The Ancestry Insider

Found Another Photo of Me at NGS2013

2013-06-19T00:05:00.000-06:00

If you’re new to my blog, you may not be aware that I am the Wilson of genealogy bloggers. Julie Miller took this photograph of the Official Blogger Media Center, accidentally capturing me. I’m the one in blue in the back, behind Kathryn Doyle, behind Randy Seaver.

See more photos from Julie in her article: “Day 2 of the NGS Family History Conference -- just as busy and exciting as Day 1.”

The Ancestry Insider is an #FGS2013 Ambassador

2013-06-18T00:05:00.000-06:00

I have volunteered to be an ambassador for the 2013 annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. The conference is scheduled for 21-24 August 2013 in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

I knew I had to go to this conference the moment I saw the cover of the brochure:

Apparently, the mission of “the Federation” is “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new lives and new generations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!”

Certainly, I’ve never been to Fort Wayne, Indiana or the famous Allen County Public Library. The Genealogy Center there is world class and I am looking forward to exploring it.

We are fast approaching the Early Bird Deadline on July 1st. Register in June to save $50 off a full conference registration. Visit the conference home page to learn more about the conference and the registration page to register.

The prime directive is to maximize your learning at the conference and at the ACPL library. Live long and prosper.

#NGS2013 Recordings Now Available

2013-06-13T00:05:00.000-06:00

The National Genealogical Society has announced that “recordings of lectures presented at the NGS 2013 Family History Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, from 8–11 May 2013 are now available from JAMB, Inc. The CDs may be purchased from the JAMB online store for $12.00 each. A full list of available lecture CDs can be found on their website at http://www.jamb-inc.com/genealogy/ngs/2013-ngs-conference-las-vegas-nv.”

FamilySearch.org Photo Frustration

2013-06-12T00:05:00.000-06:00

Ancestry.com member trees have persons and photos. Photos can be linked to persons. Simple.

The Tree section of FamilySearch.org has persons. The Photos section of FamilySearch.org has its own set of persons. Photos can be linked (tagged) to photo persons which can be linked (connected) to tree persons.

FamilySearch Family Tree has one set of deceased tree persons. FamilySearch Photos has photo persons that are unique to each user.

Two tree people can have the same name. Two photo people cannot. Each photo person must have a unique name.

Tree people can be assigned facts like name, birth date, and death date. These can be used to distinguish tree people with the same name. Photo people only have a name. One way to distinguish photo persons is to add the birth and death years to the person’s name.

Can a photo person have a different portrait from a tree person which can be different for each user? I’m totally confused on this point.

Should the same person be mistakenly entered twice, two tree persons can be merged. For two photo persons, delete one and reattach all its photos to the surviving photo person. The Help Center describes this eight step process. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for each photo.

Find the duplicate ancestors in your People Photos section.
Determine which ancestor appearing on the list is the duplicate that you would like to delete. Often you can tell by the default image you have selected. Usually the default image is the first tagged image that was uploaded. **Remember this image, as it will help you to know which name to untag in step 6 below.**
Select the duplicate ancestor photo from the People Photos section by clicking on the person's photo.
Click the View Family Tree link (if it is linked to an ID number in Family Tree), and click Unlink to unlink it from the Family Tree.
The photos tagged by the duplicate ancestor account will now be shown. (Often at this step the program will change from displaying many photos to just a couple. This is because the photos are no longer associated with the other ancestor account through the ID number that you unlinked).
Click on each photo listed, and untag the incorrect duplicate account name from the photo. Use the default image to determine if it is the duplicate account name. Also, the unlinked account will appear with a red exclamation point.
Retag the same photo with the correct ancestor's name if it is not yet tagged. Determine this by confirming the default image associated with the ancestor's name you are typing.
Reload the People Photos section to confirm the second ancestor is now deleted.

On Ancestry.com with its one set of persons, if I change a person’s name, I change it once. Likewise with birth and death years. On FamilySearch.org with its two sets of persons, I must change it twice, once for the tree person and once for the photo person. Likewise with birth and death years if they have been used to make the photo person name unique.

In my opinion FamilySearch needs to unify its two systems of persons.

FamilySearch.org Announces GEDCOM X Progress

2013-06-11T00:05:00.001-06:00

In an email to developers on 4 June 2013, FamilySearch announced “the first stable milestone release of the core GEDCOM X specification set.” The announcement was repeated in a public GEDCOM X blog post on the GEDCOM X website, www.gedcomx.org.

The email was targeted to software engineers, so it is pretty technical. Release of a specification does not mean there are any products or apps that utilize GEDCOM X yet. It doesn’t mean that anyone (besides FamilySearch) is or will use it.

The “GEDCOM X Conception Model” does mention sources, one of the key deficiencies in the current GEDCOM standard.

The GEDCOM X website states that “the free flow of genealogical data will enable every individual to:

Discover their family and heritage, preserve their identity, and publish their life story.
Reduce duplication of sources, relationships, and identities.
Identify people in photos, in documents, on gravestones, and in other sources of information.
Keep track of the progress made in family research.
Distribute and share genealogical information with others.”

A Google site search of familysearch.org for "GEDCOM X" reveals a page in the FamilySearch Developer Center that states that “GEDCOM X is capable of preserving rich media content in a new file format” (emphasis in the original). This is another of the key deficiencies in the current GEDCOM standard.

