Ancestry.com Blog » Anne Mitchell

State and Country Pages in Old Search

Anne Mitchell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:08:36 +0000

Currently the State and Country Pages in old search (the pages you get to when you click on the maps on the search home page) are not listing data collections as they usually do. We are aware of the problem and are working on fixing it quickly.

Both old and new search are working correctly, it is just these pages that are not listing data collections as they normally do.

I will post an update when they are working.

We appreciate your patience.

The State and Country pages are working again, as are the images from the 1830 US Census.

Refine your searches in fewer steps in new search

Anne Mitchell — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:53:20 +0000

After listening, researching and testing with members, we decided to make the hot key experience in new search the default method for refining searches.

(Note: I got my dates wrong, it’s Tuesday, November 10th…so just a little more waiting.)
This change will happen on Monday, November 9th, sometime during the day.

The information you enter into your original search will appear at the top left of the search results page. Clicking “Edit search” will bring up your search query allowing you to edit your search criteria. (Note: You won’t be able to edit in the left hand panel any more; all editing will be done from a form.)

Also, the Narrow by Category panel is now higher on the page, providing easier access for narrowing your search results by types of records (e.g., census records, immigration records, military records, etc.).

These changes are designed to make searching for your family on Ancestry.com faster and more efficient, resulting in even more successful discoveries about your ancestors.

Here’s how it will work:

Do a search. Let’s say I’m searching for my ancestor, Zebedee Hash. You will see:
To help refine the search, I now click on “Edit Search”:
You’ll see a form pre-populated with the original query:
Add in the information:
Click on the search button either at the top or bottom of the form. (We put in two search buttons to make it handy to find wherever you are in the form. They do the exact same thing.)

OR
You’ll now see the summary of your search query in the panel:
Now let’s say I want to make my Birth Year exact within a range. I click on “Edit search” again, and enter my new information:
Click on the search button, and see the new result set. You’ll notice in the query summary, that the birth year range is in double quotes, telling you that you’ve marked that field exact:

So look for change on Tuesday, try it out, and let us know what you think.

Happy Searching!

Some updates on the enhanced image page.

Anne Mitchell — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:26:51 +0000

More data collections launched with the enhanced image page

We launched more data collections in the new enhanced image viewer yesterday. Here is the list of data collections that are currently available in the new format:

We will launch the 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 US Federal Census in the enhanced image page sometime on Friday.

Printing in IE and Vista

The enhanced image viewer, which is the activex controller that displays your image in both the original image page and the enhanced version, is not allowed to print on Vista unless you do some configuration stuff. This problem has existed for awhile and we are testing some ways to set this up so you can print current view with as easily as possibly. Until then, and it should be soon, you can use Firefox if you want to print selected portions.

Happy Searching!

Updates to the enhanced image page

Anne Mitchell — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:30:17 +0000

New vs Old Search

I know this isn’t really about the enhanced image page, but some of you have ended up in in the New Search interface and would like to go back to old. If at the top of the Ancestry.com search homepage you see this:

click on “Old Search” and you’ll see the previous search experience. Clicking on “New Search” gets you to the current one. The enhanced image page is available on the 11 data collections we told you about on launch in both searches.

The most full screen you can get

If you really want to maximize your image, and you are on IE6, IE7 or I think most versions of Firefox. First click Maximize Image. Then press your F11 key. This will be the same as Toggle Full Screen on the original image page.

It makes a big difference if you are on 800×600. And it works on any page, not just image pages. (I’ll figure out where to put the link on the new page. But it might help some of you get where you want to be quicker.)

And print current view was tested with the F11 toggle and it works in IE and Firefox.

Printing

We should have the issues worked out with the print current view, and some of the other IE and Vista problems on the enhanced image page. (This is of 11am PT, 2pm ET, and 7pm GMT). If you were previously having trouble printing, please try it again. If you are still having trouble with printing, either post a comment or send me an email, my email address is in my bio below, with this information: Your OS (such as Vista, XP, MacOs), your browser verision (such as IE8, Firefox 3.0.5) and the url of the page you are trying to print.

This should also solve the saving issues some of you were having as well. Again, if you are still having issues, please include the above information as well what you are trying to save it to: shoebox, tree or hard disk.

On the record page, you should be able to see what alternates have been posted by others now:

Viewing Alternate Information on the record page

Some of you have asked about the comments that were entered when corrections were made in the previous system. We reviewed quite few of them, and I’d say about 70 to 80% are not that useful, things like “Last name was wrong”. However, I know some of you feel quite strongly that they should be restored because there some with some really useful information in some of them. So restore them we will. I’ll let you know when I have an exact date for that but, I’m guessing a week or so.

And one more note: occasionally javascript doesn’t refresh itself like it should. Try pressing “ctrl” + “alt” and then the refresh button on your browser if you are seeing some issues. If that doesn’t help, let me know.

Happy Searching!

Tips on using the enhanced image page

Anne Mitchell — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:00:09 +0000

If you haven’t seen the enhanced image page yet, you can take a look at this image from the US 1860 census. And to get you started with the basics, here are a few tips.

