C-R-A-N-K-Y Carol, Sounding Off

So, here is the HUGE disclaimer. Carol is fully C-R-A-N-K-Y! My lower back has been out for several days and even tho I have tried my tricks to ease it back, so far, the tricks are NOT working!

The stress of caring for Man’s mother long distance has been in the high realms. Man has been dealing with a lot, and it affects me. Stress is a factor in my Demon (diabetes) numbers, and yep, they are up, not where I like them. I am on no meds for the Demon, as they nearly incapacitated me, so it is food and exercise - - oh, the back, hurts - - makes walking (exercise) difficult. C-R-A-N-K-Y Carol!!

So, here are a few more C-R-A-N-K-Y Carol observations, some of which are NOT totally C-R-A-N-K-Y:

Dear Parents of young ones in campground filled with MANY old ones trying to get away from the cold winter weather. Please keep your young ones IN the camper in the AM. 6:45 local time is TOO early for them to be at the playground. C-R-A-N-K-Y Carol WAS trying to sleep. C-R-A-N-K-Y Carol’s beloved Tana is parked RIGHT beside the playground.

Blog reading, interesting post at Rate Your Genealogical Maturity by The Ancestry Insider, very interesting and the comments are too.

The Ancestry backed NBC show, Who Do You Think You Are, has produced a tremendous amount of jabber in the research community and beyond. Many bloggers have written favorable posts. I have watched the first two episodes, I had not intended to even watch, but, for a variety of reasons, I did. There are a few of us out here in researching land however, that have reservations about several items.
 
1.) Those Ancestry commercials. There is no way I can soften this - - those commercials are misleading and for me are on the edge of being unethical. They lead the newbies to believe they can surf into the web site and in just a few minutes, BAM, they will have their family back to ???? I am appalled every time I see one of those commercials.

2.) The shows have increased the traffic at Ancestry.com. They had the foresight to expect this, and even turned off a few of the “goodies” on the home page. Current members lost use of some of their links on their home pages. Twas not a real issue for Moi, but, I imagine some other long time paying members were taken aback by this. I have not noticed significant slow downs in the site, BUT, my air card here in Tana has been painfully slow the last 10 days or so on every web site Man and I try to visit.

3.) The indexing still stinks, (again, no way I can soften this), at Ancestry. If you read Relatively Speaking - Cousins That Blog (Anne and Karen and Moi), you will note that the other day, all three of us had blog posts about some sort of indexing or spelling or handwriting issues. (The links above will take you directly to Friday's posts on these issues.)  It is so frustrating to spend hours looking for a record you KNOW is there, but is indexed so poorly you cannot find any creative search that will give you what you seek. Ya, I know, they have added those cute little “correction” buttons. I have used them, yes I have. But when you find what very well may be entire data bases with fatal flaws in them, I am not even gonna try. Sorry to all researchers who may have benefitted from my corrections, I just cannot do it all! And, yes, it sticks in my craw that I pay for a service that pushes great new data bases through and cannot seem to fix the indexing on older data bases.

Which brings me to, can you be a serious researcher and NOT have a subscription to Ancestry?? Well, at the moment, C-R-A-N-K-Y Carol is contemplating just such an experiment. I have been a paying member for about 10 years.  I have found FABULOUS stuff at Ancestry.  There is NO doubt, my data base and my research are richer because of Ancestry. BUT:  My disillusionment factor with Ancestry has grown to the fester stage. My subscription is up for renewal, in fact, at this moment, I have instructed them that I am not paying for the next year. Maybe I just need a break from the emotional beating I take so many times when I sign on, printing won’t work, pages won’t load, search results reported as only a partial set of results, and that indexing. It is quite frustrating when I have not been on the site for a week or so, then, having a hot lead, jump on only to discover that the census won’t load or print.

Having given this some considerable thought, here are some of my ideas:

1.) Some of the data bases I use a lot at Ancestry ARE available elsewhere.

2.) I really need to finish input and compiling the Lashbrook book, maybe if I don’t have Ancestry to fuss with, taking up some huge hunks of my time (yes, sometimes it works and sometimes I have soooo much fun there), I will actually finish???

3.) I really need to work on Lenawee cemeteries. If all goes well, when we get back to the stick that is about ALL I will be working on.

4.) When we get back to the stick built in Michigan there will be plenty of family issues and yard work to fill the hours.

Can I do it, can I suffer the withdrawal pains of no Ancestry subscription, can I be an affective researcher with out it??  I don't know.  I may chicken out and pay up, I just don't know.

And, my last C-R-A-N-K-Y- Carol observation: Found online, Newsweek.com in the comments on an article about the WDYTYA series, this comment: this researcher signed up for the 2 week trial at Ancestry and remarks: “I found absolutely everything there was to find about my family in that two weeks. I actually ran out of things to search.” Carol’s observation: Said researcher must have believed that commercial Ancestry is running.

C-R-A-N-K-Y Carol, sounding off bout this and that.

Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence.

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