Ancestry Family Tree is a program that you download one time from the Ancestry.com Web site and then install onto your Windows PC. The software will operate on Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 98, or Windows 95. There is no Macintosh or Linux versions available. The software also requires Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 1 or higher as well as 10 megabytes of available disk space.

I am already a subscriber of Ancestry.com, so there was no additional signup process for me to go through. I went to aft.ancestry.com/, logged in, and downloaded the 4.5-megabyte software installation file onto a Windows 2000 system. The installation was simple; all I did was answer a few questions that appeared on the screen.

I launched Ancestry Family Tree and was asked if I wanted to use an existing family database that was already stored on Ancestry.com or if I preferred to create a new one on my local hard drive. I decided to start with a new database. The program also asked if I wanted to use LDS data or not, and prompted me for my preferences, such as whether or not to display surnames in all upper case. I entered a bit of information about the first person in the new database. A pedigree chart appeared on the screen. Of course, only one person was shown; all the other entries were blank.

I found that I could enter data directly into Ancestry Family Tree. It works in much the same manner as any other genealogy program. The user can enter data, retrieve data, sort, find and also print numerous reports. In short, Ancestry Family Tree is a full-featured genealogy program, similar to most other genealogy programs I have used. The data is stored on the user’s hard drive and then seamlessly connects with databases on Ancestry.com. It can function as the user’s only genealogy program as it performs most functions that other lower-cost genealogy software can perform.

Ancestry Family Tree installs an icon on the user’s Windows desktop as well as an entry in the START menu. To launch the program, one simply double-clicks on the icon. There is no need to open a Web browser to visit the Ancestry.com databases; everything is handled directly from the Ancestry Family Tree program. In fact, the basic functions of the program can be used without being online. You can enter data, search the database, and run reports while offline.

I entered a few names into the program. The data entry process appeared to be quite similar to a number of other genealogy programs I have used. In fact, the data entry is quite similar to Personal Ancestral File for Windows. The individuals even have RIN numbers and marriages have MRIN numbers, similar to Personal Ancestral File. Legacy 3.0 and Ancestral Quest also use similar numbering systems. An RIN number is a number assigned to an individual within the database while an MRIN number is assigned to each marriage record. RIN and MRIN numbers simply are methods the software uses to keep track of individuals and marriages and have no meaning outside of the local database.

Data entry fields include surname, given names, nickname, title prefix (such as Doctor, Professor, etc.), title suffix (such as Jr., III, etc.), birth date and place, christening date and place, death date and place, burial date and place, address for living individuals (including telephone number, e-mail address and personal home page), biography notes, birth notes, christening notes, death notes, burial notes, and source citations. I did not use the fields that are specific to the LDS religion. If the user specifies to use LDS data, then there will be additional entry fields for LDS-specific information as well.

The Ancestry Family Tree database also stores photographs, sound clips, and video clips associated with an individual. In fact, it can create slide shows and multimedia scrapbooks from your genealogy database. Ancestry Family Tree also has extensive reports available, including pedigree charts, family group sheets in a number of different formats, ancestry charts, descendant charts, scrapbooks, and full Register Reports that will automatically generate genealogy books based upon the data in your database. If that isn’t enough, you can also generate a custom report that shows any number of fields and is sorted in your choice of several different methods. For instance, you could generate a customer report showing a Christmas card mailing list or perhaps a list of e-mail addresses for all the living individuals in your database.

I have about three thousand individuals in my primary genealogy database. With this amount of data already in my computer in a different genealogy program, I didn’t want to re-enter every record by hand into Ancestry Family Tree. I created a GEDCOM file with the genealogy program I have been using and then imported that file into Ancestry Family Tree. The import process was simple. Within a couple of minutes every one of the individuals in my database appeared within Ancestry Family Tree’s database stored on my hard drive.

Ancestry Family Tree then began a background process of checking this data on my hard drive with that data stored on Ancestry.com’s servers. My cable modem is on the Internet all the time, so I didn’t have to initiate a connection. Then, as I watched, something rather interesting began to appear. One by one, the record for each person in the on-screen pedigree chart started to have more data appear in blue characters. To the right of each person’s name two new lines appeared: one listing trees and another listing records. I looked at the record for one of my great-great-grandfathers and then clicked on the line that read, "2 trees." I clicked on that and soon was looking at family trees that included men with similar-sounding names and birth dates within a year or two of great-great-grand-dad. All of this was done for me automatically; my data was compared with the stored data of tens of thousands of other users of Ancestry.com.