Viewing just the image

If you want to view just the image, click on the link. Until you click the minimize image link or remove your ancestry.com cookies, this will be how you see all images on the enhanced image page. You can click on the image below to see where this is on the page.

Viewing the index and member connect/source panels

By clicking the link, you will return to the view with all the panels showing.

Viewing just the index panel or the member connect/source panel

It is also possible to view the image with just the member connect/source panel open, or just the index panel open. Click on the grey arrows as shown in the image below to open or close each individual panel. Until you open or close these panels or remove your ancestry.com cookies, this will be how you see all images on the enhanced image page.

Paging through images in an enumeration district or data collection

There are two ways to do this. You can either change the page number by typing in a new number in the text box, and click go, or you can click on the left and right arrows.

Printing the image

We have three options for printing an image on the enhanced image page.

Print only the image will send the image to be printed on your local printer
Print image with source and record information will print the image as well as the information we have for the record and the source of the image. You can choose to print the image on one page and the record/source information on another by choosing the Print source & image on separate pagesoption. This particular option, printing source and image separately has been the most frequent printing setup I’ve received over the last year.
Enhanced custom print sends the image and source information to our MyCanvas tool which allows you to customize the image and relevant information to suit your needs.

Some of you have reported having problems with printing and we’d like to find solutions for you. If you want to report a printing problem in a blog comment, please include the URL of the image, the OS (such as XP, or Vista), and the browser/version that you use (such as IE8 or Firefox 3.0.5)

Saving the image

You can save the image in 3 different ways: to your online tree, to your shoebox, or to your hard drive. This option works just as it always has.

The enhanced image page is available on these data collections: 1860 US Census , 1870 US Census , 1871 Census of Canada, 1861 England Census, 1861 Wales Census, 1861 Channel Island Census, 1861 Isle of Man Census, 1871 England Census, 1871 Wales Census, 1871 Channel Island Census, and1871 Isle of Man Census. We will be rolling out the enhanced image page to other census data collections over the next few weeks.

If you have questions or comments, let me know.

Happy Searching!

Enhanced Editing and Image Page

Anne Mitchell — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:52:43 +0000

Tomorrow, July 29th, we are launching two enhancements. The first is enhanced editing of index data, and the second is an enhanced version of the image page.

Enhanced editing

One of the most frequent requests from our members is to have the ability to add alternates to more than just given names and surnames. The fields you can update will vary by data collection, but they will include names, places and dates and we will expand the list as time goes on. We’ve also updated the way you add alternates to make it a bit easier.

When you are on a record page, on the left hand side, you can click on “Add Correction”

You’ll see the “Add an update” dialog:

Add what you know, click on “Submit Alternate” and we will make it available for others to see. This information will also be added to our search index over time to help others find this record.

If you added in something incorrectly, you will see a trash can icon in the summary panel. Click on the trash can and your submission will be removed.

Enhanced image page

If you’ve ever tried to read an image you know how handy it would be to see the indexed information on the same screen. In our enhanced image viewer, the index panel below the image will show you the transcription for each record on the image.

Sometime on Wednesday, July 29th, images from the following data collections will be shown in the new enhanced image page. Go to one of the search pages listed below, search for one of your ancestors or anyone else you can think of that lived in the 1860’s or 1870’s, view the image and see what the enhanced image page has to offer.

We will be making more census data collections available in the new enhanced image page over the next few weeks, and other data collections over the next few months.

You will be able to view and add alternate submissions from the index panel. Mouse over the field you would like to add information for, and when you see the pencil, click. Add the alternate information, and you will then see it in bold italics in the index panel. If you see information in italics but it is not bolded, then it means someone other than ancestry has added that information.

You can read more about the enhanced image page in a previous post Enhancements to the ancestry.com image page

Happy Searching!

Coming soon: enhancements to the ancestry.com image page

Anne Mitchell — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:16:13 +0000

We have been working on a few enhancements for the image page to make it easier for you to read what is on the page, and then to add your own knowledge about your ancestors to our indexes.

Here’s a preview (click the image to see a larger version):

First, we’ve added some tools to help you find what you are looking for on an image:

a collapsible index panel below the image will show you the transcription for each record on the image. This will help you locate your ancestor on the image as well as show you who else is on the page and what information was transcribed for each record.
a collapsible source panel so that you can quickly view the source citation and learn more about the data collection
a collapsible member connect panel so that you can see who has had something to add to this record, and who has been researching it.

While all of these panels will help you understand the image, you can also collapse them with one quick click of the mouse to see the full image.

Second, we’ve enhanced our member editing capabilities.

You’ll be able to update not only given names and surnames, but also birth year and various locations associated with a record. Nobody knows your ancestor as well as you do, and leaving these nuggets of information behind for us to incorporate into our indexes will help others who are looking for your ancestors as well.

You’ll also be able to update information from the image page as well as the record page.

Sometime in mid to late July we will be launching this new enhanced image page on about 70 of our census data collection including most of the US and UK censuses.

I’ll post more previews as we get closer to launch.

Happy Searching!

