Genealogy Reviews Online

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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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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Ancestry.com Reduces 33 Marker DNA Test to $79

According to a press release, Ancestry.com is lowering their 33 marker DNA test to $79.  It appears Ancestry.com's DNA testing program is moving in the right direction - down.  The rest of the testing services, like Family Tree DNA, seem to be raising prices.  Although DNA Ancestry does not offer a large variety of testing options like other services, reducing prices might make those who have not taken the plunge think about it again.

The following is a press release from The Generations Network:

World Archives Project - Ancestry.com

I did something yesterday (on my day off) I never thought I'd do - I signed up for Ancestry.com's World Archives Project.  My surprise came not from the fact I signed up for one owned by Ancestry.com, but from the fact I signed up for any indexing effort at all.  I have no problem with any of the indexing projects out there, and I'm very appreciative of people who volunteer their time to help get more genealogy records online.  I just never felt I was suited to the task.  A couple of years ago I volunteered for the Immigrant Ancestors Project and quickly became frustrated with the whole process.  I think my failure to read the instructions had something to do with it (I don't need no stinking instructions), and after a couple of weeks I ended my involvement.

So with this background I signed up for the World Archives Project.  I registered (easy if you are already an Ancestry.com member), downloaded the software, picked a specific project and started (notice I didn't say I read the instructions).  Everything worked perfectly.  The whole process was very intuitive, and before I knew it, I'd completed my first data set.

One part I liked is I got to choose the specific project I wanted to work on.  I hope other's allow this choice too because the participation is probably better when people work in areas where they have an interest.  Right now there are only seven projects to choose from - six are US records and one for an Italian province (Verbano-Cusio-Ossola).  I started out with New York Naturalization Indexes to get used to the process, but want to work on the Italian records eventually - despite the fact this province is about as North as you can get and my family comes from about as South as you can get in Italy.  Hopefully (someday) Ancestry will one day have southern Italian records to work on.

Indexing records was an interesting way to spend part of my day off.  I know many will say I should index records for FamilySearch instead of Ancestry.com, and I just may do that, but I'm going to continue with Ancestry's project too.  If I can get up to indexing 900 records in a quarter I'm eligible to vote on which records to do next.  

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The Great Clandestine Blogger Visit to Salt Lake City

(Update:  Ok, so I just learned there WERE a couple of genealogy events in SLC at the same time as this one...so...I was tracking two separate movements to the same location...one made for a good cover story for the other...hmmm)

No, I wasn't there, and since I don't communicate regularly with many other bloggers, inside information usually never comes my way...but I've had fun connecting dots and analyzing indicators leading up to this secret blogger summit in Salt Lake City.  Please forgive me...my line of work causes me to look at things differently than most - nothing is as it seems and the world is a puzzle just waiting to be solved.  I guess that's why genealogy suits me as a hobby.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the postings of bloggers who attended the secret gathering (Gena-Musings, Dear Myrtle, The Ancestry Insider, and Genealogy Insider), but I knew something was up...just didn't know exactly what.

It all started about a week or so ago on Facebook when someone on my friends list wrote in their status update that they were getting ready to go to Salt Lake City.  This is not unusual among a bunch of genealogists, but when a few others, every-now-and-then, piped up and said the same thing I thought "hmmmm...what's going on here?"  I checked to see if there were any conferences, or any other publicized gathering, but couldn't find any.  Still a few others were briefly discussing their upcoming trips on Facebook, but none of them went into any detail...something I found strange because the genealogy folks on Facebook usually say a lot about everything.

Then Randy Seaver wrote a post about his preparations for a trip Salt Lake City's Family History Library and briefly mentioned an "all-day meeting on Friday."  Ok, here is this chatter on Facebook and now Randy writes about going to Salt Lake City too...this didn't seem like a coincidence to me.  Then a day or so later Dick Eastman said he's going to New Zealand with a "quick trip" to Salt Lake City and no other explanation...he usually gives details about most of his trips.  Something definitely was up. 

I imagine The Generations Network required non-disclosure agreements for those they invited so the secret wouldn't get out too soon.  I should have written about my suspicions before everyone unveiled the purpose of their trips to Salt Lake City...it would have made a fun conspiratorial post...oh well...maybe next time.

