Repository in Review- Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com is one of my favorite sites. I often compare the quality of another site against it..... so why wasn't it the first "Repository in Review"? Quite simply, I talk about it so much I didn't want to bore you with it. On the other hand, I do use it daily and you may not be familiar with it, so it is unfair to never review the resource. Besides, even if you use it, you may not know all that is available to you. So for the third installment of my ongoing review series, we're going to get the low-down on Ancestry.com.

The Features and Benefits

Ancestry.com is the largest online family history resource. Starting as a publishing company in 1983, they began to digitise records for online use in 1996. The Card Catalog lists 30, 994 collections that cover 10 billion records. While most are English or German language documents, there are also French, Italian, Swedish and Spanish documents. The U.S. and Europe are the most represented areas, but there are records available for Asia, South America, Mexico, Australia, Canada and Africa. In their Card Catalog you will now find web links to other genealogy sites. Ancestry may own Fold3.com, but it is a separate website with a separate database collection and membership fees. They will also link you to websites they do not own (and may have made an index without specifically partnering with that website). Why are they linking you to other websites? Because no one site has everything, not even Ancestry. I have seen a great number of people complain about this link to other websites. They don't want to use those other websites. If you don't, just ignore those hints. Go ahead and cripple your research right off the bat. Or you can be honest with yourself and admit you'll need more than one repository for your research.

On top of records, they have their Learning Center that includes a Wiki, forums where researchers inquire and connect with each other, Facebook page for updates and socialisation, and YouTube channel full of specific lesson plans and recordings of their interactive Q&A sessions. All of this is provided for free to any registered member. Regardless of whether you pay or not, you can build a tree of your own and upload any photos or information in your possession. If you pay for a while but let your membership lapse, your tree is still available. I often have to let my membership slide for a while and use that off time to add information I've gathered from relatives, other websites, and offline sources.

Some points out of the Terms and Conditions (red indicates direct quote from the T&C):

