LDS vs Ancestry

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Permalink Reply by Cindy Johnston Sorley on July 9, 2009 at 4:38am

I have no clue about your question but I know that Ancestry and the LDS Church's web site are separate. Ancestry has become the powerhouse in genealogy search and many don't even think to us the LDS website. In fact, I never use it. I never think to use the LDS site when I have what I need at Ancestry and other sites. I have found mistakes on both sites in Family trees and such but far more on the LDS site.

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Permalink Reply by Co Ordinator on July 10, 2009 at 6:15am

I do indexing for the LDS site and find that sometimes what I am indexing it is with in my searching so that is a bonus to me and get to see info first hand. I also use LDS for my searching as I am sick and tired of all the other sites asking to upgrade to premium or because you haven't done so they have sort of downgraded you. When you do go to use them you find that the credits have sky rocketed and combined with the world exchange rates it is out of reach for most thus creating free lookings so as everyone benefits.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Drake on July 10, 2009 at 11:22am

I heard the same remarks, so I emailed LDS and suggested that they should not allow Ancestry or any other overpriced pay-for site take advantage of the fine reputation the church and library now enjoy. Considering how little Ancestry has for research, I resent being bombarded by their ads on many websites..

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Permalink Reply by Franklin Chocco on July 10, 2009 at 12:09pm

FamilySearch and Ancestry are two separate organizations and will remain as two different entities. One organization is dedicated to free access to their databases while the other is in business to make a profit.

Ancestry some months back decided to no longer provide free access to all of their databases at all of the 4500 family history centers. Instead they wanted to have everyone access their databases through membershp subscriptions.

The Genealogical Society of Utah, a non-profit entity of The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints - Family History Department decided that they would digitize all of their records and make them available on the Internet. To do this a request was made for volunteers to index the digital images under a program called FamilySearch Indexing on the Internet. The program has been very successulful and today has approximately 135,000+ volunteers indexing records. The information indexed so far has about a 98% accuracy rate. It is a win-win situation for all groups - one provides digitized images and the other provides indexing for those images.

Also several other organizations such as World Vital Records and Footnote.com , who already has digitized databases were approached with a plan to let the LDS Church index their records and in return allow access to their digitize images from a link in FamilySearch .org. You mae a search at FamilySearch.org for an ancestor, find a match with a link to the record images at another site.

Ancestry later entered into agrrements to allow only the 12 egiuonal Family History Centers to have access to only the U.S. Records database Collection. Then subsequently, Ancestry entered sinto another agreement to have their U.S. Census records re-indexed by LDS volunteers because of the high accuacy rate of the LDS Church indexers. Originally, these records had been outsourced to China by Ancestry and the results were not as accurate or complete as the LDS Church's indexing.

This is the reason you now see lin ksto the images from FamilySearch.org to Ancestry.com

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Permalink Reply by Donna Atkinson on July 10, 2009 at 12:47pm

I use labs.familysearch.org a lot since they have begun this project. Love it except when I hit Footnote. It appears to be a paid site which throws off my good humor again.

I have found a lot of good information on the website including a person in the 1910 census that didn't show up in Heritage Quest which I also use. The 1850 and 1900 census have ALL the names listed which helps find children etc.

I can't wait until the project is done. With all they have it may not be in my lifetime.

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Permalink Reply by Quan Pruitt on July 10, 2009 at 8:35pm

Good to hear that they have not merged. I just could not see the church changing its doctrine. I was really concern there for a moment. I love the new LDS site. A fan that has been using it for years. I also use Heritage Quest, but I miss the bonus of the old days with them. Thanks for the updates!

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Permalink Reply by tami osmer glatz on July 10, 2009 at 9:02pm

The LDS church does have an arrangement of sorts with Footnote, so that you can use Footnote.com for free at any Family History Center. The FHC's offer access to other subscription sites as well, including World Vital Records, Genline, the Godfrey Memorial Library and a few others.


Donna Atkinson said:

I use labs.familysearch.org a lot since they have begun this project. Love it except when I hit Footnote. It appears to be a paid site which throws off my good humor again.

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Permalink Reply by J. Moore on July 10, 2009 at 9:10pm

First, thanks Mr. Chocco for the interesting info. I've patronized FHCs many times but (not being Mormon myself) I had I suppose just sort of blindly assumed that the church was purchasing some sort of 'corporate' subscription. I had no idea they were getting free access. That's kind of remarkable. Was it in fact China that Ancestry were outsourcing indexing to? Wow. That's... also remarkable. I had always heard India (and that seemed dodgy enough) but China? Good grief. They're not even native English speakers...

Donna Atkinson said:

I use labs.familysearch.org a lot since they have begun this project. Love it except when I hit Footnote. It appears to be a paid site which throws off my good humor again.

I have found a lot of good information on the website including a person in the 1910 census that didn't show up in Heritage Quest which I also use. The 1850 and 1900 census have ALL the names listed which helps find children etc.

I can't wait until the project is done. With all they have it may not be in my lifetime.

Aw, don't be too hard on Footnote. ;D

They're really quite wonderful for muster rolls, cmsrs, dawes/miller apps, rev. war pension apps, widow's pension apps for the civil war, etc. You can save serious bucks by getting that stuff from them. Its certainly cheaper than dealing with the government, and usually cheaper than even renting microfilm from the FHL given that you'll invariably have to use gas in your car to drive to the library or FHC, pay for copies, etc., etc... and the digitized images at Footnote are better quality than you're ever going to manage to print from a microfilm reader.

Very much agree with you on the new familysearch at labs.familysearch.org of course. I love to see new databases and linked images going up every couple of weeks. There is very fast progress being made by those volunteers, and its all generally highly accurately indexed. Tough to beat that for $0. ;D

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Permalink Reply by Cheri Boyd on June 19, 2011 at 3:31pm

I am a big fan of LDS and have found valuable information.  In reading further comments I see others have encountered Footnote as well. When you think your going to see something great, but there's a price, a lull comes over you real fast, given then snatched away.

 I will continue to use Family Search and refer others to the site as well.

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