RootsTech Recap

We are thrilled Find-A-Record was a Developer Challenge Finalist. This gave us great exposure to the press, to bloggers, to potential customers, and to other genealogy companies. Though we didn't win first place, we did meet many people who are ecstatic about Find-A-Record. We were often told, "It solves my biggest problem!" Find-A-Record was validated: it provides a simple solution to a complex problem that many people have.

Here are our short-term plans:

• Load as much data into Find-A-Record as we can. There are many people interested in using the API. The more data we have, the more useful our API is.
• Harden our API and back end infrastructure. It needs to be reliable, fast, and bug free.
• Find a way to simplify the search experience. We're concerned that the current experience with the large map is overwhelming and confusing. We will be experimenting with alternative designs.

We have a published list of repositories we plan to index collections from in the near future. Let us know if where else we can find valuable data. You'll notice we're mostly focused on the US and UK right now.

Do you have any ideas about how to improve the search experience? We would love to hear them.