The Generations Network formally becomes Ancestry.com

Thought I would pass along a note that The Generations Network has once again changed its name. Now it will be formally called, Ancestry.com. This is about the third name change in as many years! This is the same company that "took over" Rootsweb and Family Tree Maker.

eBay comes to Ancestry... sorta

I got this press release today about a new top gun at Ancestry.com. It seems they are still shaking things up after the Family Tree Maker 2008 disaster. They have gone out and grabbed one of eBay's brightest. Hopefully Eric can help bring some of prestige back to the product line.

"Eric Shoup, Former General Manager for eBay Stores, Joins The Generations Network as Ancestry.com's Vice President of Product
Management Leader to Play Key Role in Bay Area Growth of Ancestry.com

PRNewswire
PROVO, Utah

PROVO, Utah, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The Generations Network (TGN), parent company of Ancestry.com, today announced the hiring of Eric Shoup as vice president of product for the Ancestry.com business unit. As a new management leader, Shoup will be responsible for the product strategy, product definition and design for the global platform of Ancestry.com, the world's largest online family history resource. He will lead the product management and user interface design teams. Bringing more than 15 years of product marketing and general management experience, he will be based in the company's San Francisco office.

"We're thrilled to have Eric Shoup join Ancestry.com during this time of accelerated growth," said Andrew Wait, senior vice president and general manager of family history for Ancestry.com. "Eric is key to the continued expansion of Ancestry.com and to our company's increasing presence in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. His impressive background and strong leadership skills make him the best person to lead this effort while nicely complimenting our team in Utah."

Prior to joining TGN, Shoup was at eBay for five years, where he focused on growing several of eBay's growing businesses, most recently as the general manager for the eBay Stores and ProStores business units. In a previous position, Eric assembled and led eBay's first global mobile product team. During his eBay career, Shoup also played key product leadership roles over different areas such as eBay Stores, Shipping and Merchandising.

Prior to eBay, Shoup drove key product marketing and management initiatives at Commerce One, a leading provider of global e-commerce solutions for businesses. While at US Interactive, Shoup designed and managed consumer ecommerce and marketing Web sites for established companies such as Lexus and Wellcome Supermarkets (Hong Kong).

As a new member of the management team, Shoup will work closely with a strong team of professionals in Ancestry.com's new San Francisco office, including Cheyenne Richards, recently promoted to vice president of marketing and a former executive with Avenue A Razorfish, as well as co-workers recently hired from Yahoo, Apple, Organic, CNET, Zenith Optimedia and Expedia.

About the Ancestry Global Network

The Ancestry global network of family history Web sites is wholly owned by The Generations Network, Inc. It consists of nine Web sites -- http://www.ancestry.com/ in the U.S., http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ in the UK, http://www.ancestry.ca/ in Canada, http://www.ancestry.com.au/ in Australia, http://www.ancestry.de/ in Germany, http://www.ancestry.it/ in Italy, http://www.ancestry.fr/ in France, http://www.ancestry.se/ in Sweden and http://www.jiapu.cn/ in China. Ancestry members have access to 7 billion names contained in 26,000 historical record collections. Tree-building and photo upload are free on all Ancestry websites. To date, Ancestry.com users have created more than 7 million family trees containing 675 million profiles and 11 million photographs. Nearly 5.4 million unique visitors logged onto Ancestry.com in July 2008 (comScore Media Metrix, Worldwide).

SOURCE: Ancestry.com

CONTACT: Sara Black of PainePR, +1-213-996-3812, sblack@painepr.com, for
Ancestry.com

Web site: http://www.ancestry.com/"

Ancestry's World Archives Project Records, Free for Contributors

This a follow-up to an earlier post I made about "Ancestry.com World Archives Project Keying Tool Beta"...

I just saw at Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter that Ancestry will give "...all those who are active contributors (those who key at least 900 records per quarter)...free access to all the images associated the World Archives Project…not just the ones that they’ve worked on."