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Ancestry.com Toolbar

I just loaded the Ancestry.com toolbar into my Firefox browser.  It was only a matter of time before Ancestry would develop one of these things.  There's not really too much to it.  You can search Ancestry using Google or the web using Google; you can save a whole web page, or a part of it, to your family tree on Ancestry; there's a drop down menu to your "Quick Links" on your Ancestry page; and a drop down menu to your family trees.  I guess it's OK, but I don't think it adds a whole lot to a genealogist's tool kit.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't really find a whole lot of use for any of the toolbars out today.  I don't have them all, but looking at my browser I have the navigation toolbar; a bookmarks toolbar; the Diigo toolbar; the Google toolbar; the StumbleUpon toolbar; the Norton toolbar; and now the Ancestry.com toolbar.  Out of all of these I mainly use the navigation and the StumbleUpon toolbars.  I only like StumbleUpon because the "Stumble" button will randomly take you to websites based on your interests - this is almost as good of time waster as Facebook.  I discovered I never use the other toolbars at all - even Google.  There are a lot of buttons though and I do like buttons.  If I had all of these toolbars up at once, they would take up a large percentage of my viewing screen (see image).

I really have no problem with the Ancestry toolbar effort, but I don't find anything useful enough included to make me keep it visible in my browser.

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Ancestry.com Down in AM on Halloween?

UPDATE at 7:30 am (eastern time):  I just checked Ancestry and it now appears to be working.  By my count, it was down for at least 3 hours...maybe more.

I was getting an unusual amount of search traffic this morning with the term being "Ancestry.com problems."  I went there and guess what?  Ancestry is down this morning.  I don't think I've ever experienced this.  I've had problems with certain functions and with my Firefox browser, but don't remember the whole site being down.  I also don't recall any announcement stating they would be down for maintenance.  According to my stats, the search traffic to my blog asking about the problem began at about 4:30 am eastern time.  Oh well, lets just wait and see...

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Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935

When I first heard about the Canadian Passenger List database coming to Ancestry.com I was excited.  At last I thought I had a good chance of finding the Holy Grail document showing my grandfather (Antonio Agazio) entering Canada.  Because he immigrated at a young age (somewhere between 13-15), this document may answer many questions about him I'm currently unsure of.  Hopefully, it would show how my surname was originally spelled; it would also settle the question of whether or not he was an illegal alien;  I would also finally determine exactly which Canadian port he arrived at.

With great anticipation, I dove into this new Ancestry.com database (described here).  I first grabbed random pages just to see the kinds of information contained and the quality of these documents.  I discovered, like any other database, some are very good quality and other's are not.  I did notice I had a harder time with the handwriting in these documents than in others, but the longer I looked at them I guess my eyes and brain adjusted and I was eventually able to read them.  This is really a very cool and useful database.

What bothers me is out of 7.2 million names in this database, not one of them belongs to my grandfather...at least up to this point.  I spent the last couple of days using every combination of search terms I could think of using Ancestry's search form, but I couldn't find anything even close.  I don't know if the database is complete or not - Ancestry usually doesn't provide this kind of info like Footnote.com does, but I wish they would.  I'm not sure where to go in this quest at this point. 

Just because I didn't find my grandfather doesn't mean I don't like this new collection.  I think it's great and I'm sure many people will find much success here - unfortunately I may not be one of them.  I know my grandfather's immigration info is hiding out there somewhere and I am determined to dig it up.

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Ancestry.com, Firefox and Enhanced Image Viewer - UPDATE

(Note as of 26 Nov 2008 - I've noticed this post is getting a lot of search hits.  Apparently I wasn't the only one having problems with the enhanced image viewer.  I would really appreciate it if those of you who found this post via search would leave a comment letting me know if the "fix" in the links below helped you get the viewer working...or not.  Thanks for visiting)

A comment from John to my post yesterday on my problems using Ancestry's enhanced image viewer with Firefox provided the solution!  He left a link to the Ask Ancestry page addressing the issue and I was eager to go home for lunch today and see if I could get the enhanced image viewer to work.  Of course in all of my attempts to find a solution to my viewer problem, I searched everywhere except Ancestry's help section - I guess I had a headspace and timing problem (sorry, this is Army slang, but it fits).

