18 June 2013

Responsible record indexing at Ancestry

How clean are the records you use? I'm not referring to layers of dust accumulated on original records stored and undisturbed in an archive for decades, but rather the working conditions of those, usually in developing countries, who index the records we enjoy?  Following the disaster in Bangladesh which killed more than 1,000 it's only natural to wonder about working conditions. Is there a potential Rana Plaza-like disaster waiting to happen?

I enquired and here is the response received from Ancestry, via Matthew Deighton from their media communication section:

Ancestry.com takes its choice in indexing vendor relationships very seriously. We personally conduct social audits and formal audits with all companies that we work with on a regular basis. The kind of transcribing that our company does requires a high emphasis on character recognition, quality and education. The buildings used for our type of work require modernization and a lot of technology (transmission of high volumes of data), which insures that our vendors are located in newer areas, close to IT infrastructure. We partner with vendors that can provide us with a quality outcome that also provides a safe, healthy work environment that meets our high standards. In fact, we recently partnered with Digital Data Divide, an indexing vendor, who released a video featuring our relationship with them. Check out the video here: http://vimeo.com/wondros/review/61991533/7d9444770e.

2 comments:

Jean Kitchen said...

I have wondered about the issues of quality control and working conditions where offshore indexing is being done. Thanks for asking about this; the response seems encouraging.

Anonymous said...

I hope that no further of Canada's census records or other documents are 'contracted' by LAC to Ancestry. whether .com or .ca The 1881 census, is a disaster and poorly done, showing how little is known of Canadian geography. Previous access to the information by Canadian transcribers, even with names misspelled due partly to census takers misunderstanding of accents of info provider, one could find the family name through the errors. Not providing family groupings on each member in the family group is an huge nuisance. Family grouping is what the census should provide.