That is at least a step in the right direction!

Ancestry.com World Archives Project Keying Tool Beta

I was invited to participate in Ancestry's beta testing of their new World Archives Project's keying tool. I have used it several times over the past few weeks and feel I can finally comment on it a little.

In this post, I am going to give you a little background on the project. I am then going to rant about a fundamental problem with the project...one that can be easily fixed if they choose. I will write another post, probably tomorrow, about the actual keying tool and the records we are keying.

According to the Generations Network:

"We have created the World Archives Project so individuals everywhere can collaborate in an effort to preserve more of the world’s historical records. This initiative will give genealogists the opportunity to network and share resources with one another, key records that are important to them and that might not otherwise be indexed – and create indexes that will be open and free to others pursuing family research."

From what I can tell, this is an ingenious move for Ancestry. Unless I am missing the point, I see this as a great way for them to increase business through what is more-or-less know as a loose form of keyword spamming. For those not familiar with this practice, let me explain.

Ancestry encourages people to subscribe to their paid record services by allowing their indexes to be searched for free. The more entries there are in the index, the more likely names that you are interested in will come up during a search. If that name comes up enough times, you might be willing to subscribe to look at the actual records and not just the free index. An index is great but the record is what you really need...but don't forget that you have to pay for that.

Keep following my logic...

The more names in the free index, the more likely a given person will find something of enough interest to get them to pay for a subscription. It is therefore in Ancestry's best interest to have as many names in their index as possible.

In their normal business model, Ancestry would pay people to transcribe records into indexes. Now they are turning it into a volunteer project, getting the same job done for free! You have to respect the people who came up with that idea...give them a bonus!

What does the volunteer get out of it? Nothing other than the satisfaction I suppose of "helping" the greater cause. (The program keeps track of how many records you have submitted to further swell your ego!) But what is the greater cause???

Read the quote from Ancestry again, the part where you will help to "create indexes that will be open and free to others pursuing family research." Do you see the ingenious part yet???? The money-making part??? You are helping to create more index entries for Ancestry.com that are searchable for free but you have to subscribe to see the actual record. The INDEX is free, not the RECORD.

From a business standpoint, this is complete gold. They are getting free labor to stuff their indexes with more names that will drive more people to their paid records! I wish I had hundreds of volunteers that would add great content to this blog so that I could increase the number of visitors I get and therefore the amount of money I get from the few ads that I run.

Free labor under the guise of volunteerism...I love it!

Now do not get me wrong, I love Ancestry! I have been a member for years and the world is a better place with them in it. On the whole, I think the indexing project is great...I have entered a few hundred names myself. I think the creation of indexes is commendable and are a major help to genealogists. I love the idea of what they are doing. I am honestly jealous that I did not think of it myself.

The only problem that I have with the project is that it is truly a source of free labor for them. They should reward those who submit a certain number of entries with free subscriptions or something like enter 5,000 and get a month for free...something like that.

In the Internet marketplace, content is the key to success and YOU are providing the content...for nothing. Yes, they are scanning and hosting the actual images but that is worthless on the net. Search engines cannot read scans of old handwriting. They need typed indexes of the document content for the scans to be worth a penny. I could put photos of tombstones on my blog all day but they are useless if I do not TYPE the name and dates under the photo. You would never find this...

...if I did not type in here that this is the tombstone of Evan and Sarah J. Snead in Hollywood Cemetery of Richmond, Virginia.

I know that I am giving Ancestry a bit of a hard time here but I want them to know that we know what they are up to. I would love to see the project be successful but they should kick back some benefit to those who do the work. Incentivize the project instead of calling it "volunteer." I wish someone would "volunteer" to make me more money while requiring none in return!

Feel free to volunteer on the project...I will continue to do so myself...just encourage them to barter a better bargain in the future for their volunteers.

