Genealogy Insider - Genealogy Industry

New Subscription Site: Genealogy Archives

Diane — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:20:00 GMT

A few weeks ago in our E-mail Update newsletter, I mentioned a subscription Web site called Genealogy Archives.

I was skeptical because most of its collections seemed to be free elsewhere online, you couldn’t get even basic search results without a subscription, and there was no information about the site’s owners.

Genealogy Archives spokesperson Julie Hill took notice and contacted me. I had a chance to talk with her and senior product manager Joe Godfrey, and to try out the site.

Turns out GenealogyArchives, which launched this summer, is affiliated with PeopleSearchPro (not the same as PeopleSearch).

Though the subscription genealogy space is crowded, Godfrey believes his approach is unique: Offer family historians a low-priced option with basic content that’s useful to most people, plus links to add-on, fee-based services (such as the option to order a record through VitalChek).

There's also a forum and Expert Advice section with how-to articles, and you can add your family tree or upload a GEDCOM.

Though it's still relatively small, Genealogy Archives added 200 million new records last week, including the 1860 and 1930 census indexes from Footnote, newspaper obituaries (you get a link to the obituary online and/or a transcription of it), and vital records from California and Colorado. It also looks like there’s more customer support information, including FAQs.

Hill points to the site’s living-people sources as unique content not available with other genealogy sites.

On the home page, the Trace Your Family Tree As Far Back As Possible section is a living-people search. You type in your name and age, and if the site finds the right listing for you, you get a tantalizing “We found your family tree” message and a prompt to join the site for $39.95 annually. (The records found may or may not be relatives.)

The Search for an Ancestor section lets you search the site’s historical records and indexes. It’s not as sophisticated a search as you find on competing sites—a first and last name are required; you also can pick a state and add the birth and death year and record type. (The site searches as though you entered an initial for the first name.)

Results give you the number of matches found, but nothing about them, before you’re prompted to subscribe—so it's hard to decide whether or not to bust out the credit card.

Genealogy Archives subscribers can search within a database, which usually adds a few more search fields. Some of the categories are census records, immigration and passenger lists (from NARA’s free Access to Archival Databases listings), newspapers, “Find Famous Relatives” (finds notable folks with your last name—not necessarily relatives) and cemetery listings (actually, obituaries and the Social Security Death Index, or SSDI).

I liked how SSDI results link you to a list of cemeteries near each person's place of death, which in turn link to the cemetery’s results in Find-A-Grave or from a Google search, and any USGenWeb entries for the cemetery (no guarantee, of course, that you’ll find information from your ancestor’s head stone).

Godfrey says plans call for beefing up the site with higher-quality family tree software. He hopes a redesign will make the site more engaging and make it easier for you to tell what records it has.

To me, that seems crucial for getting subscribers.

Godfrey adds that he’s having “a lot of conversations with a lot of other folks” (i.e., potential partners) about more content. Also, the Genealogy Archives blog promises “members will be blown away by the dramatic upgrades coming soon.”

You can sign up for a free seven-day trial of Genealogy Archives, though you do need to enter your credit card number.

Merger Creates Britain’s Leading Genealogy Company

Diane — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:53:12 GMT

UK-based Brightsolid, owner of British subscription and pay-per-view genealogy site FindMyPast.com, is acquiring the Friends Reunited Group for 25 million pounds (about $42 million).

The completion of the deal is still subject to clearance by British competition authorities. Besides FindMyPast.com and its microsites AncestorsonBoard.com and 1911census.co.uk, Brightsolid also operates ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk.

Friends Reunited is a 20.6 million-member British social network launched in 2000. Its sister site Genes Reunited, the UK’s largest genealogy site with 9 million members and 650 million names in records, was launched in 2003. The group also has a Friends Reunited Dating site.

See Brightsolid's announcement about the acquisition here.

Ancestry.com Plans to Go Public

Diane — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:20:31 GMT

Ancestry.com filed with the SEC yesterday for a $75 million IPO, indicating its decision to go from a firm funded by private equity investors to a publicly traded company.

Its ticker symbol will be ACOM.

“Our revenues have increased from $122.6 million in 2004 to $197.6 million in 2008,” reads Ancestry.com's SEC filing. The Provo, Utah,-based company reports just under 1 million subscribers, about 45 percent of whom have been subscribing continuously for more than two years as of June 30.

The filing gives more stats, an overview of the business, its growth strategies (more content, more features that let members collaborate, more international growth) and associated risks (dependence on subscriptions, a tight focus on family history, and competitors, “some of which provide access to records free of charge”). You can read it here.

This article nicely sums up information from the filing.

The Generations Network Becomes Ancestry.com

Diane — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:06:59 GMT

Online genealogy business The Generations Network has changed its name to Ancestry.com.

The new moniker acknowledges subscription genealogy Web site Ancestry.com as the company’s most prominent brand, says CEO Tim Sullivan. "Our company has a long and fascinating history, and we've been through several name changes over the years. But we started with Ancestry.com, and it now feels completely natural to let our company once again share the Ancestry.com brand with our flagship product."

Here’s a timeline of Ancestry.com’s name changes:
1983: Ancestry
1997: Ancestry.com
1999: MyFamily.com
2006: The Generations Network
2009: Ancestry.com

Gotta say that we like the shorter, print-friendlier name—no more bulky references to announcements from “Tim Sullivan, CEO of The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com …” in the magazine.

Other Ancestry.com properties include Family Tree Maker, Genealogy.com, MyFamily.com, Rootsweb, MyCanvas and several international genealogy sites.

Genealogy News Corral May 18-22

Diane — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:38:34 GMT

Here are some quick genealogy news updates for the week. We hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, and get an opportunity to reflect on your ancestors’ sacrifice for their country.

Historical records subscription site Footnote is giving away several lifetime memberships. To be eligible, you have to create or find an I Remember page on Facebook (using Footnote’s recently released app) and get five people to click the I Remember button for that person. See more details here.

British subscription and pay-per-view site Familyrelatives.com added more than 200,000 Canadian civil service records from 1872 to 1918. The records reveal the civil servant's name, position, department, length of service, salary and date of appointment. The earliest ones also provide civil servants' national origins and religion.

FamilySearch has added a total of 3.5 million-plus new records to 13 collections on the free FamilySearch Record Search pilot. The additions come from Brazil, the Czech Republic and Italy; and the US states of Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The State Library of North Carolina and the North Carolina State Archives have posted a free collection of North Carolina family records including nearly 220 family Bible records and the six-volume Marriage and Death Notices from Raleigh Register and North Carolina State Gazette: 1799-1893.

NBC’ continues to string along genealogists eager to see its “Who Do You Think You Are?” The on-again, off-again series didn't make it onto the network's fall lineup, but still may show up as a mid-season replacement, according to California-based Genealogy Gems blogger Lisa Louise Cooke.

Blog Reports From the NGS Conference

Diane — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:52:30 GMT

In case you missed one of our posts from last week's National Genealogical Society conference in Raleigh, NC, here's a list. I've added reports from other bloggers, too:

Genline Updates Mean More Swedish Records on the Genealogy Insider

Sir Walter Raleigh and North Carolina Genealogy on the Genealogy Insider

Ancestry.com: New Search and International Updates on the Genealogy Insider

Photos From the NGS Conference on the Genealogy Insider

News From the National Genealogical Society Conference on the Genealogy Insider

Report From Raleigh by Dick Eastman

Use of Online Trees Surpasses the Census at Ancestry.com on Leland Meitzler’s Genealogy Blog

Report #4: NGS 2009 Family History Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina by Jeffrey Vaillant, on the California Genealogical Society and Library blog (use the links at the bottom of the post to read Jeffrey's other reports)
Amy Coffin has a series of NGS 2009 posts at her WeTree blog
NGS Day One from DearMyrtle

Several folks were Tweeting, too. Read many of the 140-or-fewer-characters-at-a-time updates here.

Can Genealogy Web Sites Make it Easier to Cite Sources?

Diane — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:34:15 GMT

Wouldn’t it be great if you could find information about your ancestor on a database site such as Ancestry.com, FamilySearch or Footnote, and just click to add the ancestor information and a properly formatted source citation to your genealogy software?

Mark Tucker, the software architect who blogs at Think Genealogy, says the technology exists to make this happen. He created a video to prove it.

It sure looks simple: On a sample Web site he'd set up, Tucker clicks a "quick citation" link next to digitized pages from a family history book. Then, switching back to his RootsMagic 4 software, he shows how the source citation and information about his ancestor has been automatically exported to the software. (Tucker says this also could work in Family Tree Maker 2009 and Legacy Family Tree 7.)

At the end of the video, he encourages you to contact database companies you use to encourage them to adopt this easy method of source citation. You also can take a survey about your source citation needs.

We're Honored!

Diane — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:44:20 GMT

We’re excited to be on ProGenealogists’ list of the 25 most popular all-around genealogy blogs, based on Technorati ratings, overall content and industry experience of the bloggers.

(As a former high school student, I know “popular” doesn't always correlate with “helpful”—but I hope in this case it means lots of researchers are finding good advice on the Genealogy Insider blog.)

