Ancestry discontinued its World Archives Project in February

I couldn't see the link on the Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) menu for its long-running World Archive Project, but a little digging has revealed why - Ancestry discontinued it in February of this year. 

Launched in 2009, the World Archive Project brought volunteers from around the world to help index collections, with those indexes made available for free to the public, although a subscription was still requried to see the actual records involved. In total, some 407 databases were added to the site as a part of the project - you can see a list of all those involved at https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/world_archives/.

According to Ancestry, in almost classic corporate Borg speak, the reasons for this were given as follows:

Ancestry is committed to preserving and amplifying at-risk history and powering new discoveries for all through new and exciting technology. To amplify our impact in the community, we have reallocated our resources to focus on these new technologies and have made the difficult decision to discontinue the World Archives Project.  

My guess is that AI is being employed more, but would appreciate if anyone can provide a further steer on why this has happened. 

I don't see a thank you from Ancestry in its announcement in February to the more than 150,000 volunteers who participated in the project, but for what it is worth, I'd like to convey my own thanks to you all, your contribution was certainly appreciated.

(Source: https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Discontinuing-the-Ancestry-World-Archives-Project)

Chris

Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

Ancestry updates World Archives Project keying tool

Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) has released a new version of the keying tool for its World Archives Project (WAP) crowdsourcing initiative:

Recently we released a new version of the keying tool that addressed the following items:

• New Ancestry login requirements. The new sign in process will lead you to Ancestry to enter your username and password. If you encounter issues signing in to the tool open a new browser session and sign in to your Ancestry account to ensure you are using the correct username and password. If you are still not able to sign in please contact us at worldarchivesproject@ancestry.com.
• Fixing the Online Help and project page links. Previously when Windows users clicked on the links for the project page or message board they were often lead to a blank page – this issue has been corrected. If you encounter issues accessing the project page or other support articles please email worldarchivesproject@ancestry.com

You can download the new version of the keying tool here, https://www.familytreemaker.com/AWAP/

There are still items that we are working on, most notably are your Records Keyed and Reviewed counts. We appreciate your patience as we work with our development team to bring our statistics back online.

(Original story at https://blogs.ancestry.com/worldarchivesproject/?p=3056)

Chris

My next 5 week Scottish Research Online course starts August 31st - see https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=102. My book Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 is now out, also available are Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.