Genealogy Web sites expand research tools
By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL,
© July 3, 2006
At the same time, a new genealogy search tool from MyHeritage Ltd., a free service based in Israel, is allowing consumers to search across hundreds of genealogy databases at once. These databases include such information as lists of passengers kept by ships transporting immigrants, war casualty records and photo archives. . . .
Eventually, for an extra fee, consumers will likely be able to run a worldwide genealogy search covering all members of their family tree and receive updates when there are new search results for entries in their network, says Gilad Japhet, the company’s founder. . . .
plummeting digital storage costs are enabling companies to put more sources directly online. Ancestry.com’s massive batch of census records is housed in a 3,400-square-foot data center in Utah that contains 3,400 servers. Such an investment was possible only because such digital storage costs have been continuing to fall, said Tim Sullivan, Ancestry.com’s chief executive. . . .
Cameras that take higher-resolution pictures and that can automatically correct for blemishes such as watermarks mean that FamilySearch.org can do “in minutes what used to take hours and days,” said the organization’s chief marketing officer Steve Anderson. New technologies that can recognize the type of document being scanned and highlight various fields for indexing are helping, too. . . .
The preservation efforts are part of a massive global effort to digitize a variety of content for safekeeping and easy searching, such as Google Inc.’s effort to scan libraries of books. Online genealogy companies say that last year’s devastating hurricane season, which destroyed several archives in the South, also has increased demand for partnership programs in which they digitize local archives in exchange for being able to offer the sources to the public through their sites. . .
. . . 24 percent of Internet users researched their family history or genealogy online.
just some snippets read the whole article here http://www.hamptonroads.com/
© July 3, 2006
At the same time, a new genealogy search tool from MyHeritage Ltd., a free service based in Israel, is allowing consumers to search across hundreds of genealogy databases at once. These databases include such information as lists of passengers kept by ships transporting immigrants, war casualty records and photo archives. . . .
Eventually, for an extra fee, consumers will likely be able to run a worldwide genealogy search covering all members of their family tree and receive updates when there are new search results for entries in their network, says Gilad Japhet, the company’s founder. . . .
plummeting digital storage costs are enabling companies to put more sources directly online. Ancestry.com’s massive batch of census records is housed in a 3,400-square-foot data center in Utah that contains 3,400 servers. Such an investment was possible only because such digital storage costs have been continuing to fall, said Tim Sullivan, Ancestry.com’s chief executive. . . .
Cameras that take higher-resolution pictures and that can automatically correct for blemishes such as watermarks mean that FamilySearch.org can do “in minutes what used to take hours and days,” said the organization’s chief marketing officer Steve Anderson. New technologies that can recognize the type of document being scanned and highlight various fields for indexing are helping, too. . . .
The preservation efforts are part of a massive global effort to digitize a variety of content for safekeeping and easy searching, such as Google Inc.’s effort to scan libraries of books. Online genealogy companies say that last year’s devastating hurricane season, which destroyed several archives in the South, also has increased demand for partnership programs in which they digitize local archives in exchange for being able to offer the sources to the public through their sites. . .
. . . 24 percent of Internet users researched their family history or genealogy online.
just some snippets read the whole article here http://www.hamptonroads.com/
posted by Hugh W at 10:18 pm
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