Subscribe to all the blogs on the list to stay updated on genealogy news and resources. Thanks to ProGenealogists—a professional research firm with experts in a range of areas—for including us! We got this special badge to wear, too.

Genealogy News Corral, March 16-20

Diane — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:34:01 GMT

Roundin’ up the week’s genealogy news bits. Yee-haw!

GeneaBloggers compiled a list of “10 Companies All Genealogists Should Follow on Twitter.” See anymagazine you recognize?

Click here to see Family Tree Magazine's Twitter page and follow us (you need a free registration with Twitter to follow someone).

Or click here to learn more about Twitter.

The subscription service GenealogyBank created an area of the site dedicated to Philadelphia newspapers. The City of Brotherly Love is where Benjamin Franklin made the Pennsylvania Gazette one of the British Colonies’ most successful newspapers.

LibraryJournal.com has reviewed institutional genealogy subscription services. Since librarians might use the information to help decide which services to offer, take a look and post your thoughts in our Hot Topics Forum. (We’re a little puzzled by Genealogy.com’s high marks—it’s not being updated, and just about all its records are easier to search elsewhere.)

Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter got a makeover (or maybe a makeunder, to those keen on the new subtle colors). Go on over and have a look.

Subscription genealogy site WorldVitalRecords.com added a search by date field (labeled “Year”) to its search forms. See the World Vital Records blog for tips on using it.

Genealogy News Corral

Diane — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:42:03 GMT

It’s Friday and time to round up the week’s genealogy news bits.

Got an e-mail about a short BBC video on a British historian’s discovery of WWI records at the Red Cross archives in Geneva, which detail the deaths of many soldiers.

From Research Buzz’s Tweet yesterday, the National Library of Scotland has two new resources. One is a digital archive of images including WWI photos, Walter Macfarlane’s collection of genealogies of ancient Scottish families (compiled around 1750), and items from the first printing presses in various Scottish towns.

The library's new digital maps collection gives you access to high-resolution images of more than 6,000 county, town and military maps dating from 1560 to 1935.

Ancestry.com released improved 1880 census images, a result of its partnership with FamilySearch. See a before-and-after comparison on the Ancestry.com blog.

Ancestry.com also added more city directories covering 1935 to 1945, which you can use as a kind of 1940 census substitute. (Don’t be alarmed—the 1940 census isn’t missing. It’s just not yet available, and won’t be until 2012, when we’ll all have a big party outside the National Archives.)

Dick Eastman and others have blogged and Tweeted about the New York Times' Immigration Explorer Map. Choose a foreign-born group and a year, and see where in the United States people from that group were congregating at the time. It's fun to play with, and if your ancestors have gone missing for a span of time, you might get some clues for where to look.

FamilyLink Raises $2.85 Million in Capital

Diane — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:50:31 GMT

Look for continued growth from FamilyLink.com, owner of World Vital Records, FamiliyHistoryLink, the soon-to-come WorldHistory.com and the We’re Related social networking application (which is not related to the wiki We Relate).

The company has raised $2.85 million in “Series B” funding (the second round of preferred stock in a private company offered to venture capitalists). The initial round of funding in August 2007 brought in $1.25 million.

FamilyLink.com's announcement also notes the company turned profitable late last year. Thirty people work at its US offices in Seattle; Boulder, CO; and Provo, Utah. It has development offices in India and the Philippines.

Are Digitization Projects Skipping Your Ancestor?

Diane — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:52:18 GMT

Genea-Musings blogger Randy Seaver brings up a seldom-raised issue: the quality and completeness of records digitization projects between the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and its partners Footnote, FamilySearch and Ancestry.com.

His post stems from a discussion on a professional genealogists’ mailing list. A list member experienced with NARA records did a spot check: She noted the first 25 names on a NARA microfilm reel of Civil War pension index cards and searched for those names in Ancestry.com’s pension index database. She found just one of the names. (I can hear you thinking "I knew it!")

The researcher said the cards that didn’t scan well from the microfilm were left out of the database (Ancestry.com’s source information states 1 percent of the cards are “missing;” she puts the percentage higher).

The researcher also questioned the wisdom of scanning colored documents in black and white, pointing to Footnote's Civil War widows' pensions project.

A NARA staff member explained that partner digitization projects use original records or the highest-quality “master” microfilm and are subject to quality controls. Other, non-partner projects may have digitized records from second- or third-generation film, resulting in poorer images.

He also said NARA does make original records available, even after they’re digitized, to "researchers who need to see them."

A respondent from Ancestry.com commented that the microfilmed Civil War pension index cards were particularly difficult to scan because some cards were on dark paper, and the technology available at the time was inferior to today's.

See Seaver’s entire post here. He raises good questions at the end.

It’s easy and comforting to assume genealogy databases have every surviving document in a particular record set. This is a reminder that’s not always the case.

What Your Favorite Genealogist Really Wants From Santa

Diane — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:08:32 GMT

Funny how a weekend that seemed endless when I woke up that first free day passed by so quickly. But it was nice and full: celebrating with friends and family, walking the dog (I was at home during daylight hours!) and finishing 85 percent of my Christmas shopping.

With the onset of holiday shopping season, may we suggest these gifts for the family historian in your life:

Annual or monthly membership to Ancestry.com, Footnote, World Vital Records, Genealogy Bank or another subscription site

Family Tree Magazine tote bag (to take to the library), t-shirt or mug.

Membership in a local genealogical society (do a Google search or see Society Hill for contact information)

Registration for a genealogy workshop or conference (use Family Tree Magazine's online events calendar or contact a local genealogical society to find one)

Family Tree Magazine CDs: State Research Guides; 2005, 2006 or 2007 annual compilation; or International Genealogy Passport

Genealogy reference or how-to book such as the Family Tree Resource Book for Genealogists

Gift certificate to a Web site such as Snapfish or Shutterfly, where your favorite genealogist can turn old photos into photo books, collages, picture mugs, notecards and more

a chauffered trip to a research repository or genealogy workshop, maybe with lunch (your treat)

a day at a history museum

What’s on your genealogy wish list this year? Click Comments (below) to tell us (then slip your significant other the link to this post!).

For readers in Family Tree Magazine’s hometown of Cincinnati, our company is holding a warehouse sale that includes how-to books on sewing, writing, woodworking, painting and tons of other hobbies—including, yes, genealogy. Click here for the location and directions.

No matter where you live, you can check out this bargain book selection online at ClearanceBooks.com.

FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage Offer Discounted DNA Tests

Diane — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:45:19 GMT

The family networking and genealogy site MyHeritage and genetic genealogy company FamilyTreeDNA just announced a partnership that promises DNA testing discounts for you.

The arrangement continues the trend of merging social networking, genealogy and DNA, on sites such as Genetree, Ancestry.com and Familybuilder.

The FamilyTreeDNA-MyHeritage offer includes these discounted DNA tests:

25-marker Y-DNA: $129 (FamilyTreeDNA doesn’t usually offer a 25-marker test, but its 12-marker test costs $149)

mtDNAPlus, which tests mitochondrial DNA and estimates Native American and African ancestry: $129 (this beats FamilyTreeDNA’s regular price of $189)

mtDNA and 25-marker Y-DNA: $219 (compare to the regular price of $229 for an mtDNA and 12-marker Y-DNA combo)

The offer page says the specials are for MyHeritage users, though it doesn’t look like you're required to prove you’re a member of MyHeritage.

You can read more about these and other genetic genealogy companies in previous Genealogy Insider blog posts. The DNA toolkit on FamilyTreeMagazine.com offers advice on choosing the right test for your research questions.

Genetic Genealogy Companies Under Fire

Diane — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:36:49 GMT

Genetic genealogy testing companies aren't doing enough to make sure you understand the limitations and implications of DNA testing, says the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG).

The organization, whose 8,000 members include geneticists, scholars, genetic counselors, nurses and others, today issued a statement with recommendations for the genetic genealogy industry.

It was prompted by the rising popularity of genetic genealogy. According to the ASHG, a half-million Americans will spend $100 to $1,000 per test this year.

ASHG faults tests designed to determine ethnic ancestry, rather than the Y-DNA tests that estimate whether you’re related to someone. "Rarely can definitive conclusions about ancestry be made beyond the assessment of whether putative close relatives are or are not related," reports the statement.

That's because such tests compare the genetic contribution from a tiny slice of your family tree against a reference database that uses DNA samples from modern-day individuals to represent populations that existed eons ago. A lot of population shifting and combination has happened since then.

No standards exist for statistical analysis and how results are reported to you, says the statement. "Perhaps the most important aspect of reporting confidence in ancestry determinations is to accurately convey the level of uncertainty in the interpretations and to convey the real meaning of that uncertainty."

As genetic ancestry testing expands to cover inherited medical conditions, ASHG is concerned patients may misconstrue the results of these often-inconclusive tests when making medical decisions.

The organization joins a growing chorus. States such as California and New York have come down on genome profiling companies including 23andMe and DNA Traits for providing medical testing without involving individuals’ doctors.

