Better Check It Again, Santa

 And no, I don't mean your naughty and nice list. I mean that genealogy you found on Ancestry.

As funny as the commercial may seem, it seems too many of us are accepting the information we find on Ancestry.com as fact. Just because it's there, doesn't mean it's true. Whenever I find something that I find questionable about someone on Ancestry, I seek to verify it. You be the judge: Ancestry.com Santa Commercial.



Copyright 2011, ACK for Gene Notes

Thanks Ancestry! Spelling Doesn't Count Remix

Lest you think I HATE Ancestry.com, let me assure you that I don't HATE them. No, it is more of a love/hate relationship. After all, if it weren't for Ancestry, I would have days when I wouldn't know what to blog about.

Let me put it this way. I spent the better part of last evening looking for Ruth Kirtley and her parents on the 1930 census. Ruth was born in 1927 and was a native of Horse Cave, Kentucky according to her 2007 obituary. So why can't I find them on the 1930 census?

The answer is simply this: The trained monkeys could not read Kirtley or even Kertley on the census and instead they read Keatley. Well, you can't do a soundex search for Kirtley and get Keatley. So I resorted to what I used to do before Ancestry and decided to search Horse Cave, Hart County, Kentucky in a line-by-line search of the index, looking for William and something that looks like Kirtley. What I found was William O Keatley, wife Louise and daughters Ann & Ruth. I looked at the census. It actually looked more like William P Kertley than Keatley. Kertley at least would have been found on a soundex search. Sigh.

Now to apply that principle to a death record search.



Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes

Research Roadblocks

Ancestry Search Screen

You know, researching can be frustrating enough, but a few times recently, I have gotten this screen when I've signed on to Ancestry. (Be sure to click on it to see a larger version. Use your browser button to click back here!)

Isn't it bad enough that their indexing sucks royally? Or that you search in a particular state in a particular time frame and get hits in different countries and different times?

Oh and the line that says "Tell us what you think of this page" - it's an expired link.

Someone wants me to work on something else?

Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes

Do They Really Want My Opinion?

I have been taking advantage of my Ancestry World subscription and pulling records for the Scotland Censuses from 1841-1901. After fussing with the 1871 census looking for Charles Maitland and finally finding him under Charlese Martland, seeing his children's given names messed up AND their last names changed to Molland, I decided it was time to look at their "new" search page and give my opinion.

In theory it looks good, but the bottom line is that if Ancestry doesn't do anything about their abominable indexing, changing their search engine isn't going to work. And that is what I told them!

Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes