Genealogy Reviews Online

I Own Ancestry.com

Well, to be more precise, I own a little piece of Ancestry.com (ACOM).  I decided to make an investment today into Ancestry.com for a number of reasons, but unfortunately none of them have anything to do with in-depth stock market research.  On of the reasons was I'm always looking for a cheap gimmick to base a post on, and this gives me something interesting to write about (this is the first fresh idea I've had in a long time).  Being a stock owner also gives me a good reason to visit Salt Lake City every year to attend the annual shareholder's meeting (I guess I should say Provo).  Wouldn't it be fun to complain about Ancestry's search function in person during a shareholder meeting instead of just using comments on their blog?

I've checked out analysts opinions of the company and they are tepid at best.  This article in the New York Times basically shows that while there are a large number of subscribers, about half cancel their account every year.  This means they must aggressively acquire new customers every year to replace the old just to maintain the numbers - costly churning like this makes it hard to grow revenue and earning (here's another interesting article in BusinessWeek).  On the plus side we are still at the beginning of the baby boomer retirement tsunami, and WE are going to need something stimulating to do when we have all that time on our hands.

Is it a good investment?  I have no idea, but it's going to be fun watching it all happen.  Being a public company means Ancestry.com will have to behave a bit differently from when they were closely held.  Not only will the company have to deal with all of the search function complainers, but they will also have to deal with analysts and reporters digging into the performance of the business.

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But We Thought You Were Dead

Going out drinking with the boys and crashing your own funeral actually sounds like a good time.  After a night of drinking, a Brazilian man was surprised to learn family and friends were mourning him at his funeral.  I don't know, but either the family was trying to get him into the ground as fast as they could, or his "night" of drinking was actually a 3-4 day binge...If I were this guy I would watch my back...and check my bank accounts...

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Easy Genealogy

Having a relative like this lady almost doesn't seem fair.  She's lived in the same house for 100 years - the thought boggles my mind.  Should I have any decedents who catch the genealogy bug I know they will be cursing me constantly. I've moved so much that just when they think they've found me I will disappear into thin air.  

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3 Years of Blogging

Well, I hit the 3 year blogging mark last week.  Although I haven't been blogging much lately, or really this year, it still counts as 3 years.  Hopefully my 4th year will have more posts. 

World Vital Records Offer

I received an email from WVR today saying they really really want me back.  The offer was personalized to me in the email (in a form letter kind of way), but here is the online offer (minus my name of course).  It appears I have until tomorrow to respond to this "incredible offer" that includes a World Collection Membership for $99.95 $59.95 or a US collection Membership for $39.95 $19.95.  But that's not all, if I respond to either offer by 22 October I will also get a free gift!

I never renewed my subscription when it came due a long time ago because I found very little use for WVR...and my question is:  Has it improved any?  Has anyone had any significant success using WVR?

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Rare Family Photo

This past summer my family and I visited my brother in Colorado.  I can't believe I'm only now getting around to writing about it.  There were no specific genealogy goals planned for the trip, apart from getting a photo of my paternal grandfather's grave, but we were visiting a cousin and stuff just happened - I discovered long ago one must always be prepared.  While we were sitting around my cousin's table chatting, she all of a sudden left the room and came back with an envelope containing old photos.  Included in the envelope was the above - the only known photo showing my mother's family all together.  From left to right: Anna C. Hartford (my grandmother), Mary J. Zaring (my mother); Franklin E. Zaring Sr. (my grandfather), and Franklin E. Zaring Jr. (my uncle...the little boy straddling my grandfather's neck). 

The photo is rare because of how dysfunctional this family was.  The photo was probably taken sometime in 1923 and the family split apart shortly after that.  My grandfather was a violent alcoholic and he left my grandmother with two small children probably not too long after this photo was taken.  My grandmother, then only 19, had no way to support the family and sent the kids to live with her older sister in a home located between the towns of Bailey and Grant, Colorado, and she moved to Denver to live with another sister while working as a house keeper around the city.  

The location of the photo is Hall Valley which was a silver mining area somewhat close to Grant, Colorado.  My grandfather worked a mining claim at the top of the valley and lived there with the family for a year or so.  I remember as a child we used to go on camping trips in Hall Valley and visit the old mining shack where my mother and her family lived.

The photo is a critical part of my family history and am so glad it unexpectedly fell into my lap.   

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My Favorite 40

Over the last couple of weeks or so, every genealogy blog in the universe (it seems to me) was nominated for Family Tree Magazine's effort to create a list of the 40 Best Genealogy Blogs.   My question is where did they come up with the number 40?  I don't think I have a favorite 40 of anything let alone genealogy blogs. I also discovered something curious here...FTM is creating a list of the 40 best blogs, but you only get to vote for a total of 35.  But then I read about the current voting cutting the list down to 80 with later voting getting the list down to 40.   You can also vote as many times as you wish...I wonder how many people will vote for themselves multiple times?  I know...I'm probably taking the fun out of it for some people... 