Latest on lifespan filtering

Anne Mitchell — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:32:12 +0000

Note: For those of you who love the old search, it is still there. You can get to it by clicking “Old Search” in the tan bar on top of the search pages or here: Old Search. Old Search has always been there. The lifespan filter was applied to both and other than that we have not changed anything with either new or old search.

When you use lifespan filtering and date ranges, there is a small bug that will omit a few records.

Let’s say that you searched for John Smith, born in 1849 and you asked search to apply a range of +- 2. With a fudge factor (fudge factor is 5), you would expect the range of birth dates in records returned would be:

1842-1856 (1849 -5 -2) to (1849 +5 +2)

So our search engine will check the following on all records that match the name John Smith or some variation of John and/or Smith:

If a record shows evidence that a person lived before 1842, it discards the record
It checks to make sure that the record does not refute the idea that a person was born between 1842 and 1856. So if the record says the person was born in 1841 or 1857, it throws that record out.
Then the search engine checks to make sure that the record fits in the lifespan, ie, if a person has a high range of 1856 for a birth date, then we assume that they could not have been alive after 1957 (1856 + 2 year fudge), so a record showing the person died in 1975, would be thrown out.

So the part that wasn’t working quite right? #2.

The fix has been determined and should be live on the site sometime tomorrow morning (May 6) on the west coast (US), noon-ish, on the east coast (US), and late evening in Europe.

More relevant search results are coming this Wednesday

Anne Mitchell — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:48:06 +0000

There is a long list of things we want to improve in search (and in new search in particular) – and we’ve started with what you’ve told us is the most important – getting relevant results; and relevance is our top priority this year in search.

And date relevance seems to be the most requested change. If you tell us grandpa died in 1910, you really don’t want to see a 1930 census record.

Making places more relevant and names more relevant are also important, but dates seem to be the one thing we’ve heard the most about. And not to worry, we will get to places and names as well.

Here are the changes we’ve made:

If you are searching for someone and you just know a birth year, we will assume the person lived about 100 years. And we will only return records from the birth year – 5, and birthdates + 102.
If you are searching for someone and you just know a death date, we will again assume the person lived about 100 years, and we will only return records from the death year – 105 to death year+2.
If you put in both a birth year and a death year, we will return records between birth year – 5 to death year + 2.

Why did we choose a 5 year “fudge factor” for birth year and a 2 year “fudge factor” for death year? We’ve spent a lot of time with census records, and vital records, and when those dates are wrong, they usually fall into that range.

I’m going to try and guess at some of your questions. If you have other questions about the changes we made to make dates more relevant, please post them in the comments.

Questions

So what if I use a range on the birth or death year? If you have a birth year of 1850, and choose a range of +-2, and a death year of 1904 +- 10, then we will look for records between (1850-2-5) and (1904+10+2) or 1843 and 1916.
Why do we use a fudge factor? Because our ancestors were absolutely horrible with dates and getting them right. Our tests show that a “fudge factor” of five for birth year and two for death year gets better results.
What if I don’t want the fudge factor added in? Then add five to the birth year, or subtract two from the death year and you’ve outsmarted the system. I wouldn’t recommend it; you may be outsmarting yourself.
Should I mark dates exact? Depends. Death date is usually a very bad date to mark exact, because so few records have a death date. So enter the death date as limiting factor, but don’t mark it exact unless you are specifically looking for records that have that exact date in them. Birth year shows up in lots of records, so that is a better choice for exact, though that does require that a record have a birth year or an age. And remember, you can mark exact and a range, and that will match anything exactly in the range. I recommend this strongly for birth year.
What if I see a record that looks like it should be date filtered out of my results set, i.e., I put in death date of 1903, and it’s from 1920? It probably means we haven’t reindexed that data set yet — we’ve covered about 95% of all eligible records for launch. Feel free to leave the name of the data set in a comment on this blog post and we’ll make sure it gets on
the list. We are working our way through all of our data sets, but we started with some of the biggest and most commonly surfaced in our search results.
What if I don’t want you to date filter for me? If you don’t use dates at all, we can’t and won’t lifespan filter. Or you can type in a broader range of dates to include more records. But this one is a no brainer, as many of you have pointed out — lifespan filtering is going to give you better results. Now when we launch place filtering (hmm….wonder if that is a hint of things to come soon…) we will make that something you choose or not choose, because you will need more control over that.

This is a new addition to our algorithm, so if you have questions, this is the place. I’ll be keeping an eye on this blog post.

This will benefit both old and new search, but we really think you’ll see the difference most in the new search interface. There are many more improvements to come, and in the meantime, I’d encourage you to take a fresh look at new search and see how much this has improved the results you see.

One other thing – we’ve also heard from a number of people that you like to use new search for some types of search, and old search for others – but that switching between them is a pain. To make this easier, we’ve just retired the “introduction page” and introduced a simple link in the yellow bar at the top of the page to enable you to switch easily between the two searches. This will be available tomorrow (Wednesday) as well.

Happy Searching!

Some of our data sets are not returning results in search

Anne Mitchell — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:51:01 +0000

As some of you have noticed, some of our data sets are not returning results when they are searched.

We are currently working on it and I will post updates as I get them.

We apologize for the inconvenience.