Well, I haven't had a post resolved quite so dramatically before. My last post talked about the press release from Ancestry.com and additional records being added to Ancestry's collections from FamilySearch. It seems that the additions were being made almost at the same time I was writing. So much for my careful reading of the press release.
As the screenshot above shows, and as noted by other bloggers such as Randy Seaver today, millions of records have been added to Ancestry.com. It is hard to tell the exact number that came from FamilySearch because there are other records that are being updated and added constantly. Contrary to these statements that appeared in the press release concerning the fact that the records would come from "unpublished" digitized records, it appears that many of these records have been available on FamilySearch for some time. They seem to be a collection of records from all over the world and certainly enhance the worldwide scope of Ancestry.com.
Unresolved, of course, are the issues of access to the records. It seems that in many cases these records did not address any issues of current availability on FamilySearch, so my theory goes out the window. Maybe.
I could not find where any of the new collections included the images that are available on FamilySearch.org. The links to FamilySearch on the records do take you, for the most part directly to the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki explanations of the records. Here is a screenshot showing one of the records with an arrow showing the link to FamilySearch.
In addition to all of these records today, there were also a huge number of updated records on Ancestry.com for New Zealand and Australia. It certainly looks like Ancestry.com is making a major move to stay ahead of the pack. I am puzzled about the lack of images, perhaps they will be added later? Perhaps turn about is fair play, Ancestry.com users will have to go to FamilySearch for the images?
This does open a can of worms. There are more questions than answers. I already thought of some questions about accessibility in light of the agreement that was made last year about accessing the images.
ReplyDeleteI don't know all that much about cans of worms, but the situation does open up a lot of questions concerning accessibility.
Delete"It is hard to tell the exact number that came from FamilySearch because there are other records that are being updated and added constantly."
ReplyDeleteAll of the newly added extract databases appear to have the word "select" in the title in their Ancestry.com version and can be sorted out of the card file that way.
It appears that Ancestry.com is joining this year's trend of genealogy-provider sites' becoming aggregators.
That occurred to me also, just after I added the post. I had some errands to run and just got back. Thanks for the comment, it helps. But the list is still very long.
Delete