Family Tree Maker 2009

The Generations Network has released the following statement about their impending release of Family Tree Maker 2009:

"The Family Tree Maker team is pleased to announce the release of Family Tree Maker 2009. We are excited about the new features and user requested tools included in this version.

Over the past year, we have been making patches available that include additional functionality and features that our customers have asked for. In addition, the features included in the 2009 version come primarily from our Family Tree Maker 2008 users, showing us what features should be released next and testing the product to make sure it is working at top efficiency. We had more than 300 beta testers for Family Tree Maker 2009. We appreciate this active and ongoing participation.

Take a look at what’s new since the original release of Family Tree Maker 2008. Features available for the first time in Version 2009 are marked with an asterisk (*).
Genealogy Reports

• Register and Ahnentafel full reports
• Register and Ahnentafel simplified reports*
• Data Errors report*

Charts

• Vertical Pedigree Chart
• Hourglass Chart*
• Horizontal Hourglass Chart*
• Bow Tie Chart*
• 180-Degree Fan Chart*
• Family Tree Chart*

Publishing Functionality

• Book layouts for main charts
• Saved settings in charts/reports
• Saved templates in charts
• Preparer information included in chart footers
• Enhancements to the RTF export
• Ability to show siblings within charts*
• Single-page PDF export from charts*
• Ability to add boxes in charts to a “Marked Box” category and modify box settings for these boxes*

Improved Data Manipulation Tools

• Change Place Name tool
• Find and Replace tool
• Streamlined data entry from any workspace using a full-featured edit person window*
• Ability to set spouse order (Person menu)*
• Ability to order media items for an individual*
• Find Individual tool (Edit menu)*
• Find Duplicate Individuals tool (Edit menu)*
• Ability to update multiple facts at one time (From Manage Facts or Fact options): change fact types, move description to place or place to description, mark as private*
• Insert foreign language characters into text fields*

Improvements within Research Tools

• Automatic simple backup at shutdown
• Ability to ignore hints*
• Option to delete existing facts in individual and Web merge*
• Inclusion of married names, AKAs, and titles in index*

Improvements to Import

• Improved name parsing
• OLE objects (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, RTF) from previous FTM versions*
• Import previously ignored hints lists*

Improvements to Places

• Track and print your ancestors’ migration paths on interactive maps*
• Places toolbar that allows for researching place names not currently in the file and pinpointing places such as libraries, churches, and courthouses*

Improvements to Sources

• Copy and paste source citations

* New in Family Tree Maker 2009

Here’s what’s coming:
In addition, we are currently working on new features that will be available as part of Family Tree Maker 2009—as soon as they become available:

• Book Building
• Better Ancestry Member Tree Integration
• Improved Relationship Calculator
• Source templates based on Evidence Explained by source expert, Elizabeth Shown Mills
• And many others…

Thank you to all of the Family Tree Maker community for their loyalty through the years. We are committed to making Family Tree Maker the best desktop software for doing your family history.

Thank you,

The Family Tree Maker Team"

Family Tree Maker 2009 - Free Upgrade!

If you have a copy of Family Tree Maker 2008 and have not registered it...do so now. According to the Generations Network:

"...we’re giving our loyal Family Tree Maker 2008 customers a free upgrade to 2009. Last year around this time we released Family Tree Maker 2008. There was some initial customer dissatisfaction with the functionality in that release. We heard from customers who felt they didn’t receive what they were expecting. Over the past year, we’ve listened carefully to their feedback and have added many new features in the form of free patches which have been enthusiastically received. Family Tree Maker 2009 has even more features and functions that were not in previous patches...In the next few weeks, Family Tree Maker 2008 registrants will receive an email with a one-time-use coupon that can be redeemed for a free version of Family Tree Maker 2009..."

At least they are trying!

If you did not buy 2009, you can order it here...

Family Tree Maker 2008 SP3 Released

The Generations Network has released Service Pack 3 for Family Tree Maker 2008. The update can be downloaded here if your copy of the program did not update automatically. The current version is labeled 17.0.0.965.

