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January 19, 2012

Genealogy Today gets a Haircut and a Shave for 2012

The following announcement was sent to Olive Tree Genealogy by our good friend Illya D'Addezio of Genealogy Today

Genealogy Today gets a Haircut and a Shave for 2012 ... Well, maybe a
mini-facelift too (but I'll never tell). This weekend the search engine at
Genealogy Today was released with a faster, simpler version that (and here's
the key benefit) offers better results. In addition to the search
improvements, the home page was redesigned and the site navigation was
improved.

The improved search combines free and paid resources into a single result
set, highlighting new and updated items. External resources are clearly
identified with "Web:" before their titles, and free items announce
themselves with a Free! indicator. There's also a new line at the top of the
search results that displays the criteria used in the search. And (did I
mention that) the Genealogy Today search is now much faster, more consistent
between the different types of records and offers better results (for
special cases and name variations).

Released with the search engine (as you might expect) is an improved search
form that allows you to filter free/paid, local/external and restrict
"fuzzy" name logic. The new form also does a better job of keeping track of
what you've just searched on, and as you drill down into the databases,
offers options to reverse direction and expand your search.

Still in the works... support for searching alternate names (e.g. maiden,
married, nicknames, typos) and a real-time checker for external resources to
better handle moved/dead links. And, of course, there will lots of new data
added during 2012!

While the search engine may not look all that different on the surface, it
drives a lot better... so go ahead and take the improved search engine for a
test drive... http://www.genealogytoday.com/

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