A couple of people have left comments on this blog, asking for summaries of the presentations at the conference .\u00a0 For the first of these summaries, I’ll start with the last presentation:\u00a0 the keynote speech at the banquet presented by Joseph B. Everett, who currently works for Ancestry.com<\/a> and who spoke on “New Databases and Features of Ancestry.com” .\u00a0 I had actually met Joe before, when he worked as a Supervisor on the International Floor at the Family History Library<\/a> .\u00a0 During two separate visits to the FHL in the past, he helped me translate Russian documents relating to my Niedzialkowski ancestors .\u00a0 The amazing thing, though, is that he even remembered me from those two isolated occasions!\u00c2\u00a0 Wow, the guy has a good memory!<\/p>\n Some of the new features Joe talked about included the complete<\/em> England and Wales Census collection, the doubling<\/em> of the Historical Newspapers collection, and the addition of new<\/em> Canadian Records<\/a> .\u00a0 In connection with the Historical Newspapers collection, he pointed out that, when searching this collection, one should enter the search terms, including names, in the keyword box .\u00a0 The Historical Newspaper collection is not indexed for First Names and Last Names, so\u00c2\u00a0the search engine\u00c2\u00a0just looks for the keywords anywhere in the newspapers .\u00a0 Joe gave us examples of how to search for newspaper articles and census records for Lt. Col. Francis S. “Gabby” Gabreski<\/a>, a World War II Ace Pilot .\u00a0 It was quite an interesting story.<\/p>\n One other point Joe mentioned was that Ancestry.com has added the ability for researchers to add alternate names, add comments, or report image errors for some of the databases, including census records .\u00a0 I actually took advantage of this new feature, since my grandfather, Kostanty Niedzialkoski, was indexed in the 1920 US Census as Kostanty Pudgealkoski<\/em>!\u00c2\u00a0 The alternate names that users add are then available to all users, so that poorly transcribed names won’t be a brickwall for future researchers .\u00a0 I have attached an image of the 1920 Census record for my grandfather so you can see why his name was so badly transcribed in the index .\u00a0 Click on the image below to view a larger image .\u00a0 Kostanty is enumerated on line 77, and my grandmother Helen is on line 78.<\/p>\n Kostanty Niedzialkowski in the 1920 US Federal Census<\/p><\/div>\n Finally, I want to point out a couple of features of this blog to those of you who visit regularly .\u00a0 You can post a comment by clicking on the “Comments” link at the bottom of each of the entries .\u00a0 The first time you post a comment, the comment must be approved by the Administrator (that’s me) before it appears on the blog .\u00a0 After the first comment is approved, your future comments will automatically be approved without any intervention from me .\u00a0 Second, if you post a comment and want to return to the main page, just click on the banner “Steve’s Genealogy Blog” at the top of the page .\u00a0 Third, you can visit my website by clicking on one of the links to the right of the blog under “Steve’s Genealogy Web”.<\/p>\n Thanks for visiting, and be sure to leave a comment!<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2006 by Stephen J. Danko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few days ago, I promised to write more about Ceil Jensen’s multimedia presentation that she promised would have us dancing in the aisles. Continue reading ![\"Kostanty](\"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/04\/CUS-1920-Niedzialkowski-Kostanty-1023x755.jpg\" "\\"Kostanty")
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