Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Why does Ancestry.com do this?
I was excited to see Border Crossings: From U.S. to Canada, 1908-1935 on the Ancestry.com Recent Genealogy Databases list today - I thought that there might be some useful information there for my Seaver people and some of my colleagues.
I eagerly clicked on it, put Seaver in the surname box and hit the Search button. There were 13 matches. I clicked on one of them and ... I didn't have access to it because it is, apparently, part of the World Deluxe Collection and not the U.S. Deluxe Collection.
Is it because the records are from Canada and not from the USA? But the records may apply to USA residents and be useful to researchers of USA families.
The same thing applies to many of the surname books recently put into the Canada/World Collection - they may have content of USA families but because they were published in Canada, they are in the Canada/World Collection.
It would be helpful if the list of databases on the Card Catalog and the Recent Genealogy Databases lists had a US flag for the USA collection and a World symbol for the World Collection, or flags for the individual country collections(e./g., Canada, UK, Germany, etc.). If there was some indication of the collection, then it would save me time and reduce frustration.
Updated 4/23: I would like to see a sort of double booking when a database has records for two countries. In this case, the database should be available to both USA and Canada subscribers. A database with ships passengers between the UK and the USA should be available to both UK and USA subscribers. Of course, a World subscription makes everything available to the subscriber.
I eagerly clicked on it, put Seaver in the surname box and hit the Search button. There were 13 matches. I clicked on one of them and ... I didn't have access to it because it is, apparently, part of the World Deluxe Collection and not the U.S. Deluxe Collection.
Is it because the records are from Canada and not from the USA? But the records may apply to USA residents and be useful to researchers of USA families.
The same thing applies to many of the surname books recently put into the Canada/World Collection - they may have content of USA families but because they were published in Canada, they are in the Canada/World Collection.
It would be helpful if the list of databases on the Card Catalog and the Recent Genealogy Databases lists had a US flag for the USA collection and a World symbol for the World Collection, or flags for the individual country collections(e./g., Canada, UK, Germany, etc.). If there was some indication of the collection, then it would save me time and reduce frustration.
Updated 4/23: I would like to see a sort of double booking when a database has records for two countries. In this case, the database should be available to both USA and Canada subscribers. A database with ships passengers between the UK and the USA should be available to both UK and USA subscribers. Of course, a World subscription makes everything available to the subscriber.
Labels: Ancestry.com, Canada Resources, Online resources
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When they first released that database it was definitely available to US subscription because I searched it for a relative I knew crossed in that time frame. I didn't get any hits for him but did get some other hits that were interesting.
Well now I see the announcement was made on ancestry.ca as a new database. It might have been a different database I was searching about a year ago, but the one I was searching was definitely a list of people crossing from U.S. into Canada.
Van, I believe that what you are thinking of is the database of border crossings from Canada into the United States (which are records created by the United States government border guards).
http://www.ancestry.com/search/DB.aspx?dbid=1075
The new database is from Canadian government records and is thus the exact opposite -- crossings from the United States into Canada. Since the database is derived from Canadian government records, it of course makes sense that it requires a Canadian or WorldDeluxe subscription to view. If you used as your criteria for what went where whether a database had relevance to United States research, then all databases would have to be in the US Deluxe subscription since all foreign databases likely have the name of SOMEONE who emigrated.
http://www.ancestry.com/search/DB.aspx?dbid=1075
The new database is from Canadian government records and is thus the exact opposite -- crossings from the United States into Canada. Since the database is derived from Canadian government records, it of course makes sense that it requires a Canadian or WorldDeluxe subscription to view. If you used as your criteria for what went where whether a database had relevance to United States research, then all databases would have to be in the US Deluxe subscription since all foreign databases likely have the name of SOMEONE who emigrated.
# posted by 
: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 12:30:00 PM PDT
: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 12:30:00 PM PDT
I can help you out if you send me the names of interest. Are they spelled Seaver?
email:
evelyn
th
@
videotron.ca
Or drop a line in a comment box on my site
Evelyn in Montreal
email:
evelyn
th
@
videotron.ca
Or drop a line in a comment box on my site
Evelyn in Montreal
It would help if the World Deluxe membership wasn't so expensive! I won a free year-long membership to the whole site back in 2005 and used the international records a little bit during that time to research my Irish ancestry. But the usefulness of those records to me wasn't enough that it made it worth it monetarily for me to subscribe to World Deluxe on my own when my free subscription ran out. I just signed up for the U.S. subscription after that, and have continued to do so. The U.S. collection is a great collection, and worth the price, but the price of World Deluxe, in my opinion, isn't justified by the value it provides.
I actually use the subscription our Historical Society has whenever I go there. . . . I have the US subscription and use it at home and then keep a list of what I want to check when I go there. Figure it's part of my membership!
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