• You may access the Website, use the graphics, information, data, editorial and other Content only for personal or professional family history research, and download Content only as search results relevant to that research. The Content may be downloaded onto mobile devices or desktop through the use of authorized Ancestry software. When downloaded, the Content remains subject to the limited use license contained in this Agreement. When I reviewed NewspaperArchive, I pointed out that professional use wasn't allowed. In this paragraph, Ancestry is giving you permission to use the site for professional purposes, as long as you continue to follow the guidelines of the site. That means you still have to follow copyright rules, so no publishing photos to a site or book (or final report to a client) without obtaining license to do so.
• Except for Web Records, which are governed by the third parties that host the records, all Content is owned, licensed to and/or copyrighted by Ancestry and may be used only in accordance with this limited use license. The Website is protected by copyright as a collective work and/or compilation, pursuant to U.S. copyright laws, international conventions, and other copyright laws. What this means is that the links to other websites (i.e. Find a Grave) are subject to the terms of use and copyrights of their original website. (You can't copy photos from Find a Grave and distribute them on Ancestry.com without permission of and credit to the photographer- hence Ancestry providing a weblink instead of a photo or image of the website itself). Whatever items you upload that you own (a photo of the family you yourself took, an oral history you record in the story section, etc.) are licensed to Ancestry.com without changing ownership or copyright transference.
• According to the Rules of Conduct, you cannot Reproduce, copy or sell any portion of Ancestry or Ancestry database contents, or systematically download contents and data of the Ancestry database to make or populate another database or for any other purpose. This kind of put me in the mind of a discussion I had with someone recently that had started a family website and wanted to take the images from Ancestry.com's databases and upload them to the new website. Nope, can't do it. You can link to the record. You can cite them as a source. You can download a copy to hold in your computer. But you can't copy a database in whole or in part for the purposes of distributing with other people.
• For User Provided Content, Ancestry is merely hosting and providing access. We cannot accept any liability with regard to such material (including with respect to its accuracy). In other words, family member trees aren't gospel and shouldn't be used as facts. Ancestry.com doesn't police those trees and won't change anything found there no matter how much you know it's wrong. The only time they get involved is when someone makes an obscene tree or something to intentionally malign a person.
• The decision to upload information to the Website is your responsibility and you should only submit content that belongs to you or that will not violate the rights of others. Be aware that content belongs to the creator of that content and you should not reproduce or submit anything without permission of the owner. This one trips a lot of people up. A picture of your great grandmother taken by a photographer is owned by the photographer or the studio that employed him, not you. Even if there are 100 copies in 100 people's hands, the photographer owns the copyright on each and every photo. By submitting User Provided Content to Ancestry, you grant Ancestry, its parent company and all of its affiliates, a transferable license to use, host, sublicense and distribute your submission to the extent and in the form or context we deem appropriate on or through any media or medium and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed or discovered. This basically just covers Ancestry's tail and says they have the right to have your photos and stories on a public tree in their search feature and on their servers. It doesn't mean Ancestry owns your items, but it does mean that their sister sites like Rootsweb and Mundia can also distribute your information without paying you to do so. It also covers technology changes (if the next big invention is a straight to brain interface, they don't have to ask for your permission for your items to go from the public website to the public brain wave). With that all said, if you own a copyright on something and someone obtains a copy of it without your permission, you can contact Ancestry's copyright department and they'll have it removed. You have to prove you own the rights to the work (and again, pictures of your grandmother as a baby aren't owned by you in any way).
• All subscriptions are automatically renewing with the exception of gift subscriptions and pay-per view. This means that once you become a subscribing member, your subscription will be automatically renewed and your billing choice will be charged based on the subscription program (semiannually, quarterly, monthly, etc.) you have chosen unless you opt out or cancel by following the instructions in this Agreement. Except in the case of monthly subscriptions, you will be notified via e-mail before your subscription ends and asked to correct any information which has changed and whether you wish to "opt out" of your renewal. The renewal of the subscription takes place subject to the terms in force on the date of renewal. That's right, another automatic renewal site. And they send you a reminder email for all but the monthly subscriptions (which should renew at the same time every month so I can see why they don't remind you).

Dollars and Sense

There are two levels available: U.S. and World. Now, this is coming at it from the U.S. (which I am) and admittedly if you live in another country it'll be your area and World, so probably the better way to say it would be Local and World....... either way, I'm dealing with it as a U.S. subscriber, and as I'm about to talk price, will just clarify that this is the subs available for U.S. residents. There are three price options to each level: monthly, 6 month and yearly. For the U.S. records only, it's $22.95 per month, $77 for the 6 month option, $155 for the yearly. (The 6 month and yearly make it about $12.95 per month, but are billed all at once, so be ready for that!). The all-access World subscription is $34.95 per month, $149 for 6 months, and $299 for a year. (The 6 month and yearly work out to $24.95 per month, again billed at the total price at one time).

From the T&C: Opting Out of Renewal. You may opt out of renewing your subscription by calling Ancestry at 1-800-262-3787 or by logging into your My Account page on the Website at least two days before the renewal date. If you do not let us know that you want to terminate your subscription at least two days prior to the end of the current subscription period the payment for the renewal period of the subscription will be made. So you have 2 days before your renewal date to cancel your subscription (AND you must cancel before 5p.m. Mountain Time!). That means that if my subscription ends on the 19th, I have until 5 p.m. Mountain Time on the 17th to cancel my subscription. Again, they give an online option, but just call them as it goes easier when you have a real person (and then someone to blame if they mess up your cancellation). Also of note: if you have a subscription longer than the monthly sub, you can get a refund as long as you cancel within the first 30 days. Renewals must be cancelled within 7 days. Month subscriptions receive no refund, but you have access to the website until your month expires. In fact, any subscription that they are unable to refund continues to allow access until the subscription runs out, so don't wait until the last minute to cancel your subscription. Take care of it early enough to ensure it's done and then use it up.

