Ancestry “Lunch & Learn”: Handwriting Recognition - The Future of Indexing

 Ancestry “Lunch & Learn”: Handwriting Recognition - The Future of Indexing

Date/Time of Presentation: Wednesday March 29 at 12noon ET / 9am PT

Presentation format: lecture style followed by question/answer period

Presentation length: 45min = 20min. presentation followed by 25min questions.

Find out more about the latest development in Ancestry’s handwriting recognition (HWR) technology, why other solutions fell short and the unique features that will change the future of indexing. Ancestry will present a case study around the indexing of the 1950 US Census and share details about the process that ultimately resulted in publishing the HWR index on its platform. What does this mean for future indexing projects and where do we hope this will lead. . . 1931 Canadian Census???? Please join us on this exciting journey

Key phrases:

• The challenges
• Creating our own in-house solution
• The 1950 US Census – A Case Study
• What does the future hold?
• 1931 Canadian Census

Presenters and brief bios:

• Jared Akenhead – Senior Manager – Content Acquisition. Has worked for Ancestry for over 11 years with responsibility of finding genealogically rich content in the US and Canada. He has a passion for the helping others discover their ancestors and learn more about their family histories. He enjoys the outdoors and spending time with his family. He has lived in many parts of the world, including England, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia and has an obvious love of travel and exploring new places.

• Kaysie Ziebarth – Project Manager, Content Production. Has worked with Ancestry for 12 years, most recently managing the content pipeline which includes digitizing, indexing, and publishing genealogical records to Ancestry.com. Particularly focuses on projects using Data Science technology (like HWR) such as the 1950 US Federal Census and French Census collections. Kaysie enjoys family history and learning about her ancestors and loves the work that is being done to provide these meaningful connections more efficiently. She also enjoys sewing—especially Halloween costumes—and travelling with her family. One of her most memorable experiences was skydiving in Hawaii.