The page also states that “the FamilySearch Family Tree API is built on this specification.” I interpret this to mean that products that are Family Tree (FT) certified are already using the GEDCOM X specification to some degree.

A Google site search of familysearch.org for '"FHISO" shows two mentions on the FamilySearch.org website. One page encourages participation in technology communities working on family history, including “FHISO: An international organization created to develop standards for the digital representation and sharing of family history and genealogical information.”

The other leads to comments on a blog post about David Rencher, FamilySearch chief genealogical officer. One commenter, Michael McCormick, wrote, “No one at FamilySearch in PR or GEDCOMX responds to my request for a statement about FHISO relations.” Another commenter, Steve Anderson, posted this reply:

FamilySearch applauds and encourages industry standards that enable families to connect with their past, present and future. Where we have the need to share between different products and systems, we are looking at how we can best do so. Due to limited resources we have chosen not to participate in joint standards development at this time. If an industry standard emerges, we would seriously consider implementing it. When it is ready, we are open to submitting our own work, GEDCOMX, as the basis for a standard.

Over the weekend FHISO, the Family History Information Standards Organisation, announced the appointment of Drew Smith as the first Chair of FHISO, effective 1 July 2013. Drew is currently the Organisational Member Representative to FHISO from the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS). In the press release announcing Smith's appointment, he is quoted as saying, "I recognize the critical importance of information standards, and as a long-time genealogist, I understand the needs of the world’s genealogy product and service vendors, repositories, societies, and individuals to collaborate and to share family history information. I look forward to leading an international effort to support the creation of these essential information standards." Smith's appointment drew support from FHISO members, Brightsolid, Ancestry.com, RootsMagic, and others. See the complete press release on the FHISO website.

I’m glad to see the progress of GEDCOM X and FHISO. The community has waited a long time for a successor to the current GEDCOM standard. It is encouraging to see any progress towards an updated standard.

Ancestry.com Revisiting Search

2013-06-07T00:05:00.000-06:00

Ancestry.com is refocusing and reinvesting in the search experience, said Katharine Nester, director of product, and Dave Menninger, UX lead designer. Ancestry.com held private briefings with bloggers earlier this week to unveil several new search concepts. These concepts are still under investigation. Some might never see the light of day. Others might be changed from what we were shown, so we were asked not to show screen shots.

For several years investment has been elsewhere: providing hints (shaky leaves), a new image viewer, and the 1940 census. Now Ancestry.com is investing again in the search experience because of the big impact it has on customer satisfaction.

Part of that investment goes behind the scenes, changing infrastructure, improving performance, maintaining browser compatibility, and automating some steps in the publication process. Part of the investment will make a direct impact on users’ search experience.

Better Use of Context

“Our results do not take into account records a user has already found or reviewed,” Nester said. Ancestry.com can make better use of user context. With 86% of subscribers having a member tree and at least 50% of searches specifying a person in the tree, the tree can be used to provide context and to capture context about the search for an ancestor.

The search engine (system) already indicates what records in the search results you have already attached to that person. Many times a person is expected to appear in a collection only once. So if a result from, say, the 1940 census is already attached to the person in the tree, the search engine could be told to ignore that collection.

Today users can review a search result and say “yes” that is my guy by attaching the record to their tree. Tomorrow users may be able to say yes, no, or maybe. A user would specify that a record is not a match for a person in their tree so that they were never shown that record again. (There would be some mechanism to see them, just not in the regular search results). If a record might be a match, they could stick it in a shoebox specific to that person.

Ancestry.com is looking at better ways to facilitate comparison of the information in the record and the information in the tree. Today minimal information from the tree is shown in a box above the top of the search results. Tomorrow a fuller set of information might be shown side-by-side. Tomorrow a map might show the location indicated in the record versus other locations where the person was known to exist.

Refining Search Results

Ancestry.com is considering several ways of filtering the number of search results, at the same time revealing the power of the match options currently available for each field on the advanced search page (like Soundex, exact match, adjacent county, and so forth).

One concept is to use sliders (like the Google Maps slider shown to the right). A slider would be provided for each search parameter, like first name, last name, location, and date. Zooming in would correspond to narrowing the number of results.

Location might zoom from match on anywhere within the country, to states and adjacent states, to specified state, to county and adjacent counties, to county, or finally to exactly specified location. Date would narrow the range of matching years. Names might range from loose match including initials, to Soundex/phonetic matches, to exact match.

Filtering might be provided for life stages. Users might select to show results corresponding to

All results
Hints
Records for the person as a married adult
as a single adult
as a child
as an immigrant
related to military
or in a specific collection.

Filters (called facets) might be provided that work a lot like online retail websites. Instead of filtering by price, manufacturer, and TV size, users would filter by location, date, and record category. Next to each facet is a number indicating the number of results in that facet. The category facet looks just like the category list today (shown to the right), except that a checkbox would be in front of each category. Users could select one or more categories, or drop out one or more, like the ever ubiquitous census results.

Time Frame

Ancestry.com indicated there was no set timeframe for the release of these features. Some, the handling of attached records, could be released in the next month or two. Others could be released throughout the year. And some may not be released at all.

