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Archive for March, 2009

Worst seat in the house

12 Mar

What are these for?

The Family History Library has 2.4 million rolls of microfilm, 3 quarters of a million microfiche, a couple hundred thousand books and a bunch of other cool stuff.  Then why is it that the majority of the people here are sitting in front of computers looking at Ancestry.com and other online databases?

I want to *scream* at these people.  What an absolute waste of time and resources.  Every decent public library in the country has Ancestry.com and HeritageQueset Online.  Don’t get me wrong, those are great tools, when you are NOT sitting next to 2 and a half MILLION rolls of 16mm and 35mm microfilms.

On the bright side, there is barely a wait for the microfilm scanners.  Most people are still doing photocopies and printouts.  Pfft.

 
5 Comments

Posted in Genealogy

 

Now with hidden advertisements

09 Mar

I read a handful of blogs.  I’ve noticed that a few of the genealogy blogs seem to hash the same news as each other, making it a little bit dry.  They’ll actually post other companies press releases and junk.  As an example, if Ancestry.com had a new feature, the bloggers would share it:

PODUNK, IA – Exciting news today from the developer of Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis ac libero. Nam eros neque, convallis eu, tempor ac, gravida id, diam. Donec a lectus id dui scelerisque varius. Nulla quis neque. Quisque varius lectus volutpat sapien. Pellentesque libero lorem, rhoncus eget, fermentum non, tempus vel, leo. Nam orci libero, euismod vitae, consequat vitae, malesuada non, est. Aliquam at est. Praesent consequat. Aenean ac neque et ante dictum varius. Ut ultrices aliquam orci. Etiam vel turpis. Ut ut ipsum.

I dunno.  Maybe it’s newsworthy.  I guess it is for the original company … but probably not exciting enough for the blogosphere to simply repost it everywhere.  At any rate, I was looking at some of the hyperlinks in one of the posts:

http://www.evilcompany.com/click.mv?FTC=1234&A=evilbloggersusername

As soon as I see a URL that contains the word CLICK and/or a username, red flags go off in my head.  They usually have to do with advertisements, affiliate programs, finder fees … etc.  In this case, it’s just that.  The blogger was posting “News” as a service to his readers, that generates revenue for him every time someone reads it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to advertisements and people making money from their efforts.  But, do bloggers owe it to their readers to make advertisements obvious?  Is it okay to hide ads in what appear to be innocent links?

 
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Posted in Technology

 

RAOGK celebrates 10 Year Anniversary

06 Mar

Random Acts of Genealogy Kindness celebrates it’s 10th Anniversary this month.

There were 5,741 volunteer requests in February.  I took care of an amazing, er substantial, er adequate 4 of them.  That’s almost .07%!

You can get help from me, or one of the other 3,900 volunteers over at www.raogk.org.

 
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Posted in Genealogy

 

Getting ready for a Family History Library trip

02 Mar

I’ll be at the Family History Library in Salt Lake for 3 days next week.  The way I figure it, I’ll have about 36 hours in the library … give or take.  I want to maximize my time, so I’ve been prepping.  I’ll be bringing:

  • My trusty Macbook loaded with all of my historic documents (no clumsy binders)
  • A lock for the laptop so it doesn’t accidentally walk away
  • A thumb drive, to copy new scans of microfilmed documents (no printouts)
  • A laundry list of microfilms to look at (I’m up to 49 so far)
Start easy

Start easy

I’ve organized my microfilm reading list by location.  I don’t want to waste time, or energy, running up and down stairs from the British Isles to the United States.  I also try to have some easy wins early on.  It’s a morale booster to start out with a success.  A few years ago, I started out on the International Floor, reading German records from a Catholic Church.  They were all in Latin.  That was a discouraging way to start the week.

To get that list of microfilms together, the Library Catalog is my best friend.  The majority of the films are Vital Records, referred to as Civil Registration in some countries.  I do a Place Search for the ancestor I’m researching and see what’s available.  I start small with a City Search and then expand out if necessary (and it almost always is).  In some cases, like Ireland, Civil Registration is available for the whole country.

 
1 Comment

Posted in Genealogy