GRRRRRR @ Ancestry.com

I can't access my tree AGAIN! I sent a complaint:

Greetings,

Lately, there's been a lot of downtime with the MyAncestry section of the site. Given that I pay for this site, I'm trying to understand why the most important area of the site has had so much downtime (at least 3 times inaccessible) in the past 2 weeks. I understand that there will be downtime when upgrading and adding new features. In that case, a notice should be sent out to all members or posted prominently on the front page that the MyAncestry area is down for upgrades. I have seen that message once, but most times, the page just won't load. I mean, it's 8pm CST. At worst, take bandwidth from less popular areas of the site so that we can ALWAYS access our trees.

What's the explanation and the remedy?

Should have an answer by Mon.

Update:Ancestry responded quite promptly. While they were apologetic for not giving an advance warning of the site outtage, they reminded me that the trees are free and I am paying for access to records. Also, they noted that they are making improvements that will increase the speed and usability of the site.

Genealogy How-To Articles

Found these by way of CCharity.com:

Steps to Tracing Your Past (Part 1)
Strategy for Finding Slave Ancestors (Part 2)

Black Genealogy and History Websites

Check out these African-American genealogical and historical websites:

Africana Heritage
African-American /lives
African Voices
Christine's Genealogy Website
PBS Homecoming
African-American Genealogy Mailing Lists
African-American Cemeteries

Publishing Your Family History

A family history is really never complete. There are always other branches to explore and more tidbits discovered about our ancestors. However, I'd like to put some of my known family history on paper for our family reunion. I'd like to share the documents we've uncovered and the family tree we've built. So, I have the task of gathering documents, writing an interesting narrative, and publishing.

This blog is all about gathering documents, but how do you write the narrative and get the book published? This is backwards, but let's talk about self-publishing first. I found some neat websites that will let you publish your family history:

1. Lulu - by far the easiest site. I'd heard about it from other genealogists on the forums and they're right: it's fast and easy. You can submit your history in just about any format, including MS Word and Adobe PDF. Once you submit it, you can review and publish for really low costs. They have lots of binding options too.

2. Selfpublishing.com - great educational resource for self publishing, but not as easy to use as Lulu.

You could also write an e-book and sell it through your family website (or give it away for free). There are some free templates here: http://www.ebooktemplatesource.com/.

Virtual Scrapbooks

If you want to make a scrapbook of your family history to share at a family reunion or on your website, check out Scrapblog. It's a really neat website that lets you upload images and arrange them like a paper scrapbook. There are pre-built page elements like paper clips, ribbons, and pushpins. It's really fast, really easy, and free.

Ancestry.com Technical Difficulties

Is it just me, or are other people having issues with Ancestry.com this weekend? It seems like every time they do an upgrade (I think the upgrade this time was the poster feature of AncestryPress), I can't access my trees and pages are slow to load (if they load at all).

You'd think they would at least let you know that the trees feature will be down for whatever number of hours on a given date so that you aren't incredibly frustrated. Makes me glad that I back up everything on Ancestry.

Ancestry Celebrates Black History

Ancestry.com has set up a new African-American History page and released new records in honor of Black History Month:

U.S. Southern Claims Commission Master Index, 1871-1880
U.S. Southern Claims Commission, Allowed Claims, 1871-1880
U.S. Southern Claims Commission, Disallowed and Barred Claims, 1871-1880
U.S. Freedmen's Marriage Records, 1861-1869
U.S. Freedmen Bureau Records of Field Offices, 1865-1872

Press release on the Ancestry.com blog.

WashingtonPost.com starts "The Root"

WashingtonPost.com has started a new e-zine aimed at Black folks called "The Root." The timing is obviously coinciding with the premier of African-American Lives 2, premiering this Wednesday. Dr. Gates is figured prominently on the page, with a welcome video from him and several celeb clips from the PBS special.



Lots of interesting news articles, and the genealogical feature looks promising. You can post your tree by hand or by uploading a GEDCOM. It's a Flash app, much like the Geni.com and Ancestry.com. However, it's not clear whether you'll be able to share your tree with others and I don't see any feature to search other trees. So, I'm not sure why you would use this over something like Geni.com.