Dear Friends, If you have not returned to research at the Ellis Island site in a while, 'tis time to test the waters to *really* understand what we're beefin' about, and it ain't the hot dogs! It's proper, present day handle is (Trumpets!) ta-da> T H E S T A T U E of L I B E R T Y - E L L I S I S L A N D F O U N D A T I O N, INC.* http://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/ Ah ha, methinks the INC* is the rub, besides BETA search. What it has? Humungous picture book style photos, corporate milieu aka sausage-stuffing discards, more pics of nameless faces, links to purchase trinkets and tickets [to Liberty's crown = extra; once upon a time not], colorized timelines & visual effects, WEBCAMS, more frou frou, linked into vanity sites, FB etc Disney and Spielberg What it doesn't have? 1) Your account or your file. Yup, you have to begin anew. 2) It does not have USER FRIENDLY access to the ships' manifests to search by SURNAME only. NOTE: This is what family re-searchers do, Designers, search. We view whole manifests in search of matching surnames, finding other ancestors on board. Now, that's impossible. AND, Ships' Manifests were the heart of EllisIsland.org, as such, legally documenting arrivals of non citizens. 3) The design hand doesn't know what the genealogy hand needs. No professional sourcing here. Rootsweb is the largest participant- genealogy based group, and no IT pro, or designer was gracious enough to ask for input or inform us that changes were in the works? Gene-logically speaking, Barb

The biggest problem I see (although I see many) is that you can no longer get a list by last name and where they are from...often that is our biggest clue as to who other family members are. Additionally, you cannot use your "back browser" to view something you just looked at...it tells you the image has expired and you need to start your search over. I read on Facebook that they are going to move over who is saved in your file BUT from now on those saved files will only stay there 30 days...so if you don't do something with that file in 30 days, POOF it is gone and you have to start your search all over again...so they are trying to force you "buy the image this month or you will lose it" I don't see any option for wildcard searches.... But to ME not being able to see a list of 25-100 ppl at one time is the biggest drawback...THAT is your biggest clue as to who family members may be... Ugh they have messed up so many things it is hard to know which ones are the worst... They have 20 something year old kids designing something that 60-80+ year old people are trying to use. Their search options were fine before--yes some things needed improvement but those improvements were minor. If they wanted to throw a bunch of money at the wall, they should have looked over records for transcription errors...sure the old site wasn't ideal, and a few things could have been improved, but they threw the baby out with the bathwater and the things that WERE good about the site are gone. There was a LOT more flexibility for searching the way the site used to be set up...It is quite clear they got NO input from the "user group"...The COULD have done a mass email to all who are registered on the site and ask about what changes people wanted to see...instead they got a bunch of IT guys who don't know anything about genealogy, and made the site pretty instead of functional...They should have put functionality first and they didn't. The primary reason they did the change to the way we see manifests is they did not want people copying the info via snipping tools...but the control over moving those passenger lists around is so imprecise that it is difficult to keep focused on the lines you are trying to follow to get the details on that person... Did they REALLY think this is going to make more people order copies from them for manifests? It is not. The plain truth is they are too expensive. People are just going to write down what they might have snipped a copy of before... They messed up so much stuff it is crazy...I have yet to talk to one person who likes the changes...they took a lot of our ability to research in a sane, organized manner away...this is a ship run amuck for sure... Joyce On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 1:53 PM, mizscarlettny via <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Dear Friends, > > If you have not returned to research at the Ellis Island site in a while, > 'tis time to test the waters to *really* understand what we're beefin' > about, > and it ain't the hot dogs! > > It's proper, present day handle is (Trumpets!) ta-da> > > T H E S T A T U E of L I B E R T Y - E L L I S I S L A N D F O U > N D A T I O N, INC.* > http://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/ > > Ah ha, methinks the INC* is the rub, besides BETA search. > > What it has? > > Humungous picture book style photos, corporate milieu aka sausage-stuffing > discards, more pics of nameless faces, > links to purchase trinkets and tickets [to Liberty's crown = extra; once > upon a time not], colorized timelines & visual effects, > WEBCAMS, more frou frou, linked into vanity sites, FB etc Disney and > Spielberg > > What it doesn't have? > > 1) Your account or your file. Yup, you have to begin anew. > > 2) It does not have USER FRIENDLY access to the ships' manifests to search > by SURNAME only. > > NOTE: This is what family re-searchers do, Designers, search. We view > whole manifests in search of matching surnames, > finding other ancestors on board. Now, that's impossible. > > AND, Ships' Manifests were the heart of EllisIsland.org, as such, legally > documenting arrivals of non citizens. > > 3) The design hand doesn't know what the genealogy hand needs. No > professional sourcing here. > > Rootsweb is the largest participant- genealogy based group, and no IT pro, > or designer was gracious enough to ask for input or > inform us that changes were in the works? > > Gene-logically speaking, > > Barb > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > -- Researching Stephenson/Stevenson, Fleury, Heald, Lindelof, Young, Rubino, Cammarota, Mandracchia, Vaiarelli, Mulhern, Johnson, Haight, Erickson, Munson, Northrup, Sears, Camp, Gunn, Allen, Gorham, Plumb, Beard, Rogers, Eliot, Briscoe, Bradley, Mix, Wilmot, Pritchard, Mew, Stone, Sparke, Bayley, Bailey, Redfield, Redfin, Howland, Tilley, Sturgis, Hinckley, Kirk, Norton, Gerard, and many more...