Comments on: What’s in the Ancestry.com Wiki for You?

By: Rosemary Jones

Rosemary Jones — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:33:11 +0000

@Laura: Are those newspapers availably through your nearest FHL center? Check the catalogue on FamilySearch and see if they have the film you can request.

By: Jim McKinney

Jim McKinney — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 04:09:31 +0000

Hey…why is it that when I do a search on someone on my tree when it goes to oh lets say Census’s the page refers to someone NOT on my tree!!!!
Check your servers!!!!!this is hosed…..

By: Dorthy MACK

Dorthy MACK — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 17:30:53 +0000

You have made it absolutely impossible to search the census records with ease. PLEASE go back to the previous search.

Thank you,

Dorthy MACK
Manteca, CA

By: Roger W. Sahs

Roger W. Sahs — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:07:20 +0000

In my searches, I found the 1855 Illinois State Census for Cook County in Bridgeport Township. As I scrolled thru the listing, I realised I was looking at many names I recognised from Bremen Township. Someone needs to correct this. I went to a Church in this are of Bremen Township and many of the names are in the old church history book for St. John Ev. Lutheran Church which when it was founded in 1849 was in Coopers Grove now Country Club Hills Illinois. I have made a number of name corrections thru the years for this area in the early Illinois Census listings. One other issue I have is in the 1850 Illinois Census for Bremen Township in Cook County from page 1 thru page 6 in the heading it reads Bremen Township then pages 7 thru 13 it changes and reads Lyons Township. I recognise many of the names in pages 1 thru 6, but 7 thru 13 there are no familiar names because they are not people that lived in Bremen Township. Can someone get this corrected also? Hope someone can solve these discrepancies because they have bugged me for quite a while. Good luck………

Regards,
Roger W. Sahs
of Tinley Park, Bremen Township, Illinois

By: James Saunders

James Saunders — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:29:17 +0000

Dear Ancestry Blog,

Please can we get an update on any news regarding Ancestry DNA? The last news was in October 2009. There was not even an anouncement when the whole of the MyFamily DNA groups were ported over to the new style website.

Ancestry DNA seems a bit stagnant while the rest of Ancestry has a load of new features. Is there any news about future developments? products? promotions?

Thank you,

James

By: Laura W. Sullivan

Laura W. Sullivan — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:44:11 +0000

PLEASE ! I am well aware of how essential newspapers are to family history research. I desperately need access to the NEW HAVEN CT REGISTER, 1880 – present and the FALL RIVER MA HERALD – NEWS, 1880 – present. These papers are available on microfilm in their respective cities, but I live in Texas and have no way of accessing them.
I’m sure there are many others who could name specific newspapers they NEED to have access to. While I am, in general, thrilled with the information I can access through Ancestry, the newspaper collection is shameful, considering how often you publish articles about the value of newspapers in family research. Thank you

By: Sonya Russell

Sonya Russell — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:41:55 +0000

“1) If you have relative in Australia the National Library of Australia has every single newspaper ever printed in that country online. I have been able to completely document three family lines using NLA, also found pictures and articles about various family members. This site puts US newspaper archive sites to SHAME, it is absolutely free and complete.”

Oh Robin, how I wish it was true:
http://www.nla.gov.au/anplan/about/missingQLD.html

The ‘Evening Advocate’ – the newspaper my grandmother AND grandfather worked on. I’ll have to make a trip to the QLD Library to access their copies one day.

But otherwise, yeah I agree with you. Trove, etc are pretty darn awesome.

If you are interested and had any family members that jumped the Tasman, New Zealand has ‘PapersPast’ which is a similar idea for the kiwis. It is my favourite haunt of late.

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:12:15 +0000

I am the first to admit that I am almost totally computer illiterate. I went to the wiki site and have never been more confused and lost in my life.
I will stick with my own resources and maybe others will be able to benefit from what I do…
1) If you have relative in Australia the National Library of Australia has every single newspaper ever printed in that country online. I have been able to completely document three family lines using NLA, also found pictures and articles about various family members. This site puts US newspaper archive sites to SHAME, it is absolutely free and complete.
2)googlebooks. This site is amazing. It has all types of government reports published in years past, old magazines of specific trades, etc. The other day I found my great aunt’s obituary (until this time I did not even know when or where she died) in the National Telegraphers Union Journal, if you can believe that (her son was a member of the union, which I also didn’t know). Have found pics of family members here also.
The above two sites have given me a third of the source information I have on my family, and a lot of extra daily life bits about them also.
If I could change one thing about ancestry it would be to vastly add to your newspaper archive collection.
Thanks for listening and hope this helps someone.
Oh – I also dislike the new extra source info on the profile page.

By: family tree additions

family tree additions — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:25:16 +0000

I have just resubscribed and was surprised to find info from Family Trees such as marriage dates and death dates attached to my tree. I don’t know how this tree information without sources got attached to my tree. My tree is small because I have not been attaching information without sources/confirmed citations. Appreciate help in understanding what is going on as it has been a while since I have been on site. Barb

By: Edwina Fletcher

Edwina Fletcher — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:57:33 +0000

Hi Matthew

Thanks for the article on Wiki. I’m in the UK and trying to find out where a great uncle died in Michigan around 1917. I found a book “Souvenir of Negaunee, Michigan 1912″ by Wm H. Israel through the site. I haven’t traced my great uncle yet but have viewed some amazing photos taken around the time he arrived in Negaunee. Now I know why so many of the mining cousins emigrated there from Cornwall!