What’s New at Ancestry.com: Home Page Changes

2013-06-06T00:05:00.000-06:00

Ancestry.com recently made changes to the search box on the home page. The changes make the form simpler, less powerful, and allows the page to load faster.

Previously the search form, in advanced mode, allowed specification of multiple events, multiple family members, keywords, gender, race, and collection types. It allowed fine control of matching for each field. None of these are now available except the ability to specify one place and a birth year. Oh yah, you can also limit record results to US collections (similar to the FamilySearch restrict feature I mentioned last week).

Advanced search capabilities are still available on the Search page. Click “Show Advanced” in the search form or click Search on the menu.

Also on the home page, when logged in, Ancestry.com now, always, displays an advertisement to one of its own products in a banner across the top of the page. It also displays an ad, again promoting its own stuff, inside the “What’s Happening” box part-way down the page on the left side. At times it also displays an ad at the very bottom of the right-hand column.

For more information, check out Crista Cowan’s YouTube video.

FamilySearch.org Search Futures

2013-06-05T00:05:00.000-06:00

Before I tell you about features coming soon to FamilySearch.org’s historical records search engine, let me point out a two new features.

By default, FamilySearch.org shows 20 search results from historical records. Above the first result, click 20, 50, or 75 to set the number of results shown.
Many websites are trying to ride the social media wave and FamilySearch.org is no exception. FamilySearch has added the ability to share a historical record on popular social media sites. Look for the Share icon on the right side of the window.

Robert Kehrer, FamilySearch product manager, has announced these upcoming features:

View a Person Record Linked to Family Tree
When a historical record is already linked to a person in the Family Tree you will see a link that will let you go directly to the person in the Family Tree.

Link a Person Record Directly to Family Tree
If a historical records is not linked to Family Tree, you will be able to quickly look for them in the Family Tree and create the source in the Family Tree. FamilySearch will add the link to the source box for you, as well, so you can further organize it in the source box if you wish.

Export Search Results to a Spreadsheet
Logged-in researchers will be able to export the data from their search results into a spreadsheet so they can sort, label, and organize these records in their research workflows.

Comment on a Historical Record
Researchers will be able to leave comments on a record that is viewable by all other FamilySearch.org users. FamilySearch will allow you to flag these comments as being a correction to the transcribed data on the record. It may be a while before these changes are displayed and searched as part of the record, but for the first time you will be able to officially record errors in the record.

Filter Catalog Titles by Location
The FamilySearch Catalog now holds many titles from the regional libraries and even some Family History Centers. You will soon have the ability to see all the titles that are held in a specific library or center.

Ancestry.com new Story View

2013-06-04T00:05:00.001-06:00

Various sources are reporting that Ancestry.com is testing a new feature for member trees called “Story View.” According to Jordan Novet of GigaOM, Ancestry.com uses software from Narrative Science which takes facts from the documents and photographs attached to a person in a public member tree and uses a computer algorithm to construct a narrative describing their life. Novet wrote that Ancestry.com is rolling out the feature slowly, currently making it available to 10% of users.

Randy Seaver is one of those with access to the feature and reviewed it in his blog last Friday. (See “First Look at Ancestry.com’s Story View.”) He clicked a green button on a person page to generate a Story View of that person (shown to the right).

The top of the page consists of the principal photograph of the person and a paragraph constructed by computer that gives a short biography of the person.

Underneath this Ancestry.com constructs a timeline using the images associated with that person. Next to each image is a date and description, which can be edited and reordered.

The resulting story can be shared with the general public. To see Seaver’s, click here.

Monday Mailbox: FamilySearch vs. Ancestry.com Record Acquisition

2013-06-03T00:05:00.000-06:00

Dear Ancestry Insider,

Two questions.

1) Does FamilySearch have the same records as Ancestry.com because there are two teams of people photographing the same materials? Or, do the different entities keep each area with some propriety, so that there are fewer duplicates?

2) Are there any plans to go back to some of the older records, for example, in Italy, where the first microfiche records are so poor?

Signed,
bldgdiva

Dear bldgdiva,

Ancestry.com and FamilySearch have been known to swap records. That would explain why some collections are present on both websites.

For example, according to the FamilySearch Wiki, FamilySearch obtained the “Nevada, Marriage Index, 1956-2005” record collection from Ancestry.com. And according to the Ancestry.com website, Ancestry.com obtained the “Iowa, Births and Christenings Index, 1857-1947” collection from FamilySearch. According to an Ancestry.com press release, FamilySearch and Ancestry.com traded some U.S. census images and indexes.

Sometimes the two organizations work together on a project. At RootsTech this year, Ancestry.com’s Tim Sullivan announced “our largest and most ambitious collaboration with FamilySearch, ever.” The two will work together to digitize, index, and publish U.S. probate records.

Some records are present on both websites because both organizations have digitized the same microfilm. I think NARA microfilm M1509 is an example. It is published as “U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918” on Ancestry.com and as “United States, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918” on FamilySearch.org.

Both companies have their own digitization teams out imaging records. (Nearly two years ago I published maps showing the locations of each organization’s digitization teams at the time. Click on the maps to enlarge.) I suppose duplication could occur, but typically archives won’t allow it. Handling records causes deterioration so archives don’t like two entities both photographing the same records.

As to going back to retake photographs of records already on film or fiche: I suppose it could happen, but I think these organizations get more return on their investment by going after new records.