Let's cross our fingers and hope that this dramatically improves the product. I have been Beta testing at version 17.0.0.948 for some time. There are a few issues in that version but nothing major. I have only experienced one crash in the past several months. The biggest problem that I saw was with the spell check function. It would allow you to check and make corrections but it would not save them. Run spell check again and the same errors were present.

According to their website, the release notes are as follows:

"Enhancements and New features:

• Major enhancements to performance, improvements including:
• Startup time
• File load time
• Report/Chart creation time
• General navigation
• Memory usage
• Major enhancements to stability throughout the program
• Book layout in charts for:
• Descendant Chart
• Hourglass Chart
• Vertical Pedigree Chart
• Ability to create saved versions for all charts and reports
• Ability to apply predefined templates for charts
• Ability to save user created templates for charts
• Enhancements to place interactions, including:
• New Change Place Name dialog allowing for easier changing of place name and description information
• Double-clicking and right clicking additions to the Places workspace
• New Find-and-Replace dialog with additional ability to search with wildcards and to specify where to search in and enhanced information showing where the item was found.
• Major enhancements to the Analyze/Compact file functionality
• Outline Descendant report has Items to Include options
• Inclusion of Married Name AKA and Titles in index
• Automatic simple backup at shutdown
• Ability to turn off place authority searching when entering place names
• Enhancements to the RTF export
• Ability to add boxes in charts to a “Marked Box” category and modify box settings for these boxes
• Preparer Information in the footer for charts
• Options to include spouses and children in filtering and exporting of people

Major enhancements to Sources including

People Workspace

• Copy and paste source-citations. After copying (from source-citation dialog or sources toolbar), you can paste a duplicate source-citation or a link to the existing one via the “New” source menu.
• Ability to copy source-citation at creation for pasting

Sources Workspace

• Double-clicking on a source title in the “Sources” workspace displays the “Edit Source Title” dialog for easier editing of sources in this view.
• Double-clicking on a repository in the “Sources” workspace displays the “Edit Repository” dialog for easier editing of repositories in this view.
• Right-mouse menus have been added to the left panel.

Repository Dialog

• The “Repository” dialog is resizable.

Source Title Dialog

• The “Source Title” dialog includes a usage button that displays usage for that source (This is redundant in the “Source” workspace, but useful elsewhere).
• The “Source Title” dialog is resizable.

Source-Citation Dialog

• The “Source-Citation” dialog is resizable
• The “Source-Citation” dialog includes a reference to the number of linked facts.
• Addition of a copy button (see copy and paste source-citations above).

Find Source-Citation Dialog

• The option to “Link To Existing Source-Citation” is changed to “Use Existing Source-Citation.” Then there are two buttons in the resulting “Find Source-Citation” dialog. After finding and selecting a source-citation the user can choose “Link To Citation” or “Copy New Citation”. The link option does the same as “OK” did before and the new copy option adds another easy way to create a duplicate source-citation.
• Performance when listing by people is greatly improved.
• The “View by” setting is remembered so that if you view by source title for example, it comes up that way the next time.
• Left and right panels are sized proportionally when the dialog is resized.