A year ago, the New York Times doubted the accuracy of ethnic DNA tests after its reporter received varied and conflicting test results from five companies. Bert Ely, a geneticist who helped start the African-American DNA Roots Project with high hopes in 2000, shared his findings that most African-Americans have genetic similarities to numerous ethnic groups in Africa—making it impossible to match African-Americans with a single group.

An article in the Oct. 19, 2007, Science magazine cited these problems:

Limited information in companies’ reference databases might lead them to draw the wrong conclusions. (Today’s ASHG statement said these databases “reflect a woefully incomplete sampling of human genetic diversity.”)
Some companies’ databases are proprietary, making it hard to verify customers’ test results.
Tests trace a small percentage of a person’s ancestors and can’t pinpoint where they lived, or the specific ethnic group they might’ve belonged to.

The ASGH ancestry testing recommendations include the following:

The genetic genealogy industry should make a greater effort to clarify the limitations of ancestry testing. Consumers must understand more about ancestry testing.
Additional research is needed to further understand the extent to which the accuracy of test results is affected by the makeup of existing human DNA databases, geographical patterns of human diversity, chromosomal marker selection and statistical methods.
Guidelines should be developed to facilitate explanation and counseling for ancestry testing.
Scientists analyzing genetic ancestry test results should take into account the historical, sociopolitical and cultural contexts under which human genetics evolved.
Mechanisms for greater accountability of the ancestry testing industry should be explored.

Part of the problem may lie in the complex science involved. The explanations are difficult for laypeople to understand (I'm a layperson, and I'll admit it); but in simplifying them for marketing materials and test reports, DNA companies may downplay the tests' limitations.

Do you have a handle on what genetic genealogy testing is all about? Click Comments and tell us about your DNA testing experiences. For information on how DNA can (and can't) aid your genealogy research, see our DNA toolkit.

Update Your Christmas Card List

Diane — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:53:39 GMT

Two recent genealogy industry name changes to note:

The genealogy networking site FamilyLink.com has become FamilyHistoryLink.com.

World Vital Records created FamilyLink.com, then chose FamilyLink.com as its new corporate name (World Vital Records stuck around as the name of the company's database service). The name change lets FamilyLink.com become a full-on corporate Web site while FamilyHistoryLink.com remains a networking site.

My Ancestors Found is now Family History Expos, reflecting the company's popular conferences. By the way, Family Tree Magazine is sponsoring the upcoming Expo Nov. 14-15 in Mesa, Ariz. Hope to see you!

MyHeritage: Facebook for Families?

Diane — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:02:41 GMT

MyHeritage, the Israel-based genealogy site that made a splash a couple years back with its celebrity look-alike photo search, has made another step toward its goal to be “the Facebook for families.”

(This right after Footnote launched its “Facebook for the deceased.” Facebook has to be feeling really good about itself right now.)

MyHeritage just acquired Kindo, a London based, internationally focused online family networking service that’s reminiscent of Geni. Part of the deal has MyHeritage setting up operations in London.

Also boosting MyHeritage’s social networking aspirations is a recent $15 million venture capital investment (including funds from a former Facebook investor).

One more update: The site's new photo tagging technology uses the facial recognition feature that powered the celebrity look-alike search to let users automatically tag the people in their photos (similar to what Google is doing with its Picasa software).

A Tale of Two Indexing Projects: Comparing FamilySearch Indexing and the World Archives Project

Diane — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:07:03 GMT

With two biggest organizations in genealogy seeking volunteers and historical records for their indexing programs, comparisons and questions about competition are inevitable.

Nonprofit FamilySearch began rolling out FamilySearch Indexing in 2006. Volunteers around the world use an online application to view and index digitized records.

Subscription data service Ancestry.com launched a similar program, the World Archives Project, this year. A recently announced partnership with the Federation of Genealogical Societies has societies providing volunteer indexers.

FamilySearch released a statement last week about the two programs. Though it started by welcoming all efforts “that provide more economical access to more genealogical and historically significant records,” subsequent claims that FamilySearch produces “More quality indexes, faster” and offers “Greater free public access to images” (among other assertions) struck a defensive note.

Read the whole statement on Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter.

A little competition would make sense: If FamilySearch makes genealogical records free, wouldn’t Ancestry.com lose customers? Will FamilySearch lose indexing volunteers to the World Archives Project?

No, both organizations insist. When I questioned FamilySearch, spokesperson Paul Nauta replied “FamilySearch believes the introduction of records access initiatives will only serve to improve progress toward making the world’s genealogical and historical records more available economically—an underlying goal of FamilySearch Indexing.”

World Archives Project manager Christopher Tracy also downplayed any competition and emphasized the shared goal of increasing records access. “There’s plenty of work. Billions and billions of records out there haven’t been indexed,” he says.

“They have a great community and they’re bringing more and more people into the [genealogy] space,” he adds of FamilySearch. Ancestry.com reiterated his points in its own written statement.

The organizations collaborate on indexing the US census, and they’re avoiding indexing the same records. “Each company has strategic relations representatives that speak or meet regularly to help accomplish these goals,” Nauta says.

So, now that the air is clear, how do the two programs compare? We’ll break it down:

Records access for the public

FamilySearch Indexing: All record indexes and many record images will be free to anyone through the FamilySearch Web site. If FamilySearch isn't able to secure permission to put certain images on FamilySearch's public site, you can access them at a local Family History Center.

World Archives Project: All record indexes will be searchable free on Ancestry.com. Images of those records will be available to Ancestry.com’s paid subscribers, and they'll be free at public libraries that offer their patrons Ancestry Library Edition.

Benefits to volunteers (aside from the warm fuzzies of helping genealogists)

FamilySearch Indexing: Qualified volunteers (those who’ve keyed 900 names within a 90-day period) will receive free access to all record images, even those not on FamilySearch's public site.

World Archives Project: Active indexers (who've keyed at least 900 records a quarter) will get free access to all record images, and can vote on which records the project should index. Active indexers who subscribe to Ancestry.com will receive a 10 to 15 percent discount on renewals.

Benefits to partnering organizations

FamilySearch Indexing: Organizations that provide records for digitizing and indexing receive free copies of the record images and indexes.

Ancestry.com: Genealogical societies that index a record set receive a copy of the images and indexes, as well as free advertising from Ancestry.com (I'm not sure what form the advertising will take).

Other comparisons
Both programs have each record indexed twice, with an arbitrator to resolve differences. Having been around longer, FamilySearch Indexing has more record sets you can choose to index. Its indexing utility is Mac-compatible; Ancestry.com’s is PC-only.

The two programs’ indexing utilities work differently, and you might try both and decide you prefer one over the other. We’d love to hear about your experiences using the utilities—click Comments to post.

Family Tree Maker 2009 Released

Diane — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:57:53 GMT

The Generations Network just announced the release of Family Tree Maker 2009. It’s largely version 2008 with all its patches plus improved functionality, but it does have some new features.

Those include charts and reports, such as hourglass, bowtie (shown below), 180-degree fan and others (in case you’re wondering, there’s no need to be signed up with Ancestry Publishing to generate these reports).

Automatic backups and more-powerful global data manipulation are other updates. See the full list of new features.

Several patches are planned for Family Tree Maker 2009 that'll add book-building, better integration with the subscription data service Ancestry.com, an improved relationship calculator and more.

Senior product manager Michelle Pfister says planning these patches will let TGN stick to a regular schedule of new releases (which retail distributors require) while putting final touches on what's covered in the patches. It also lets Family Tree Maker fans look forward to more features throughout the year.

Are there Family Tree Maker fans left after the problems many users had with version 2008? Yes, say Pfister and the software's development manager Mark LeMonnier. More than 300 users beta tested version 2009—an increase over version 2008 testers—and you can expect better functionality as a result, says LeMonnier. “Performance and stability have been our main focus,” he adds.

The 2009 version will read Family Tree Maker files back to version 4 (which takes you to the mid-1990s). To learn more about it, see FamilyTreeMaker.com.

If you purchased Family Tree Maker 2008, don’t buy version 2009—registered 2008 users are eligible to upgrade for free. If that’s you, during early to mid-September, you’ll receive an e-mail with instructions and a coupon code good for 2009 in the Ancestry store.

The offer will be available for a limited time, but Pfister says there'll be follow-up e-mails, so if you just ordered 2008, you still have time to register the software and be eligible for the free upgrade.

Get more information on the free upgrade offer on Ancestry.com’s blog. (By the way, note Family Tree Magazine is not affiliated with Family Tree Maker software.)

Here are a couple more Family Tree Maker 2009 views:

The people and family view

A family tree report you can generate

Olympian Phelps Joins Ellis Island Fundraising Campaign

Diane — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:28:19 GMT

Olympic swimming phenom Michael Phelps is the newest member of the We Are Ellis Island campaign, which is raising funds to restore the South Side of Ellis Island.

On the campaign Web site, you can watch a promotional video featuring Phelps (hard to recognize with facial scruff and a few inches of hair) and others.