That said, I know that FamilySearch is digitizing more than 115 million images of Italian birth, marriage, and death certificates. (See “Italian Ancestors: Making Italy Civil Registration Records Freely Searchable Online.”) Perhaps they will get the records you need. If you can read Italian records, I’m sure they would be happy if you would help out.

Signed,
The Ancestry Insider

Breaking News: Family History Library Security Concern Saturday

2013-06-01T13:55:00.001-06:00

A couple in my neighborhood reported earlier today (Saturday afternoon) that they were turned away at the FamilySearch Family History Library for “a security concern.”

Michael John Neill reported on his Facebook page a couple of hours ago that “The Family History Library in Salt Lake is closed today, unexpectedly for unspecified reasons.”

I will let you know when I know more.

Serendipity in Carpooling

2013-05-31T00:05:00.000-06:00

Calvin Knight of Kaysville, Utah used to drive Bryan Wise to work each day because of Bryan’s health. Bryan was Calvin’s brother-in-law and a good friend.¹

Bryan passed away on 27 May 2010 from an aneurysm.²

Those who knew Bryan loved his keen sense of humor, his lively stories, and his positive outlook on life, despite serious health challenges for the past three years. Even in his final hours, he made family members and caregivers laugh and feel better themselves.³

One day Calvin was reading some of the journal of his 3rd great-grandfather, Miner G. Atwood.

Miner led an immigrant company of Mormons to Utah in 1865.⁴

Wednesday, August 16. Last evening the cattle were very restless, some straying away, but they were all found. Started at 9 a. m; traveled five miles and camped on Beaver Creek, one and a half miles from Nebraska. (The southern boundary of the State of Nebraska.) Here a sister [Phoebe Hatton Wise] came to me and begged to be taken on to the [Salt Lake] Valley with her husband and son; I had room made for them in different wagons and brought them along. Brother Thos. Wise, the husband, gave me six dollars towards their provisions..⁵

Calvin was intrigued by the common surname between his friend, Bryan Wise, and his ancestor’s acquaintance, Thomas Wise. He opened up FamilySearch Family Tree and found the connection.

One hundred forty-five years before Calvin was driving his friend Bryan to work, Calvin’s 3rd great grandfather arranged a ride for Bryan’s 3rd great grandfather, not just to work, but across the great plains to a new life in the Utah Territory.

That is called serendipity in genealogy.

Sources

1. Calvin Knight, “Family History Moments: Meeting on the Trail,” Church News, The Church of Jesus Christ of Letter-day Saints, online edition (www.ldschurchnews.com : accessed 30 May 2013); print edition, 26 May 2013, p. 16, col. 3. This is the source for my entire article except as otherwise noted.

2. “Bryan Wise Obituary,” Deseret News [Obituaries] (http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/deseretnews/ : Legacy.com, accessed 30 May 2013); citing print edition, Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 30 May 2010.

3. Ibid.

4. Church History Department, “Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel,” database, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Church History website] (http://history.lds.org : accessed 30 May 2013), Miner G. Atwood Company, trail excerpt citing “Atwood, Miner G., [Journal], in Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 8 Nov. 1865, 8-22.”

5. Ibid.

FamilySearch World Wide Camera Operations

2013-05-30T00:05:00.000-06:00

Image Credit: FamilySearch
© 2013 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
All rights reserved.

In a 17 May 2013 email to partners, affiliates, bloggers, and members of the press, FamilySearch disclosed (or reiterated) information about its world-wide records acquisition efforts.

There are more than 1. 5 million images captured each week. Who makes this possible? Records preservation missionaries, contractors, FamilySearch employees, archive employees, and many volunteers are responsible for capturing millions of images each year.

…

There are about 222 cameras located all over the world; 92 cameras in the Western Hemisphere, and 130 in the Eastern Hemisphere. These industrial cameras can each take millions of images ranging from 16 to 50 megapixels. Computer software is used to calibrate the camera, capture the image, manage the project, and capture metadata or information about the records. Clamps and foam wedges are used to keep the book level and the image in focus. All images are saved on an external hard drive [which] at the end of each week [is] placed in a protective case, and sent to Salt Lake City, Utah. Once the hard drive arrives in Salt Lake, it is sent through an auditing process where rejected images are sent back for rework and approved images are processed and published.

At NGS 2013 FamilySearch disclosed that it plans to significantly increase the number of cameras. It plans to do so using record preservation missionaries to operate the cameras. (Record Preservation missionaries are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, generally retired, who volunteer 18 to 24 months of their time to operate FamilySearch cameras.)

Providing Feedback to Ancestry.com Product Managers

2013-05-29T00:05:00.000-06:00

Ancestry.com has a mechanism allowing you to send feedback to the decision makers of the different features of their products.

Click “Get Help” in the upper-right corner of the website and search for “Feedback” in the online help. Select “Providing feedback about Ancestry.” This will lead you to the Feedback Form where you can specify website feature and type of feedback, whether bug report, feature suggestion, or success story.

The Ancestry.com blog is another good place to leave feedback. When a post is made about a particular website feature, decision makers follow the comments.

For Family Tree Maker, fill out the form at http://ancestry.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_er4cyPjj5BJKIZf.

For corporate matters, the Ancestry.com corporate website includes contact information for key departments.