There are two different potential fixes.  The first is to clear your cache to include all cookies...I tried this initially, but still couldn't load the viewer.  The second is to load the viewer manually.  It's actually pretty simple if you follow the directions.  You download from the link Ancestry provides to the enhanced viewer plug-in.  Then you extract, copy, and paste the file into the Firefox plug-in folder and it worked.  This may sound complicated, but if you follow the directions it's easy.

Thanks John for helping me out! 

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Canadian Ships Passenger Lists 1865-1935

I just found a post on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog about Ancestry.ca partnering with the Library and Archives Canada to publish  "complete and fully indexed Canadian Passenger Lists" for the years 1865-1935.  According to this announcement, this resource will include over 5.5 million names of immigrants to Canada and will be available on September 16, 2008.

This is a huge development for me...at least I hope it is.  My grandfather, Antonio Agazio, immigrated to the US by way of Canada in 1900 and I've had a heck of a time finding him.  He's not in the Canadian border crossing database Ancestry launched not too long ago and my suspicion is he entered the US without going through the border crossing process.  The Library and Archives of Canada has these documents online, but they are not indexed and I've been going through them name by name during the year I think he arrived.  Of course I haven't found him.  Hopefully I'll get lucky once this new indexed database is released.

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Ancestry.com, Firefox and Enhanced Image Viewer

Has anyone figured out how to get Ancestry.com's enhanced image viewer working in Firefox 3.0?  Last April I wrote about problems I was having getting Ancestry to work with Firefox.  The initial problem was solved by upgrading to the Firefox 3.0 beta, but after I did this the enhanced image viewer plug-in stopped working.  I was hoping when the release version of the browser came out the problem would disappear, but so far this is not the case - at least for me.  The instructions on the install screen say if you are running MS Vista, you must start Firefox in administrator mode in order to install the plug-in.  After many attempts, I just haven't been able to get it to work (click on thumbnail).  When I follow these instructions it looks like the viewer is installed, but it really isn't and I have to go to the regular viewer.  The instructions also say "This is an issue that Firefox and Ancestry are working to resolve"... so far the problem hasn't been resolved. 

I'd like to know if anyone else is having the same problem, or to find out if there is a fix out there I haven't found yet...and I have been looking.  I can access the enhanced viewer using MS Explorer, but I really prefer using Firefox.  Is it Ancestry, Firefox, or just me being stupid?

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20+ Google Search Tips - Regurgitated

Last week the Ancestry.com Blog announced a New Search Webinar and of course this generated many passionate comments.  Since I recently viewed a couple webinars, and liked them, I wrote a comment encouraging people to attend the webinar before they pass judgment on the New Search capability.  I used an analogy about an experience I had with Google...I thought I knew all about search using Google until I came across a blog post listing 20 tips and some other resources.  After reading the post I quickly learned I really knew little about using Google.

In a later comment after mine (#21) on the Ancestry Blog, Carol A.H. wrote "Hey Tim, where can we find that tutorial on Google with the 20 new tricks? I’ve had good luck with Google..."   I actually wrote a post about a year ago linking to these 20+ Google tips, but I was so excited that Carol shouted out to me on the Ancestry blog, I decided this was an occasion for a brand new post...plus I had no ideas for a post today so this gave me an easy one.  Here are the links:

20 Tips for More Efficient Google Searches 

Google Search Syntax Dissected 

Using Google Search Operators

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Italian Ancestry Webinar on Ancestry.com

(I'll start this off with a little editorial comment...we, Ancestry.com users, have been very critical of actions of The Generations Network over the last few years - this includes me too.  I did an informal polling in the blogosphere and discovered probably thousands of negative comments, and comparably many fewer positive ones, on various subjects discussed - we seem quick to criticize, but slow to praise.  Now, I'm not one of the smartest guys in the world, but I don't pay them $300 a year because they suck at everything.  Ancestry.com does many good things too...and this little article talks about one of them.)

