Wednesday, April 21, 2010

New FamilySearch Record Search Release coming

...
The FamilySearch Labs blog announced on 2 April 2010 that:

"Later this month we are going to have a new release of Record Search. To test this new release we are looking for patrons who have experience using Record Search to participate in a short beta."

This slipped past my Fiji-addled brain at the time...

Today Nick Gombash on his appropriately named Nick Gombash's Genealogy Blog posted Record Search Pilot Is Coming To An End... which states (from an email he received):

"The Record Search Beta has ended. Thank you so much for your help in testing this new release. We received some great feedback are now working to fix the issues you reported. The beta site might be available for a few more days if you want to continue to use it, however we will not be contacting you when it is no longer available.

"What is our plan going forward:
Our plan (which always seems to change) is to release this new version of Record Search next week. Shortly after this release you will see some new collections published that were not part of the beta test and have not previously been available. This release expands our capacity to publish records and we hope to continue to publish new collection every week, so please keep checking the Record Search web site to see what is new."


So it sounds like there may be more databases on the FamilySearch Record Search site in the next week or so. I'm wondering:

* Will the Record Search site have a new URL?

* Will the site look different? I hope it has more color and contrast.

* Will the site work differently? I hope that I can use the Page Up/Page Down keys on it.

* What databases will be added to the current list of 168 databases? Will it be Ancestral File, International Genealogical Index, Pedigree Resource File, and some of the other "classic" databases?

I checked the list today and there are NO (meaning ZERO) "new" databases so far this month on the Record Search site.

Inquiring minds want to know!

By the way, have you had a look at the FamilySearch Beta site at http://fsbeta.familysearch.org/? Is this the "face" of the new Record Search? If you click on the "All collections" link you get a list of 115 online databases, all of which are listed on the current Record Search site. I wonder why the other 53 databases aren't on that list?

Thank you, Nick, for the heads up about this news - a great genealogy scoop for Nick!

3 comments:

Kathleen O'Hara said...

I'm glad to read this! I'd been curious as to why the Record Search Pilot had stopped adding new collections! Looking forward to the new version!

Anonymous said...

There were some new collections on the Record Search Beta test, including Philippine Marriages and UK, Cheshire Probate records.

NickMGombash said...

You're very welcome, Randy! :)