Ancestry.com (TGN) Town Hall Webinar - Other Viewpoints - May 2009

Other genea-bloggers have commented now on the Ancestry.com Town Hall meeting, 4 May 2009. Ancestry.com is part of The Generations Network, TGN.

Ann Rabinowitz at Jewish Gen was happy to hear that a contract between Ancestry.com/TGN and New York State, USA has very recently been authorized after a year of negotiation - New York State censuses will be coming to Ancestry.

For more about this and what's available already for New York State censuses, be sure to read her post. (I'll be interested to compare how New York State discloses information about this agreement with the procedures for similar agreements in Canada.)

Ancestry Insider has preview pictures and more information for some of Ancestry.com's soon to be released new or revised features.

- The 'record viewer' page which will let us view the record image, the transcription (and/or index?) and allow us to submit corrections for the transcription all on the same page.

- The revised 'person page' and 'person card'. These are on the screen as you work with an individual's information in an Ancestry.com member tree.

- The new page navigation header and its drop down menus - information about this is already on Ancestry. See the Ancestry Insider post for a link. Ancestry's promise here is: "Better organization. Fewer clicks." Sounds good!

Ancestry Insider says "stay tuned for more coverage of the Town Hall meeting" so check back there soon. (Could AI be one of those 'official critics'?)

And, reading that post reminded me of another recent Ancestry Insider post about Ancestry's closure of its U.S. Public Records Index. If you used to use this index, I think you need to read this post. (And you'll see Ancestry Insider doesn't hesitate to say it as he sees it. )

Over at Genea-Musings, Randy Seaver has just posted a summary of his latest Saturday Night Fun topic or 'game' - "What are your Top Ten Genealogy Websites?"

Perhaps not surprisingly, 15 out of the 18 people who responded put Ancestry.com at the top of their Top Ten list. Nice to see there were three of the Norwegian bloggers playing Randy's Saturday game and one Canadian - see below for her response.

I wasn't able to participate last Saturday, but a year ago now, I published MY TOP 15 – WELL, REALLY NOW IT'S 17 – CANADIAN GENEALOGY WEBSITES, FEBRUARY 2008 (Wonder why I didn't really number those links? Oh, well...)

About time for an update there, but I'm thinking Ancestry.com will still come in at #4 or #5 for me for Canadian research, although Ancestry is usually my first stop now for passenger record indexes. Canadian blogger Earline Hines Bradt at Ancestral Notes did enter her Top Ten into Randy's game - Ancestry.com was her #1.

Updating my top Canadian websites could be a fun project for me as GRL.Com, a long time favourite on my Canadian list, has recently relaunched itself adding many more international resources. I'd like to take the time to have a better look there. Watch for a post about this soon.