Genealogy Reviews Online

GenealogyWise - Here We Go Again

The other day I received an email from Familylink.com about this new service called GenealogyWise.  Inside the email it basically said they are writing to me as an "influential" (hahaha) member of the genealogy community and they want to hire 10 people to register for and add content to their new genealogy social networking site.  It further said to let them know if I was interested.  I replied and said of course I'm interested - who would turn down a few bucks in times like these?  Then I waited...and waited...and waited...and I'm still waiting.  They must have found people who were just a wee bit more influential than I was.  I guess I'm just gonna have to register and play with GenealogyWise for free.

I registered yesterday with just a minimum amount of info in my profile and before I knew it there were 11 friends requests in my email box.  I thought this would be like Facebook where one day I had 2 friends, then a few days later (after the great genealogy migration began) I had close to 100, but I think I've plateaued - who can really handle more than 11 friends anyway? 

My first thought when I heard about GenealogyWise was "on no...not another one," but after signing up, and exploring a little, I now think it's a pretty cool interface.  I like how it's organized and think it's got all the elements a genealogy themed social networking site needs.  I know some are saying GenealogyWise could make the Facebook genealogy community less vibrant by drawing people away, but I think most will just participate in both.  One thing I don't like is the "Genealogy Search" link at the top of the page taking you to World Vital Records.  Unless WVR has drastically changed since I let my membership expire a few months back, clicking on this link is a wasted effort.

While I do like the look and feel of GenealogyWise, my big beef with it (and with Facebook) is there would be too much work involved.  There are a number of people who put a lot of effort into the genealogy community on Facebook, there own blog(s), other genealogy sites, and now GenealogyWise.  I really don't know how people do it because I can't keep up with all of the activities.  I haven't posted much for the last 3 or 4 months and one reason is sensory overload.  There are just too many online activities (and normal life activities) distracting me from my own ancestor hunting, and from posting regularly on my blog.  Guess I'm just not a good multi-tasker (actually my basic laziness is the answer, but we won't talk about that).

Familylink was probably wise (no pun intended) not hiring me to do whatever it was they wanted those 10 influnential genealogy types to do because my heart's really not in it.  I expect I will visit GenealogyWise occasionally to see what's happening (as I do on Facebook), but I just don't see myself putting much effort into adding content to the site.  I do wonder if I will get more than 11 friends...it seems like others are getting hundreds of friends, and I only have 11...I'm really a very friendly guy.

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News Flash: Ancestry.com Changes Name to Ancestry.com

(I started this post earlier today and accidentally published it before I finished it...my blogging skills are a little rusty so please forgive me if you've read the partial post and thought "huh?"  Although this one is similar, it's completely different...more or less)

Strange enough, but I'm actually ahead of the genealogy curve on this Ancestry.com name change thing - I've never called it anything else.  It's possible I mentioned The Generations Network (TGN) a few times, but I never liked that name because it just didn't sound right...Neither did MyFamily.com.  I never created a TGN blog category and when writing about the corporate entity it was always Ancestry.com.  I'm not out in front on many genealogy things, but on this one I was way ahead of everyone - in fact I think I was ahead of the company itself.  I always thought the natural name was Ancestry.com, but who am I?

It seems like only yesterday when the change to TGN announcement came out discussing their "powerful mission to connect families," and reflected on the new name as a better brand and description of their many internet properties. (When I started this post I linked to the original press release of a few years ago, but they've since taken it down)  The new press release states what I thought was obvious a few years ago...Ancestry.com is a great brand name.

So as I'm delusionally relishing the fact I've always been right on this point, I have to mention I'm still surviving quite nicely without an Ancestry.com subscription.

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Genealogy Snake Oil

I was enjoying a good program on History Channel International yesterday evening about underwater archaeology when a fascinating commercial came on.  I usually fast forward through commercials on my DVR, but I just couldn't take my eyes off of this one.  It was titled "Your Family Name" and had a fast talking man describing how, by calling a toll free number, you can have your name exhaustively researched and its history sent to you in a handsomely framed scroll or coat of arms.  The interesting part to me is the man alludes to exclusive databases containing all of your family history needs - after all he's the founder of the Historical Research Center.  The commercial also shows shots of old books in a library (I assume its the Historical Research Center) and even a woman thumbing through a book doing research I suppose.  It ends with happy families sitting around tables looking at the products they ordered learning an incredible amount about their names and family histories.  This is the coolest commercial ever.  I've seen many Ancestry.com commercials lately and they don't even come close to this one.

