World Archives Project

Yesterday we released a new project to key – U.S. Department of the Interior Decisions on Pensions and Bounty-Land Claims, 1886-1930.  It is definitely an interesting read and I found myself reading many pages that we aren’t even keying.  The project details the claims and decisions regarding pensions and land claims from soldiers serving in […]

As I promised last Monday, I’ll do my best to keep today’s quality post brief.  Today’s discussion revolves around the over-riding rule of keying.  It comes up over and over in discussion with arbitrators – and, as I do more arbitration myself, I can see why.  I have become convinced that if we would all […]

I’m writing to you from my hotel room in Duluth, Georgia.  I’m here for the Atlanta Family History Expo, where I’ll be presenting two different classes on Ancestry.com over the next two days.  If you are in the area, be sure to come by the free exhibit hall.  There will be lots of genealogy vendors […]

Yesterday we launched two new projects, Kent, England, Tyler Index to Wills and California State Library WWI Soldier Death Announcements.  The Tyler Index to Wills contains a lot of fun records.  As many of you know Frank Watt Tyler indexed many genealogically relevant records and this one is a treasure.  There are pages with descendancy […]

With the launch of the latest World Record Challenge there has been lots of chatter both here on the blog and over on our Facebook page about quality.  It seems that quite a few of you are concerned that these types of challenges encourage people to key faster and consequently, quality suffers.  I didn’t feel […]

Two points.  And then an announcement. The next two months are filled with holidays of all sorts, all around the world.  While we tend to get pretty busy in the midst of it all, most of these holidays have a common theme of gratitude and giving.  (Plus, today is my birthday.  That means I love, […]