Don’t try to use any of these contact points to ask for help or other assistance. For that, you still need to contact Ancestry.com’s support people or use the online resources Ancestry.com has posted.

WDYTYA Comes to TLC

2013-05-28T00:05:00.000-06:00

Click to go to the TLC website.

The upcoming season of “Who Do You Think You Are?” is moving to cable. It premiers on TLC on 23 July 2013. The Ancestry.com press release reads in part,

“Who Do You Think You Are?” explores the roots of celebrities who embark on an intense personal journey to discover their family’s past. Some of the celebrities to be featured in these all-new episodes include Christina Applegate, Cindy Crawford, and Zooey Deschanel. Each of the 8 hour-long episodes reveal the real person behind the celebrity as they come to understand the lives their ancestors lived that helped shape the person they are today.

The show was cancelled by NBC after three seasons. In its new home on cable, Ancestry.com will continue to be a major sponsor.

See the complete Ancestry.com press release on the Ancestry.com corporate website.

Mailbox Monday: FamilySearch Irrelevant Results

2013-05-27T00:05:00.000-06:00

I got lots of great responses to the question, “Do you have a fix that you’d like to see on FamilySearch.com or Ancestry.com?” (See all the responses at “The Future of Family History—According to You!”) There were several threads of common thought. Here was one of them:

Dear Ancestry Insider

I would really like FamilySearch to stop giving totally irrelevant results, like other countries when I've specified one UK county, census when I've specified christenings. If I wanted these I'd leave that field blank.

Signed,
Unknown

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I agree with Unknown. My comment is in response to your second bullet point, “Return search results in the same century specified.” It should also include “same country and year range specified.”

Signed,
Marianne in MD

Dear Ancestry Insider,

It urks me when I ask specifically to search a certain year, place, and name, and 1,000 different years, places, and names turn up. You can do better than that, FamilySearch!

Signed,
Brownie’s Points

Dear Unknown, Marianne, and Brownie,

I understand your consternation. If I search for the birth record of my cousin, Lucy Sider (or Side), who was born in London, England between 1891 and 1893, I get matches in U.S. Censuses and in Ohio marriage records.

I think you’ll be happy to hear about FamilySearch’s “Restrict records by” feature. You can find it (currently) underneath the first and last names boxes:

There are three options: “Location | Type | Batch Number.” If the country box is not visible, click “Location.” If the record type options are not visible, click “Type.”

Enter “England” in the country box and you will receive matches restricted to records created in England or created about primary events in England. (If a birth record documents a birth in England, it doesn’t matter where the record was created.) In the case of my cousin Lucy, restricting the country to England cuts the matches down to four English census records.

For the United States, England, Canada, and Australia, you can restrict the location further. When you enter the country, FamilySearch provides a dropdown list from which you can select state, province, or English county. In the case of Lucy, restricting the location to London, England restricts the matches down to two census records.

The second restrict by option is record type. Where I was looking for Lucy’s birth record, I might have restricted the record type to “Birth, Baptism, and Christenings” and quickly learned that FamilySearch had no matching birth records.

As to restricting to a particular date range, I don’t know of any way to do that. Matching terms exactly does not work. However, FamilySearch.org does list the matching records first.

If anyone knows how to restrict to a particular date range, chime in.

Signed,
The Ancestry Insider

#NGS2013 – The Future of Family History—According to You!

2013-05-23T00:05:00.000-06:00

What fix or feature do you wish
Ancestry.com or FamilySearch
would provide?

At the 2013 annual conference of the National Genealogical Society, some guy did a luncheon presentation titled, “The Future of Family History—According to You!” As part of the presentation he asked audience members, “If you could see Ancestry.com or FamilySearch fix just one thing during the next year, what would it be?” Hopefully representatives of both organizations were present taking notes. But just in case, I offer these brief notes taken by a kind attendee.

Stability—keep the website the same; don’t keep changing it.
Return search results in the same century specified.
Bring back Old Search on the Ancestry.com Library Edition.
NEVER get rid of old search.
I’d like to be able to download search results.
Fix others’ bad trees.
Fix automatic-logout.
The ability to split a tree on Ancestry
Exact search: It would be nice if it was.
Put a big red X on bad trees
Computer won’t upload a tree until you’ve documented it.
On Ancestry.com it would be nice to be able to go back to where you were after you’ve followed a set of links.
For Old Search: visual indications that you’ve already looked at certain lists or parts of it
Ancestry—record only once
Shakey leaves: documentation problems, temporary tree
FamilySearch: get to the catalog with one-click

We also did more long-term wish list. Here are just a few of those:

Map pop-up with surrounding counties
Ancestry.com do a Family Tree—Wikipedia model
Tag cloud of FamilySearch Pod
Map s as existed at time of event
Citations written out the way they should be—in the various programs
Film numbers and lists of all family history centers and libraries where they are at

There was lots more. It was impossible to capture it all.

What about you? Do you have a fix you’d like to see in the next year or a feature you’d like to see in the next five? Leave a comment at http://AncestryInsider.blogspot.com.