List of some of the higher priority bugs that have been fixed

Charts

• Made default settings more like FTM 16 default settings.
• Changes made in Box, Border, and Line Options don’t force a chart reload unless necessary.
• Export to image decreases the resolution (DPI) of the image if the image is very large.
• Charting uses less memory.
• Charting draws faster.
• Saved chart dates and times work for international dates.
• The User Interface recognizes metric regions and sizes are shown in centimeters or millimeters for Metric regions.
• Improved drawing and scaling of the “Advanced” layout for Standard Pedigree charts in Poster layout.
• Background colors stay in synchronization which background images changes and vice-versa.
• Facts that are description centric, such as AKA, now default to options that are meaningful.
• Miscellaneous UI changes such as hiding the “Advanced” button when in book layout or not in Standard Pedigree charts.
• Improved loading time for Box, Border, and Line Options dialog, Fonts Dialog, and Page Setup.
• Improved pedigree line drawing for special conditions such as parent box smaller than child box in a Standard Pedigree.
• Improved the restoring of box sizes on reload or opening a saved chart.
• File dialog restores to last directory used.
• Quick Print Dialog did not have the correct values in the header control.
• Selected boxes in charts have “more emphasis” to show that they are selected.
• Improved displaying of all Shared Facts.
• Improved drawing speed and memory usage for pedigree lines in the pedigree chart.
• Improved drawing of pedigree lines in the pedigree chart by calculating the overlap and thus finding a new “center” point.
• The “fact” or divider line can now be a different color and width than the pedigree line. This makes it possible to do some nice contrast inside of the person box.
• If a fact is changed it is picked up in the chart. The chart doesn’t reload and often the fact change is such that this doesn’t matter. If the chart does need to be regenerated there is now a generate button too.
• Saving of POSTER size images of all types of charts. (Export Image)
• Gradient box fill ability. Note that some printers can’t handle gradient and transparent at the same time.
• Throttle the chart size after 14 generations for Pedigree charts in poster layout. All other charts have a 99 generation limit now. Charts over 13 generations will set the spacing to collapsed.

Reports

• RTF output is not easily editable
• Photo album excludes non-image media items.
• Title includes primary person automatically for some reports
• Ahnentafel Report - blank lines between end notes
• Ahnentafel Report - disappears when checking Use short biographies
• Ahnentafel report - name and sex fact notes don’t display
• Export to RTF, data fields are underlined
• Individual Report - Name options don’t apply to all names
• Outline Descendant Report - export to RTF includes weird characters
• Outline Descendant Report - Items to include, include blank facts not working
• Outline Descendant Report - name of focus person not in title
• Place Usage Report - missing fact labels
• Register Report - Also Known As not displaying correctly
• Register Report - names in all caps
• Register Report - not seeing Name fact note
• Register Report and Ahnentafel Report - information repeating
• Report Titles not updating
• Spouse sorting in individual report is fixed
• Civil and Canon values in Kinship report is fixed
• Individual report sorting spouses incorrectly
• Notes do not appear correctly in reports
• Bold, Italic, & Underline in notes don’t appear in Individual Report
• Photo album report – images per row setting not working
• Documented Facts Report – non-preferred facts not appearing, their sources are
• Photo Album Report - blanks out with non-image media items
• Photo Album Report - sorting images (images are now sorted by caption and filename)
• Kinship Report - sorting individuals
• Register Report - crash saving report
• Research Note Report - not displaying bold, underline & italic in notes
• Relationship Report not working in People module
• Photo Album not working in People module
• Individual report displays preferred name for all name facts.
• Fixed numbering problem in Outline Descendant report

Find and Replace

• Clicking stop before results are found messes up what gets found and results in a crash
• Can’t find words with punctuation at the end
• Certain characters (<>) caused the found text to not be displayed
• Crash navigating to people collection after “Go To” from find and replace
• Change all place names dialog pops up even if there is only 1 fact associated with a place
• Can click find and replace when there is no tree loaded

Copy/Paste Sources

• Pasting Link/Copy to a source causes problems with the reference note
• Pasting a duplicate source doesn’t copy the source note
• Paste option not active on facts that have no data
• Ability to copy source from Manage Source view added

File Merge

• Marriage fact of preferred spouse was shown for all spouses in the host file
• Improved people matching
• File merge creates multiple relationships for the same person
• FTM crashes when merging creates a recursive relationship (i.e. child is his own father)
• Improved matching accuracy and performance when files are derivatives of each other

