This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/lRB.2ACE/479 Message Board Post: I received this email. For those of you that haven't tried the site, do so. Tony To all user's of my Ellis Island Search Tools: As most of you know, the revised search tools went live on October 20 and includes the so-called "gray form" which allows searching by town and sounds-like for any passenger in the database. However there have been severe performance problems with the gray form, and only the very lucky (or the very early risers) were able to get any response at all to their searches. I am pleased to report that we have finally tracked down and fixed the cause of the problem. The gray form is now able to handle the heavy traffic and is returning results very quickly. It is now possible to do searches using the gray form at any time of the day and get back the results in a reasonable amount of time. I am indebted to Nick Yannucci who answered the plea for help that I had posted on the website. Nick, working together with Erik Steinmetz, was the critical mass that we needed for success. Thanks also to jewishgen for providing the servers to host the EI search tools, and for providing technical support and machine upgrades to fix the performance problems of the EI search tools. If any of you would like to add your thanks with a donation to jewishgen (www.jewishgen.org/JewishGen-erosity), I know it would be greatly appreciated and is sorely needed. My apologies for all the frustrations that the gray form has given to so many people for so long. But now that is behind us, and I wish you all good luck on your searches. -- Steve Morse PS: The EI search tools can be accessed from either of the following URLs http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/EIDB