Since every genealogy blog out there was screaming at me to vote, I felt it my duty to do so.  As I looked at the first catagory (ALL-AROUND), and saw I could only vote for 3 of the 10 listed, I decided I couldn't do it.  Out of this list of 10 blogs, I read 7 of them daily...how can I choose only 3?   If I voted for 3, the guilt for not voting for the other 4 would kill me. 

To me reading genealogy blogs is a very personal thing.  When I visit my favorites, its like meeting up with a good friend.  I read considerably less than 40 blogs, but those I do read are all my favorites and I just couldn't think of choosing one over the other.

Congrats to everyone nominated and I will wish the same for those voted to the top 40, but I'll sit this one out.

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September 11, 2001

I haven't been around much lately, but wanted to put up a link to a post I wrote in 2007 about my remembrance of September 11, 2001.  It was a horrible day, but also one filled with purpose where I worked.

Hopefully I'll get back on line more regularly.

At Last - Another Genealogy Scandal

After my morning workout, I sat down to my computer and began reading my favorite blogs.  I really don't have much time during the week to do this kind of reading, so I really look forward to my Saturday morning quiet time.  Now I was aware of Genealogy Wise, and even wrote a short post about it, but only spent enough time there to accept the few friends requests I've received and to check out how many people had joined the site.  Imagine my surprise when I read Craig Manson's post this morning and discovered there was an honest-to-God, juicy, and controversy filled genealogy scandal...and I missed the whole thing! 

Just the other day I was thinking about writing a post about the lack of scandals in the genealogy world that we used to have.  When I first started blogging in October 2006, I came on board at the tail end of what appeared to be a very robust "discussion" about just what a "professional genealogist" was.  There were harsh words,hurt feelings, and I don't know if anything was ever resolved.  I missed the main part of the conflict, but it sure sounded exciting and was sorry didn't get to see the good stuff in near real time.

Things were quiet for a time, and then Ancestry.com broke the boredom when its Internet Biographical Collection (IBC) came on the scene.  There were accusations that Ancestry was hijacking content without permission and the genealogy blogosphere responded with venom like never before.  Randy Seaver wrote a post providing a round up of blog posts on the issue.  Little did Ancestry know the pain it was going to bring on itself when it quietly released the IBC.  I think, as a result of this scandal, Ancestry all of a sudden realized that it's probably wise to communicate regularly with the genealogy blogging community.  Craig also wrote a series of articles on the legal issues involved in the scandal.

This current Genealogy Wise scandal seemed to have almost everything you want in a scandal - money, censorship, talk of porn (i don't know how this came in), and finally an apology.  Almost everything we really want to see in a scandal...and I'm sorry I missed the whole dang thing...it sounded like great fun. 

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GenealogyWise - Here We Go Again

The other day I received an email from Familylink.com about this new service called GenealogyWise.  Inside the email it basically said they are writing to me as an "influential" (hahaha) member of the genealogy community and they want to hire 10 people to register for and add content to their new genealogy social networking site.  It further said to let them know if I was interested.  I replied and said of course I'm interested - who would turn down a few bucks in times like these?  Then I waited...and waited...and waited...and I'm still waiting.  They must have found people who were just a wee bit more influential than I was.  I guess I'm just gonna have to register and play with GenealogyWise for free.

I registered yesterday with just a minimum amount of info in my profile and before I knew it there were 11 friends requests in my email box.  I thought this would be like Facebook where one day I had 2 friends, then a few days later (after the great genealogy migration began) I had close to 100, but I think I've plateaued - who can really handle more than 11 friends anyway? 

My first thought when I heard about GenealogyWise was "on no...not another one," but after signing up, and exploring a little, I now think it's a pretty cool interface.  I like how it's organized and think it's got all the elements a genealogy themed social networking site needs.  I know some are saying GenealogyWise could make the Facebook genealogy community less vibrant by drawing people away, but I think most will just participate in both.  One thing I don't like is the "Genealogy Search" link at the top of the page taking you to World Vital Records.  Unless WVR has drastically changed since I let my membership expire a few months back, clicking on this link is a wasted effort.

While I do like the look and feel of GenealogyWise, my big beef with it (and with Facebook) is there would be too much work involved.  There are a number of people who put a lot of effort into the genealogy community on Facebook, there own blog(s), other genealogy sites, and now GenealogyWise.  I really don't know how people do it because I can't keep up with all of the activities.  I haven't posted much for the last 3 or 4 months and one reason is sensory overload.  There are just too many online activities (and normal life activities) distracting me from my own ancestor hunting, and from posting regularly on my blog.  Guess I'm just not a good multi-tasker (actually my basic laziness is the answer, but we won't talk about that).

Familylink was probably wise (no pun intended) not hiring me to do whatever it was they wanted those 10 influnential genealogy types to do because my heart's really not in it.  I expect I will visit GenealogyWise occasionally to see what's happening (as I do on Facebook), but I just don't see myself putting much effort into adding content to the site.  I do wonder if I will get more than 11 friends...it seems like others are getting hundreds of friends, and I only have 11...I'm really a very friendly guy.

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