When searching the Card Catalog, you can narrow the field to free databases by searching for the keyword "free". When I searched free, I got a list of 728 free databases that can be searched by anyone at anytime. You will still need to make a user name and password, but you don't need to log a credit card or participate in the 14-day trial to get these records. Now, that includes 2 family tree databases that are about as useful as warm dog turds most of the time, so really you're at about 726 databases. Still an impressive number. Also keep these databases in mind when comparing with other sites. These are usually publicly available databases that no one is (or should) charge for. Others are part of Ancestry's World Archives Project and have been made available by Ancestry using volunteer transcriptionists. Also note that these are usually only an index and that to see other data on the record you usually need to pay for a copy or the more detailed database.

My Two Cents

You can't ignore the numbers:

• 2 million paying subscribers- 2 million people are so happy with the service that they choose to hand over their hard-earned money to Ancestry. Since that only counts the paying members, imagine how many more are using just the free side of the service. That speaks volumes (at least to me) about the quality and quantity of what's to be found on this site. Others may say it's because they have a near monopoly, but I can't help but think of FamilySearch and their impressive collection both on and offline (which I'll cover soon in another review).
• 10 billion records and counting- this is where that near monopoly thing comes into play. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing for the community as a whole, but for me I count it as a good thing. One place to start, compile and keep my research? Yes, please. With it being centralised for U.S. and Europe ancestry, however, there are glaring holes to be sure. On the other hand, what they don't have is usually not online or held by websites specific to a database, so it's certainly a place to start for just about everyone.
• 82¢ a day- Full site access is less than $1 a day for a full year. Heck, even if you do a month subscription for February (the shortest month), it's $1.25 a day for full access. You may not need full access. Maybe a simple U.S. (or local) subscription will do for a while. For what's available vs price to view, this is a rather cheap subscription. (Here's another way to look at it, how many records per dollar of a year's subscription: NewspaperArchives has 1,666,667 records per dollar, Fold3 has 1,175,735, and Ancestry has 33,444,816. While you will never need all of them, that's a hell of a lot of potential or "bang for your buck").

There is a 14 day trial. Use it. Even if you find the records useless, the ability to build an online tree and use their free databases and forums make up for that lack. There is a great potential for connecting to relatives who are also researching your lines. Of course, the records are the meat and potatoes of the site and most people will never get their fill. Don't go happily clicking away on all the hints that pop up though. They are just hints and you need to find out if they are facts. That requires critical thought and time. If you look at the family trees, consider any tree without records as suspect and only add what you already know to be true. If there are sources, review them to ensure the member hasn't made a mistake and led you down the garden path. If you have a recent immigrant or know quite a bit about your ancestors on this side of the ocean, go ahead and pay for full World access. If you are just starting out, don't bother with World, just get U.S. (or local) for the time being.

And remember, it's only one tool in your toolkit. You can let your membership lapse and still have access to your tree. I have a specific budget for websites. If I need a different site and I'm tired of Ancestry (I can't really say done, I'm never done), then I'll switch off one and pick up the other. I cite the other websites on my tree on Ancestry to keep my research together as well as to give hints of other work available for people who are connected to my tree. I'm proud to say that every member in my tree has at least one documented source proving they exist. It bothers me when a tree has 300,000 people and no sources. I wonder how they know they aren't wrong or duplicated. And to be honest, it's usually both. One last note on member trees: I've covered private vs public trees before. What I want you to take away today is that how and why other people research is their own business. If you wish to share your information, do so. If your information is taken by someone with a private tree, message them to welcome them to your family. If they respond kindly, you have a new friend. If they respond rudely or not at all, what have you really lost? Let them be and focus on your own work.

See you next week,
-Ana

Repository in Review- NewspaperArchive.com

If I had the time to write everyday, I could cover every topic I want to in a week. Well, maybe if I write twice a day. Unfortunately, I have other projects (and the need to eat/sleep), so I have to pick and choose. I figure I've given you loads of good tips in most of my posts, but really haven't expanded on links to my favorite websites. Today will be my second "Repository in Review" post, having reviewed Fold3 previously. I thought long and hard about which site to review next and chose NewspaperArchive.com. Newspaper Archive has become a daily research tool for me after a great many people told me how useful it has been for them. Honestly, it should be a site every genealogist uses daily.

