Ysearch Public Database

[admin]

Many of you must already know: this weekend Family Tree DNA launched www.Ysearch.org - a free public service to the genealogical community. People that have tested with all labs will be able to input their information and compare side by side 2 or more results, independent of the lab that they have tested.
Being this a public site, and not wanting to infringe upon the individual privacy of the users, people can upload as much information as they want - enough to be of value for research - but still allowing to limit that information so that personal identification is not available, if this is one's desire.
To make it easier for our customers, we have included an "Upload" link in the personal page, so that the numerical values will be automatically uploaded.
We hope you join Ysearch and enjoy using it.
Ysearch.org is pretty much self-explanatory.

[Lucy]

Re: Ysearch Public Database

Max,
In the country of origin on the y-search, I did not find countries of origin such as Silesia or Bohemia, places which no longer exist as "countries", but did when our ancestors left them. It seems somewhat inaccurate to be forced to put in "Poland", "Germany" , "Czech Republic", or some other current political entity as a country of origin when none of the person's immigration/naturalization documentation show such countries.

FamilyTreeDNA allows the "old" countries names, so I was wondering why Y-search doesn't carry this, especially since FamilyTreeDNA customers are allowed to automatically upload?

I'm inclined to put in "origin unknown" as opposed to a country that my ancestor would "turn over in their grave" if they knew I associated them with it.

Thanks,
Lucy

[IZZY]

Lucy,

If you went to the "old country" and tried to do research there you would have to deal with the imperialist powers that be.

I too think that "Ukraine" would be incorrect as a name for "Galicia" for example, but so could Poland, and Austria just by which part of Galicia we are talking about.

peace.

Izzy

[Lucy]

I just checked the Y-search website and they now carry the "old" names. You might have to look around a bit for your choice, though, as they grouped them together under various existing country names, but not necessarily the country which currently occupies the same land mass. They appear to have taken an historical approach for grouping names.

For example, both Bohemia and Silesia are listed under Austria even though Bohemia is in the same place as the Czech Republic and Silesia has been subsumed by Poland. However, at one point both were under the Austro-Hungarian empire, so I suspect that is why they are located under Austria. I'm not complaining--I'm just glad I got to hook up my great-grandfather with his fatherland.

Lucy