Phelps’ ancestors immigrated through Ellis Island. A campaign spokesperson told me she doesn't yet have full details on their names and immigration dates, since Phelps signed on and shot the video just before leaving for Beijing.

Ellis Island's well-known immigration museum opened in 1990 on its North Side. The largely abandoned South Side was home to a state-of-the-art hospital where sick immigrants were treated—and sometimes ordered to return home.

Look for the November 2008 Family Tree Magazine article on Forgotten Ellis Island, a documentary and book about the hospital, and the patients and staff who spent part of their lives there.

This Week's Genealogy News Roundup

Diane — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:19:44 GMT

Here's a smattering of genealogy biz news from this week:

Footnote raises prices: Citing its greatly increased offerings, Web site improvements and the challenging economy, historical records site Footnote has announced it’s raising subscription prices to $11.95 for one month and $69.96 for a year (up from $7.95 and $59.95, respectively). The changes don’t take effect until Sept. 1, so if you’ve been meaning to join, now’s the time.

Ancestry.com World Archive Project hits milestone: Ancestry.com’s volunteer indexing initiative, the World Archives Project (now in beta) has 650 active keyers who’ve already indexed more than 100,000 records—17,500 of those by one lightning-fast typist. The Wisconsin mortality records project is on track for completion in September.

World Archives’ project Indexers will receive free access to the indexes they’re creating; record images will be part of Ancestry.com’s subscription databases. See our blog post for more on the project.

FamilySearch Indexing keeps chugging along: FamilySearch added 2 million-plus new images or indexed records this week to its free pilot Record Search databases.

Among them are Ohio WWII draft registration card images, marriage indexes for 14 more West Virginia Counties, and an index to the Coahulia, Mexico, 1930 census.

FindMyPast adds 3.2 million parish marriages: The UK family history database FindMyPast has enhanced its Parish Records Collection with 3.2 million marriage records dating back to 1538. Burial records already are in the collection; baptism records are still to come.

The parish records are available with an Explorer subscription, which costs 54.95 pounds ($109) for 6 months or 89.95 pounds ($178) for a year. Learn more about this collection in this Genealogy Insider post.

Family Tree Who?

Diane — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:32:30 GMT

How did anyone find out stuff before the Ancestry Insider? The anonymous blogger posted yesterday that The Generations Network (TGN) is suing Millennia Software and Utah design firm BTH2 over similarities between the packaging of TGN’s Family Tree Maker 2008 and Millennia’s Legacy Family Tree 7.0. BTH2 designed both packages.

See a side-by-side comparison and more details from the complaint filed with the US District Court in Utah on the Ancestry Insider blog. (And don't miss the Genealogue's version.)

I’ve gotta say, in an industry where everything is called family tree something-or-other, it’s hard to differentiate yourself.

At last month’s National Genealogical Society conference, I can’t tell you how many people came to Family Tree Magazine’s booth (that's us) asking questions about “our” Family Tree Maker software. We also sent some folks over to Family Tree DNA.

That’s life when product names that say “genealogy” are rare (family tree, family history, ancestry, roots, progeny, gene—all taken). We just hope if you don’t remember which “family tree” we are, you’ll recall that really cool genealogy magazine or Web site you saw once, and recognize it when you find it.

Ancestry.com Starts Volunteer Indexing Project

Diane — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:14:48 GMT

The subscription service Ancestry.com is launching a volunteer indexing project that looks to compete with FamilySearch’s records indexing project.

The Ancestry 24/7 Family Circle Blog announced in March that Ancestry.com was planning a volunteer indexing initiative. The anonymous Ancestry Insider blogger recently reported that the just-launched-in-beta World Archives Project will recruit volunteers to index Ancestry.com’s digitized records using an online tool. Then Ancestry.com will publish the index free. The record images will be part of Ancestry.com’s subscription services.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ FamilySearch was first to start a large-scale project for volunteers to index records using an online tool. FamilySearch Indexing is producing both indexes and record images that will be available free (you can access some now at FamilySearch Labs).

Other FamilySearch indexing initiatives will make indexes free online, with record images available free at FamilySearch research centers, or for a fee from record repositories or third-party database sites.

I’m curious how you all feel about Ancestry.com—a for-profit business—using volunteer labor. Does the free index make the idea palatable? What about the possibility that actual genealogists will create a better-quality index than Ancestry.com currently offers?

Click here to sign up for Ancestry.com's e-mail notifications about the World Archives Project.

Would You Read a Digital Magazine?

Diane — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:59:10 GMT

Right on the heels of Dick Eastman’s blog post about the disappearance of print newsletters and magazines, Everton’s Genealogical Helper announced the debut of its digital edition.

Everton’s is still doing its print edition, too. Ancestry (published by Ancestry.com’s owner, The Generations Network) also publishes both on paper and digitally, as does Internet Genealogy. Digital Genealogist is available only online.

I was proud to see Dick’s description of Family Tree Magazine as a “combined online and offline magazine." That’s what we’re going for: We’ve found readers are accustomed to getting information in a variety of ways, so we’re responding with extra online content, our weekly E-mail Update newsletter, back issues and special editions on CD, digital downloads of our State Research Guides, our blogs and online Forum, online videos and our recently launched podcast.

The entire publishing industry is caught up in the “digital vs. print” discussion, with some swearing it's just a matter of time before all print publications go away, and others insisting people always will want to curl up with a paper magazine or book.

Many who commented on Dick’s post said they’d rather read paper. What about you all—would you read a digital version of your favorite genealogy magazine?

Borders Concept Stores Feature Ancestry.com

Diane — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:12:16 GMT

One feature of Border’s fancy new “concept” stores—now open in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Las Vegas; Noblesville, Ind.; Panama City Beach, Fla.; and National City, Calif.—is a Borders Genealogy Services kiosk where customers can search Ancestry.com.

A kiosk (shown) is part of each concept store’s digital center, which has staff to help customers download books and music, self-publish their writing—and research their family history.

The free Ancestry.com access is a big draw, which is why Borders is offering it, says spokesperson Kolleen O’Meara. “It allows our customers to also experiment and try new things with experts available to help them. This is a great introduction to genealogy research showing customers how easy it can be.” She adds that digital center staff will be trained in searching Ancestry.com.

Of course, Ancestry.com and Borders are hoping visitors also will buy the “Subscription in a Box,” a one-month membership to Ancestry.com, Family Tree Maker software and/or an “Our Name in History" book

Lucky us… one of these new Borders will open close to Family Tree Magazine headquarters by late November.

Breaking News From the National Genealogical Society Conference

Diane — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:53:53 GMT

The National Genealogical Society Conference just got underway here in Kansas City, Mo., and already the announcements are flowing:

FamilySearch and subscription records site Footnote announced they’ve reached an agreement for FamilySearch to provide free access to the Civil War Pensions index and the 1860 US census. You’ll be able to search indexes for both collections on FamilySearch as the project is completed, users will be able to search. Footnote subscribers can view the record images on Footnote ($59.95 per year) ; anyone can access them free at the 4,500 worldwide FamilySearch Family History Centers (FHCs).

FamilyLink (which brings you the World Vital Records subscription databases) is helping FamilySearch improve the usability of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Family History Library Catalog by adding Web 2.0 functionality and enhancements.

The catalog is a listing of the genealogical resources in the Family History Library, including millions of microfilms, microfichfiche and books from more than 110 countries. You can borrow film and fiche (books don’t circulate) by visiting an FHC.

Improvements include making the catalog searchable by major online search engines (such as Google) and letting users to annotate descriptions in the catalog. You'll be able to conduct a “guided search” with tools that will help you decide what you want to learn about your family, point you to relevant records, and help you get and use them.

You’ll also be able to browse the catalog, sort search results and perform multiple searches at once. A nifty tool will search your online family tree to determine which lines have the highest likelihood of success based on known sources (and maybe there’ll be a “pep talk” tool for those other lines).

The Generations Network (that’s Ancestry.com’s parent company) CEO Tim Sullivan has written a “letter to the public,” basically a review of newdatabases and services (such as DNA testing and Ancestry Press). He also offered news about upcoming features such as a historical newspaper collection doubled in size, more than 6,000 school yearbooks and new US city directories containing 50 million names.

Ancestry Hints will send you automatic notifications when Ancestry.com finds matches between people in your tree and its record databases. More user-friendly member profile pages also are in the works. You can read the whole thing on the Ancestry.com Web site.

International sites on the way include China (with Chinese family histories from the Shanghai library) and a Spanish-language sites.

Catholic Churches Told To Keep Records From FamilySearch Digitizers

Diane — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:10:30 GMT

You may already have heard the Catholic News Service reports that the Vatican has directed Catholic dioceses throughout the world not to allow FamilySearch to digitize or index parish registers.

Father James Massa, executive director of the US bishops' Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, told the Catholic News Service that the directive, issued in an April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, aims to prevent Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) members, or Mormons, from using the records to baptize the dead.

The LDS Church operates the FamilySearch genealogy Web site.

