Topic: I’m having a COW. This is a RANT.
Family Name Associations: Every person who was born, lived or died in Quebec… Names like Lecuyer, LaLonde, Page, Bedard, I could go on and on and on.
Location: I’m in Barrie right now.
Mood: Totally friggin’ MAD.
Music: Beyonce – If I were a Boy
Okay… Deep breath, and I’m trying to speak slowly, in small words.
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I’ve been busy. Okay, we’ve all been crazy, stupidly busy. Look at me trying to write everything all nice without cussing. Sorry, for the upstanding folks who are reading this and trying to get over my potty mouth – I’m really, really mad.
You know when your kid does something really nasty, and doesn’t tell you, and it just compounds it because they didn’t tell you?
I don’t make sure Ancestry.com is doing it’s job. I’m a busy, busy girl. I have four children, 3 cats, 2 dogs and fish. I have a family to feed, clothe and make sure is on time, because the heavens forbid I miss something I’ve said I’ll do. It’s also almost Halloween, we hand make our costumes every year and host a bit of an open house. Just one of our little traditions…
Trust me, I’m thinking about Walmart and some 10 dollar flimsy costume more and more these days.
I work with a team of 8 people, across Canada on genealogy, between us, that’s 8 trees with various connections. We are constantly working. Rarely a day goes by that we are not making some sort of addition of family information or records.
We pay $30 a month for a subscription that I don’t make sure is working. I type in my search, find the record, go on my way. How DARE they not make some sort of mass public announcement saying that the records we use are unavailable because THEY have failed their contractual obligations???
I want a refund for this past month, who only knows what searches I’ve preformed that didn’t come up with results because I didn’t know what to be looking for!
I want them to sort this out yesterday, because they make a fortune with this stupid nonsense and the fact that they’re quibbling over pennies makes me insane… And I want a frigging apology and to be notified the next time they decide a huge alteration like this isn’t going to affect my bloody research!
If Ancestry.com didn’t do what they said they were going to do, they need to hire some people and get it done, and get this issue solved. What about everything in our shoeboxes? Heaven forbid, all those people who’ve uploaded their TREES??? Have they lost everything? Think about it a second… Every linked document out of Quebec… How many trees that we work with will be affected???
Ancestry said they could do something, and they didn’t do it. Well I think someone has to hold them accountable, but not at the expense of our research. Hit them where it hurts, make them PAY… But put the documents back up while they’re paying for it. Because we’re paying for it now, not them… I can promise you that no one sitting on that website is crushed right now because they don’t know who Francis Walker McKenna is, but if I don’t find out soon my opportunity to commemorate his life might never happen.
We don’t get paid for what we do. We don’t make a single cent on the information we slave over. We actually pay for it, and it’s bloody expensive. This is information that I, personally think is vitally important, and I know my team feels the same way. These people all lived and died, and we’ve done nothing but throw them in the dirt with vague stone references to who they were or what they accomplished… That’s if they got a stone in the first place.
For the first time in human history, it’s possible to record our genealogy, our personal family history in a manner that reflects a possibility of preservation for future generations. It can’t be destroyed in fire, it can’t be thrown out by the generation that doesn’t care for it. With proper precautions, it can’t be deleted or ‘lost’.
We can contact long lost cousins by e-mail, phone or message board. We can find each other, find links, finds roots with so much as the push of a button… And it’s not just family history, it’s medical understanding and genetics…
I’d like some common courtesy from the tools we depend on – After all, Ancestry.com, you got to where you are from our hard earned dollars paying your way. And above all of this, I’d like a little respect for that fact that even the most amateur genealogist is working towards doing something that has been completely unaccomplished in human history. It might not sound as exciting as space travel or finding new planets… But maybe understanding THIS planet and the people on it is a vital importance that shouldn’t be over looked.
I have updates to post, but I’m so irritated nothing would come out right, so I’m going to leave it for tonight… I’ll be back when I can look at anything without swearing.
