What’s This FamilySearch Alpha Thing?
18 Jun 2009 by Dan LawyerMany of you have probably noticed the FamilySearch Alpha project which we’ve quietly been working on here at FamilySearch Labs. Other than listing it as a project on FamilySearch Labs and a few mentions in the FamilySearch Group on Facebook, we haven’t really shared broadly what we’re up to – until now.
FamilySearch Alpha is the beginning of a great new world. The purpose of the project is to replace the current www.FamilySearch.org website with a new site at the same address that integrates all of the new technologies and record sets we’ve been working on (like Record Search, Family Tree, Research Wiki, etc.) into one easy to use experience. Instead of using these tools individually, you will simply go to www.FamilySearch.org to work on your family history.
The first release will introduce a fresh new look and feel and integrate the following features:
- Search for historical records (leveraging Record Search and Library Catalog technology)
- Learning and how-to (showcasing the Research Wiki and Library Research Series)
- Find a Family History Center (updated to leverage the cool new maps.lds.org)
- And much more
Check out the FamilySearch Alpha project and let us know what you think. Just click the feedback link to share your thoughts or leave a comment on the blog.
June 19th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Note that, like the main http://www.labs.familysearch.org site, the “alpha” site search results cannot be viewed by persons lacking the latest Quicktime software. Those not running versions of Windows such as 2000 (maybe) or NT and Vista cannot use the site.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Jade,
Perhaps you meant that people currently need to have version 10 of the Adobe Flash player in order to see the full search experience. The flash player is available for free for all platforms supported by Apple and Microsoft some of the more popular Linux distributions. Having Flash as a requirement for the search features of the site is an ongoing conversation. Would love to hear people’s feedback.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
This flash set up can be a fun way to search, but I do believe (even though it is a free download) that you should put in one of those small buttons or links that says “view in html” or “view in basic viewer”. like e-mail programs or other search sites allow.
Next thought:
Alpha has been around for awhile, but just had this new face lift made public I understand.
The main problem I see now is it is all pushing looks, and has little personality. If it just stays like it is and links to each program, I would rather use them seperatley.
New personality, ease of use, and simplicity must be upped. The pretty new design is worthless without that. Of course, you are sitll working on this.
I could give lots more suggestions, but you probably need more time to get things put together.
nFS isn’t even released everywhere yet is it?
In D.C. we have had it since September 2008. I was surprised to see places in Utah just barely got it.
I wish this stuff would move quicker, I’m so excited for what is ahead and I go to the temple all the time hoping for more advances in this great work.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Only thing I Really don’t like about it is the color of the banner on page http://labs.familysearch.org/alpha/research. Very poor contrast of the text that is on top of that banner. Not a problem now but will be in 10-20 years, is the size of the text.
June 20th, 2009 at 4:14 am
After five tries to find someone I gave up. Simple searches, ones that Ancestry would find in just a few seconds. (My mother, grandparents, great uncles) I will come back in a few months and take another look.
As for usability, It was simple enough but it lacks visual interest. Too much text in the background (CSS). Dull, uninteresting.
Keep at it–but it is not yet ready for serious use.
June 20th, 2009 at 5:08 am
I don’t like the fact that you can only use a wild card at the end of a name. I am sure I am not alone in that I often have a variable vowel in the middle of the surname. The wild card at the end gives me hundreds of names not at all connected.
Like others, I would prefer the option to select which databases I want to search at the beginning of the process.
June 20th, 2009 at 5:08 am
We use this for reference purposes, and even though we have a 3 x faster than home buyers can get internet connection, the Flash still take a very long time [>20 seconds] to load each page. Patrons like what they see, but it’s a lot slower than other ways.
June 20th, 2009 at 5:28 am
8:25 a.m.
I have been waiting since 8:22 a.m. and it still has not come up.
Too, too long to wait when other areas are faster!
June 20th, 2009 at 6:29 am
Tried your site using the full name got nothing. Then tried surname with no first name nothing. I have adobe, internet explorer and windows XP. I have gotten info on my family from the regular Family Search.
June 20th, 2009 at 7:00 am
The Flash 10 requirement requires OS X 10.4 or 10.5, locking out 10.3 users.
June 20th, 2009 at 7:59 am
I’d prefer it not be Flash – HTML and Java and AJAX and other things can surely do all this? But am OK if it must be Flash – I’m right up to date with Mac OS X on all our computers here, so that’s not a bother.
But a minor niggle is that I can’t use the scroll ball on my Apple Mighty Mouse to scroll the Flash pages – I have to use the actual scroll bar. I don’t know if this is a Flash problem, or a Mac OS X problem or how Flash has been implemented, but it’s annoying enough that I end up wondering “why do they have to do this in Flash if we have to put up with this?”
