British World War One Records Updated!

I just happened to see John's article on Ancestry's updating of World War One records. I've done a little searching with the records so far today, and I might have found a relative. I'm not sure, but if I have, I will write more about the research later. Enjoy!

Forgot To Mention: An Article and Genealogy Databases

I keep forgetting to mention that FamilySearch Lab's Record Search has added some new records and that there is an update to when the Michigan Deaths will be posted online. In addition, Ancestry has added some more databases of vital records and books from Europe.

First off, Brenda left me a comment some days ago about an update as to when the Michigan deaths, 1897 to 1920, will be online, and you can read about it here. (Personally, I can't wait for the records to be posted as I have several people I want to look for in those records.)

As I mentioned before, FamilySearch's Record Search has added death records for Arizona, more church records for the Czech Republic, funeral notices for Hungary, vital records for Brazil, and some more records to the West Virginia vital records. Ancestry has also added some more databases, and among those databases are vital records for Denmark.

I just thought I would mention this in the hopes that it might help others.

Ancestry Has Added Some Croatian Records ...

I just happened to take a look at Ancestry.com's recently added databases and noticed that some vital records for Croatia have been added. You look here, at their updated list. I hope you are successful in finding your ancestors. Enjoy!

I Found My Great-Grandpa's WWI Service Records!

Yes, you read that correctly. I finally found my great-grandfather's World War One service records, and I wasn't expecting to look for his records, as I figured they hadn't survived the destruction caused by the Blitz in World War Two.

I couldn't find them before in Ancestry's British World War One records, but I happened to visit the site earlier today. There, I discovered that Ancestry had updated the service records and were making the available for free viewing. So, I decided to look, and I found his records. As you can imagine, I'm quite thrilled and excited! In addition, I also happened to notice that the other British World War One records are also available for a free viewing as well. I'm not sure why the records are now free, but it might have to do with this story about about a family receiving a World War medal for their ancestor. Either way, I do not know how long those records will remain free, so if you have a British ancestor or an ancestor who served in the British army during World War One, you might still want to check and see if your ancestor's records had survived or not. I hope you are as successful as I was. Enjoy!

Some New Databases ...

Within the past couple of days, some new databases have been added to Ancestry.com and FamilySearch Lab's Record Search. The new databases added to Ancestry are of Jewish records from Central and Eastern Europe, and you can read more about them here.

As for FamilySearch Lab's Record Search, I just happened to notice earlier today that militia records for Vermont during the Civil War and Louisiana War of 1812 Pensions were added to the site. You can access the site here. Enjoy!

I Just Noticed This!

I just happened to take a look on Ancestry's genealogy blog, and I noticed that they are planning to post the Michigan death records from 1897 to 1920 soon. Of course, I am also curious if they will be charging people to access these records, since these records are supposed to be available on the Library of Michigan's website as well except that death records can be viewed for free on the library's website. I can't wait for these Michigan death records to go online as I have some ancestors and relatives who died in that time period.

Ancestry's Switched Over to the New Search ...

I just happened to take a look on the ancestry.com's home page and recently added page, and it appears to me that they have switched their system over to the new search. I think that is a mistake, and I wrote why I thought so in a previous post.

Genealogy and History Thoughts Column 16 - My Thoughts on the Ancestry-FamilySearch Partnership

Earlier today, I mentioned my shock at the Ancestry-FamilySearch partnership announcement, and as I promised, I'm posting my thoughts on this announcement.

Not only do I feel shocked, I'm also angry. As a person who has volunteered to index records through FamilySearch, I feel as though I have been cheated and misled. When I decided to help out, the information on the FamilySearch indexing website led me to believe to that the images indexed would be offered online for free. Now, FamilySearch is apparently willing to give transcribed indexes that volunteers like me, had worked on for free to Ancestry.com, a subscription based site. I had not expected this to occur, and I'm upset since I put a lot of time into indexing images since I became a volunteer. Since I began volunteering in April of 2007, I have over 24,000 names/record columns. I realize that may not be a lot to other people, but one has to keep in mind that I am also a full-time college student.

Of course, I mostly feel betrayed because I had hoped that FamilySearch's posting of images online would be a competitor to Ancestry.com. I realize there are other subscription-based genealogy websites out on the internet, but Ancestry appears to pretty much have an almost monopoly of the genealogy market. I was just hoping that competition would lower some of the pricing of subscription prices for fee-based genealogy sites since there are some people who cannot afford to pay for a subscription to Ancestry. I'm a college student, so I truly cannot afford a subscription, and I'm trying to keep the price of my genealogy research fairly low, as much as I can at the moment. Now, I guess gotten my hopes up too much.