The letter reads in part, "The congregation requests that the conference notifies each diocesan bishop in order to ensure that such a detrimental practice is not permitted in his territory, due to the confidentiality of the faithful and so as not to cooperate with the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Posthumous baptism by proxy is central to the LDS faith: Mormons can offer baptism to their ancestors so families can be united in the afterlife. That’s why the LDS Church digitizes and microfilms records. Generally, FamilySearch negotiates contracts with churches to film their records.

The LDS Church makes the records available to members of all religions for use in genealogical research. And microfilmed Catholic Church registers are the major resource for finding ancestors in Europe before civil (government) registration began, usually during the 1800s.

Jewish groups also have criticized posthumous baptism, especially for Holocaust victims. The LDS Church agreed in 1995 to stop the practice of baptizing Holocaust victims, but some say it continues.

What do you think of the Vatican's directive? Click Comments to post here, or post to our Hot Topics Forum.

FamilySearch and British Partners to Digitize UK Records

Diane — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:07:14 GMT

A partnership among FamilySearch, British family history subscription/pay-per-view database site FindMyPast, and The National Archives of Britain will give genealogists access to millions of names of British soldiers and seamen from the 18th to the 20th century. The records include:

Royal Hospital Chelsea documents dating from 1760 to 1914. The hospital for disabled soldiers opened in 1692.

The records may include each ex-serviceman's name, age, birthplace and service history, physical appearance, conduct sheet, previous occupation, and in some cases, the reason for discharge. After 1883, details of marriages and children may also appear.

Merchant Seamen records from 1835 to 1844 and 1918 to 1941, which will provide the name and the date and place of birth. Many 20th-century records include photographs of the sailors and details of their voyages. Nearly a third of UK families have ancestors who were merchant seaman, according to FamilySearch's announcement.

For this three-year project, FamilySearch staffers will digitize the records at the UK National Archives, and FindMyPast will create indexes and transcriptions. When they're through, the indexes and images will be searchable at FindMyPast and FamilySearch.

I can hear you wondering, “Will they be free?” FamilySearch’s announcement didn’t say one way or the other, but in previously announced partnerships, records are to be free on FamilySearch and partner organizations have the option to provide fee-based access.

Family Tree Firsts—Part Five

Grace — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:24:41 GMT

This weekend I reached another milestone: attending my first genealogy conference, hosted by the Ohio Genealogical Society.

It was seriously awesome to meet so many Family Tree Magazine readers (especially the one who said her favorite part of the mag is "Preserving Memories").

Although I spent most of the weekend helping out at our exhibitor table (see below), I also got to attend a few of the sessions. I sat in on "Pig Blood in the Snow: Court Records Can Solve Problems" mostly because of the name—but also because our upcoming September issue includes an article on court records. I also really enjoyed Jeffrey Alan Bockman's "Using Maps in Genealogical Research." I now know better than to believe Grandma's story about having to walk 4 miles to school each way.

Kenny Burck, first vice president of OGS and German research aficionado, was certainly the most decorated genealogist I met last weekend.

All his various badges, medals and pins denote memberships and lineages. (This would be a great picture to try out photo tagging on!) Can anyone top Kenny?

Later, I struck up a conversation with Hans-Friedrich Coordes, who was at the conference representing the KfTN, which tracks down relatives and ancestors in Europe. (I'm a fluent German speaker and like to practice every chance I get!) He was in Cincinnati only for the weekend, but he made an incredible genealogical discovery in the little time he had.

Another exhibitor told him she had ancestors with his surname—from the same town in Ostfriesland Hans-Friedrich is from, even. After comparing some names, they determined they were not-so-distant cousins. He was blown away.

Have any of you made great connections at a conference?

Earlier in Family Tree Firsts:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

We're Honored

Allison — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:51:14 GMT

When it comes to recognizing useful genealogical tools and services, we're used to doling out the honors—from our annual 101 Best Web Sites roundup to our "Libbys" libraries awards, coming in the July issue—rather than receiving them. But this week, we've gotten news that two awards have been bestowed upon Family Tree Magazine:

In a study of online traffic rankings, Utah-based professional research firm ProGenealogists found FamilyTreeMagazine.com to be one of the 50 most popular genealogical Web sites for 2008. Not surprisingly, heavy-hitting data providers Ancestry.com and RootsWeb (both owned by The Generations Network) topped the list. Some of the other rankings might surprise you—see the full list.

ScanMyPhotos.com customers selected this blog as the Best Genealogy Reference Tool and Family Tree Magazine as the Most Popular Genealogy Publication in the 2008 Artistry of Genealogy Awards. You can read about all the winners at ScanMyPhotos.com’s online Photo Preservation Center.

It’s nice to know that genealogists find our tools, tips and information so useful. We’d love to hear your feedback, too (both compliments and critiques): Tell us how you think we can make our magazine, blogs and Web site even better by posting a comment.

Many USGenWeb Sites Leave RootsWeb

Diane — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:07:41 GMT

About.com: Genealogy blogger Kimberley Powell reports many USGenWeb project administrators are moving their sites off RootsWeb—a change she says has long been coming, but was hastened by The Generations Network’s (TGN) decision to transfer RootsWeb to Ancestry.com’s domain (read more about that move in last week's blog post).

See which USGenWeb state and project sites are moving on Powell's blog. It looks like the relocated sites are adding redirects, and national and state administrators are keeping up with link updates.

A little background: USGenWeb is a network of free genealogy Web sites, one for each state and county. Each state and county site has a volunteer administrator who maintains it and adds information and links, which is why the sites look different. USGenWeb also hosts special projects on the national and state levels, such as the Family Group Sheet Project to post and link to online pedigree charts. National USGenWeb administrators link to the everything from the USGenWeb home page.

The national USGenWeb site and many of the local sites have long been hosted on RootsWeb, which TGN purchased in 2000 and has financially supported—and kept free—since then.

Powell says some USGenWeb administrators have been unhappy with slow RootsWeb servers and the lack of ability to add some of the bells and whistles today’s Web surfers are used to seeing.

Others are uncomfortable with the RootsWeb acceptable use policy—the legalese of which gives TGN license to use the data posted on RootsWeb servers (submitters retain copyright)—or feel the free, volunteer nature of USGenWeb is incompatible with a for-profit host. Of course, the connection was always there, but it's more obvious with ancestry in RootsWeb's URL.

The Family Group Sheet Project’s site, for example, has moved, and its redirect page bears a prominent message that "THIS SITE IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH ANCESTRY."

Read more about what USGenWeb administrators have to say on Powell’s blog, and let us know what you think by clicking Comments below.

News From the BYU Computerized Genealogy Conference

Diane — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:34:26 GMT

Family Tree Magazine’s contributing editor and technology guru Rick Crume crashed the Brigham Young University Computerized Genealogy Conference last weekend in Provo, Utah.

He reports more than 700 attendees absorbed nearly 100 presentations and explored a large exhibit area. Here's what Rick had to say about developments he uncovered there:

FamilySearch makeover update
The revamped Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Library Web site, still in the testing stage, is gradually being rolled out to the church’s temple districts around the world. It’ll be open to the general public once data security issues are addressed.

“New” FamilySearch offers collaboration, multimedia and improved searching. It’ll attempt to consolidate all the family information located in several databases on “old” FamilySearch.

As a shared database open for users to collaborate on, the new FamilySearch is fundamentally different from the current site, which doesn’t let you alter data someone else submitted. You’ll be able to submit information to the new site in GEDCOM format, but you can’t download data as a GEDCOM.

Working with other service providers is the new site’s strong suit. Several genealogy programs, including Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree and RootsMagic (but not Family Tree Maker or FamilySearch’s own Personal Ancestral File), will let you synchronize the family files on your computer with New FamilySearch. And you’ll be able to use these programs free at Family History Centers for three years.

Progeny’s Charting Companion utilities will combine family information from the renewed site with photos from another site to create a photo family tree chart. And Generations Maps will let you order a chart made from names on the new FamilySearch.

Work is underway to digitize the Family History Library’s collection. FamilySearch Labs' Record Search already lets you search millions of indexed names.

How many searches was that?
Tim Sullivan, president and CEO of The Generations Network, rattled off a string of statistics on his company, whose divisions include Ancestry.com, RootsWeb, MyFamily.com and Genealogy.com.

Amazingly, Genealogy.com still ranks as the third most popular genealogy Web site, even though TGN virtually abandoned the site after acquiring it several years ago.

Sullivan noted Ancestry.com processes 20 million search requests a day. TGN has invested almost $69 million to digitize records over the past 10 years; $10 million a year now goes toward digitization. In the works: scanning some of the National Archives’ 9 billion undigitized documents.

Sullivan emphasized RootsWeb will remain free despite the change in its domain name to rootsweb.ancestry.com.

From the genealogy social networking front ...
Genealogy social networking sites are multiplying like crazy. Geni now has a million registered users. A new entrant in the field, Family Pursuit, lets you and your relatives use a Web-based genealogy program to collaborate on family history research.

Findmypast.com’s upgraded online family tree, PedigreeSoft, will debut in two or three months with a new URL, www.familytreeexplorer.com.