June 20th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I could access the site without any problem, but after entering the name and date I’m searching in various ways, nothing came up. I can access the name on the regular family search within a few seconds. I’ll wait until another time and try again.
June 20th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
So sorry-I have MAC OS X 10.2, so that rules me out as far as Flash 10 goes
June 20th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Yeah, I can’t get in any more, either. I have tried downloading the required Flash, but it doesn’t work. This is very disappointing.
June 21st, 2009 at 2:18 am
I’m not very convinced by its credibility from the start – surely by now someone knows how to describe English counties?
Norfolkshire is not quite right! I hate to think what the other counties might be described as.
June 21st, 2009 at 5:19 am
I have been using nFS for over a year and love it. I especially appreciate FamilyTree and Record Search in Labs.
Wonderful — Thanks much.
June 21st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Darlene is right about the small text and color contrast on page http://labs.familysearch.org/alpha/research. It is a problem for me now. Also, I use Firefox on an XP machine and have no left margin on the page.
When I do a search off the main page, I got my person right away but the returns page has no scroll on the right and only a small portion of the record shows at the bottom of the page. I also do not like that I can’t use the arrow keys to scroll the record but must use the mouse in the record scroll bar.
Cannot print the resulting census record but I could save an xml file (don’t know what that is) and could copy to the clipboard.
The original census record page has no scroll bars either at the bottom or right and no way to view it easily except full screen which at first froze and then finally loaded but would not permit me to zoom in or do anything else with it.
So far, I am finding it frustrating to use. Hope the improvements and tweekings are in the works.
June 21st, 2009 at 3:20 pm
The Church should stop trying to get publicity from commercial places such as Eastman’s Newsletter. The Church first and foremost has resources from the Members, not the general public. You owe the Members some service and help on their genealogy, not trying to be the Apple Computer of the Genealogy world.
As you can see from these comments, your work is not appreciated. When are you going to go back to the roots of what you are doing, helping the Members of the Church? Right now, a Member of the Church “talks” via email with a volunteer for help, who usually does not have a clue to what New FamilySearch is about. It is a scrambled mess. How can we do viable work with this in place and no hope for relief as you “roll out” the problems without fixing anything?
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:08 am
I have quite a few problems with it. But one of the worst is that I can’t bring up a list of names requiring temple work in alphabetical order. FamilyTree will supposedly do it, but if you have more than a couple hundred names (which I do) it won’t even load. I waited an hour and then gave up.
I also can’t get results from searches, even when I search exactly as I entered and submitted a person already.
I submit trees, which get disconnected and go to pieces, as well.
Can’t view information on living persons, even when I submitted them myself. I know there are concerns with living individuals and privacy laws, but I should at least be able to see what I submit on a person.
With major problems like these, it’s hard for me to want to submit and keep my data on a system as a master copy (which is presumably what they want you to do, because it’s impossible to download a GEDCOM copy of data – you have to use other programs like AQ and a couple others to do this).
I know resources can be limited, but another reason I can’t submit this as my master copy of data (aside from the fact that the “master” copy of data changes so much) is that I can’t include images of sources, like birth certificates. Other sites will do this, however. Photos and videos are nice, too. Like I say, resources are limited, but I can’t just give up all my thousands of photos and scans of sources.
Also, it’s nicer to submit temple work as batches, rather than go to each individual. I can submit from my database, hundreds of names in a half hour, which I’ve already checked against the IGI, and run them through TempleReady in about 15 minutes. But to do this in new FamilySearch,it would take literally days to do.
I’ve also had people disappear from my “reserved list” for temple work, hence the need to print out a piece of paper for each family.
The major major bugaboo that I have with the program is that “sometimes” (another problem) it won’t let you print the sealing to parents ordinance on the same card as the baptism and endowments. So you have to clear it for B and E and take a trip to the temple and print it out; then you (after B and E are done) go print out another sheet of paper on your computer to do the SP ordiance and take another trip to the temple (if you remember which ones out of hundreds need re-printing) to have them print out another card for SP, waste more time and paper, etc. Surely there could be a better solution. The temple program could just prevent doing SP before B and E. And I don’t know of a temple worker, who would do ordinance work for SP when B and E show they haven’t been done yet on the same card anyway. So I fail to see what’s wrong with the current system, using one card for all 3 ordinances. The strange thing is that if I tweak everything correctly, I’m sometimes able to print a card with all 3 ordinances on it. This problem drives me more nuts than anything else that has to do with the program.
I’m sorry to say that I think it’s easier and better still to use the old programs that are out there, individually. I have to agree with the comment which mentions this fact.
I also agree with the others who have had problems and commented here on them. I’ve had the same problems.
There are others; these are just the main problems. I wish something major could be done to fix the program, but honestly don’t know how resources could be stretched to “start from scratch”, which may need to be done for me to find the program useable.