As to whether I will continue indexing images, I'm not sure. I like indexing records, and I'm not sure if I just want to quit completely. I think I need to think this over before I make a hasty decision, or for the moment, I could just index other records instead of the 1920 census. I might just do that. So, what do you think? As always, you can leave a comment with your thoughts. All comments are welcome.

Whoa! This Is A Bit Shocking ...

Did I read that right? I just happened to notice an article on Ancestry's blog about the agreement between Ancestry and Familysearch. You can read the announcement here. I did not expect this to happen, and at the moment I'm stunned. I will, though, post my thoughts later today in another post as this one announcement I cannot pass up.

On another note, this is my 619th post in less than a year-and-a-half. Since I started posting in Mid-March 2007, I have posted that many posts!

Limited Free Searching Of Ancestry's Newspapers

I just happened to read Randy's blog, and noticed that he had posted on Ancestry's limited-time offer on their historical newspapers. You can also read about it here. Enjoy!

Some Interesting Articles ...

I've wanted to mention some articles that I found interesting over the past week or so, but I never got around to mentioning them. So here are some articles that I have found interesting:

• "Copyright Issues: Photographs" at GeneaBlogie
• "Age of Consent vs Age of Majority Explained" at Olive Tree Genealogy Blog
• "If These Walls Could Speak: A German Häuserchronik" at What's Past is Prologue
• "Building a Better Blog" at the same blog as above
• "What is Blogging? Why Would I Want to do it?" at Kinexxions
• "What's Next? European Genealogy & Social Networking" at 100 Years in America
• "European Genealogy Resources Online" at the same blog as above
• "Nagyon Köszönöm! The National Archives of Hungary in English" at the same blog as above
• "British WW1 Medal Cards on Ancestry" at Anglo-Celtic Connections
• "New Genealogy Guide for Finland Research" at AnceStories: The Stories of My Ancestors

I realize that I have listed a large number of articles, but I thought these articles were interesting. Enjoy!

Update at 2:30 p.m.: I added the links to the articles for Anglo-Celtic and AnceStories, and more post labels.

Interesting ....

I just learned about this yesterday from one of the yahoo genealogy groups that I am member of, and I thought I would share this on my blog.

Ancestry.com is apparently offering people free time for searching Ancestry's databases in return for those people's transcription of records. You can read more about here: http://www.ancestry.com/home/partner/partner.htm

I wonder if participating in this would be worthwhile. It seems like it might be beneficial ....

Part Three of the Legal Analysis Posted

Yesterday, Craig Manson posted the third part to his legal analysis of the IBC controversy. You can read the article here.

First Post over the Legality of Ancestry's Actions is Posted

Yesterday, Craig Manson, of GeneaBlogie, posted the first article in his column over the legality of Ancestry.com's actions on the Internet Biographical Collection. You can read the first article here.

Another Chapter...

Yesterday afternoon, an letter by Kendall Hulet (a manager at Ancestry.com) responding to the uproar over Ancestry's Internet Biographical Collection, was posted on Ancestry's blog. You can read the letter here.

I don't think I need to post anything further on this issue as other genealogy bloggers have commented on this letter. Among those are:

• Jasia's "Now That's What I Wanted to Hear!"
• Becky Wiseman's "Some Final (?) Thoughts on the Ancestry Fiasco"

I do not doubt that there are other genealogy bloggers who have commented on this letter; I just haven't had the time to read all of the blogs. I am sorry if I have not mentioned anyone.

Well, Believe This Or Not

I just checked Ancestry.com's blog and found out that Ancestry has decided to take off the internet its Internet Biography Database. You can read the rest of the article here.

What I find interesting is that Ancestry has labeled the uproar over its behavior as "concerns about the collection." If a person has not already read about the issue on other genealogy blogs, that person might get the impression that it was not an uproar, when in fact it really was. In short, if a person just happened to only see Ancestry's latest blog article, they would not be aware that many genealogists/family historians were angry and outraged over what Ancestry did.

This blog article also states, "We have decided to remove this collection and search engine from Ancestry.com for the time being." Interesting. Does Ancestry intend to only remove this database temporarily and repost it when the uproar has died down? I guess that means that the genealogy community needs to stay on the alert when it comes to new databases that Ancestry posts.

