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 <nybrooklyn@rootsweb.com> 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 > NYBROOKLYN-request@rootsweb.com 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...

Joyce & Barb, I think some of the functionality you are missing may still be there. I was able to get a list of all passengers with the last name "Taffet" for instance. I went to "Passenger Search", entered a last name, and then clicked on the right arrow to perform the search. The list came up, though I had to click on the little icon indicating that I wanted to see a list view instead of the larger horizontal icon view it starts with. I clicked first on the Passenger Record for one of the names in the list. At that point I had to create a new account. It might be that if I had used the correct email address with the "Forgot your Password" link, it would have recognized me but then told me I needed to create a new password. Anyways, once I created the new account, I was able to view the passenger record, and from there I could view the manifest. True the manifest enlarger is no longer there, but it is incorporated into the page that shows you the manifest. Putting your mouse over the manifest image will enlarge it right there in front of you, though you do have to be careful to not scroll too fast with your mouse. You can save the image to your profile, but I haven't investigated that function yet. If you want to do some filtering of your results list, just click on the little filter funnel, which brings up several different types of filtering that you can do (Contains, Exact Matches, Close Matches, Sounds Like, Alternate Spellings, and Last Name as First). I don't see a way to do true wild card searching (like "T*f*t" for example), but I haven't used the site directly in so long that I don't recall if that type of functionality was ever there to begin with. Steve Morse's search tools (stevemorse.org) will still take you to the page with the passenger you want on it. If you find his search tools easier to use, you might want to make his search page your front end for the Ellis Island site. -- Mary On 9/7/2014 5:31 PM, Joyce Presnall via wrote: > 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

Thank you for pointing out the list view option, that was the "missing feature" that was most upsetting to me...but I have to say I still don't like the new site. Joyce On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Mary D. Taffet <mdtaffet@twcny.rr.com> wrote: > Joyce & Barb, > > I think some of the functionality you are missing may still be there. I > was able to get a list of all passengers with the last name "Taffet" for > instance. > > I went to "Passenger Search", entered a last name, and then clicked on the > right arrow to perform the search. The list came up, though I had to click > on the little icon indicating that I wanted to see a list view instead of > the larger horizontal icon view it starts with. > > I clicked first on the Passenger Record for one of the names in the list. > At that point I had to create a new account. It might be that if I had > used the correct email address with the "Forgot your Password" link, it > would have recognized me but then told me I needed to create a new > password. Anyways, once I created the new account, I was able to view the > passenger record, and from there I could view the manifest. True the > manifest enlarger is no longer there, but it is incorporated into the page > that shows you the manifest. Putting your mouse over the manifest image > will enlarge it right there in front of you, though you do have to be > careful to not scroll too fast with your mouse. You can save the image to > your profile, but I haven't investigated that function yet. > > If you want to do some filtering of your results list, just click on the > little filter funnel, which brings up several different types of filtering > that you can do (Contains, Exact Matches, Close Matches, Sounds Like, > Alternate Spellings, and Last Name as First). I don't see a way to do true > wild card searching (like "T*f*t" for example), but I haven't used the site > directly in so long that I don't recall if that type of functionality was > ever there to begin with. > > Steve Morse's search tools (stevemorse.org) will still take you to the > page with the passenger you want on it. If you find his search tools > easier to use, you might want to make his search page your front end for > the Ellis Island site. > > -- Mary > > > > > On 9/7/2014 5:31 PM, Joyce Presnall via wrote: > >> 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 >> > -- 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...