The Features and Benefits

Newspaper Archive touts itself as the largest historical newspaper database online. Newspapers from several countries (the U.S., Canada and U.K. leading the pack, but there are a few from places like China, Denmark, and South Africa) dating as early as 1607 (the bulk of the papers being late 1800's to present) are available. The site says they have 120 million pages which is truly impressive. I have seen their logo in an Ancestry.com newspaper search, so they do share. With that said, however, they don't share everything. I've had a few people tell me they have found articles on the actual website for Newspaper Archive that never showed in an Ancestry search. Personally, my research hasn't led to many newspaper hits simply because of the names in my family (Householder is too common, Lavinski not common enough). I have been lucky to get quite a few newspaper hits for cousins that made their mark (a governor, a pioneer and a military columnist), but no direct line information. And yet I keep plugging way every day. Even when I can't find anything related to my topic of research, the articles in and of themselves can be fascinating. Knowing how WWI ended, it's interesting to read articles from the years leading up to it. I am always telling people to read more books from the contemporary authors of their ancestors for better perspective. Newspaper editorials are the living pulse of public thought. They can be hauntingly prophetic (or wantonly blind).

With any website, read and understand the terms of use and what you agree to simply by using the website. I read the Terms of Service and found this: You (or "your" defined by your status as an adult user and/or parent or guardian for any minor which you allow to use the Service) may not modify, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit or distribute in any way any amount of material from this site including, but not limited to, all documents, images, written material, code and software. You may download Content from this site for your personal, non-commercial use only, provided you abide by all copyright and other proprietary notices and keep any and all Content intact. Publications prior to 1923 are out of copyright (and are found on many websites). Any newspapers after 1923 are still in copyright. Newspaper Archive purchases the right to distribute the images from a newspaper still in copyright. This means you can NOT put that image on another website. You can NOT "clip" the article you need and post the image to another website. You CAN keep a copy on your computer for your personal use. You CAN print out a copy for your personal use. You MUST keep a source citation with it to give credit to where you found it. You CAN add a source citation on your Ancestry tree to let people know you have a copy of this paper and how they can obtain one from the copyright holder. If you wish to publish the article on a website or in a book, you can contact Newspaper Archive or the newspaper's publisher directly to license the image.

Dollars and Sense

There are three pay options: 3 month- $9.99, 6 month- $7.99, annual- $5.99. These are billed in bulk, so keep in mind that if you buy the annual option, you pay the full $72 now. Like most websites, they require a credit card and will use automatic renewal. At the end of your contract term, if you haven't cancelled, you will be charged for the next term. You must cancel 72 hours before your period ends. The Terms and Conditions state three times that it is Non-refundable. While there is an email option, I always advocate calling so you have someone live you can blame if the cancellation doesn't go through. Their phone number is 1-888-845-2887. I didn't mention all the ins and outs of membership charges and cancellations in my post about Fold3, but some recent complaints on Facebook have made me realise that many folks don't understand these basic website rules and I thought I'd do everyone the favor of letting you know up front. Like most websites, Newspaper Archive leaves cancelling your membership up to you. Be a proactive consumer and keep their contact info and your membership renewal date on a calendar or a folder or something so that you stay on top of the charges.

With all that said about the paid options, there is a FREE option. The upper right corner of Newspaper Archive's site has a blue button that says "Login with Facebook". Why would you want to login with Facebook? For the 10 Free images a day! You can search as much as you want, it's just looking at an actual page that counts against your 10 for the day. Now, this does give them permission to tell people what pages you look at. While writing this article, I wanted to know if the Chinese and Japanese pages were from English papers or actually in Kanji (they're English language). So now my timeline says "Rhi read North China Herald, August.... on NewspaperArchive." If a friend sees that and clicks the link, they'll be sent to NewspaperArchive and asked to sign up. Free advertising for them, free newspaper image for me. Fair deal.