If you want to read my post on the database issue, click here.

My Two Cents on Ancestry's Internet Biography Database

Throughout this evening, I have read several blog articles about Ancestry's Internet Biography database, and I couldn't help but add my two cents to this issue.

Originally, Ancestry required a paying membership in order to view this database, but the database was turned into a free database earlier today because of the uproar over Ancestry's actions.

Personally, what Ancestry did was ethically and morally wrong. I don't know if Ancestry could be held legally liable for its behavior because I am not a lawyer. I don't have that answer, but what I do know is that it is unethical to take information off the internet and put into a database without the author or owner's consent. According to other bloggers, their information was obtained without their consent, and they did not give Ancestry their consent. (To me, it appears to be plagiarism, but I don't believe that Ancestry's behavior technically would fall under that category.) And Ancestry did not pay those people any money for the use of their information. Even though it is now a free database, technically, one could argue that they did make some money off of it when a person was still required to pay to access this database. But, again, I don't know if Ancestry could face legal repercussions for this or not because I'm not a lawyer. What I do know, though, is that Ancestry's behavior is blatantly dishonest from a moral standpoint. People try to teach their children to be honest, but when children see companies behave dishonestly, I don't believe they walk away with the idea that honesty is right, especially when they see dishonest companies profit.

Of course, other bloggers have written much more eloquently than I on this subject, and some of those articles are:

• Randy Seaver's "Ancestry.com is caching some web site data"
• Jasia's "Greedy Ancestry.com Stabs Friends in the Back"
• Becky Wiseman's "Is this Fair Use?"
• Miriam's "Ancestry.com: Copyright Violations?"
• Janice Brown's "Ancestry.com Hijacks Cow Hampshire"
• Susan's "Ancestry.com Scrapes Websites; Places Harvested Content Behind Membership Wall"

This list is not comprehensive; I've only linked to a few of the blog articles, and I have no doubt that there are more.

I will have to say, though, that I will be much more careful in the future with whatever I post, and from now on, I will not name any of my ancestors, if I even decide to write about my research at all.

Ancestry News - More Databases

In case you haven't noticed, Ancestry has added several databases for Australian genealogy. The link to the information can be found here: http://blogs.ancestry.com/circle/?p=1672.

Also, Ancestry has updated the British World War One Pension records. You can read about it here: http://blogs.ancestry.com/circle/?p=1673.

Native American Records added to Ancestry

I just noticed this post on Ancestry's blog just a few minutes ago, and I thought I would post on it. Ancestry has added records pertaining to Native America genealogy. From what I read, the databases added appear to census records of reservations. You can read the rest of the article here: http://blogs.ancestry.com/circle/?p=1573.

I don't have any experience in researching Native American genealogy, but I hope that the addition of these records makes doing genealogy reasearch easier for those doing research in Native American genealogy.


Update: 27 June 2007: I had to change the link to the article on Ancestry's blog, as Ancestry redid their posts from the past two days. I'm sorry if anyone tried the link, and couldn't find the article.

Free Access to Ancestry's Military Records

I just learned about this last night from an e-mail. Ancestry is making its military records available to look at for free online until June 6. Obviously, this is a wonderful opportunity for those who don't have an ancestry subscription to see if they can find military records on their ancestors.

You can find out more about the database on Ancestry's blog: http://blogs.ancestry.com/circle/?p=1436

My only problem with the database is that Ancestry has completely forgotten about the Mexican-American War, which was fought between 1846 and 1848. I realize this might be a petty complaint, but the war had an impact on U.S. history. The U.S. acquired the territory of present day California, and most of Arizonia and New Mexico as a result of this war.

I realize that not everyone is a student of history, but when it comes to posting a database on military records, there should be some acknowledgement that the U.S. fought a war against Mexico. My point is: if ancestry is going to post information on every major war that the U.S. has been involved in, they should make as much effort to ensure that they have posted information on all of the wars as they do creating the presentations about their databases. Ancestry has a nice presentation on their military database, but with all of the effort and time that was spent on creating that presentation, it does not appear as impressive when someone knows that one of the wars has been left out. To those who know that there was another war between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, it appears that Ancestry did not spend enough time researching or did not spend enough time on the project at all.

If someone is going to post an impressive presentation on military records online, that person needs to spend the time to ensure that he or she has all of the facts; otherwise, that person's presentation does not appear impressive.