#NGS2013 – TRON, Mr. Spock, and Willie Wonka

2013-05-22T00:05:00.000-06:00

I don’t seem to be able to take notes at conference luncheons. That was certainly the case at the luncheon presented by Ancestry.com’s Sabrina Petersen at the 2013 annual conference of the National Genealogical Society. She titled her presentation “TRON, Mr. Spock, and Willie Wonka: If They Can Digitize So Can You.” Petersen is director of global imaging for Ancestry.com. Unlike TRON, Mr. Spock, and Willie Wonka, we won’t be digitizing and transporting people anytime soon, but we can digitize photographs and documents.

Petersen presented some great suggestions, and in the absence of notes she was kind enough to send me some:

1. Think like an Archive.

Archives think about how to preserve records and photographs for their patrons and posterity within a budget. For the most important and their most used copies they make digital surrogates, and put the record in a secure location so that it doesn’t have to be handled all the time, and store it in a dark safe place. Digitization allows for multiple copies of the original that can be shared as well as stored.

2. Think about how you are going to find a particular picture/document in the future.

Putting metadata within the name of the image itself is the easiest way to find it in the future. You might put “Aunt Nancy Family Reunion 1982 picnic” as the name of the picture. Or “Death Certificate Benjamin Franklin Blansett 1912”. By making the name the basic information you can then easily search and find it again. Then you can further organize the files by putting them in folder by event, family surname or by type of record. All of these will help make the retrieval of this easier in the future.

3. Digitize your records.

This can be done by using a whole slew of different types of equipment, but probably the easiest is a digital camera for most documents, besides which cameras are easy to carry with you when you are visiting relatives, or maybe even at an archive. Make sure you capture the document or picture as straight as possible when you take the picture. While it might be easy to straighten a photo after you take it, it will produce some digital artifacts that are not yet visible. If you copy these files many times, depending on the format, these artifacts become more apparent to the naked eye. The easiest way to help avoid these is simply take a straight picture to begin with.

4. Which brings us to formats to save your images.

There are a lot of formats to choose from. JPEG and TIFF are the most common. Whichever you choose, make sure that you have the original copy someplace safe and then make a second copy which is the one you play with, send to others, or upload for safe keeping to your family tree on Ancestry. This second copy can be any file format you choose, including a PDF. This makes it easy to share, easy to send, and easy to upload.

5. Lastly remember that anything you do now is better than nothing.

Thanks, Sabrina. Now everyone. Get out there and get digitizing.

#NGS2013 - Ancestry.com’s Mobile App

2013-05-21T00:05:00.000-06:00

(C) 2013 by the National Genealogical Society, Inc.
Used by permission of the National Genealogical
Society and the photographer, Scott Stewart.
Scott inadvertently caught me listening to Aaron.
Can you tell which one is me?

Ancestry.com didn’t have any presenters do regular sessions at the 2013 annual conference of the National Genealogical Society, so I had a challenge writing about Ancestry.com. I would have attended their “Ancestry Day” sessions Saturday, but I was too wound up in my own presentations. As an alternative, I attended a couple of their in-booth presentations.

Aaron Orr is the product manager for Ancestry.com’s mobile product. It is available for both iOS and Android although the Android app lags the iOS version a little bit.

The Ancestry app is free and easy to use. Login using your Ancestry.com account. Or simply start entering your tree.

You can see all your trees on your device. Download a tree to your app and as long as you don’t log out, it will stay on the device. If you want to make changes, you must be connected. As you make changes either on the web or on the app, changes are reflected on the other.

You can choose either a pedigree view or a tree view.

Click on a person or swipe the right edge of the screen to view details about a person. Along the bottom you can select three tabs: info, family, and gallery.

On the Info tab you can see life events and add more. You can view hints. You can view the person’s relationship to yourself. You can add notes here. “Notes are super great while out in a library or archive,” said Orr.

On the Family tab you can see family members: parents, spouse, children, and siblings. You can add new ones.

On the Gallery tab you can see photos, attached Ancestry.com records, and sources. You can add more photos.

The top left corner of the screen has a list button that lists all the people in your tree. Or filter the list to just direct ancestors, end-of-line people, living relatives, people with hints, or people with recent hints. Or search by name.

The center button at the top lists your user trees. It shows which ones have been downloaded. You can change the tree settings from there.

While difficult to see, some person cards have a shadow. (All of the persons in the illustration above have one.) Click the person to reveal more of that person’s tree.

There are two types of hints: photos (iOS only) and records (shakey leaves). There was a way to share but I can’t remember how. You can share via Facebook, Twitter, or email. It sends a cool email that contains the image and context about the person. It looked pretty cool but I could not find how to do it. Why don’t iPad apps have help files? I tried to search help on Ancestry.com, but Advanced Search had never heard of the Ancestry app. Frustrating.

I only experienced one other hiccup while I prepared this article. One time I clicked the screen and it went all scrambled. After about 5 seconds I was suddenly back on the iOS desktop. I restarted the Ancestry app and found myself on some random person. Hopefully nothing was lost in the episode.

Because Family Tree Maker can synchronize with Ancestry.com public member trees, and because the Ancestry App can synchronize with Ancestry.com public member trees, it is possible to synchronize your tree across all your devices and environments.

Thanks, Aaron, for the demo.

#NGS2013 – Futures for FamilySearch Family Tree

2013-05-17T00:05:00.000-06:00

Whenever possible, I attend sessions presented by product managers so I can report on the future plans that they often reveal. (Too bad Ancestry.com product managers rarely present such sessions.) In this regard Ron Tanner’s presentation at the 2013 annual conference of the National Genealogical Society did not disappoint.

