Nu? What's New? News About Jewish Genealogy from Avotaynu Vol. 2, No. 10 - May 13, 2001 Gary Mokotoff, Editor ************************************************************ Expect Improvements to the Ellis Island Search Ability ====================================================== I have had e-mail correspondence with the professor of linguistics who designed the portion of the Ellis Island Database search engine that provides assistance when there isn't an exact match. He stated there will be significant improvements to the search engine in the next 30 days. He specifically stated that the current system's inability to recognize that surnames ending in -SKY and -SKI are synonymous is handled by his algorithm. Although he did not state it overtly, it appears that the Ellis Island people decided not to delay the opening despite that fact that all the software was not yet implemented. It would have been valuable to know this in the past few weeks, because part of the problem of the inaccessibility to the site is that frustrated researchers are staying online longer than normal trying other combinations of their surnames in a vain effort to locate records of their ancestors. The Ellis Island database is located at http://www.ellisislandrecords.org. A Little Bit of Ellis Island Humor ================================== One demonstration of the inadequacy of the current Ellis Island database (EIDB) environment is that there is already third-party software being developed to combat the shortcomings of the system. Edward Rosenbaum, president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Bergen County (New Jersey), is a computer analyst. He has developed shareware that provides possible alternate spellings of names that you cannot find in the EIDB. You can download it from http://members.bellatlantic.net/~elr228/eidb.htm. At the recent meeting of his society, when he announced the product's availability, someone added, "Yes, and the next thing we will have is a book titled 'An Idiot's Guide to the Ellis Island Database'." In a serious vain, as an alternative to "An Idiot's Guide...", I am writing an article for the Summer issue of AVOTAYNU titled "Strategies for Using the Ellis Island Database" that discusses ways of locating the records of your ancestors when the straight and narrow method does not work. It has been noted on a number of postings to the JewishGen Discussion Group that the EIDB organization is now accepting e-mail regarding errors discovered in the database. If you find what you believe to be a database error and wish to notify the Foundation, write to errors@ellisisland.org. In the subject line of the e-mail indicate the type of error encountered so they can channel it to the correct department. Choose from the following subjects: * Manifest error * Spelling error * Ship Image error * Other Database error ______________________________ Nu? What's New? News About Jewish Genealogy from Avotaynu Vol. 2, No. 10a - May 13, 2001 Gary Mokotoff, Editor ************************************************************ More Ellis Island Information ============================= Normally I wait the two weeks between editions of "Nu? What's New?" for information sent to me by subscribers. Stephen P. Morse of San Francisco has developed a valuable searching aid for the Ellis Island database that hopefully will become a permanent feature of some future update of their system. The EIDB system allows you to qualify the scope of your search in a variety of ways. You can qualify the search by Gender, Year of Arrival (range of years), Ethnicity, Age of Arrival (range of ages), Port of Departure (all ports for which there were hits on the initial search), and Name of Ship (all ships for which there were hits on the initial search). But you cannot make all these qualifications at the same time. Morse has developed a front-end for the search process that allows you to specify ALL your search parameters on a single page. It can be found at http://sites.netscape.net/stephenpmorse/ellis.html. It then submits your request to the EIDB. Errata ====== The e-mail address where you submit corrections to the data in the Ellis Island database is dberrors@ellisisland.org not errors@ellisisland.org. ______________________________