Web Merge

• Crash when changing a place name in web search and then merging
• Clicking on “Create Page Archive” before Web Search is completely loaded crashes FTM
• Source not added to sex fact if default merge settings were changed
• Added drop-down to select a different source title when editing source
• Web Merge Wizard dialog doesn’t display the correct instructions when merging images and notes (but no facts/people)
• Crash when editing a screen scraped place name and then trying to merge
• Multiple copies of the same media being saved to the media folder when merging the same Ancestry.com record multiple times

General

• People filter updated to be more correct
• Crash after compact then backing up fixed
• Gedcom export was doing certain fact types (description only, etc.)
• Export of living people no longer uses Living as their name. It keeps the name but hides all other facts.
• “Approximately” or “Approx.” should be recognized as “Abt. for dates
• Britain resolve place name selection of United Kingdom clears field
• If the history is empty it shows the same names as index
• Program crashes when you delete a person from the History panel
• Edit source dialog/Reference note doesn’t display citation text when is should
• Children sorting in family panel fixed
• Change place name issues resolved (crashes when adding just description and other problems)
• Modified reference notes correctly imported
• Scrolling problem in source list in person view
• “Approximately” or “Approx.” now recognized as “Abt. for dates
• Relationship information now showing up in English installs in non-English speaking countries
• Crash when merging two people together, sometimes
• Crash when changing person’s name due to Operating System audio driver crash
• Crash when adding sources – it may crash one more time, then on restart fix the problem
• Crash when adding media types .gif and .ICO
• Fixes to resolving place names without a city name
• Non-preferred facts show up in reports
• Problems importing sources from FTM 2005 files
• Marriage data not showing in hourglass chart
• Ahnentafel numbers are not correct
• Export not working when “Include private Facts” deselected.
• Exporting a subset of people still includes all places, sources, etc.
• Resolve All Dialog doesn’t append to description it replaces the existing descry
• Register Report shows same info for multiple spouses
• Alternate names do not appear in the Family Group Sheet
• Error importing v2005 file
• Pressing the ESC key clears the data in a date or description field
• AKA appears out of order in charts and reports
• Media Item Report Export to .PDF not working correctly
• Printing a Pedigree Chart from People isn’t working
• Moving a place to a description then moves the description to the place
• Pedigree, Descendant, Hourglass, & Vertical Pedigree Charts - settings not saved
• Import of media caption and description is lost via PAF import
• Source not always being added from Web Merge
• Unknown dates not exporting to Gedcom
• Can’t delete project after running media report - media item held open
• UNK should be recognized when entered as a date as Unknown
• Importing GEDCOM file with normal tags
• Duplicate people showing up in relationship view"

What's up with Rootsweb and Ancestry?

For anyone not in the know, the USGenWeb Project is hosted at Rootsweb. A few years back, Ancestry (now The Generations Network) was nice enough to donate all of the server space for the project. This has been the case for years and Ancestry has received pretty much nothing in return.

In the old days, Rootsweb used to ask for private donations and I used to be a donor. I was a volunteer for a few counties in Virginia so I felt obligated to provide some financial support, around $50 per year. When Ancestry stepped in, it was a big sigh of relief because Rootsweb no longer needed money out of our pockets.

The relationship between Rootsweb and Ancestry became more intertwined over the years. Rootsweb became known as “an Ancestry.com community.” Rootsweb became a marketable brand for Ancestry.

A few months ago, Ancestry sprung a surprise on the volunteers at Rootsweb and the USGenWeb Project. Ancestry was going to put a banner at the top of every page hosted on Rootsweb, an advertisement for their company. A large number of Rootsweb volunteers went crazy, furious that Ancestry had the audacity to turn their genealogy project into a profit center. The USGenWeb Project always stated its mission as being “non-commercial and fully committed to free genealogy access for everyone.” These principles seemed to clash...or did they?

I currently volunteer for two counties in Virginia. I have honestly neglected the sites for awhile because I am tired of all the controversy that has been brewing. Volunteers are moving their sites off Ancestry's servers so a lot of the old links do not work anymore. How does that help freely spread genealogy when you cannot find it? This is a huge mess and I am honestly getting tired of being a part of it. I think I am going to probably give up my two sites but I have not decided yet.

