Proposed Agreement Between NARA & Ancestry.com
One such proposed partnership, announced today, is with The Generations Network (TGN), parent company of Ancestry.com. This proposed non-exclusive agreement basically means that TGN will pay for all costs involved in the digitization of the documents in return for being allowed to offer them to subscribers at Ancestry.com. NARA will be able to offer free access to any records digitized under this agreement in NARA research rooms nationwide. This is similar to non-exclusive agreements already in place with Footnote.com and FamilySearch.org. It doesn't mean that these groups are all in competition with one another. Instead, the more such arrangements that NARA makes, the more of their records become available for genealogists online and in NARA research centers. These deals are a win-win for genealogists as far as I'm concerned. If you have comments you would like heard, the National Archives is asking for feedback on this proposed arrangement.
Hat tip to Dick Eastman for the notice.
Comments
Please let the proprosal go through. It would be a great breakthrough for us children of Veterans. Lisa
The Internet is making digitization an easy process these days. Our library has begun to scan WWI obituaries from our local newspaper into Flickr. A link in the Flikr page takes users back to our online obituary index. It is all too much fun!
With all the digitizing that will get done by Footnote.com, Ancestry.com, & Familysearch.org, I wish we could get some sort of idea which records they will each be digitizing. I for one would like to know if any of them will be doing the Federal Land Patent Application files, and of course when we can expect to see them.