My Two Cents

Like I said, I now use this site daily. I log my search on it just like I log any of my research. I know who I've tried to find, what newspapers I've checked, where I left off in the middle of a search, etc. I figure at 10 images a day, I can get what I need without a membership. Just like Fold3, if you have a relative that was pretty famous and written about often, you may want to purchase a membership. If you do a lot of research on historical news articles or are researching for others, you may want a membership to get more use out of the site. If you are a professional genealogist (or aspiring to be one) you should note that their Terms and Conditions specifically state this site is for non-commercial use. You can contact them to license the image for your professional endeavors. (On that note, the Legal Genealogist is a must-read for the legal aspects of genealogy including how to use websites responsibly).

Start with the "trial" by logging in with your Facebook account. If you use it and find nothing, don't go paying for a membership. If you go through your 10 images so fast that you're near tears thinking about waiting another day, pay for the year. Honestly, the 3 and 6 month options are all well and good, but who knows when your search will be fruitful? If you can seriously find all that you'll need on this site with the 3 month option, why not just use the 10 images a day? Keep it leisurely rather than trying to cram all your time into 90 days. The year will save you nearly $50 over the 3 month option if you end up needing to renew every 3 months. And if you get to the end of a year with no new research leads, you drop the subscription and use the 10 free images option until the next time a membership is needed.

Well, that's my opinion at least
-Ana

Protecting the Living

Cousin Kevin- Adorable? Yes! In my public tree? NO!

There are days I wish my family would stop breeding so I could catch up! Cousin Chris has a baby, then Cousin Lori. Few more weeks and Cousin Amber will be adding to her brood. If I'm not adding birthdays (how old are you now, Angela?), it's anniversaries (congrats on one year, Jared!), weddings (when's the party, Jack?), or funerals (miss you every day, Crystal). I want to keep this information straight and get it down in the tree as soon as I find it, but what rules are there for living people? How do I make sure I'm not infringing on their privacy?

Well the first thing to understand is that most professional genealogists won't list a living person in a family tree. This is a pretty good rule for us amateurs too. The thing is, when you add information about a living person to something that may be viewed by others, some of them possibly not even related to you, you want to make sure that there is no way their identity can be compromised or stolen. There are a few ways to go about that and the best way is to just keep them off your online tree!

I do have a list of living relatives and their current information, but I try to keep that off my online tree so that I am sure their information is safe and uncompromised. Ancestry does have a built in feature for protecting the living by not showing any information about them. Most of the time it works. I have noticed that adding a photo to a living person does allow others to see a thumbnail of the photo in their hints pages. All it takes is a copy/paste and that photo is theirs now. And if you share your tree with others, they can take anything they like and make it as public as they feel it should be. So use some common sense and either don't share your tree, or keep your information of living relatives out!

If you simply must add a living person (maybe you don't want papers that you can lose floating around), there are two precautions you should take. First, tell the relatives that you are adding them and what information will be available. Make sure it's okay with them. Some people are less open than others and will not want all their information out in the ether. I have a private tree with living relatives on it that I use for research and to connect branches that sometimes connect to other parts of my tree. I don't share this one, and I put only the barest information on it. Just enough to make my connections. Second, don't add pictures! Like I said, the thumbnail can still be viewable, even if the actual picture isn't. Just play it safe and add them to a file folder on your computer for the individual. Not everything needs to be online.

As always, I am going to remind you that once it's on the Internet, there is no going back. Don't put anything online that you don't want found. No matter how secure you think a website is, there is always the possibility that it can be compromised.

-Ana

Copyrights and Copy Wrongs

Inevitably, someone uses another person's information, photos and documents and issues of copyright come up. But what laws protect your rights and how do you exercise them? When have you relinquished your rights? How do you keep yourself from infringing on the rights of others?