And some new products and services

Family Photoloom, which should be available this month, lets you tag faces in photos and link them to genealogical data

Heritage Collector lets you organize your digital photos, label people in them and create family history scrapbooks

Biographywiki.com is a wiki that accepts biographies of anyone, famous or not, but the person must be deceased

USFamilyTree.com, coming in April, aims to make tracking down your ancestors’ descendants more efficient.

RootsWeb To Be Hosted on Ancestry.com

Diane — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:25:27 GMT

The Generations Network (TGN) CEO Tim Sullivan announced today that the free genealogy Web site RootsWeb will be transplanted to the domain of the subscription site Ancestry.com beginning next week. Instead of going to rootsweb.com, you’ll log on to rootsweb.ancestry.com.

RootsWeb will otherwise stay the same and stay free, says Sullivan. “This move will not change the RootsWeb experience or alter the ease of navigation to or within RootsWeb. RootsWeb will remain a free online experience.” Old URLs will work; you won’t need to update any bookmarks.

The reason for the change is to get more people to move back and forth between Ancestry.com and RootsWeb. According to the announcement, only 25 percent of visitors to Ancestry.com visited RootsWeb in January 2008, and only 20 percent of visitors to RootsWeb visited Ancestry.com.

The Generations Network (formerly MyFamily.com), which owns Ancestry.com, acquired RootsWeb in June 2000.

News and Notes from the Family History Expo

Allison — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:08:17 GMT

The first day of MyAncestorsFound’s Family History Expo 2008 saw a flurry of activity in the exhibit hall—here at the Family Tree Magazine booth, I barely had a moment to catch my breath. But today I had the opportunity to cruise the hall and learn about new developments in the industry.

The buzzword for this event has been “New FamilySearch”—referring to the highly anticipated revamp of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ genealogy Web site, which is scheduled to go public in early 2009. Several classes focused on how the new system works, and what it means to genealogists. Developers from AncestralQuest, PAFInsight and RootsMagic genealogy software gave demos on how their programs will “sync” with the New FamilySearch.

Here’s a snapshot of other news:

Newcomer FamilyPursuit is a Web-based family tree program that aims to make it easy for families to collaborate on recording and researching genealogy. It’s currently in a public beta phase—you can get sneak peek at its features on the Web site, or sign up to become a tester.

Milennia Corp. is preparing to release version 7 of its Legacy Family Tree software in March. The new edition will add wall charts and source templates, among other features

GenealogyBank, the subscription Web site for historical newspapers, government records and primary documents, is adding hundreds of Hispanic newspapers to its collection.

Ancestry DNA, the genetic genealogy arm of data megasite Ancestry.com, will be adding surname groups this spring, along with groups for different geographic locations and haplogroups.

I spotted a few interesting new (well, new to me) books, including the two-volume Census Substitutes and State Census Records by William Dollarhide (Family Roots Publishing, $32.50 per volume); Crash Course in Family History for Latter-day Saints by Paul Larsen (Fresh Mountain Air Publishing, $27.95) and Jana Sloan Broglin’s Hookers, Crooks and Kooks, two volumes with a third on the way (Heritage Books, $22 for volume 1 and $21 for volume 2), lists “ill-reputed” ancestors from the 1880 census.

Add Family Tree and Me to the list of companies offering decorative family tree charts. Owner Shirlene Dymock aims to provide designs elegant enough to display in your living room—see samples of the layouts, backgrounds and frames online.

Online genealogy TV channel RootsTelevision has now posted all the episodes of both PBS “Ancestors” series. You’ll also be able to catch interviews from the Expo on RootsTelevision.

Podcaster Lisa Louise Cooke was also busy doing interviews during the Expo. Among the conversations to be featured in upcoming episodes: Richard Black of the Godfrey Memorial Library, Kathy Meade of Swedish church records Web site Genline, and presenter Kathryn Lake Hogan speaking about immigration resources. Visit Genealogy Gems for details on subscribing to this free online radio show.

Speaking of Swedish records, Meade tipped me off to a recent news story on genealogi.se about a reinterpretation of Swedish law that would allow more-recent church records to be digitized and posted online—shrinking the 100-year waiting period to 70 or 85. Watch this blog for announcements on where and when those records may become available to you.

Changes for FindMyPast; FamilyLink

Diane — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:39:12 GMT

Two news bits on the genealogy biz:

Scotland Online, parent company of the genealogy data service ScotlandsPeople, has purchased the UK records site FindMyPast with plans to “establish a world-class online network of family history resources.”

ScotlandsPeople has birth records, censuses, vital registrations and wills from Scotland. FindMyPast (the former 1837Online) is known for its British vital registration, census and outgoing passenger records. Each company’s online resources will be unaffected by the merger and niether will relocate its headquarters, according to an announcement.

Back stateside, the genealogy database and social networking business World Vital Records is changing its name to FamilyLink. The renamed company will still call its database site World Vital Records, and its social networking site FamilyLink.

10 Biggest Genealogy News Stories in 2007

Diane — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:12:58 GMT

Here are the top genealogy developments of 2007… at least in our humble opinion. Got one to add to (or kick off of) the list? Got an opinion which news is the biggest? Click Comment (below) and get it off your chest.

Competition comes back
For a few years there, after industry leader MyFamily.com (now The Generations Network) purchased second-place Genealogy.com in 2003, industry competition ebbed and online innovation slowed. Today The Generations Network is still the giant, but the growth of relative newcomers including World Vital Records and Footnote, plus FamilySearch’s records-digitization initiatives, are keeping the genealogy business on its toes.

Records digitization accelerates
In October, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced it was teaming up with FamilySearch to digitize case files of approved pension applications from widows of Civil War Union soldiers. That’s part of an even bigger arrangement that has FamilySearch volunteers stationed at NARA to scan all kinds of records. Footnote also has agreements to digitize NARA records, and FamilySearch has mobilized thousands of volunteers to index scanned records.

Partnerships proliferate
Organizations are joining forces right and left. World Vital Records, which launched in 2006, has built its genealogy database largely through partnership agreements. That site, Footnote, ProQuest and the Godfrey Library announced in May they’d provide access at FamilySearch’s Family History Centers. Nonprofit libraries and archives, including NARA, are using partnerships to increase records access without blowing their budgets.

Social networking explodes
As contributing editor Rick Crume points out in his January 2008 Family Tree Magazine social networking guide, Web 2.0 has allowed sites to be more interactive than ever. In addition to the popularity of photo- and family-history-sharing sites such as Geni and Amiglia, and genealogy networking sites such as FamilyLink and WeRelate, database sites such as FindMyPast have added social networking features.

Family Tree Maker 2008 disappoints
Surely you’ve seen the comments from customers who bought the revamped genealogy program after a brief beta period, only to be disappointed by missing reports, data importing problems and other bugs. If not, let us help you out from under that rock, and take a look at readers’ comments in our products forum.

DNA testing gets higher profile
Your options for genetic genealogy testing—and the number of companies that’ll test you—jumped this year. The Generations Network hopped on board with DNA Ancestry. Mainstream media regularly weigh in on topics such as newcomer 23andme and the usefulness of testing for ethnic roots. PBS’s "African-American Lives" has brought genetic genealogy to prime time.

NARA rates rise
NARA's new rates for ordering copies of records, which included $75 for a Civil War pension file (up from $37), made us wonder about national priorities regarding the public’s access to historical records. Thank goodness for all that digitization (above).

Everyone’s blogging
It’s not hard to find genealogy news, resources and research updates from people in the know—just go to Google Blog Search and type in genealogy. You might come across The Ancestry Insider (an “unofficial, unauthorized view ...”), Geneablogie (the author’s “exploration of his American family of families”) or one of the tens of thousands of other blogs about family history. Heck, Family Tree Magazine got in on the act, too.

Online videos are everywhere
Thank Roots Television for this one. It actually launched in 2006, but expanded its coverage this year by sending crews to genealogy conferences and on cruises, and adding RootsTube (a genealogical version of YouTube where you can upload videos). Founder Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak says the site's roughly 400 shows (divided into 1,100 smaller chunks) are "pushing half a million video views."

Genealogists get younger
A survey Ancestry.com recently released found younger people expressed higher interest in learning heir family history. Empirical evidence—young people at conferences, youth branches of national societies (see our Web site for links) and Facebook genealogy add-ons—also tells us this. This means genealogy can continue its status among the country’s popular pastimes.

FHL and 13 FHCs Get Ancestry.com Back

Diane — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:43:05 GMT

After losing their free Ancestry.com access last spring, researchers at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Library (FHL) and 13 largest Family History Centers (FHCs) will once again be able to search the subscription site's genealogy databases for free.

FamilySearch and The Generations Network (parent company of Ancestry.com) have reached an agreement that provides free on-site Ancestry.com access at the FHL in Salt Lake City and its regional FHCs in

•   Mesa, Ariz.
•   Los Angeles
•   Oakland, Calif.
•   Orange, Calif.
•   Sacramento, Calif.
•   San Diego
•   Idaho Falls, Idaho
•   Pocatello, Idaho
•   Las Vegas
•   Logan, Utah
•   Ogden, Utah
•   St. George, Utah
•   Hyde Park, London, England

The agreement takes effect immediately.

