventually, pricing will go up to $219.
Keynote speaker, Dennis Brimhall, is currently the President and CEO of FamilySearch International. He was formerly the President and Chief Executive Officer of University of Colorado Hospital from 1988 to 2005. A native of Provo, Utah, Brimhall earned an undergraduate degree in zoology from Brigham Young University in 1972 and a master’s degree in management from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 1974.
Syd Liberman is a nationally acclaimed storyteller, author, and award-winning teacher. Many of his stories deal with growing up in Chicago and raising a family in Evanston, Illinois. He is known for his original historical pieces. He has received commissions to write stories for some of America’s leading institutions and agencies, including the Smithsonian; Historic Philadelphia, Inc.; NASA; and the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. His work has garnered awards from the American Library Association, Parents' Choice, and Storytelling World. Liberman was one of six tellers featured on the television special, The Call of Story. He has also performed numerous times at the Timpanogos and National storytelling festivals.
D. Joshua Taylor is the Business Development Manager – North America for brightsolid online publishing, the creator of findmypast.com. A nationally known and recognized professional genealogist, lecturer, genealogical author, and researcher, Taylor is the current president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) and the former Director of Education at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Taylor holds an MLS (Archival Management) and an MA (History) from Simmons College, and is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Federation of Genealogical Societies Award of Merit, and the Rubincam Youth Award from the National Genealogical Society. Taylor was also a featured genealogist on NBC's Who Do You Think You Are?.
I’m an incrementalist, so I’m happy with this constant stream of improvements. Kudos to FamilySearch.
It has not always been so. Consider FamilySearch’s historical disregard for sources:
And Suzanne’s complaint from Monday’s mailbox:
Much still needs to be done. Some of these past mistakes will take years to overcome. Some are uncorrectable. Here’s hoping FamilySearch will never revert to its historical behavior because “genealogy without sources is mythology.”1
Presently, Family Tree uses a different search algorithm than Record Search. This makes it harder to locate people in the tree. Within the next few weeks Family Tree will begin using the same search algorithm as Record Search.
Because NFS is kept in sync with Family Tree, it is not possible to merge two people in Family Tree if that would create an IOUS in NFS. (An IOUS, Individual of unusual size, is an NFS person that contains more than 250 combined records.) Once synchronization between the two systems is broken, then it will be possible to merge such duplicate individuals.
While combining is no longer possible using NFS, the same operation is still possible via third party software. However, Ron recommended not using third party software to combine people for a while. Because of the synchronization, all the Family Tree data can be changed and FamilySearch identified as the contributor. This occurs because NFS picks the summary values following a combine and the summary values are copied over to Family Tree. Family Tree sources and reasons given for conclusions could influence your decision to combine, but are not currently available via third party software. And the Not-a-Match feature of Family Tree does not block third party combines. The third party software will soon be able to do a Family Tree merge rather than an NFS combine, after which these issues will go away.
FamilySearch has a photo upload feature in beta that should be available shortly. Ron tells me that by the end of March it will be possible to take a photo of a document, upload it, and put it in a source.
Finally, there is something in the works to allow users to share information to work together on living genealogies, but it is too preliminary to give information on. Ron would love feedback if people want this.
Last week in the FamilySearch blog, David Green talked about several imminent Family Tree features. Expect these in the next couple of weeks. Below I’m semi-quoting from the article:
Finally, access to new.familysearch.org will be discontinued in the near future.
In response to my article “Ancestry.com Fixes 1850 Errors,” reader Jim asked if Ancestry might be nudged to fix errors in the 1830 census also. I asked Ancestry.com spokesperson, Matthew Deighton, if other fixes were in the works.
Deighton said that Ancestry regularly reworks “existing collections to increase the breadth of the collection, fix errors in keying, and update the usability and ease of search.” Ancestry reworked 150 databases in 2012, most of which were online for eight years or more. “We need to make a nice balance between digitizing and indexing collections never seen before and improving the current collections,” he said.
Deighton provided a list of some collection improvements, which I quote:
I saw when I was at Ancestry that errors were queued up for fixing. However, there are a number of reasons why your individual errors don’t appear to get fixed. It isn’t feasible to make such corrections immediately. Some collections are lightly used and don’t warrant expensive rework. Some errors are not escalated by customer service reps who may not understand records enough to confidently declare to superiors that errors exist.
Ancestry is extending its new, cool census interface to new censuses, so they’ve had to touch these censuses anyways. That’s aligned the planets for repair of known problems. Hopefully, your errors in the above censuses got fixed. If you have errors in other censuses, now is the time to get them on the list.
What about it? Did your favorite errors get fixed?
Dear Ancestry Insider,
Hi,
I have been following your comments on NFS as well as Ancestry.com, the new Family Tree etc. and I would like to know what you really think about it all.
