With regard to data:
Ancestry at least allows (and I've done this) alternate spelling suggestions
for transcription errors. The problem is the same problem that creeps into
all group accessed data: it becomes dirty over time. Theoretically, you
would only submit a correction to them for approval with a reference (such
as citation of the same family on a previous or latter census spelled more
clearly) however this doesn't always happen. What you occasionally get are
transcription changes from members who choose to submit corrections
unsourced or, worse still, believe the person listed match because "the
pieces fit" for someone they are researching with a similarly spelled name.
This becomes even more of a nightmare if you are dealing with Eastern
European/Slavic surnames.
The business end of footnote.com is unadulterated money-making genius,
though. From what I've seen, you pay for a membership which entitles you to
the images/search. Then you are allowed to volunteer to transcribe other
images in recently opened/unfinished projects from NARA. Essentially, what
you are doing is paying them to be a volunteer on research that they then
add to their repository and can then charge others to access. (In all
fairness to the volunteers transcribing, there is due diligence on their
work and they do care about the accuracy in the information they are
transcribing).
That said, I'm not naive. I realize these are businesses and businesses are
in business to make money.
On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 4:01 PM, Hannah Powell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I think that's called "Monopoly" ...
> Interesting that ancestry has created a lot of subcontractors to manage
> sections of their images. However they don't seem to care if they turn over
> defective images for these subs. They make a lot of money off these subs
> and should supply quality materials for the price.
> Hannah Powell
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Kirkland" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 12:25 PM
>
> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Is Genealogy Dead?
>
>
> To add (re: Ancestry) :
>>
>> On Oct 21, Ancestry announced their purchase of iArchives.com, the parent
>> company of footnote.com, thus limiting the number of "big" pay-for-play
>> companies.
>>
>>
>> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ancestrycom-inc-completes-acquisition-of-iarchives-2010-10-21
>>
>> Additionally, Yahoo! suspended hosting of their major and traditionally
>> free
>> hosting service Geocities in October of last year. All pages hosted there
>> (many by hobbyist genealogist like myself) are no longer available.
>> Apparently, there were some attempts to index/save the information prior
>> to
>> going offline, however there is no concensus on how much was accomplished
>> by
>> the Internet Archive as the amount of information that would have to be
>> crawled on such short notice was prohibitively large. A 1TB torrent of all
>> Geocities sites has been released "in the wild" and was announced
>> recently,
>> however.
>>
>>
>> http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/geocities-to-be-released-as-a-torrent-904057
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 12:00 PM, JEFFREY D SOUTHMAYD <[log in to unmask]
>> >wrote:
>>
>> It's my understanding ancestry.com is making money hand over fist. If
>>> true, someone must be interested in genealogy.
>>>
>>>
>>> JDS
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> --
>> Keith Kirkland
>>
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>
> ______________________________________
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--
Keith Kirkland
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