FamilySearch to get a Facelift

Hey all I would suggest you subscribe to Ancestry Insider. It is an extremely up to date and helpful blog with insightful and interesting posts.

One such post was given just yesterday and centers around some "chroming" and "collating" FamilySearch features (http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com/2013/03/familysearch-gives-rootstech-bloggers.html).

I say chrome because as you'll see from the images posted on Insider it looks rather "JQuery". Meaning it looks nice simple and accessible.

I say collating because the features on the site have headings labeled as follows: Fan Chart, Photos, Family Tree, Family Records, Indexing, Live Help. I thought I'd just go through each and talk about my impressions on what it seems to be "about".

Fan Chart - There is a site currently named createfan.org which does family tree making features. Createfan does not create interactive charts - simply a PDF version with many more generations listed than the ones shown in these teaser images. Nevertheless I can see some benefits of a built in function and with clickable sections (which might lead to their respective Family Tree entries?) it might actually be helpful in getting people excited about Family History. Aparently there will also be a decendancy view.

Photos - This is in beta now under familysearch.org/photos. Incidentally I saw hints of this whole idea on that beta page with their inline link to Family Tree

Family Tree - probably a link forward to the current Family Tree function

Family Records - probably a link forward to the search records of our current system

Indexing - This will actually be an interesting section to watch. I say this because an online indexing feature has long been whispered of. This would be much like billiongraves indexing of headstones -- they don't have you download a indexing program in order to do index their headstones - its all online. Such an online system could be helpful in this modern age of browser leveling which is going on (to most it doesn't matter if your on a mac or a PC because on both you spend your time on the browser). As it is I expect this to be a link forward to a page containing much of what is on there now -- An introduction to Indexing and an invitation to download the program (when it does go to an online mode I can see some people flocking to it which otherwise wouldn't - I tried to help a person index but he absolutely refused to download something because he was afraid of the small security concerns which pop up at every download)

Live Help - Huh! Well I guess some from of missionary will be on the other side of that chat or phone line waiting for people to contact them. I've been contacted a couple of days later after emails forward to familysearch both by phone and email.

Anyway that's my review and thoughts on this subjects. It was reported to the Insider that these changes will be implemented within a couple months.

Good Luck!