How Many Genealogy Companies are There? by Bill Mangum
I am certain of only one thing – there are more than there used to be and that is good for all of us. There are a lot of resources being applied to making a lot more information available. There are companies like Footnote (www.footnote.com) that are making some great historical and genealogical information available. They are using some really fun technology that allows the user to tag or transcribe images on the site and make that information searchable and usable by others. To me, the more people that work together on finding out about their ancestors and understanding the writing and records that have been left the better it gets for everyone. Footnote does cost money to use all the features but there is a lot you can do for free.
There are other start ups like Geni (www.geni.com) that allow you to enter your family history information and link to others information that have entered their family history. The site has grown leaps and bounds in a short time just because it is simple and engaging. The ideas are not all new they are just presented with some interesting twists that invite more people to come and use them. Geni is also free which makes it easy to invite others to come and help and work with you.
The older sites like Ancestry continue to do some great things as well. I love the shaking leaf in the personal trees. You can enter your relative’s information and the system will search for possible matches. The matches can be from others trees as well as original records. For example I entered my GrandFather’s name one day and when I came back the leaf was shaking. I clicked on the leaf and there were about 6 possible matches including a Family Tree entry, 3 Census, and a death Certificate. Not all of them were my guy but more than one was. That was very cool.
Others like FamilySearch.org have several things they have been working on. Some of the new things you can see on http://Labs.FamilySearch.org. Others you will have to wait a little longer to see but there is a lot coming from FamilySearch as well.
I will talk about more of these new web places on another day. Best wishes on your Family History work.