This is the second webinar I signed up for on Ancestry.com.  I wrote about the Irish Immigration Webinar earlier, and figured I should also share my thoughts about the Italian Ancestry presentation.  I believe this is one of the best genealogy education presentations I've viewed.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend this one live either, and participate in some of the interaction, but I still got a lot out of it.

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Ancestry Homepage - Continued

The Ancestry.com blog announced in a follow-up post on Thursday they are making some changes on the new homepage based on customer comments.  I guess this happened just after I left for my two day 4th of July fun in Washington DC.  Among the changes to the changes you can read about are two I like...they will create a way for users to adjust the size of the family tree section at the top of the page.  As I said in my last post on this subject, I wish they would allow me to remove that part completely, but this is a pretty good compromise.  The change I really like is a "Add a link" button will be added at the top of every Ancestry page where clicking it will insert a new Quick Link.

Many of the comments on the follow-up post are still very, very negative.  I have the feeling that most of the people who are so vehemently critical would not be happy no matter what Ancestry did.  I have been critical of Ancestry at times, but nothing on the level I've read in these two blog posts.  I find it amazing how people can feel so passionate...one of the comments on the most recent post is 14 paragraphs long. 

Maybe I just have a different philosophy...I use the things I like about Ancestry and don't use the things I have no interest in.  I'm not thrilled with all of the changes Ancestry makes from time to time, but they've never stopped me from completing the core tasks I use the site for.   

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New Ancestry Homepage

The Ancestry blog announced some changes  today...a new homepage tailored to each individual user.  I noticed it at mid-day today when I logged in and experienced the changes first hand.  The comments to the Ancestry blog post appear overwhelmingly negative...some seem quite pissed off.  I didn't know what the heck was going on when I first visited the site earlier today and initially had some of those same negative feelings.  After playing around with it for awhile my attitude changed a bit - so far it's not really too bad.  After I figured out the flow of the homepage, I was able to move out and do what I intended to do when I first logged on.

It appears to me that they are trying to create a genealogy portal where subscribers will begin and end all of their research activities on Ancestry.com.  For example, you can set up your Quick Links to any site on the web you use regularly and access them while you are logged on to Ancestry.  There is also a new To Do list that I kind of like.

I would like to see more customization.  The only things subscribers can customize are the Quick Links section and the To Do list.  I would rather create a homepage to look exactly like I wanted...kind of like what you can do with Google.  I have no use for the family tree section, but I can't remove it, and put something else in that section I find more useful.

I still have to play with it some more, but as of now, I don't find it too bad.  Randy Seaver has a good post on the subject worth reading.

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Irish Immigration Webinar on Ancestry.com

I'm ticked at myself.  A few weeks ago I signed up for a couple of the webinar's hosted by Ancestry.com on Ethnic Ancestry.  I realized this morning that I forgot completely about the one I signed up for on Irish Ancestry.  The reason I'm ticked off at myself is because I just finished watching the replay, and if I had attended the live version, I could have asked questions!  The presentation, by David Ouimette, was really very good and actually helped me to devise some strategies for researching my Irish ancestors in Ireland.  The video starts off with the usual "begin at home" advice, but continues on identifying the types of records, both in the US and Ireland, available for Irish research.  He illustrates the points he's making by using records from his own family research.  I do have a few small complaints about the webinar:

1.  I couldn't get the webinar to load and play in Firefox.  There's something about Firefox and Ancestry that causes them to not get along on my computer.

2.  I watched most of the presentation using Internet Explorer 7.  Half way through the visual presentation froze, but the sound kept going.  I just listened for awhile, but them shut down IE7 and started over...I was able to advance the presentation close to where I left off however.

3.  As I was watching the presentation, the speaker used informative bullet slides, charts, and document images, but every now and then the slide would say something like this.  I do understand about copyright issues, but it was kind of distracting...and made me really, really want to see what they were hiding from me.  I think it would have been best to just leave out whatever was causing the copyright concerns and substitute them with something they could show.

4.  Sometimes it was hard to understand what the speaker was saying. 

Of note, two of the complaints above really weren't Ancestry's problems.  I really enjoyed this presentation and to the best of my knowledge these are free so you can view them without a subscription to Ancestry.com.  I've also signed up for the Italian Immigration webinar on 1 July...lets hope I can remember to tune in for the live version.

