World Archives Project

And let me tell you – we are sure having fun!  The national holidays in both the United States and Canada this past week kept most of us here at Ancestry.com out of the office and out and about with our families.  And now, those of us on the Ancestry World Archives team are only back in the office for a few days.  Anna is headed to North Dakota tomorrow to meet with a couple of genealogical societies there.  Then on Saturday Darla and I are headed down to Los Angeles, where Anna will meet us on Sunday, for the week long genealogy conference hosted by the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies.  (Are you going to be there?  Be sure to find us and say hello.  We’d love to meet you and thank you personally for your participation.)

Before we take off again, we wanted to give you a quick update on our World Record Challenge.  You have keyed and arbitrated over 3.5 million records in the past five weeks.  And I continue to be impressed with your passion and consistency.

Just a reminder – or as new information for those of you who have recently joined us – the World Record Challenge is this:  If the Ancestry World Archives community keys and arbitrates at least 8 million records from June 1st to August 31st, Ancestry.com will match with collections we paid to have keyed and launch those indexes for free on our website.

Some of you also know that as part of our World Record Challenge you get a say in what collections you would like published to the community for keying this fall.  And, as always, indexes created by the World Archives community are published at Ancestry.com for free.  You get one vote for every 100 records keyed and/or arbitrated.  So get keying – and then be sure to make your voice heard.

Finally, you may not be aware that each week we also run little challenges as an additional incentive for those of you who find that sort of thing motivating.  The weekly challenges run from Monday to Sunday.  And any one person may only win once during the 90 days of the challenge.  Winners choose their prize from the following list: Ancestry DNA Kit, Ancestry Press Gift Certificate, or FamilyTree Maker 2010.  In June we also awarded a monthly prize for the most records keyed.

Congratulations – and well done – to all of our June winners.  And for the rest of you here are the challenges for July:

• July 5th – Most records keyed
• July 12th – Most records keyed in Naturalization Originals (any of the states/regions)
• July 19th – Most records arbitrated
• July 26th  – Most records keyed on a “mystery project”

July Challenge of the Month – Invite friends using the “Invite someone to help” link found in the lower right-hand side of your keying tool – and when they sign up ask them to select OTHER as the reason they chose to participate in the World Archives Project and then put your full name in the comment section.  The person with the most active (meaning they have to key something not just sign up) referrals at the end of the month will win a free 1 year World Deluxe subscription to Ancestry.com.

Phew!  That’s a lot for now.  Remember you can always check our Facebook page for updates about how we are doing with the World Record Challenge.  And watch this space for a couple of other things that we are in the process of cooking up for you.

Until next time – Happy Keying!