Distributed Denial of Service Attack Neutralized

Here is a link to Ancestry.com's Blog post about the DDOS Attack. Family Tree Maker issues, from the best that I can tell, have been resolved. I have seen one or two folks with issues, on the FTMM-3 version, where a Restart of the Computer resolved the problem.

Distributed Denial of Service Attack Neutralized

As the blog post says, there still may be some issues.

Russ

FTM2014 - Media, Sources, Facts

A blog reader asked what should be linked to a record, such as a Census Record. This short video will try to explain that a Media File, like a Census Record is linked to a Citation. I think of the Media file or image as supporting information for the Citation. That Citation is then linked to ALL of the Facts, or information that I gathered from that Citation.



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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

Ancestry.com's Website

UPDATE (4:15pm PST): The Ancestry websites are coming back online. Please clear your cache and your cookies, then try logging in.

A couple items to note: (1) You may experience intermittent issues with Search and Trees. Please be patient, we are working to restore the website(s) fully and this will take time, (2) Images are loading slowly so we recommend you save them to your Shoebox for now, (3) If you are using Family Tree Maker, please switch to 'manual sync' so it does not try to sync your online tree for now. Give this a little time.

Thank you once again for your patience and support during this DDoS attack on Ancestry.

UPDATE (2:30pm PST): Still working on it.

UPDATE (12:30pm PST): We were able to bring the site(s) back online, but have experienced another outage. Please bear with us as we work to restore all services.

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Ancestry.com is back online. Please know you should now be able to access all Ancestry and Find A Grave websites, though you may experience issues intermittently as we continue to work through bringing the sites back up to full capacity.

AN UPDATE FROM OUR CTO, SCOTT SORENSEN
Around 1:30 p.m. MT on Monday, June 16, 2014, attackers targeted Ancestry with a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS). During the attack, Ancestry websites along with the Find A Grave website were clogged with massive amounts of bogus traffic that took the sites down.

We want to apologize for the inconvenience this has caused and also thank you for your amazing support, as this may have interrupted some of your family history research. We understand how frustrating this can be for our customers, and please know that it was just as frustrating for us too. We appreciate your patience and support as we dealt with this unfortunate incident against Ancestry.

We have since neutralized the DDoS attack and our services have been up since 11:00 a.m. MT today. You should now be able to access all Ancestry and Find A Grave websites, though you may experience issues intermittently as we continue to work through bringing the sites back up to full capacity.

Your data was not compromised by this attack. This attack overloaded our servers with massive amounts of traffic but did not impact or access the data within those servers. No data was impacted in any way.

I would like to thank the Ancestry Web Operations team for working really hard throughout the night to restore the Ancestry and Find A Grave services and build the defenses necessary to mitigate future attacks of this sort. Our Web Operations team is closely monitoring the situation in case the attacks resume and we’re doing everything in our power to protect our websites from situations like this in the future.

Thank you.

Scott Sorensen

Chief Technology Officer

FTM2014 and Dropbox

Dear MYRTLE and I talk about why I don't use Dropbox with Family Tree Maker 2014.


I use Dropbox all of the time as one of the tools in my Genealogy Tool Box. I don't for FTM2014 because the TreeSync™ feature in FTM2014 allows me to access and work on my "file" from my laptop, working on that file or tree from the Ancestry Member Tree and that the Ancestry Member Tree is a cloud based back up for my file.
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

Genealogy.com and Family Tree Maker User Home Pages

Ancestry.com Focus on Core Offerings

One user's reaction to this announcement my plans as a result.