The one saving grace is that the program will let me do my names in the original scripts (Arabic, Russian, Greek, Japanese), and will even print out diacritics on anything besides ANSI now. Whereas before I could only print out my Spanish and Danish names correctly with diacritical characters, my Czech, Polish, and Lithuanian names now display correctly. It is totally (almost – won’t do Armenian or Georgian or some other scripts – they should use Arial Unicode MS font, which has all of Unicode 2.1 in the font) Unicode compatible. I like to record names, places, dates in their original format, so that I can order a birth certificate. Some languages, like Japanese, have multiple ways of writing the same name, so it’s necessary to have place and personal names in Japanese if you want to locate them again. I’ve had problems getting both localities verified and birth certificates because people in the US only knew the romanized version of place and personal names. I also use transliteration, though, for those who need both. Some few genealogical programs will let you do this: PAF, Ancestral Quest, RootsMagic 4, a couple others.
Anyone know why when I have both an Arabic name and the transliteration, my cards print out with the transliterated form, rather than the Arabic? If I leave off the transliteration (which I do temporarily while submitting the name), it will print in Arabic. Weird. Solution might be to print both names on cards.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:23 am
In response to Michael W McCormick:
Good suggestion about options for HTML only search experience.
Alpha is just the starting point for the integrated site. It will take several versions over sometime to get everything integrated to the level we’d like.
We’re anxious to go faster too! Thanks for your comments.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:25 am
In response to Darlene:
I completely agree with your comment about the Research page. We’re working on a new design and hope to post some previews of it to the blog soon. Stay tuned.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:26 am
In response to Ron Snowden:
Thanks for taking a look. We’re well aware of the limitations of the Alpha site. There are lots of historical records and trees that aren’t yet included. Hope you will come back in the near future and see our progress.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:27 am
In response to Sandra J Smith:
I coudn’t agree more. We really need to enhance portions of the search. I get stuck on the wildcards too. I’ll pass on your feedback.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:29 am
In response to LarryN the LibraryN:
We’d like to speed this up too. I know exactly what you’re talking about. I time it all the time.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:30 am
In response to Jane L:
Sounds like a bug. What you’re experiencing is not typical. If it continues let us know and we’ll see if we can help you resolve the problem.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:33 am
In response to Margaret Sowizdrzal:
We haven’t loaded all of the record sets into the Alpha site yet so I wouldn’t expect it to find everything that you can find today at http://www.familysearch.org. We’re also aware of a few bugs in the search that sometimes cause it not to return results. Keep checking back and see if it improves.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:34 am
In response to Ron Scanlon:
Definitely a limitation of Flash.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:36 am
In response to Roger Moffat:
More food for thought on the Flash front. Thanks for the info about the scroll bar problem.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:38 am
In response to Barbara Laughlin:
A couple of things may be happening. If a place is not entered as part of the search then there is a current bug that may cause it to fail. There are many records at http://www.familysearch.org which aren’t currently in the alpha system.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:39 am
In response to DeeDee:
Yikes. Looks like we’ve cut you out too. We’ll have to find a solution.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:40 am
In response to KJP:
Sorry for the trouble your seeing (or not seeing). Can you send an e-mail to feedback at familysearchlabs.org and we’ll try to help.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:41 am
In response to Martin Morley:
I’m not sure I follow your comment. Could you clarify for me?
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:41 am
In response to Thelma Price:
Thanks for your encouragement!
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:43 am
In response to Josh:
Thanks for the various points of feedback. The project is still pretty rough. We’ll get these things ironed out as it evolves.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:47 am
In response to Char:
Sounds like your frustrated with some of the current challenges in new FamilySearch. We’re aware of the problems and are working as hard as we can to resolve them. We appreciate your patience as we incrementally improve. One small step at a time and not nearly fast enough.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:50 am
In response to Shon R. Edwards:
Thanks for sharing your insights into some of the current challenges with new FamilySearch. In time, as the issues that you’ve described (and others) are resolved the new FamilySearch will also be integrated with the FamilySearch website. As you point out, there is still a lot of ground to cover.
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:12 pm
The Graphics are ok I wonder if people will think they are in the wrong website. What I think needs to be on there is a link into Wiki. Is there a way of putting it on the present Family Search until you get this up and running. I tried clicking on the Records Library and there was no response.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Just tried to submit a “*.sub” file to the Salt Lake Temple this afternoon and they now upload the data into new FamilySearch at the Utah temples before printing the cards. I had my names that I designated as “family file” names get dumped into the temple file. I went over to the Family History Library, which thankfully will still print sub files without using nFS, and they printed out fine. Now I just hope they don’t duplicate them in the temple file. They’re aware of the problem and are “working on it”. These are the most disturbing kinds of bugs in the program – when your data gets screwed up, disconnected, when temple ordiances are messed up in several ways as mentioned above. Not sure what a fix would be but to just read the GEDCOM properly with the type code for family file, rather than temple file.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:32 pm
In response to Tina:
The wiki will be integrated into the Learning section of the site.
