Ancestry's World Archives Indexing Project
Thursday June 19, 2008
Diane Haddad and the Ancestry Insider both blogged this week abut the new volunteer indexing project which is apparently launching next month at Ancestry.com. It appears to be similar to FamilySearch Indexing in that volunteers will index provided digital documents using special software that they download from the site. The created indexes will be made available online for free, although access to the actual digital documents will likely be behind the Ancestry.com subscription wall. I wonder if this is how they plan to speed up the indexing of the new NARA records?
If you still want to try and get in on the beta testing for Ancestry's volunteer indexing project, you can sign up here at Keying Tool Signup (although this is no guarantee that you'll be added to the Beta test list).
Comments
Why would anyone volunteer to work for free for Ancestry when they turn around and charge an exorbitant amount to see the document? Ancestry is a profit-making business and is just trying to make more money off people’s free labor. If they expect to charge for their service, then they should expect to pay for indexing. Volunteers should work for FamilySearch indexing which will always be free for everyone.
I love ancestry but unless they give me free subscriptions for all my work I won’t be helping them transcribe anything.
humm; I am new to genealogy in general and Ancestry in particular so my opinion may not be worth much.
In the last two months I have located multiple legs of my family history that I never new existed. These were all found through the Ancestry.com’s FREE hint system and multiple free searches available in one place. I would never have known to even search for these people!
I believe I have already made my money back from my subscription and every tool I have used is free.
Yes, you can access all the same resources that are available through A.com but you would have to search for them to find out what is available. Then too, you would also need to know what to search for: Census, Similar family trees, Birth records etc.
I believe it would be a privilege to be able to volunteer and help pay back what so many previous volunteers made available for me.
That is just my perspective.
Rev. Rick Stoneking
My Story
Crossway ISP - Our Family Friendly Internet Service
All records that are indexed by the World Archives Project are free for researching on Ancestry. No need for such negativity regarding Ancestry.