According to the U.S. Copyright Office FAQ, to keep yourself from infringing on the rights of others, you should ask before you use someone else's work. What if you don't know who that is? Well, the copyright office will do a search for you for a fee, or you can go to their offices and search yourself for free if the copyright is before 1978. You can search online for anything after 1978. Of course, this only works if they have registered the copyright, and a lot of what you'll use in everyday genealogy isn't registered.

What about fair use? Well according to fair use doctrine, you can use excerpts or quotes for the purpose of commentary, criticism, news reporting or scholarly reports. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules, so sometimes you'll get away with it, other times not. If you are worried about not being protected by fair use, ask for permission to use the work. Always better safe than sorry. According to the copyright office, "Copyright protects the particular way authors have expressed themselves. It does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in a work." So there is a lot of grey area on both ends of this argument.


What do you mean I don't own my photographs? That's right, you don't own any photo of your own family unless you yourself took the picture. The photographer, or the owner of the photography studio, owns those photos and reproducing them can be infringement! Of course, most photographers won't enforce this copyright unless you start to use the photos for profit or they somehow feel misrepresented with your use of the photo.

Acknowledging the owner doesn't transfer ownership! Just because you give the original copyright owner credit doesn't mean you can use the work unless there is an expressly written agreement to that affect.

So how long do copyrights last? Well that depends on a few factors including what the work is and when it was created/published. After January 1, 1978, a copyright lasts 70 years after the author's death. If there is no author, or it's a work for hire, the termination of copyright is 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation (whichever is shorter). These are general rules and they get wonky when you start talking about publications before 1978, so I provided this link so you can familiarise yourself with some rules.



How do I protect what's mine???? Well first, know what's yours! Unless you created it, you aren't the owner. I don't care if you paid for a copy, you aren't the owner of the original work. You would need express written permission to post things willy-nilly on any website, blog or book. If someone contacts you saying you have their pictures/document/whatever and they want you to remove it, just do it. You can be facing serious litigation should they wish to pursue it and fair use isn't fairly implemented!



This is totes copyrighted!!!1!!11! Do not reproduce!



If it's a photo you are sharing online, add a watermark via photo software. If you're just worried that the people will attach the photograph to the wrong person(s) in their tree, do as I've shown here and label the people in the photo. Add a line about the date or location. Some people have complained that others are saving a copy of their photo and then uploading it to their tree. What this does on Ancestry.com is erase the original owner. Why's this a big deal? Well, when the next person wants more photos, they'll ask the copier who may have just the one. Meanwhile there you are with albums upon albums of precious memories to share and no one knows how to contact you!

As always, I remind you that ANYTHING shared publicly online can be taken by anyone who knows how to copy/paste. It doesn't make it right, and there are laws to protect you if you wish to retain a lawyer and pursue a suit. Many people will feel that if you chose to display it publicly, you are implying consent of use. And any site, whether it is Ancestry, Facebook, Youtube, etc. have terms and conditions that state that copyright infringement will not be tolerated if you can prove it and that they take no responsibility if there is an infringement, beyond helping to take it down. Ancestry even takes it farther to specifically mention that they take no responsibility for what you post (outside of obscene or copyrighted material), what people share, or any public member tree errors. So if you want your information to stay your information, don't post it publicly and don't share it. Even if you don't post it online, any family member you give it to can do so and lead to world of trouble. So know your rights and what the company will do to help you BEFORE you post.

With that all said, I'd like to end by asking that you share any and all information you feel comfortable with. I know there are those who feel that they spent time and money to hunt these items down and they don't want to just give them away; but for me, anything I have that can help means that that is one less step you have to take on the journey. It becomes a collective move forward. And by sharing the factual items I have, you can build a better family tree. There are always those who will abuse the right and add things that aren't true. But there's little I can do about that besides stress out. I can only hope that they will be a minority and that people following their research will see how flawed it is and ignore it. Life's too short to go scream at the wind.

-Ana