June 26th, 2009 at 2:46 am
In response to Dan Lawer’s request for more info on Martin Morley’s post of 21st June —–
Within the UK “Norfolkshire” is not the recognised name for the county of Norfolk (same thing for the use of “Rutlandshire” in relation to the county of Rutland).
Americans have a hard time understanding the English county names – and seem to think that all English counties should have a “shire” ending. This is not so.
Counties of Norfolk and Rutland have never been known or referred to as “Norfolkshire” or “Rutlandshire” and their use will provoke serious angst and disbelief amongst the English.
To clarify – or confuse – the issue, not all English counties that end in “shire” are “Shire” counties and not all “Shire” counties end in “shire”.
I have previously submitted feedback on this to nFS and the Pilot site – but seems to fall on deaf ears.
There is also a serious problem with Welsh counties completely losing their traditional “shire” endings – and Monmouthshire erroneously assigned to England.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
In response to Stewart Millar:
Thanks for clarifying. I can imagine it would be very annoying to see people getting this wrong over and over again. We’re working to find ways to allow those with the expertise correct the information.
I was looking through the alpha site and couldn’t find where the information about the English counties was located. Which page is the mistake on?
June 28th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
The “Norfolkshire” problem is but the tip of a very large iceberg in the standard entries for England and Wales but probably the most embarassing! It is possible to avoid the “shire” ending but if you have several hundred ancestors this is impractical. One fix for this is to use add on software (Roots Magic 4 in my case).
There are other examples of places being standardised in the wrong county. Burton-upon-Trent is in Staffordshire but a standard entry also exists placing it in Derbyshire. Time for a thorough review of the standardised entry format? The sooner the better.
June 30th, 2009 at 3:39 am
In reply to Dan Lawyer of 26th June —–
“Norfolkshire” is used in the list of standardised places in the Search for any name – and if the unwary enter “Norfolk, England” which is the proper title for the county of Norfolk on the initial Home Screen search – which does not appear to be connected to the Standardised place names – no entries are found and as some form of default logic(? – why?), the results display all the other results from around the world (except “Norfolkshire” strangely).
It seems that only when actually in the “Record Search” pages of the Search facility is the connection with the Standardised place names made and at this point any correction to the place name associates “Norfolk, England” with “Norfolkshire, England, United Kingdom” and then successfully brings up the entries required — which, when examined, of course, only use “Norfolk” and not “Norfolkshire” as the county.
All of which is very confusing — and will significantly annoy English users.
Additionally — a further complaint about standardised English place names is the overlapping place name definitions using the historical counties and what are known as “Unitary Authorities” (UA) — UA’s are a relatively new layer of local UK government that are equivalent to the previous powers at the historic counties – but geographical re-drawn to reflect population and needs and as these change so do the boundaries and names of the UA’s. The result of merging these within the standardised place names for UK locations is that many locations end up with two, three or four “standardised” place names for the same location – this seems to be a contridiction of the purposes of the standardised place name philosophy. Personally, I would recommend the restriction of standardised place names in the UK to the historic counties (which are widely used and understood even when particular counties have been discontinues (Middlesex) or completely replaced by a number of UA’s (Berkshire)) – and thus, totally exclude the the use of UA’s which whilst reflecting local government areas are largely if not totally ignored by the population as part of their geographical place name location.
As noted before, I have tried to get this message across to various feedback sections of nfs and fs labs – but with no real confidence that an obviously American led team understand or appreciates the problem – so please pass this along.
Many thanks,
Stewart Millar (Irish, but living in England!)
July 11th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Reading this blog has demonstrated just how behind the times I am living here in backwater Utah – Salt Lake Valley – I would appreciate being able to access new FamilySearch and submit accumulated names for temple ordinances.
Any idea when we will catch up to the past and get access to new FamilySearch?
Lynn in Taylorsville
July 21st, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I tried to access it in my local Public Library, but was unable to do so, because Adobe Flash Player is not installed on the computers there (and even branch library staff couldn’t install it, because administrator rights are needed)
September 1st, 2009 at 10:36 am
Regarding accessibility to labs.familysearch.org, and familysearch-alpha, Andrew Gough’s 21 July point I think should be paid heed.
While Librarians and Universities would wish to keep techologically up to date, it simply is not possible these days. County libraries and those in scores of thousands of small communities as well as major city ones have severe cost restrictions. So many simply cannot provide upgrades every time Monopoly Software implements a new phase of its planned-obsolescence scheme, or every time that (even very able and good-intentioned) tech managers decide to implement what’s new rather than what’s on everyone’s shelf.
Thank you for your consideration.