Providing access at these centers was a financial decision, says FamilySearch spokesperson Paul Nauta. "The money would be best spent right now focusing on those 13 centers that accommodate a significant amount of patron traffic. We do desire to provide expanded access to all of our centers in the future."

If your FHC isn't on the list, see if a public library near you offers Ancestry Library Edition, a version of Ancestry.com databases library patrons can use free at subscribing institutions.

Until April 1, the FHL and almost all FHCs had enjoyed free, unlicensed Ancestry.com access since 2000. When it was unable to negotiate a formal arrangement with the LDS Church, The Generations Network discontinued the service (except a few databases for which contracts did exist and which are still available at all FHCs). See the March 29 E-mail Update newsletter for more details.

Don't Know Much About Family History, But We Want To

Diane — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:44:23 GMT

Lots of Americans say they’re interested in their family history, but many actually don’t know much about their ancestors, according to an Ancestry.com survey released today.

Seventy-eight percent of survey respondents said they’re interested in learning more about their families, but half could name only one or none of their grandparents, 60 percent didn’t know both grandmothers’ maiden names, and 22 percent couldn’t say what either grandfather did or does for a living.

Half the survey respondents had ever researched their roots.

This may be a bit unexpected: More young people than older people were among the 78 percent wanting to know more about their roots. Eighty-three percent of 18-to-34-year-olds were interested, followed 35-to-54-year-olds at 77 percent and those 55 and older at 73 percent.

Could be the older folks are already doing genealogy and know a lot about their families, so they’re not as worried about learning more.

The research firm MarketTools conducted the survey. Information about the number of respondents and how they were surveyed wasn’t available.

What do you think of the numbers? Click comment to share your two cents.

Ancestry.com and Amazon.com Peddle Surname Books

Diane — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:27:56 GMT

Amazon.com’s BookSurge print-on-demand service is collaborating with Ancestry.com to offer the Our Name in History series.

You can pay $29.95 for a book of interesting facts, statistics and commentary about your surname, if it’s one of the 279,000 last names covered in the series. That accounts for nearly 90 percent of US households.

The books' content is based on Ancestry.com’s historical records, but don't expect to find information about any particular family.

It's more along the lines of the “Did you know?” tidbits that pop up when you search Ancestry.com. For example, I’ll look for census records of my great-grandfather and learn “Most Haddad families (47) living in the US in 1920 lived in CT.”

According to the Our Name in History description for a book about my surname (4,872nd most common, says the census bureau), “You'll get a better idea of where people sharing the Haddad name settled and where they may reside today in the United States, Canada, England and other countries.”

If you’re running out of time to pull together those impressive genealogy books you planned on giving relatives for the holidays, one of these surname books could be a somewhat-paler-but-still-sort-of-
related-to-family-history substitute.

Civil War Widows' Pension Files to be Digitized

Diane — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:20:43 GMT

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and FamilySearch have announced a partnership to digitize case files of approved pension applications from widows of Civil War Union soldiers.

The agreement will kick off with a pilot project to digitize, index and provide access to 3,150 pension files. When that’s done, FamilySearch, along with records site Footnote.com, plans to digitize and index all 1,280,000 pensions in the series.

Oh, happy day!

That’s a huge step toward easing genealogists’ research and restoring their good will toward NARA, which recently doubled pension file ordering fees to $75. Pensions aren’t microfilmed, so paying the fee, visiting NARA in Washington, DC, or hiring an on-site researcher are currently your only options.

Widows' pension application files often include supporting documents such as affidavits, witnesses’ depositions, marriage certificates, birth records, death certificates, and pages from family Bibles.

According to the announcement, the digitized records will be free at Family History Centers, with an index free on the FamilySearch Web site. Images also may be available for a fee on a commercial site.

The digitized pension records also will be free at NARA facilities, and NARA will get gratis copies of the record images and associated indexes.

This is part of a broader partnership announced today, in which FamilySearch staff will camp out at NARA five days a week with high-speed digitization cameras. Ultimately, it'll mean you have ready access, through FamilySearch and Family History Centers, to court, military, land, and other government records dating as early as 1754.

Ancestry.com, NewEnglandAncestors.org Offer Joint Discount

Diane — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:39:17 GMT

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) and The Generations Network (TGN) are are tying up a loose end left over from the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in August.

The two organizations announced a partnership at the conference, but until now, didn’t say what their partnership meant for you.

Here’s the answer: You can join both TGN's Ancestry.com and NEHGS’ NewEnglandAncestors.org for a special annual price of $155.40, a savings of $75. ($155.40 is the regular price of Ancestry.com’s US Deluxe records collection.)

The price, which gets you access to Ancestry.com’s US records as well as NEHGS' vital, church, court and other New England records, is good until Dec. 31 and isn't open to those who already belong to both groups.

Additionally, members of Ancestry.com can join NEHGS for $60 (a $15 discount), and members of NEHGS can join Ancestry.com for $99.95.

Another part of the agreement: Ancestry.com databases will include indexes to NEHGS’ New England Historical and Genealogical Register from 1847 to 2002.

Interview with Ancestry.com's CEO Tim Sullivan

Diane — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:40:02 GMT

After yesterday’s announcement that Spectrum Equity Investors had purchased The Generations Network (TGN), parent company of Ancestry.com, TGN CEO Tim Sullivan was busy working the phones talking to the media—including myself. The major points of our conversation:

• Your experience as an Ancestry.com subscriber won’t change as a direct result of the sale, Sullivan states, “Other than the very rapid pace of innovation we’ve built into our cycle in the past year, and we hope to maintain that, even to accelerate it.” That innovation includes the Ancestry Press and DNA Ancestry services, international sites such as the Swedish Ancestry.se, and a Web 2.0 platform for MyFamily.com.

“The firm that’s buying our company is buying our vision. They like what we’re doing and they want us to keep doing that,” Sullivan says.

• Sullivan said RootsWeb—the free, grassroots site TGN (then MyFamily.com) purchased in 2000—"is absolutely not going away. We will never charge for what’s on RootsWeb. We’re proud to be supporters of RootsWeb.”

He adds there’s only about a 20 percent overlap between RootsWeb users and Ancestry.com users, a number his company would like to increase.

• Spectrum Equity’s investment in TGN likely won’t change anything at Genealogy.com (anyone remember that site?), which TGN purchased in 2003 and allowed to languish. “We continue to support Genealogy.com, but we did make a decision that in a world of limited resources and limited hours in the day, that the best thing we could do was focus our resources as completely as we could on Ancestry.com.”

• TGN is focused on incorporating new technology, such as wireless photo uploads, into its services, and on globalizing genealogy research. “We just sent someone to China to open an office there and build a Web site for people in China,” Sullivan says.

• A few other upcoming changes to Ancestry.com include a “pretty major” overhaul of the search interface, improved tree-building experience, and of course, more digitized records.

• Sullivan wouldn’t say whether TGN would go public, just that the company’s future holds many possibilities and his staff is taking things one step at a time.

Its domination of the genealogy industry often means TGN is the company people love to hate. Sullivan’s aware of that and says “I promise we don’t sit around thinking of ways to make people angry.”

I asked about his pre-TGN genealogical interest. He knew some oral history, including an ancestor who worked with Thomas Edison. “I, like probably everybody, was enamored and fascinated by the stories of those who preceded me,” he says, but he hadn’t yet done research.

Back when he ran the online dating service Match.com, Sullivan knew TGN’s then-CEO Tom Stockham and thought he’d check out Ancestry.com. “Before I knew it, it was 2:30 in the morning, and I had my laptop in bed showing my wife documents I discovered.”

“It was an instantaneous and very strong fascination, but like a lot of people, I didn’t have a lot of time and I didn’t follow up and get engaged right away.” His company’s challenge, he says, is engaging people like himself at that time, who face busy schedules and many choices for spending spare moments.

“We’re never going to make it easy, push-button genealogy. But we’re getting close to that tipping point, where the investment and the effort people put in, they see a return very quickly in terms of satisfaction.”

Update: What do you think of what Sullivan had to say? Join the discussion in the FamilyTreeMagazine.com Hot Topics Forum.

The Generations Network Bought for $300 Million

Diane — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:28:43 GMT

A private equity firm has purchased a majority interest in The Generations Network (TGN, formerly MyFamily.com), parent company of Ancestry.com, DNA Ancestry, Genealogy.com, RootsWeb and others.

Spectrum Equity Investors, already a partial stakeholder in TGN, will pay $300 million for its majority interest. Two of its partners will join TGN president and CEO Tim Sullivan on the new board of directors. Other terms of the purchase weren't disclosed.

Private equity firms buy companies hoping to make money off them, and that’s probably a good bet here. The Generations Network online properties have 900,000 paying subscribers, and receive 8.2 million unique visitors and more than 429 million page views a month. According to the Internet news site TechCrunch, TGN rakes in around $150 million in revenue annually.

