Ancestry.com Global Content, Product, and Marketing Update

To mark the first day of the 2008 National Genealogical Society Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, The Generations Network CEO Tim Sullivan has published a rather lengthy letter addressed to the genealogy community. He highlights several recently released content collections and product enhancements on Ancestry.com, and gives insights into some new projects on the horizon.

He starts off with:

At the beginning of 2007, Ancestry.com set out to accomplish four fundamental goals.

First, and most importantly, we committed to broaden and deepen the content that we offer our members by digitizing and putting online millions more historical records, both from the United States and from around the world.

Second, we wanted to make it even easier for our members to discover their ancestors in the records we offer, to organize and preserve their personal family histories, and to communicate and collaborate with other members of the Ancestry community.

Third, we wanted to introduce the joys of genealogy to millions of new family historians by investing in category-expanding marketing activities around the world.

And lastly, we sought to improve our listening skills as a company and to better engage our members in helping shape our products and services. While never satisfied with the speed at which we evolve, I believe we have made substantial progress, and that our recent past and short-term future illustrates some of the most exciting progress we’ve made as a company.

He the goes on at length to discuss new content being added, the international Ancestry web sites, soon-to-be-released Ancestry Community Profile Pages and also a new advertising push.

I especially noticed his comment of "We’re currently running a full-scale television advertising campaign on several national cable channels." The publicity generated obviously will be good for Ancestry.com/The Generations Network but I suspect the "spillover" will be good for genealogy societies as well as for Ancestry.com's competitors and partners. Anything that generates interest in family history in the mass market benefits many of us.

You can read Tim Sullivan's message on the The Generations Network's media site at http://tgn.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=121.

Comments

[Timothy Eastman]

I just hope all this extra (costly) advertising doesn't force them to increase their rates. Although given the volume of information Ancestry has available, my $20 monthly cost is now actually worth it.
On a side note, I purchased a new quad-core pc with Vista Premium 64-bit and there are still several bugs, even in the SP1 and extra downloads. It took me a second clean install and several days downloading updates and I have much to go yet. Several of my old pc games and a few apps that worked fine in XP no longer work in Vista 64. And Ancestry's Enhanced Image Viewer had to be downloaded, run as administrator, turning off User Account Control and Protected Mode off in IE in order to get it to install. Also the IE Protected Mode tends to interfere with it, so I leave it off on their web site.
I am getting "this close" to buying a MAC and leaving Microsoft out to dry. The only thing holding me back is lack of knowledge of the MAC and the fact that I prefer to buy the top-end computer components and build the computer myself.

[Ida French]

Let me start by sayig Ancestry has been a great tool for me in my Ancestor search. As far as their listening skills are concerned I have to give them a D. I have been trying to locate many branches of my family in the 1870 census that just can't be found. They say that 1870 is complete but I don't think it is. All of these people can be found in 1860 and 1880. I asked if they plan to go back thru and check for missing records and they said no that it is complete. I hope to go to the library soon and maybe I will get lucky with their 1870 census records.

[Robert larson]

Great info on Ancestry.com! I hope everybody realizes the amount of savings using Ancestry.com and other services, instead of traveling to the same places to obtain the databases. Including the Library Edition that I also use for the worldwide databases.

On a side note to Tim Eastman's comments, I own a HP m9152p quad core Windows Vista 64 bit computer and have been happy with it. Unfortunately, not all third party vendors selling accessories are up to speed on 64 bit technology. But these vendors tell me they're working frantically on updates to handle the 64 bit technology. After all, 64 bit technology has been around for several years with Intel and Microsoft and others, and will replace the 32 bit technology in several years or less. A little patience is warranted to gain more speed. I use it for trading and creating large video files, which needs the higher speeds and memory. There's quite a difference in speed. And 64 bit computer prices are dropping quickly!

My Family Tree Maker software (v16 with Vista patch) and photo and video editing software works great as well as my Office 2007 software on my HP 64 bit machine. I highly recommend the latest Service Pack 1 upgrade for Vista, which is free.

I think Microsoft does a grand job with all their security and driver updates, all for free! I've had only one major problem with an xp 32 bit update that disabled my other computer several years ago, but their support people fixed it within one day for free, even though my warranty expired. And consider using the Windows Restore feature as it has saved me several times, but create a Restore point every time you add a new update for safety reasons.

[Mary B.]

For Ida, I agree, Ancestry's interpretation of many of the Census surnames is unbelievable. I believe the transcribers were actually in India and when you compare what they thought was the name to what it really says on the actual census page you wonder how they ever interpreted it the way they did. I always check the Index on Heritage Quest against it, their transcription was done somewhere else, the only problem with HQ is that its by head of family (except 1880) and your search has to be spelled exactly the way the index lists it so try every spelling you can imagine,(imagine the way your ancestor may have said it, including the accent and a census taker that couldn't spell or was hard of hearing), you can also search by first name only but try all the versions the census taker may have used...William, Bill,Wm, Will etc. AND if you know what town they may be in, you can "browse" the town page by page and hopefully find them that way. You can also do "Advanced Search" and look for every "male approximately 32 years of age who was born in Ireland" or wherever, in a particular state etc. In case anyone reading this does not know, HQ is free from home on your computer 24 hrs a day by using your library card # from a library that has the subscription. If there are none in your area do a Google search for one that has it and they often allow you to get a card for about $25 a year, or so, for non-residents. HQ also allows you to search books, like county histories etc. page by page and also by name. Much cheaper than Ancestry!! I believe this website (Eastman's)listed all the libraries state by state that have free access a year or two back. Even though this is common knowledge, I don't believe everyone knows that you can search the Federal Census FREE from home, bring up the actual picture of the page and print it!!!

[Ida French]

Thanks, I will try HQ. I have been thru every records on Ancestry for Louisville, KY it was trying. I am very good with my searches for name variations etc... I have done the age thing etc... They just aren't there. I understand people moved around but find it hard to believe so many differenct branches are missing in 1870 which leads me to believe there are missing images. Ida

[MirtyAnne]

I have not renewed my Ancestry subscription that expired back in November because I am not happy about all the wrong spellings of names. It is almost impossible now to find a common name let alone an odd name. I thought a long time ago that foreigners were hired to transcribe. It is very sad that such a great tool has been tarnished with transcribing mistakes. They should hold the same standards for themselves that all of the genealogist's have to stand by and we should get what we pay for which is accurate records. I should not have to correct their mistakes.