It seems to me that Ancestry has really hit on something good with the ability to use it in conjunction with Family Tree Maker. It is now very easy to look up someone on Ancestry, find the census, certificates etc. and then almost with a push of a button transfer all of that along with the connection to a personal computer. Almost without much effort, the sources are transferred to your computer and the documentation is there.
FamilySearch on the other hand, has taken us on a merry ride. We have been all over NFS, which has now been abandoned, so to speak. Many of us have spent hours and hours putting stuff into NFS, only to have someone change it, or even worse, to have NFS do some kind of computer matching which demolishes everything that has been done.
Now, we have Family Trees, and I tell you, I just don't have the heart to learn and get started on it, because of the time commitment and because I don't know that they will stay with it. And, it is not now as good as Ancestry.
So, what is the future? Is FamilySearch ever going to have the ability that Ancestry already has to save things to a personal account for each person, and then download that to a personal computer? Where are we going?
I really would like to know what you think about where everything is going.
Signed,
Suzanne Johnston
Dear Suzanne,
Wow. You hit some issues squarely on the head. I think your letter should be required reading for every decision maker at FamilySearch. Let me walk through your points.
I have been following your comments on NFS as well as Ancestry, the new Family Tree, etc. and I would like to know what you really think about it all.
What do I think? You’ve really said it better than I can, but let me pontificate. I apologize to coworkers up front. I’m going to accentuate the negative here, but I work with exceptional people who are addressing these issues as fast as they can. OK. Brace yourselves…
It seems to me that Ancestry has really hit on something good with the ability to use it in conjunction with Family Tree Maker.
Good news here. It is possible to use New Family Tree (NFS) in conjunction with almost every tree except Family Tree Maker. A list of products is available online.
It is now very easy to lookup someone on Ancestry, find the census, certificates etc. and then almost with a push of a button transfer all of that along with the connection to a personal computer.
Partly good news here. It is possible to lookup a record on FamilySearch.org and then attach it to a person in Family Tree. Unfortunately it is not possible to initiate the operation from inside the tree, which would save you from retyping all the information known about a person. And it is not “almost with a push of a button.” FamilySearch requires first putting the source into the Source Box, then switching to Family Tree, then attaching the source.
Almost without effort, the sources are transferred to your computer and the documentation is there.
FamilySearch is focused mostly on getting Family Tree to the public. To paraphrase what you said about Ancestry.com and Family Tree Maker, when it comes to syncing NFS or Family Tree to desktop programs, the sources are not transferred to your computer and documents from FamilySearch Record Collections are not copied there.
FamilySearch on the other hand, has taken us on a merry ride. We have been all over NFS, which has now been abandoned, so to speak. Many of us have spent hours and hours putting stuff into NFS, only to have someone change it… Now, we have Family Tree, and I tell you, I just don't have the heart to learn and get started on it, because of the time commitment and because I don't know that they will stay with it.
This reminds be of a quote I’ve seen from a former executive director of FamilySearch. I don’t remember the wording, but he essentially complained that FamilySearch repeatedly requires Church members redo clerical work they’ve already done. This decreases the amount of time they have to do new submissions. Family Tree even provides a notification feature to inform you that you should revisit work you’ve already done.
Is FamilySearch ever going to have the ability that Ancestry already has to save things to a personal account for each person, and then download that to a personal computer?
It’s hard to say when FamilySearch will support record download to a persons in a desktop tree. I wouldn’t look for it in this decade.
While I support the concept of a single, shared tree, I don’t think Family Tree is it. I don’t think it is going to converge on a best state. I don’t hear people with lots of ancestors already in the tree saying information about their ancestors is improving. I constantly hear people saying their corrections revert to chaos. I think…
(We now pause for an important announcement.)
So, what is the future? Where are we going?
It’s funny you should ask. That is the topic of my luncheon presentation at the 2013 annual conference of the National Genealogical Society to be held in Las Vegas, 8-11 May 2013. It is audience participation. Bring your ideas and we will have lots of fun. It’s a great reason to attend the conference. (Oh, yeah, you can also learn tons of stuff at the real lectures.)
(We now return to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress.)
..cept I don’t know if he has said anything about it publicly. While the tree works well for new contributors with no shared ancestry, I think the pressure is definitely towards personal trees.
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…
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?
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
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
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
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 Petr. James becomes Jams. Samuel becomes Saml. 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?
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.)
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?
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 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.
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.
January 14 - 18, 2013: Salt Lake City, Utah
Website
March 21 - 23, 2013: Salt Lake City, Utah
Website
May 8 - 11, 2013: Las Vegas, Nevada.
Website
July 30 - Aug 2, 2013; Provo, UT.
Website.
Aug 21-24, 2013; Fort Wayne, IN.
Website
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.
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.
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
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.”
As of 14 December 2012, the regular FamilySearch Indexing program had produced:
