Kendall Hulet over at the Ancestry Blog posted about a new search on Ancestry.com that's in the works. After receiving quite a bit of customer criticism last year about the way they launched new products, Ancestry has made a New Year's Resolution in 2008 to involve customers in product enhancements early enough in the process that they can incorporate suggestions and make changes. To this end, the new search feature is currently being taken for a test drive by a small group of Ancestry customers. After some of the initial suggested improvements are incorporated, Ancestry plans to launch the search as a beta (preview period) on Ancestry.com so everyone can try it out. Beta in this case basically means you can choose whether or not you want to use the new search, via an easy "Switch Back" button.

I'm one of the lucky ones getting to spend some time with the new Ancestry search, and have been enjoying the opportunity. I'm still giving it a major workout so I'll reserve in-depth comments until it is released to the public, but I'd like to say that I'm impressed with both the thought that has gone into the new search product, as well as the response by Ancestry.com to all suggestions and feedback. They are definitely working to make this search as user-friendly as possible. I have to say the new search has taken some getting used to -- change is never easy -- but the more I use it the better I like it.

The new Ancestry search tool is basically a front-end product for now; the purpose is to make it easier for customers to narrow down their searches, whether it's by search term, database type or location. There are plans, however, to also make future enhancements to the back-end search engine to "return more relevant results and reduce inaccuracies." One thing I especially like in the new Ancestry search is the card catalog, which makes it much easier to browse or search for specific record types and databases (something I find clunky on the current Ancestry.com site). You can take a quick tour of the new features for yourself, as well as sign up to find out about the new search beta when it launches by visiting Ancestry.com New Search Preview.