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Ancestry.com's New Addition to the Historical Newspaper Collection

I got an email late yesterday from Ancestry.com about how they doubled their historical newspaper collection.  This was not really news to me because many other bloggers reported on the announcement much earlier in the day.  What I find interesting about the email was they actually sent one to me.  I got it not because I'm a customer, but because I have a genealogy blog - they sent it to the address I only use for the blog.  I know other, more influential, bloggers usually get these announcements ahead of time, but this was the first instance of Ancestry sending one to me. 

I've noticed a trend lately where Ancestry.com appears to be communicating better then they have in the past.  They must be making a real effort if this kind of announcement is sent to me.

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Ancestry.com - New Military Records

Ancestry.com is really pushing out military records lately.  There are three new sets of records loaded with info on Army and Navy personnel.  Randy Seaver and Craig Manson both wrote in detail about the US Army Enlistment Records 1798-1914, but there are two more sets to dig into.

Returns from Regular Army Regiments, 1821-1916.  This collection is not yet searchable, but you can browse each regiment.  These basically are monthly reports commanders had to send to their higher headquarters.  Included are names of officers and enlisted men and reasons for their loss or gain; names of officers and enlisted who are absent; but the most interesting part is some contain details of engagements these units took part in.  For example I found the entry in the 7th Cavalry Returns on the Battle of Little Big Horn.  Frame 63 out of 216 provides a little bit of narrative on the battle and discusses Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer's command of the regiment.  At the end of the report, it says "Causalities:  Loss: 13 officers and 237 enlisted men."  From an historical perspective, this is one of the more interesting collections I've found at Ancestry.

US Navy Cruise Books, 1950-1988.  These books are searchable by name and contain photos of the crew and information about the ship.  As the database description states, these books served as a yearbook of sorts for the particular ship.  Currently there are only 10 ships listed and hopefully there will be more. 

You must have a subscription to view both of these collections.  I've linked to the description page, but if you click any other links to see the data, Ancestry will ask you to sign-up.  I'm not an affiliate of Ancestry...they won't have me...I just like these two sets of data.

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New at Ancestry.com - Calabria Region Civil Records

A new addition to Ancestry.com has me jumping for joy.  They are starting to add civil records from the Calabrian Region of Italy spanning from 1810 to 1936.  This is huge for me and other descendants of Italian immigrants.  Family History Centers have these records available now, but one has to spend hours rolling the film and I found it hard to make much progress - especially trying to translate Italian terms at the same time.  With Ancestry creating a searchable index, and linking to the pages, the whole process will be much easier.  Currently this database only contains the town of Falerna in the Provence of Cantanzaro, but I'm hopeful they will continue expanding this collection.  According to FamilySearch.org, they have microfilm of most towns in the Southern region of Italy and I'm hopeful they will get to my grandparent's towns soon.  I've been hoping for this development for a long time and I think Ancestry just earned another years subscription from me - despite the cost.   

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Ancestry.com Problem This Morning

Check out membership information at Footnote.com

(Update:  My login problem with Ancestry is now resolved.  This is still curious because I've never had this kind of problem before.  I'm still having the Firefox problem however...it's maddening because Firefox is my main browser...I rarely use IE anymore.)

(2nd Update 2 May 2008:  Firefox 3.0 beta 5 works on Ancestry.com, however the advanced viewer plug-in doesn't work yet.)

I'm having a problem with Ancestry.com this morning and am wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same thing.  When I try to go to the Ancestry home page using my Firefox web browser, it freezes up then shuts down.  It keeps doing this when I repeat.  I cleared the Firefox cache and cookies and rebooted the computer, but it still freezes and shuts down.  I realize this happens occasionally with certain types of advertisements so I figured the problem was on Ancestry's side and they would fix it soon.

The odd thing happened next when I then tried to get on Ancestry using Microsoft's Internet Explorer.  I tried to log in and got an error page telling me I'm already logged in on another computer...it goes on to explain I have a single user license and only one computer can be logged in at the same time.  As I write this, there are no computer's in my house logged into Ancestry.  (Click on the thumbnail to see this error page)

Anyone else experiencing problems with Ancestry this morning?

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