Comment to "Ancestry.com Versus FamilySearch Indexing Quality"

In response to Ancestry Insider's article, "Ancestry.com Versus FamilySearch Indexing Quality," I posted comments somewhat along the following lines:

There have been several of these articles about the "competitive" indexing efforts relative to the 1940 U.S. census. Some do seem to encourage us to stand up and cheer for one "side" or the "other." Go Ancestry! Go My Heritage! Go FamilySearch--or should I say, Go Tom, Sue, Joe, and yes Go Jose, Chang and Sven, too.

Genealogy has a deep volunteer base and a long tradition of volunteerism. The valuable FamilySearch indices that it owns and makes available have benefited from this spirit of working together on volunteer projects. Just because an index is made freely available to the consumer today does not mean that index is free of commercial dealings, though.

One reader wrote, "Sad that Ancestry felt like this was a horse race," and "anyone that speaks English." Another wrote about a "Made in China" database.

I'm not sure where some of the impressions originate that motivated well meaning souls to post.

Genealogy is a global community. In my own genealogical journey, I've learned more about the cultures from which my family descends. If the "community project" has contributed to making us less open to others, especially those from other cultures, then I gladly would have waited 6 years for the 1940 census indices.

I think it's great that there ARE multiple indices. I celebrate every hour of time and nickel and dime that has gone into bringing the 1940 census to our computers.

GeneJ--Nobody's fan-boy. My close family is multi-cultural, and I'm darn proud of it.

P.S. Might you update me on changes in the administration of the FamilySearch owned indices? Have they yet have figured out how to fix "egregious" indexing errors? The last time I submitted corrections to FamilySearch about egregious errors in its indexing, I was told that after all this time, FamilySearch didn't even have a way of keeping track of such errors, much less a protocol for entering corrected information to the index. The note I received a year ago read as follows:

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Thank you for contacting FamilySearch about the error in our records for Lorenzo Preston. We looked at the record you described, and find you are correct.
FamilySearch does not, at the present time, have the functionality in place to accept corrections or additions to individual database entries without reloading the entire collection.
However, a future feature is under consideration that would accept corrections or additions to the searchable index, so we encourage you to keep a list of the corrections you feel need to be made. Both the original index and the correction to the index would be searchable, thus preserving the ability to locate original indexes and images as well as the corrected or added patron entries. We appreciate your patience in this matter.
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