Ancestry.com's Blog
http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/

Ancestry Focus on Core Offerings
http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2014/06/04/ancestry-com-focuses-on-core-offerings/

Genealogy.com FAQs
http://www.ancestry.com/cs/faq/genealogy-faq






Bottom line here, for me. I have had this User Home Page for about 15 years and haven't really updated it in 5 or 6 years, so it needs a little clean up, but will continue to be Cousin Bait.
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - The Barefoot Genealogist view on Notes

This was the recording by Crista Cowan, The Barefoot Genealogist on how she uses notes:

Person Notes. Research Notes. Fact Notes. Source Notes. There are a lot of places to keep notes in Family Tree Maker. Join Crista Cowan for a look at the different notes features in FTM and a look..

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

What's in a Name ?

In the Cousin Russ Genealogy Community, there was an interesting question asked today.

Do I correct to birth spelling or let it change to what was at death? I haven't gotten actual vital records (as this is a 2nd great grand) but am using census records and as I said his headstone. Is there a "rule" about this situation?

The question is posted here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105640452630116113688/posts/TS4E22wa538 

There is some read dialog going on with this question, but I thought I would share the best example that I have in my database.

That first column, on the right, has the number of Citations for each of the different forms of this name. For example the top one, has 11 Citations, with 6 images, the bottom one 12 Citations and 3 images. That's 36 Citations for 8 versions of his name.

But look at the Preferred name, it only has ONE (1) Citation. Look at that one citation:

It's MY citation, as first name knowledge. How can this be?

If I look at all 8 versions of his name, I could / can jump to the conclusion as to what is real name is. Much link the person asking the question, I don't have many vital records in my hands.

Looking at the first appearance of the name (with the green background) there are 11 citations. 2 of them are from his wife and 3 of them are my own citations. His wife wouldn't document his complete name in what I found in her archives. Id she ever called him by his full name, he might have been in trouble, but ... no documentation there.

What about my citations on that version of his name? All three were from 3 DIFFERENT Find-A-Grave Memorials. Guess I should contact the Memorial Owner for those three web pages. Oh, that is also ME. They are linked together BASED on the name on the Plaque that you see when you look at his memorial. That is what MY photograph shows.

Please understand that I record and cite what I see. 8 versions of his name and 36 citations. BUT the one I Prefer is the name I entered into Family Tree Maker.

WHY?

Looking at the variations in the various documents and doing some evaluation, they helped me determine what hs full name IS, as I recorded it. But IF I go back a generation, HIS father bears the SAME name but without the "Jr" No, he is not a "Sr", although there are 8 citations with "Sr", but each of them were Authored Works. So, "Jr" is OK.

Looking back for a number of generations the First Name is consistent so there is a naming pattern going on here. The "Jr" was the first son, but of the 8th son from the previous generation, but we pick up that first name in the previous 2 generations. A family naming pattern hold.

But looking at the more recent generation, we had a "III". The oldest son, family naming pattern fits. But, that alone is not the reason for my Preference in the full name. That Middle Name does NOT fall in that Naming Pattern. That middle name doesn't appear in the direct line anywhere.

However, that middle name came from the "Father-in-law of his 2nd great aunt". That name is in fact a family name.

Keeping in mind that FTM2014 offers us a "Use Preferred Facts" in charts and reports, so when printing either the preferred Name will be displayed or printed.

There are two more clues here. 1) I have that family Bible that belonged to the "Father-in-law of his 2nd great aunt", and 2) I am the "III".

Bottom line, for me:

• Record what I see
• Cite where I saw the information
• Evaluate the information
• Draw a conclusion

But, I must be missing a step in this process. Isn't what I have presented "conflicting" information ?

For me, not it's not conflicting information, but a recording of the information that is an issue. How long ago was it that names became so important? When were Surnames created or made a requirement? There are some US government documents that only have ONE box to fill in, for middle names. It is taking me years to get my full name (minus those government documents) on all of the forms with my name on them. There are some OFFICIAL documents I can't put my full name on.

To make things more interesting, for the first 13 years of my life, Sr, Jr, and III lived on the SAME farm. My Grandfather and I both went by our Middle Name, my Dad his first. We handled my name in a different manner, but I won't go there.

Is there a "rule" ?

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington