RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Josephine on Monday 27 October 25 02:15 GMT (UK)
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Do you remember when you could only view a census page in a small "viewer" box? And you couldn't download the entire page in one file?
Do you remember when Ancestry didn't have all the census records from every city and state, let alone all the decades up to whatever the privacy cut-off date was at the time? And the census images that it did have weren't all indexed?
I'm pretty sure they didn't have a place for family trees, either: wasn't that what we went to Rootsweb for back then?
People could choose to allow you to download a gedcom of their family tree from Rootsweb, and I think I recall having that option for a time after Ancestry started providing a place for family trees. Do you remember when they removed that option and why?
It's so much easier now for people to create and build a family tree, especially with the hints and being able to click a button to have the system add people for you. (You'll notice I didn't say their trees were necessarily populated with sound research, but we all know about that, don't we?)
I think we get much more bang for our buck nowadays, especially compared to what was available 20+ years ago.
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People could choose to allow you to download a gedcom of their family tree from Rootsweb, and I think I recall having that option for a time after Ancestry started providing a place for family trees. Do you remember when they removed that option and why?
I don't remember when but why is a lot easier - to make more profits for their hedge fund owners.
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Ancestry World Tree?
https://web.archive.org/web/20040829084112/http://www.ancestry.co.uk/trees/awt/main.htm
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Do you remember when you could only view a census page in a small "viewer" box? And you couldn't download the entire page in one file?
I don't remember the viewer box, but my early use of FindMyPast and Ancestry was at the Family Records Centre and then at Kew. Neither allowed you to download images to a memory stick, so it was a case of printing the page (not cheap) or my preferred option of handwriting a transcript and then typing that up when I got home.
Much of what I got from the 1901 census in the early days was done that way - made more complicated with the FRC rationing users to 1 hour, after which you had to go back to a desk to request another hour and wait for your turn to come around again. At least there were the microfilm/fiche readers to use while waiting. :)
I think Kew set up the same rationing thing when the 1911 census was launched, but (I guess) with more people having access at home I don't remember having to wait long for a session, and they dropped the rationing quite soon after it started.
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Was it FindMyPast (then 1837online) or Ancestry that had a strange format called dejvu (or something like that) for census or bmd files? You had to download a special viewer. I have a load of those files and nothing to look at them with. It was 4 computers ago, so viewer lost, but files still saved.
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Was it FindMyPast (then 1837online) or Ancestry that had a strange format called dejvu (or something like that) for census or bmd files? You had to download a special viewer. I have a load of those files and nothing to look at them with. It was 4 computers ago, so viewer lost, but files still saved.
Try IrfanView (freeware for non-comercial use). There is an image type expansion plugin which includes the DjVu format.
If you've got the time to explore there are also options to batch convert to a different format like jpg.
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When did Ancestry & 1837 start online?
Pheno
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Officially Ancestry started online with the launch of its website in 1996 and the registration of its domain name Ancestry.com in 1995
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Findmypast say 1837online.com was launched in 2003
Here's a sort of announcement from December 2002
Welcome to Family Research Link
From Sunday 8th December 2002, Family Research Link will allow you to access an exact and complete replica of the indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales, from 1837 to date from this website.
Before you can access the indexes, you will need to download the DjVu viewer...
https://web.archive.org/web/20021201095733/http://www.1837online.com/
It seems there was a bit of a delay in the launch!
Anyway, here is what 1837online.com looked like in December 2003
https://web.archive.org/web/20031206094633/http://www.1837online.com/Trace2web/
It's all there on the Wayback Machine, even early rootschat!
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Was it FindMyPast (then 1837online) or Ancestry that had a strange format called dejvu (or something like that) for census or bmd files? You had to download a special viewer. I have a load of those files and nothing to look at them with. It was 4 computers ago, so viewer lost, but files still saved.
Try IrfanView (freeware for non-comercial use). There is an image type expansion plugin which includes the DjVu format.
Thanks, I already have Irfan view, but only used it to convert webp to jpg. Hadn't noticed it would do DjVu as well
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Gosh, even the links from December 2003 still work!
Doubt you could actually search for anything though.
"Download DjVu Viewer Plug-in
The DjVu viewer plug-in for Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer is the primary means of viewing DjVu documents. The plug-in enables users to view and navigate a DjVu document, and zoom and pan in real time.
Click the following link to download the DjVu viewer plug-in, select the appropriate operating system, and follow the guide below."
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Gosh, even the links from December 2003 still work!
Doubt you could actually search for anything though.
"Download DjVu Viewer Plug-in
The DjVu viewer plug-in for Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer is the primary means of viewing DjVu documents. The plug-in enables users to view and navigate a DjVu document, and zoom and pan in real time.
Click the following link to download the DjVu viewer plug-in, select the appropriate operating system, and follow the guide below."
Good old Netscape Navigator! and Windows 3.1 I always wondered what happened to Windows 1 and 2 and Windows 3.0.
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I first took out a sub for Ancestry in January 2006, and have renewed it every year since. I did lurk on Ancestry before that.