This commercial did seem familiar though.  It kind of looks like one of those late night things about super stain removers, wall hanging devices that can hold up to 50 pounds, and super tools having multiple applications.  I did a simple Google search on this guy's name and discovered the reason why everything looked so familiar.  Not only is he a family history expert, but he also developed the Ginsu Knife, the Rocket Chef food processor, and as his website says, "Chinese Woks to Power Tools and many more in between."

I expect everyone to add the Historical Research Center to their genealogy tool boxes (look, I've categorized this post as "genealogy resources."  After all, it sounds like they have incredible databases containing millions of names - I'm surprised Ancestry, FamilySearch, and Familylink haven't formed partnerships with this guy...if I could get a free Ginsu Knife collection by subscribing to Ancestry.com I would probably renew.  

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Finally Southern Italian Records Arrive Online at Family Search

I'm stunned right now.  I finally had the opportunity this morning to actually think about genealogy for the first time in about a month.  So as I browsed my way to Family Search so I could see recently added collections (that were NOT Italian) what did I find?  I found a recently added collection of Italian records.  This new collection (Palermo Province (Sicily) Catholic Church Records, 1530-1919) is the first Italian record set for Family Search and I hope they keep it going.  Granted, only 6% of the collection is completed, but at least when you look at the European Region  page, and scroll all the way to the bottom, Italy at last is listed. 

I don't have any ancestors from Sicily, but just across the Strait of Messina is Calabria so they are getting close.  Way to go Family Search!

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Kindle 2

I bought my wife an Amazon Kindle a year ago for Mother's Day and initially spent quite a bit of time playing with it.  I always intended to write about my experience with this cool piece of technology, but just never got around to finishing a draft I started.  If I recall correctly, I think one of my very first tweets was about the post I was writing.  For a whole host of reasons I just never got it done.

Last month my wife completely surprised me with a Kindle 2 as a birthday present.  I really liked hers, and secretly wanted one, but in reality we didn't need another - one was good enough.  But I was very excited when I open the gift and saw a brand new Kindle 2 staring at me.  I happen to think the Kindle (including both the original and new versions) is one of the most innovative pieces of technology to hit the streets in a long time and I had one of my very own.

Many people have written about the Kindle 2 so I won't go into excruciating detail on how it works, but the important thing is Amazon fixed some of the most glaring problems with the original.  They moved the on/off switches from the back to the top edge; they changed the page advance buttons to lessen those frustrating (and routine) page turning accidents; they put a little 5 way joy stick to replace the irritating scrolling wheel; and they made the keyboard look and function like a real keyboard.  While there are other issues Amazon could have address, these four fixes (in my opinion) really puts the Kindle 2 over the top.  Now if they can only do something about the price ($359).  There are currently about 270,000 titles available and it seems to me a no brainer for the publishing business to pursue...I think the costs would be significantly less with electronic books.

Since my birthday, I've used my new Kindle 2 almost every day.  While the overall price is expensive, the cost of actually using it can be cheap if you do it right.  New releases are usually $9.99 (cheaper than most real books), but I've rediscovered some of the classics I gave up on in high school and college.  Look at these books by Charles Dickens...most are under a buck and one you can get his complete collection in one book for $.99.  John Steinbeck's books are just a little more expensive, but still pretty cheap.  I intend to revisit these authors again...I remember thinking both were kind of boring when I was in high school - that just goes to prove teenagers really don't know everything like they would lead us to believe.  I've recently read Tale of Two Cities and Grapes of Wrath on my Kindle 2 and just can't understand why I thought them boring.

Just a couple of days ago I was looking at the newspapers offered in the Kindle version.  I held off because I just couldn't imagine how newspapers would look, but I recently bought single Kindle copies of the Washington Post (for $.75) and The Denver Post ($.50) and was pleasantly surprised.  You don't get that full feel of a broadsheet newspaper, but it really works very well.  The new Kindle DX that just came out will probably improve the newspaper experience.  Amazon currently offers a whole host of national and international newspapers and I'm sure more will be on tap in the future.  I'm not yet ready to subscribe to a paper on my Kindle, but am open to the idea. 

There are more features, but you can find reviews on them elsewhere on the internet.  I'm definitely a Kindle believer.  The Kindle is just about reading...that's what I love about it...you can't surf the internet on it; you can't talk on it and no texting either.  Sorry, but you also can't store you family tree on a Kindle.  It's just about reading, and as long as Amazon keeps that focus, I think this will be a huge success if they can only bring the price down.  I have the feeling though, the temptation will be too great.  Just like online genealogy services and other businesses, Amazon will probably lose their focus and try to create a product capable of everything - I hope I'm wrong.  

