We continue to receive e-mail asking why we won't make corrections to errors in transcriptions.

Please take a look at my previous article on this topic...

http://www.interment.net/column/2006/02/our-policy-on-correcting-errors.html

The most important point is that transcriptions are not meant to be "open documents" where the public, or even ourselves, are allowed to make corrections. Rather it's a snapshot of someone's effort to record information they found elsewhere.

A genealogist wants to know what was recorded on a tombstone, or in a sexton's records. That's another important reason why we don't make error changes.

It could be that the tombstone is inscribed with errors, or the sexton's records contains errors. Even if you know that information is incorrect, the genealogist still wants to see what information is out there, correct or incorrect, and then decide what information to rely on.

We are trying to support exactly that. To let the genealogist decide. That's why we don't allow anyone else to make corrections to these transcriptions.

Now, typing errors is a different matter. But it's not possible for us to determine what is a typing error versus incorrect information from a tombstone or sexton record. Hence, we need the author of the transcription to advise. So when you notify us of an error, we contact that author, and let them decide. If that author feels he or she transcribed the information accurately, then we'll leave the transcription alone.

But what if the author doesn't respond to our inquiry? It could be he or she has since changed their e-mail address and has not informed us of the change. We've also had many authors pass away since their last contact with us. In that case, we need proof it was a typing error, and not an error on the original record.

I realize that if you saw your mother's burial info on this website, and noticed incorrect information, it becomes an emotional issue. But remember that Interment.net was not meant to memorialize the deceased, rather it's meant to be a genealogical reference.

So please keep in mind proper genealogical protocol, which is to transcribe records character-for-character, and not add editorial modification.

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Arrived at Zion NP around 4:30pm. Mostly good weather the way up, but had some gusts. Right now we are sitting around the fire drinking beer and 12 year old Scotch. Ate a pack of hot links. Folks have digressed to bitching about OBAMA.

Temps are getting cold right now.

I plan to stay up all night long and party out in preparation for a long cold day of riding tomorrow.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

So what do you think about the new homepage?

Like it? Cleaner? Or just different?

Just a note to say that this Saturday I'll be heading out on a four-day motorcycle camping trip from here in southern California to Utah.
Every Easter week me and my buddies do some kind extended motorcycle trip, to get away from the madness of the city, and to get some freedom of the open road.
I tried to get done as much as I could with Interment over the past couple weeks, before I take off.
But I won't be too far away. I decided to get the new Blackberry Storm 9530 to see how well I can stay connected.
In fact I'm writing this on the Blackberry.
Of course when us go riding, we go into places where there's no network access. So we'll see what happens.
If I can, I'll post daily update here.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Many of you have contacted Maggie and I about the search engine being non-functional over the past few months. It's back to working.

What happened is that previous search engine software ceased running due to our server getting hacked into and corrupted beyond repair. My hosting provider offered wipe the server clean, reinstall the operating system, for a large fee. I refused, on the grounds that the server was pretty old anyways, and I could get a new server, with more power, for less money.

It was a long several months of migrating the website to the new server, without having control of the old server. I still had FTP access to the old server, however, and could transfer files to the new server. Except the old server kept locking up after transferring 20-30 files. I had to submit reboot requests into my hosting provider each time. The site has something like 40,000 files.

Talk about tedious.

But instead of reinstalling the same search engine software, I decided to chuck it in favor of Google's "AdSense for Search". It's the same Google search engine you're already familiar with. Seems to be more accurate, more intuitive, than what I had before.

And it doesn't have the old problem of forgetting your search query that my previous search engine software had.

The drawback with using Google is that it doesn't index new transcriptions and changes instantaneously like the old search engine did. New transcriptions probably take a day or two to index, compared to just one or two seconds with the old search. That's not too bad, though. But deletions and edits will probably take weeks, or months to index through Google.

I also removed some ads that didn't really monetize well, but added others. Overall, I think the pages are little more cleaner.

About all that's left to do at this point is to convert the homepage to the same page design the rest of the site uses.

I'll also try to blog here more often. I may not have much to talk about in the world of genealogy, and Maggie already does a great job of updating the "What's New" page. But I thought I'd chime in with some thoughts on technology, as it relates to genealogy, whatever news people send me, and some updates on what I'm up to.