Ancestry stumbles ... again

Those genealogical clubs and societies who host their websites on Rootsweb (now Ancestry controlled) probably share my frustration. The Rootsweb site has had a hardware failure that has taken it down for the past week and won't be up until sometime the middle of March. That means communication about upcoming meetings, conferences, emails to members, and random search requests is unavailable. Our sites are "404 Not Found." 

Ancestry's first stumble, in our humble opinion, was when they took over HeritageQuest. HeritageQuest had a unique search engine that helped us find ancestors when only a few pieces of information were known. That unique way of searching was eliminated as soon as Ancestry took over.

At the end of last year, many of our club members were put into a tailspin when Ancestry announced the demise of their Family Tree Maker software (then sold to another company). Our society quickly formed a technology group to discuss the best options. Unfortunately, a couple of our members had just purchased Family Tree Maker! 

I think we can all agree that Ancestry is a mega-site for genealogy research. I just wish they would concentrate less on how much money they can make and a little more on how to best serve their customers. 
 

Bird by Bird

In her book Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott tells the story of how her brother, ten at the time, was faced with a report on birds due the next day.  He had put it off for three months and now was faced with what appeared to be an insurmountable task.  Their father sat down next to his son and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

This is also sage advice to genealogists when taking on large projects.  This quote came to mind when I thought about the huge project of supplementing the research of Frederick Browning Agard.  I shall fill out the lives ancestor by ancestor.

In that vein I went to HeritageQuest (free through our public library) with the goal of revisiting Mary Louise Catlin Cleaver’s book, The History of the Town of Catherine.  My search on the name “Agard,” did not bring this book up in the listings, but as I scrolled through I found the most interesting typewritten manuscript by Louise Huntington Bailey Jarvis.  The manuscript, dated 1947, contains short biographical sketches on a variety of family names. The title is: Some Ancestors and Descendants of Samuel Agard and Florence Williams Huntington Bailey.  I found birth, marriage, and death information on both Dr. Gilbert David and Anna Maria Agard Bailey.  I learned when the Bailey name changed from Baley and that the name is of Kelto-British origin.  I will go back to this document to glean more nuggets on the Agard family line.

This manuscript is a gem, and I just happened to stumble on it.  I encourage researchers to keep HeritageQuest in mind for its unique census search applications as well as digitized books, and PERSI.