For the most part, he didn’t give too much guidance on when these features might be seen. “Sooner or later, or later than that,” he said.

Family Tree will soon have printable family group sheets and pedigree charts. When? The release is being held up by translation into 10 languages. Product managers are considering not waiting, releasing English sooner.

In a few weeks or so they’ll add the ability to take any photograph and make a source out of it.

Family Tree is currently in a transition phase with synchronization occurring between Family Tree and NFS. “Today, if a combine is not allowed in NFS, then we are not allowing a merge in Family Tree,” said Tanner. “Once we can separate the two, then you’ll be able to do the merge.”

Family Tree will soon support notes on ancestors and the notes over in NFS will be copied over. The notes will support up to 10,000 characters, allowing long proof statements.

FamilySearch is going to bring over all your sources from NFS. Tanner later said something I partially missed, so I’m not certain I understood it correctly. I thought he said FamilySearch is going to send a survey to those with sources in NFS asking if they want their sources migrated. If they so indicate, the sources will be placed in their source box.

Family Tree doesn’t support attaching sources or reasons to living persons. They are not yet full-fledged citizens of Family Tree, residing exclusively in NFS. Consequently, these new features of Family Tree will not be supported for living persons until they are fully implemented.

Tanner wants to add quality indicators to Family Tree. These would flag basic pedigree errors like

birth after death
death after burial
person died young and has spouse
birth before mother/father birth
birth before mother/father was 12
birth after mother died
death before marriage date
marriage date before person is 12

FamilySearch will match records in historical record collections to ancestors in the tree.

They are going to add a report abuse button that allows you to report someone who keeps reverting changes and won’t read notes and won’t discuss. “If they won’t cooperate we will delete their account.”

They are working on the watch notification timing. They may allow change notification to occur in as little as 5 minutes.

They are adding Helper capability to Family Tree. It allows someone to sign in as someone else—with their permission—without that other person disclosing their password.

He is thinking about implementing toggle war detection. If a value gets changed back and forth too many times the system would automatically lock it for some time, say two weeks. It would tell the combatants to let their emotions cool down and to enter into a discussion as to what is the right value.

He is thinking about implementing an “Is Accurate” designation that could be applied to an ancestor once he was largely complete and unanimously regarded as accurate. The designation would make it harder to change information about that ancestor.

FamilySearch is working on a way to help attach census records to an entire family and minimize the amount of work required.

They are also discussing what to do to support DNA results.

Not every Family Tree user has chosen to make their email address visible. Tanner would like an internal messaging system built so people can send messages to them and everyone else.

I look forward to seeing these features, no matter how many months or years it takes. Thanks, Ron.

#NGS2013 – FamilySearch Family Tree, An Item or Two

2013-05-16T00:05:00.000-06:00

A lot of expert, accredited, certified genealogists present at the annual conference of the National Genealogical Society. I learn a lot.

Not to be left out of the initialism crowd, Ron Tanner, product manager at FamilySearch, added some of his own. He is “Ron Tanner, POFT, OAG, F4:1.” He explained that these stand for Product Owner of Family Tree, Observer of All Genealogists, and Father of 4 with 1 grandchild.

In his session, “FamilySearch FamilyTree: Documenting the World’s Genealogy,” Tanner made a case for a unified, shared, world tree. Without one, there is a lot of duplication of research. It is difficult to continually compare your tree with all the other pedigrees out on several websites. “What will happen to your online tree when you are gone?” he asked. “Who will take over your work?” FamilySearch is expert in preservation. With Family Tree, your work is preserved in the vault.

I’ve already written about much of what Tanner presented. Here’s an item or two that may be new to you.

The history list keeps track of the last 50 people you have worked on. You can quickly jump to any one of them by selecting their name.

The pedigree is a little bit different because it shows couples together, This allows more people to be shown on the screen.

“Our goal is to make it easier to change data back, than what it takes to change it,” said Tanner. Family Tree allows undoing changes with the click of a button. This addresses the problem in New FamilySearch (NFS) where cleaning up problems took hours and reverting to the erroneous state took seconds.

An original design goal of Family Tree was that every change required an explanation. But some users wanted to edit the explanation associated with the previous change. “[We asked ourselves,] ‘Do we make people add a new reason or let them edit the last reason?’” said Tanner. “We decided to let you edit the last reason.” In my mind this essentially changes the objective from explaining the change to explaining the value. That’s OK, though.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about the future plans for Family Tree.

#NGS2013 – Stump the Genealogist

2013-05-15T00:05:00.000-06:00

Friday I attended a presentation in the Ancestry.com booth titled “Stump the Genealogist.” Crista Cowan fielded questions from the audience about their genealogy or about Ancestry.com. The following should not be taken as quotes. I’ve taken some liberties in rewording questions and answers.

Q. Blah, blah, … can’t determine when he might have died… blah, blah… appeared in this census and was gone the next.

A. Have you checked city directories to see when he stopped appearing? The census was taken every 10 years. City directories fill in the gap in between. When they disappear, that’s a clue that they died or moved out of the area. Sometimes the city directory will even give a death date, or list a wife as a widow.

We now have more than 1 billion records in the U.S. city directories database.