More New Genealogy Social Networking Sites

Diane — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:26:57 GMT

We've come across additions to the genealogy social networking world:

FamilyInHistory lets you create a tree by uploading a GEDCOM and adding photos and stories. You can grant others access to contribute images and stories, too. Though you can edit the stories, photos and events on your family’s timeline, you can’t edit genealogical data once it's on the site—instead, you’d need to upload a new GEDCOM.

After a 30-day free trial, FamilyInHistory costs from $8.49 to $18.49 per month.

Before signing on, check out similar free sites, such as SharedTree, Geni (where you can collaborate with relatives on a tree, but can’t yet upload a GEDCOM—a spokesperson told me to expect GEDCOM uploads by the end of the year) or Ancestry.com Member Trees (you can build a free tree even if you don’t have an Ancestry.com subscription, but nonsubscribers can’t access results of the automated Ancestry.com database searches).

FamilyRelatives, a site with UK census, vital registration, parish and other records, has added free social networking. FamilyRelatives is more profile-based than most genealogy social networking sites: Rather than build a tree, you create a profile, enter family data (no GEDCOM uploads yet) and attach records (FamilyLink, which debuted earlier this year, works similarly). You can search and view other members’ profiles and leave comments, and the site automatically matches your relatives’ names with the same names in other profiles.

To search FamilyRelatives’ record databases, you’ll need a subscription ($75 for a year) or a pay-per-view account (50 units cost $10; 150 units cost $23.50).

We'll help you choose which social networking site best suits your needs in the January 2008 Family Tree Magazine, on newsstands and FamilyTreeMagazine.com Dec. 18.

Addition: Yet another new site we've learned of, TreeX.com, is meant to function as Web-based genealogy software and a social networking site rolled up in one. A 30-day free trial lets you create a tree, import a GEDCOM, add 20 photos to an album, invite relatives to join in and surname-search all the site's trees. After the trial, you can opt for a $95.88 12-month or $59.94 six-month subscription.

If you take a pass on paying, you'll be moved to the free basic plan. Niether the trial period nor the basic plan lets you export a GEDCOM from your tree. (It's not clear on the site what other features the basic plan includes.)

Campaign Raising Funds for Ellis Island Restoration

Diane — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:31:47 GMT

A “Save Ellis Island” ad on CNN.com piqued my curiosity today. The ad is part of a national fundraising campaign called We Are Ellis Island that launched Aug. 17.

Genealogists and the American public are intimately familiar with (and grateful for) the Great Hall on Ellis Island, which was restored and opened as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in the 1990s.

Those behind We Are Ellis Island—a nonprofit called Save Ellis Island and Arrow, a division of clothing company Phillips-Van Heusen Corp—hope to raise enough to restore the deteriorating buildings that remain. That includes the three structures of the Hospital Complex (read about them here).

Arrow donated $500,000 to finish restoring the Ferry Building, which reopened April 2.

You can visit the We Are Ellis Island campaign Web site to donate, share your family’s Ellis Island story (you must register first) and upload pictures.

The campaign also includes television and print advertising. All feature photographs of famous folks, including actor Christian Slater, American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee and football star Joe Montana, wearing Arrow apparel and posing attractively inside the unrestored buildings. The celebrities’ Ellis Island stories are among those on the site.

FindMyPast.com and the Telegraph Launch White Label Site

Diane — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:55:53 GMT

If genealogy Web surfers think the new UK records site Telegraph Family History seems familiar, well, they're right.

FindMyPast.com has produced the first white label genealogy database site, for the Telegraph Media Group, publisher of the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

A white label product is one a company produces for another company to brand and market as its own. Telegraph Family History is basically FindMyPast.com with a different "skin," so when you search Telegraph Family History, you're really searching FindMyPast.com's collection of British census, vital and emigration records.

Telegraph Family History launched Friday, bearing a “powered by FindMyPast.com” graphic. You'll need a free registration to search the records, but you must pay to see detailed results.

It also has researcher and author Nick Barratt’s Family Detective columns investigating famous Brits’ pedigrees. Barratt is a UK family history media magnet who appears on the BBC series "Who Do You Think You Are?"

You can subscribe to Telegraph Family History for the same prices as FindMyPast.com. The Explorer package gives full access to all records for about $250 per year. You also can purchase pay-per-view units starting around $14. See www.findmypast.com/media/subscriptions.jsp for information.

Genealogy Companies Merge, You Get Free Stuff

Diane — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:00:23 GMT

A genealogy industry merger is resulting in freebies for you. The Israel-based family networking site MyHeritage has finalized its purchase of software and database company Pearl Street Software, and it’s making Pearl Street’s products free.

Those include the $29.95 Family Tree Legends software and Family Tree Legends Records Collection, which debuted for $29.95 per year in 2005 with a variety of indexes to military, vital, court, biography and other records. Pearl Street also ran the pedigree site GenCircles, known for its SmartMatching technology that matches up duplicate search results for an ancestor. Lately, as owners looked for a buyer, the company's sites have stagnated and customers have noticed dwindling support services.

MyHeritage first made a splash back in 2006 with a facial recognition tool that found users' celebrity look-alikes. More gimmick than anything else, it nonetheless got attention from legions of Web surfers and doubtless padded the site's registered users stat to the current 17 million. (Facial recognition's genealogy application: It could match your uploaded photo of Great-Grandma with one your long-lost cousin submitted.)

The just-revamped MyHeritage is now available in 15 languages andhas a free Immersive Family Tree you can use to post your genealogy. Its “Megadex” search will look for surnames in online databases (results link you to the originating site, where you must be a subscriber to access paid content).

The new Look-alike Meter shows you which parent a child resembles more. And now you can create a collage of your famous twin. (I was a fan of TV’s recently concluded “Gilmore Girls,” so imagine my delight with my 83 percent resemblance to the show's Lauren Graham.)

GenCircles and Family Tree Legends will remain online for now, but MyHeritage is joining the sites' databases. To access the free software and record collection, visit Family Tree Legends.

More New Stuff Spotted at FGS

Diane — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 20:07:03 GMT

We’ve blogged about Federation of Genealogical Societies conference news from FamilySearch, The Generations Network, RootsTelevision and us here at Family Tree Magazine. We also found these new products and services meant to make your genealogical life easier:

World Vital Records has partnered with the National Genealogical Society to provide society management services including member benefits (in the form of World Vital Records subscription discounts), membership renewal processing, online data hosting and a Web platform (on FamilyLink) for member communication.

Genlighten.com is a not-yet-available service that matches people who have well-defined research tasks that need doing (such as getting an obituary from library microfilm) with experienced—but not necessarily professional—researchers who'll complete them for a fee. Expect a launch by March 2008.

FacTree from The Genealogy Shop is a Windows utility for entering data into your genealogy software. The theory is, you type data into an online form that approximates the source document, and facTree puts the data in the right format and place in your software. You can try it free with the 1880 census; other facTree forms cost $3.50.

Ages-Online is a Web-based genealogy program you can access from any Internet-connected computer. It has features similar to traditional software and backs up your data nightly, though not all packages support multimedia files. Subscriptions range from $39.95 (Economy) to $109.95 (Deluxe) per year.

Several Web sites, such as Geni, Footnote, WeRelate and FamilyLink, have enhanced or added free social networking features that let you upload photos, post research information, build trees and collaborate with other researchers. Watch upcoming issues of Family Tree Magazine for more information on genealogy social networking.

What's New From the FGS Conference

Diane — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:48:13 GMT

We’re reporting live from the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference (which is much better than reporting dead).

Here's visual evidence the Family Tree Magazine staff isn't just goofing off here in Fort Wayne:

In conference news, the social networking site Geni (it's pronounced “jeenee”) is exhibiting at its first national genealogy show, and the site has a lot more features than when we first told you about its debut several months ago. That includes various ways to view and navigate through your family tree, image upload and privacy options. It’s a pretty slick site, and it’s free.

The historical records subscription and pay-per-view site Footnote has enhanced its social features, too. Anyone with a basic (free) membership can create a profile, upload photo and documents, annotate them and add “story pages” about ancestors and records. Footnote webmasters made these elements more noticeable by showing the newest user contributions on the home page. You don’t have to pay to see records members have contributed, either.

Footnote users will be glad to hear a new, more-sophisticated search function is in the works.

Subscription Web site Ancestry.com (another Web site you may have heard of) has announced a partnership with the New England Historic Genealogical Society, the oldest genealogical society in the country. You’ll hear more details in a few weeks, but the society will share records with Ancestry.com in return for discounted subscriptions for its members.

Live from the FGS Conference

Allison — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:57:39 GMT

Family Tree Magazine staffers are at the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Fort Wayne, Ind., this week. During the conference, we’ll have the opportunity to tour the new Allen County Public Library facilities—featuring the largest public-library genealogy collection in the country—and catch up on the latest products, services and resources for genealogists. We’ll be sharing that news with you throughout the conference, so stay tuned to the Genealogy Insider blog for updates.