The controversy over Ancestry’s “Internet Biographical Collection” set the genea-blogosphere awhirl. Hardly any active genea-blogger failed to weigh in on this issue. And that fact apparently carried some influence with The Generations Network. Additionally, readers and commenters were active. Although I usually don’t swell on such matters, GeneaBlogie received more visits on this controversy than we’ve had on any other issue. Six visits in the last twenty-four hours came from Ancestry’s corporate headquarters.
Archive for August 30, 2007
Reminder: Carnival Deadline is September 1
Get your submissions in before you leave for the long weekend! The submission site is here.
1890 Census Series Delayed
Our promised series on the 1890 census has been delayed while we reacted to and researched the issues concerning the Ancestry.com caching matter. It will be posted on Friday.
Ancestry.com Removes "Internet Biographical Database"
I’ve just come home from work to find messages and blogs stating that Ancestry.com has removed their “Internet Biographical Collection” which cached the work of other genealogists without permission or credit.
Ancestry clearly underestimated the reaction of the genealogy community when they created this blunder. Their announcement says that the database is removed “for the time being.”
One lesson I hope Ancestry comes away with is that they need to collaborate with this community–they can’t just rub roughshod over the community without paying a price.
I’ve been talking with some of my academic and practicing colleagues and next week, we’ll present a series on the legal issues involved here.
Ancestry.com UPDATE
Ancestry.com has posted a message here. Be sure to check out the comments.
Ancestry.com: Thieves, Hypocrites, Blunderers, or Fair Users?
I got an e-mail from Janice Brown of Cow Hampshire, telling me about Ancestry.com’s “Internet Biography Collection.” I always appreciate hearing about new resources on the Web. But the problem here is that Ancestry.com, a commercial, for-profit enterprise, has appropriated Janice’s work, the work of a number of other bloggers and noncommercial webmasters, and MINE!
Ancestry explains its new collection thusly:
There are, it seems to me, several problems with this. First, what Ancestry has done is more than “sample” the “biographical sketches;” they’ve cached whole pages and sites. And they admit implicitly that the data is not theirs. This is just as if they had reproduced, without permission, pages from a printed book. In the case of GeneaBlogie, they’ve reproduced numerous pages relating to almost every one of the surnames I’ve researched. Ancestry.com’s actions are made all the more galling by the attitude they’ve taken with respect to what is arguably fair use of their intellectual property. And where in marketing school do they teach that it’s a good idea to rip off and piss off some of your best customers? The marketing missteps of The Generations Network are unbelievable. Do they have any lawyers? You can bet I’m going to find out. The genea-blogsphere is in an uproar over this. See Miriam at AnceStories; Amy Crooks of Untangled Family Roots;
This database contains a sampling of biographical sketches found on English language web pages throughout the entire World Wide Web. Web pages can vary greatly in the amount of information they contain about a given person, and in the number of related and unrelated people mentioned on the same page. The information source and the central topic of each page will also vary greatly. Given facts should be verified using other sources. One unique and valuable feature of this web-based collection is the number of hyperlinks leading from each page in the collection to other web pages of possible interest on related topics.
and Susan Kitchens (who’s got a great parody!).
Susan Kitchens has isolated the bot that is being used to scrape the sites.
Preview: The Story of the 1890 Census
We all “know” that the 1890 census was destroyed in a fire at the Commerce Department in January, 1921. But do we know the whole story of the 1890 census?
The 1890 census was in trouble long before that tragic night in 1921. The Superintendent of the Census, one R.P. Porter, had to constantly defend his work against charges that the 1890 enumeration was “illegal,” “fraudulently,” “a waste of taxpayers money,” and “inaccurate.” These allegations came from all corners of the country.
What caused the fire? Could it have been sparked by the thirty years of controversy?
Starting Wednesday, August 29, at GeneaBlogie: The Story of the 1890 Census
Family History Out in the Cold–Again
It’s been almost two years since we reported on the discovery of the body of an airman in California’s Sierra Nevada. The airman was later identified as 22 year-old aviation cadet Leo Mustonen of Brainerd, Minnesota. He and three other airmen were on a training mission from Mather Field near Sacramento on November 18, 1942, when their aircraft disappeared. The bodies of the other three airmen were not recovered in 2005.
The body of Aviation Cadet Leo Mustonen is handled with honors at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. (Department of Defense Photo by Sgt. Michael Caya, U.S. Army)
This week, the story took another turn:
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
A 1923 buffalo nickel, an old Army uniform and a crumbly wallet with faded photographs might help investigators figure out exactly which missing World War II airman’s remains are lying in the county morgue in Fresno.
But it will probably come down to something more modern and foolproof – DNA matching.
The remains of what is believed to be the second of four crewmen who died on a 1942 training flight were found by hikers last week on a remote Sierra mountainside in Kings Canyon National Park. The body was taken by helicopter and coroner’s van to the morgue Monday.
Read the rest of the story here.
The three missing airmen are 2nd Lt. William Gamber, 23, of Fayette, Ohio; and aviation cadets John Mortenson, 25, of Moscow, Idaho; Ernest Munn, 23, of St. Clairesville, Ohio. As before, the identification will be done by the Central Identification Laboratory of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. JPAC has world-class personnel and uses the best available science to perform its sensitive mission. Its facility in Hawaii is the largest forensic anthropology laboratory in the world. Hopefully, another family is about to get closure.
You Can Help
There are over 35,000 Americans still missing but deemed recoverable from World War II. The Government is committed to bringing closure to their families as well as the families of missing servicemembers from other conflicts. DNA samples contributed by family members will aid in the identification process. If your family stories include the lore of a loved one who never returned from war, it may not be too late to help write the end of the story. See the JPAC website for information on how to contribute a DNA sample.
The Online Conference
Having read some of the Carnival posts about conferences, Denise at Family Matters suggested that we could put on a webinar. My first reaction was basically, “good idea,” in a noncommital sort of way. But by the time I woke up at 4:15 am, the idea had passed from “good idea” to “You know, we could really do this!” Then I went and checked my e-mail and found a message from Denise. She’s definitely in the “we could really do this” mode and her enthusiam fueled mine.
We could really do this! As Denise points out, there’s enough talent out there to do this.
I’m in.
Carnival Time!
It’s that time again: The 154th edition of the California State Fair has commenced in Sacramento and the Carnival of Genealogy (30th edition) is back at Jasia’s Creative Gene. The theme this time is “Fun Never Grows Old.” Wait, sorry, that’s the State Fair theme! The Carnival of Genealogy theme is genealogical conferences/seminars. [Insert your own punchline here].
Geneablogie has the great honor of hosting the next edition of the Carnival. The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy will be: Confirm or Debunk: Family Myths, Legends, and Lore. Family myths or legends are those widely circulated yet unconfirmed stories that may range from the origin of an ancestor to more complex lore. Everyone who looks into family backgrounds, however we label them, sooner or later comes across the truth or untruth of these myths or legends. What does one do when confronted with evidence contrary to a long-standing family legend? What are some of the legends that the participants have confirmed or debunked or would like to confirm? How did family react to the discovery of the real story? Maybe the real story was even better than the myth?
The deadline for submissions is September 1st. You can submit your blog article for the next edition using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
