We’ve been working hard here at Footnote headquarters and last week we made several updates to the site that we hope will make it easier for you to find what you are looking for and use what you find.
We hope to post more detail about some of the changes later, but here’s an overview of what’s new:
The First Ever Interactive 1930 US Federal Census
We’re excited to announce that we’ve added images of the 1930 US Federal Census to the site. This important collection gives insight into life in the early stages of the Great Depression, provides information about US men and women who went on to serve in World War II and makes a great starting place for people researching their family history. But with Footnote’s interactive census, finding what you are looking for is just the beginning. Now you can bring these records to life by adding stories, photos, comments, facts, related people. You can start your search in the 1930 Census here.
I’m Related
With this new feature when you find a family member, friend or someone who influenced your life on a Footnote Page, in the 1860 or 1930 census, on the USS Arizona or Vietnam Memorials or several other collections on the site, you can connect them to your Footnote Member Profile by clicking the “I’m Related” button. In the image above, you can see what the check box looks like on an image. Here’s what it looks like on a Footnote Page:
Search Updates
We’ve received some great feedback about searching Footnote and we’ve made some significant improvements based on your suggestions. The new search results page makes it easier to narrow or broaden, refine and change your search. Now you can select the kinds of results you want and remove or add matches found though OCR (Optical Character Recognition–the computer read text of newspapers, city directories and other typed documents). You’ll also find an improved quicklook and an option to add an image to a Footnote Page right from the search results. This intro video provides more details about the new search.
A New Look for the Homepage
We’ve created a new, simpler homepage for Footnote that we hope will make it easier for you to find what you are looking for. We’re still testing things out, so for now this homepage will show up for people who are not signed into the site and for those signed in folks who click the “new homepage” link the yellow bar at the top of the old homepage. Please try it and let us know what you think.
Refer a Friend
We hope you love Footnote as much as we do and that you are sharing it with your friends. To make sharing easier, we’ve added a special refer a friend offer. If you refer a friend using this page, your friend can get $10 off the regular subscription price.
These are just a few of the more visible changes we’ve made to the site, and we’re already working on more. We hope you’ll continue to send us your comments, suggestions and constructive complaints so that we can make Footnote work for you.
On these pages,you willi find a photo of two little girls.One is me,Domino Rio Julia Jane.Lennon,and one is supposedly of a Coreen Wright.Mymother,Willie Bell.Hamilton,her cousin,Doreen”Dora”Hamilton,is up there as well.My mother was born in Jackson,Mississippi,Hinds County,to a Native American woman named Alberta Freeman,and Amos Hamilton,who was born in England,to an English father and a Colored-Welsh mother.I was born in the USA.My mother went to school with a Willie Mae.Green,who is thought to be coreen’s mother by the man my mother stumbled up on,Josephus N.Wright,from Orangrburg,SC.If these names sound familiar,please contact.Mr Wright hasa neuice and a nephew in New York city.Joseph Felder,and Anita Felder.My mother has no siblings.
I Also have an older sisterand brother from my mother,charles Burrell.Flemings Jr.,and Melinda”Linda”Merchant.I Don’t know where Charles was born,but Melinda was born in Buffalo,NY.
Domino Lennon
Ok, now that you have all these People Pages created from the census and SSDI and whatnot, how can we go about linking pages for the same person, for instance, my grandfather, who appears in the 1930 census (and I’ve added some to his person page) and appears as an entry in the SSDI. I made the mistake of creating an I Remember page from the SSDI entry that is almost completely empty.
How can we flag such entries or connect them so as to have the database show them as a single person?
Jason,
Great question. In the left column of the page, there is an section for Related Pages. When you add a Related Page there is an option for “Same Person.” You can use that to connect two or more pages for the same person.
We are looking into some options for making a stronger connection between two pages for the same person and when we get all the details sorted out, we plan use the new approach with pages that have been marked as same person.
If you have any suggestions or recommendations for how you’d like to see two pages for the same person connected, please let us know.
Thanks for the response, I happened to find another blog that mentioned the Related Page option and tried it out.
The first recommendation that comes to mind as far as the linking goes would be for something as basic as the SSDI information, perhaps just have that information linked directly as facts in the larger Person Page (assuming there’s anyway for Footnote to calculate which page is “bigger”, maybe by simple tally of facts or factoring in any other user added information like photos or stories and giving all of those additional factors a value).
Peter, i a havng some issues with conducting an effective search. It seems that I am beng directed to “rooms”. does this mean “Chat Rooms”?
Peter, I am havng some issues with conducting an effective search. It seems that I am beng directed to “rooms”. Does this mean “Chat Rooms”? Where are the rooms??
Scott, I replied to you via email in hopes that you could send me a few more details about the problems you are seeing, so we can get them figured out. Let me know if you don’t get that message.
Note:My mother,Willie Bell.Hamilton/Willie Mae.Hamilton/Mrs.Willie Mae.Wright(her common-law husband was Josephus N.Wright),had two kids before she had me.Charles Burrell.flemings’Jr,August 29th,1958,(by Charles Burrell.Flemings,a sailor and her only legal husband),and Melinda Merchant,(Linda merchantO),by a Frank Merchant,a married farmer from Buffalo,NY.If anyone knows anything about them,please,for God’s sake,contact me!I’m trying to find the.Google willie Bell.Hamilton,Charles Burrell.flemings,Jr,Alberta Freeman,and you will find all the information needed.
Domino Lennon