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Pig Flu Deja Vous

We've been through this once before, haven't we?  I remember way back in that bizarre decade of the 70's there was another pig flu scare (for those too young to remember the 70's, the History Channel has a show called 70's Fever that "highlights" the decade...I am almost afraid to admit that I came of age in the 1970's...I was there, but don't remember having as much fun as the people shown in the History Channel program). 

I was 19 years old and aimlessly attending the University of Northern Colorado.  Actually it was my second year of partying studying when the first pig flu scare hit.  No joke, when I first heard of it I couldn't understand why everyone was so concerned about pigs getting the flu.  As you can see, I wasn't very current on current events at the time - a 19 year old in college has more important things to be worry about...at least I did.  Once I understood, I was rather amused at the panic starting to go around the dorm I was living in.  People weren't dying (at least I don't remember if they were) and the disease wasn't spreading like it is today, so just couldn't figure out why all of my fellow dorm-mates were so tense (if I read the papers at the time I probably would've behaved differently - ignorance is bliss I guess).

Then the controversy about the pig flu vaccine started.  The government made a big push to develop a vaccine because they feared another pandemic like the 1918 flu crisis where an estimated 100,000,000 people died worldwide.  The controversy centered around the cure being more dangerous than the disease.  There were reports of the vaccine killing people or having unintended side effects.  When the medicine was offered, I recall most people at my school lining up to get it - like swine going to slaughter.  Because of the time period, I find it weird that college students trusted the government enough to willingly take the vaccine.  Coming out of the 1960's no young person in their right mind would trust the government about anything, but they did here.  The government (of course) denied any problems and blitzed the media with public service announcements encouraging everyone to get the pig flu shot.

As for me, I avoided the vaccine.  I wish I could say I was taking a stand and protesting the government's incompetence over the whole situation, but the whole time period was sorta hazy to me.  I really don't remember why I didn't line up like everyone else, but my guess is I was up late partying studying the night before they were coming to my dorm with the medicine and never made it out of my room the next day.  Since I missed it, I was way too lazy to go to the health clinic on my own, so I ended up unintentionally protecting myself from the vaccine's side effects.

I know this is a serious issue facing the world right now, and the conditions could turn into a grave world crisis, but I just can't help thinking back at the weirdness of the last pig flu attack - maybe it was just the 1970's that made it so weird.  

(The cute pig photo above is from FreeFoto.com) 

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WSJ - Potential Conflicts of Interest in Paid Blogger Product Reviews

There was an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal this morning about the FTC considering some kind of regulation for bloggers who are paid to produce product reviews.  I don't know how prevalent this is in the genealogy blogging community, but I can remember an instance or two where a genealogy company hosted (by invite only) marketing events for bloggers where some expenses were paid.  I'm sure there were more of these types of events I'm not aware of - I suspect paid reviews by bloggers happen more often in other fields, but you never know. 

The point of the article is that blog visitors might not realize they are reading a paid review by a writer who may be biased because of the compensation involved.  Of course this could potentially lead to lawsuits by readers and sanctions by the FTC on the bloggers and companies involved.  This is an important issue because because I don't know any genealogy blogger who has not written some kind of review of a product, service, or book at one time or another.  I've never been paid to write a review, but have been paid to write a particular kind of post.  A media company asked me if I were willing to write a post for advertising campaign on a particular topic.  They told me I could write about anything I wanted on the topic, but restricted me to about 200 words.  They paid me a whole $50 bucks for my post.  I accepted the offer because I didn't have to pitch any particular product, but now have some regrets because I had to sign a "standard" non-disclosure agreement that restricted how much I could write about what I did.

I know the WSJ article is about bloggers who are paid to write reviews, but I wonder if this will impact those who write reviews because they are passionate about a topic - like genealogists... 

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Day 14 Without Ancestry.com Subscription

I'm Ancestry.com free going on 14 days now and I'm finding the withdrawal symptoms more painful than I expected.  My Ancestry.com subscription expired on April 9.  I decided I wanted to free up $299 for some other things and didn't renew.  I'm not delusional enough to really believe I'm actually going to "save" the money rather than spend it foolishly, but it makes me feel better to say I "saved" $299.

Since I've been without the service for 14 days now, I miss the census collection the most.  I never realized how much I relied on this complete collection in my routine research.  For example I was re- reading one of my second great grandfather's Civil War pension file last weekend and came across a couple of names of people who lived near him.  So, what do I usually do whenever I come across a name I don't know anything about?  I fire up Ancestry and do a quick census search, but as I opened my browser, I realized I couldn't do that anymore.  Of all the content on Ancestry, not having quick access to the census collection cramps my style the most and I haven't found a good replacement.

The past couple weekends I tried to use my local public library for Ancestry.com access, but ran into a problem.  I've never used the computers at a public library before so this was a new experience for me and it kind of reminded me of driving in the Washington DC area.  Outside of their cars people are friendly, caring and happy, but put them behind the wheel and the same people become raving lunatics.  I didn't realize what the computer etiquette was at the library:  if you had one, you never gave it up and if you didn't you circled like a shark (constantly in motion) and at the slightest movement that someone was standing up you quickly moved in for the kill.  Being the polite and considerate person I am, I simply waited.  I felt weird just standing there hovering over someone's shoulder so I left to browse the newspaper collection, and when I came back, I noticed those who had a computer were still hunkered down and the sharks were still circling.  All I wanted was to look up a couple of stinking names in the census.

The biggest lesson I've learned over the past 14 days is I need a census collection.  Footnote is getting there, but they only have the 1860 census, and (as of today) 90% of the 1930 - I need all of them.  I did find an interesting site called Census Online (and many others like it), but the links are to transcriptions and I prefer to view the actual image myself.  Familysearch.org will eventually get there, but as of right now they don't have the complete collection and a couple of the years have no images.

Since I fear for my life in the weird library ecosystem I observed, anyone know of a place where I can find the complete US census collection with indexed images at no or low cost? 

(Since a few people have been wondering why I don't put a photo up, I've included one in this post...I look exactly like this one except I'm not a cartoon, don't have yellow hair and don't have an oval head...I do wear glasses though)

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World Digital Library

Early this morning I found an article in the Washington Post about a new effort by the United Nations to create the World Digital Library.  I Tweeted about it, but it seems the Washington Post changed the link and my original Tweet link doesn't work.  I was a little skeptical at first because of the United Nations connection, then I discovered it was really run by various world libraries headed up by the Library of Congress.  I have nothing against the UN in principle - I just think it's a generally ineffective organization.

The Washington Post article discusses the history of the effort, who's involved, etc., I just want to show you some cool things I found:

A history of Genghis Khan written in 1722. 

Apocalypse of Saint John printed in Germany in 1470 (in Latin)

Emigrant's Map and Guide for Routes to North America created in 1853 (in German)

Video of a New York Police Parade created in 1899.

This library is full of maps, photos, manuscripts and has potential as a very good historical resource.  The best part is it's free.

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Merry Tax Day!

Tax day is here!  I'm a little excited because it's almost like Christmas in April.  I've finished our tax returns (I'm a Turbo-Tax geek) and, for the first time in longer than I care to remember, we are getting Federal and Maryland refunds (we did have to pay a little to Colorado).  Unfortunately, for the last four years, we've had rather substantial tax bills, but I have to admit the fault was my own - too little withholding.  As a recent military retiree, It was difficult for me making the transition from Army pay where about 25-30% is not taxable to the civilian world where every penny is taxable (pay earned in combat zones is 100% tax free so some years I paid close to zero).

As I rub my greedy little hands together waiting for income tax refunds,  I seem to remember my parents were quite happy this time of year anticipating their annual refund.  Both died when I was 14 and 15 years old (my memory is a little hazy about tax issues because I didn't care at the time), but I think they really counted on the refund to give the family a few extras that we wouldn't ordinarily get.  I would guess the refund helped fund my early April birthday and probably allowed us to go on a family vacation during the summer.  The reason they were happy, I learned later, was they didn't make much money.

During my college years (early 1980s) I was poking around in some boxes of family items and I found my parents income tax returns from the early to mid 1960s - though a poor college student, I was still shocked at what I saw.  Even taking into account cost of living increases (inflation) over a 20 year period, their income was incredibly small.  The most they made per year was about $5000 - and both my parents worked full time jobs (this was a couple of decades before I caught the family history bug and unfortunately those tax records were probably destroyed).  

My parents grew up during the depression so they knew how to stretch every dollar they earned.  They paid for everything with cash except for a very low interest GI Bill house loan, we never ate out, and my father's big garden sustained us through the summer and fall.  Our entertainment consisted of television,  going to the drive-in movies (bringing our own snacks of course), and many no-cost family activities.  I don't want to give the impression we were poor...we were a solid working class (blue collar) family and  I don't ever remember not having the things I needed.  Of course I had wants like all kids, but my basic needs were all met.  I just wonder at the juggling effort necessary to support a family of four on $5000 or less per year - I can understand why that tax refund was such a big deal to my parents.

Even though my family's "need" for the tax refund is not the same as it was for my parents, I'm still going to enjoy the fact a refund coming and hopefully we won't blow it on some "damn fool thing." (my father's words)  

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