To find it, use the card catalog. Point to Search and click on Card Catalog. Filter by “Schools, Directories & Church Histories.” The U.S. City Directories database then appears at the top of the list of databases.

Q. Some directories are not complete. Are you planning on fixing them?

A. We digitized these from microfilm so all we have is what is on the microfilm.

Q. Are you going to get the 1890 census?

A. It was destroyed in a fire.

Q. I can not find my great grandfather. Blah, blah. In 1860 he was 9. Blah, blah.

A. Did he serve in the Civil War? That is where I would focus. Point at Search and click on Military. Down the right-hand column in the More Help section click on Civil War. This will search all our Civil War collections.

Q. I’m looking for the death record of my blah-blah. He blah, blah in New Jersey between 1905 and 1909. And blah blah.

A. Where have you looked for her death record? Here’s one of the things I want you to think about. Every time you do a global search, that’s great. But if I’m looking for something really specific I’ll look to see what records Ancestry.com has. Use the card catalog. Point at Search and click on Card Catalog.

For your blah-blah, you can click on the Birth, Marriage & Death filter to show just vital records. Then click on Death…. Filter by USA and then New Jersey. You could even filter down to the 1910s. You can see we have a database of New Jersey Deaths. I would search just that collection.

Think about what you’re looking for and then see if we have a database that might contain it.

Family Tree Magazine Honors the Ancestry Insider

2013-05-14T01:05:00.000-06:00

I am humbled to learn that Family Tree Magazine has honored the Ancestry Insider blog as a Family Tree Magazine 40 Best Genealogy Blogs in its May/June 2013 issue.

“Let’s tip our collective hats to those bloggers who stick with it and keep sharing their wit, wisdom and family history finds with us,” said contributing editor David A. Fryxell. “We love blogs packed with information, but we also adore those brimming with the blogger’s personality.”

The Ancestry Insider was honored in the “Tech Support” category. Of the Ancestry Insider, Fryxell said

That author remains anonymous, though the blog notes with tongue in cheek, “He has been an insider at both the two big genealogy organizations, FamilySearch and Ancestry.com. He was Time magazine Man of the Year in both 1966 and 2006. And he really is descended from an Indian princess.”

David, David, David. I really am Time magazine Man (Person) of the Year in both 1966 and 2006. And I really am descended from an Indian princess. <sly-smile>

For the complete list, see “Top 40 Genealogy Blogs in 2013.”

#NGS2013 – Cutting Through the Confusion: Research in Upstate New York

2013-05-13T01:05:00.000-06:00

At the 2013 annual conference of the National Genealogical Society, Karen Mauer Green presented a session titled “Cutting Through the Confusion: Research in Upstate New York.” Green is an editor, author, lecturer, and professional genealogist. She co-edits the NYGB Record. She has served on the boards of APG and FGS.

“This is a huge subject, upstate new york,” she said. “We can’t cover it all in one hour.”

“I want to give you some guidelines and tips and also warn you about some pitfalls,” she said.

The definition of “upstate” differs by person and situation. For purpose of the lecture, Green defined upstate New York as everything but the five boroughs of New York City. She focused on the time span 1780-1850.

One confusion experienced by researchers in New York state is town versus township. In New York, the concepts are equivalent. In my recent research, I found records giving the living place of an individual alternately as Dugway and Albion. Both are true because Dugway is a place (hamlet?) within the Town of Albion in Oswego County.

“You’re used to having records in certain places and that is not always the case. It leads to blinders.” There is no real consistency among counties. Counties differ in “what information is recorded, what the record is called, how and where the record is preserved, and how the record is accessed.”

“This has all been very negative, but I have more bad news,” Green said. In the focus time period there are no New England style town vital records, A state law to keep them was passed in 1881, but consistent records were not kept until 1908. Further, there were no county marriage records.

Substitutes for vital records are worth looking for. Some are newspapers, justice of the peace records, minister’s records, and church records.

Green discussed other records useful for doing research in the time period, which I won’t mention.

“I know I have been discouraging to you, but the good news is that people do break through [brick walls],” she said. Back up. Start over. Apply cluster methodology (Elizabeth Shown Mills’s FAN club—Friends, Associates, and Neighbors).

“You will almost always find a gate,” she said

#NGS2013 - Online Tools for Genealogists

2013-05-09T16:36:00.001-06:00

Barbara Ann Renick presented “Online Tools for Genealogists” at the 2013 annual conference of the National Genealogical Society (NGS).

Renick is secretary for the NGS board of directors and authored Genealogy 101: How to Trace Your Family’s History and Heritage.

In her session titled “Online Tools for Genealogists” she spoke on “seven types of online tools genealogists find helpful: language and handwriting, time and calendar, geographic and map, history and background information, help and educational, utilities, and locator tools.”

One of the tools she mentioned was the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), a national gazetteer.

“All of you pay your taxes and you deserve to get something back,” she said. GNIS is produced by the United States Geological Survey (USGS)

GNIS includes not just current place names but historic names as well. I used this capability recently. I wanted to visit the Happy Valley Cemetery in Oswego County, New York. I couldn’t find it on any map (and I didn’t think to use Find-A-Grave.) I searched on GNIS and found it easily. With an additional click I had it plotted on a map.

Renick has published links to the online tools on her Z Links page, www.zroots.com/links.htm.