Through all of this I have not moved my sites nor would I in the future, if I keep them. The Ancestry banner is quite small, very similar to the Blogger banner you see at the very top of this page. Google owns Blogger. Blogger gives free web space for people to host their blog. It is therefore their right to get at least a small ad out of it. The ads are unobtrusive and most people do not pay any attention to them. I do not see what all the fuss is about.

I am getting a little off track but the point is that the USGenWeb project is at risk of falling apart, simply over a one-half inch banner at the top of every page. The banner says “Hosted at Rootsweb...an Ancestry.com Community.” It does not sell products or blatantly push a subscription service. It is a token gesture to give Ancestry more exposure in a tough market. If you look at Google trends, genealogy searches are falling off more each year. You cannot fault Ancestry for trying to expand their market reach in these trying times.

I would estimate that Ancestry spends tens of thousands of dollars per year to pay for all of the server space and bandwidth that Rootsweb has enjoyed for years. Instead of understanding that someone has to pay for all that space, people get all upset and scream that genealogy should be free for everyone. The last time I checked, it still was free. Ancestry is not directly selling anything with the banner and no subscription is required. I doubt they even get a large amount of traffic off the banners. People will become blind to them in a short mount of time. I wish some of the volunteers at the USGenWeb Project would stop looking a gift horse in the mouth and be happy that they have the support of a large, financial backer.

In closing, let me say that I appreciate the volunteers at Rootsweb and the USGenWeb Project. I also realize that lots of volunteers are fine with Ancestry's banners and that they are grateful for the support. The problem is that they, like myself, are passive about the conversion and are not raising a lot of eyebrows.

The controversy just does not make sense to me. It would be like my softball team going out and finding a sponsor to buy our uniforms and telling them that we will not print their name on our shirts. That is absurd. You always give credit to your sponsors. Why would that courtesy not apply to genealogy and Ancestry's hosting of Rootsweb? The idea behind sponsorship is exposure and that is what Ancestry wants and rightful deserves.

Get paid for your genealogy research? (part II)

Google is not the only form of advertising revenue. You can pitch products or sign up as an affiliate with Amazon or eBay but you have to get a lot of traffic to your site to make any money. You do not get paid for viewers clicking on their ads; people actually have to buy something for you to get commission. You might get one commission off of a thousand clicks on their ad. In short, you might as well forget it. Genealogy is not that popular in the big picture and it is losing momentum as a hobby. Fewer people search for genealogy sites each month - check the Google trends if you do not believe me.

The biggest problem with a genealogy web site is that genealogy hobbyists hate advertising! People think that all genealogy should be free for everyone and that making money off genealogy is evil! Rootsweb is in turmoil right now because Ancestry is adding their banners to all sites hosted on Rootsweb. Forget that Ancestry has given them free server space for years; Ancestry is now evil for wanting a little something in return. People focus too much on keeping genealogy “free.” If no one got paid for their work, there would be no genealogy books, microfilm or records. Even the county clerk gets paid to record the deeds and wills.

I am getting a little off track here but look at the big picture. Even if you get $100 per hour or $5.00 per click, you have to pay taxes and insurance. By the time you pay Uncle Sam and Blue Cross, what will you have left to eat? What about gas? How are you going to pay for $5.00 per gallon gasoline when you are driving to and from all of those courthouses and libraries? Don't forget about the kids needing braces, your adjustable rate mortgage, your car note and that momma needs a new pair of shoes.

Anyway you slice it, unless you are the CEO of the Generations Network or you invented DNA testing for genealogy purposes, you are probably out of luck. If anyone knows how to make money in genealogy, please let me know. I have been trying for years and just cannot figure it out. I love this hobby and would like to do it fulltime. I doubt I will quit my day job anytime soon, unless you can give me the answer. I am waiting for your response…