The first search for great-great-grand-dad didn’t work out. I have been looking for his parents for nearly two decades. Unfortunately, it seems that nobody else has entered any data about him into Ancestry.com. I then started "walking around" my family tree as displayed on the screen. I started looking at all my "dead ends;" those individuals with no identified parents. It wasn’t long before I found success.

In my database, I have Lyford Dow, born 4 September 1763 in Epping, New Hampshire. Lyford was the son of Daniel Dow, whose vital statistics I also have. However, I have never been able to find the name of the woman who was Daniel Dow’s wife and the mother of Lyford Dow. Here, within ten minutes after starting with Ancestry Family Tree, I was looking at a record that listed Daniel Dow’s wife as Mary Grant. The record in Ancestry.com also listed their child as Lyford Dow.

Is this record accurate? Can this be believed? At this time, I do not know. I do know that I will be looking for records of the Grant family in and near Epping, New Hampshire, the next time I visit a genealogy library. Also, the name and e-mail address of the person who submitted this data to Ancestry.com is clearly listed on the same page along with data about Daniel Dow. Had that person entered any source citations for this record, those citations would also have been displayed. In this case, there was no source citation listed. I clicked on the submitter’s name, and my e-mail program was then launched with the addressee’s e-mail address already filled in on a new message. You better believe that I sent him a quick e-mail asking him where he found that information!

Ancestry Family Tree will even automatically copy Mary Grant’s vital information and all of her listed ancestors into my database. I elected to not copy it into my primary database until I have the information verified. However, I think I will create a new database called "Possibilities" and then copy her data into that. My "Possibilities" database will hold information that I wish to verify. Once I am confident the information has been verified through independent means, I will copy the record from "Possibilities" into my primary database.

I kept moving around the database and was pleased to find possible parents for two more of my "dead ends." In my case, both were almost an exact repetition of the first: a man listed in my database with an unknown wife appears on Ancestry.com with the name of a wife displayed. In all three cases, there was no source cited, but the names and e-mail addresses of the submitters were displayed. I sent e-mails to all three asking them where they obtained that information.

I was delighted to find that the data not only includes ancestors within the U.S, but almost all of my French-Canadian ancestors were listed there as well. Ancestry Family Tree also supports European alphabets so that accents acute, grave, circumflex, and other French characters in their names and the associated locations were properly displayed. I assume the same would be true for German, Spanish and Italian names, and probably for other European languages as well.

The databases contributed to Ancestry.com also have records for many people in the British Isles and throughout Europe as well as in Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries.

Ancestry Family Tree also has built-in capabilities to contribute your data to Ancestry.com. You click on INTERNET and then on CREATE WEB PAGE. You are then presented with a number of options. You may elect to have your own e-mail address displayed or not. Likewise, your name and mailing address may be displayed or not, at your option. I was pleased to note that the software has the option of hiding details for living individuals. In fact, you can elect to hide the names entirely or else show names but with no other identifying information. All of this is under the control of you, the user. You can also update or delete your information on Ancestry.com at any time. Of course, you will also want to know that Ancestry.com has pledged to never sell your data on CD-ROM disks.

All in all, I am quite pleased with Ancestry Family Tree. I would have said this even if Ancestry.com was not the sponsor of this newsletter. Ancestry Family Tree is an easy genealogy program to use, and it quickly and easily suggested three new ancestors whom I had not discovered previously. Like all genealogy data, the names must be independently verified before I accept the information as factual and before I will enter the data into my primary database. However, I am pleased to have these three suggestions that I did not have previously.

To be sure, the same information was already on Ancestry.com prior to my using this new program. I did not really need to use Ancestry Family Tree to find this information. I could have manually searched for those records by using a different genealogy program, looking at a "dead end" ancestors, then switching to a Web browser, going to Ancestry.com, and re-entering all the data there, one person at a time. To search for several hundred unidentified ancestors and to find three new possibilities would have required hundreds and hundreds of mouse clicks and keystrokes. Ancestry Family Tree did the same thing but at a fraction of the manual work and in a fraction of the time. The end result is that Ancestry Family Tree easily accomplished something that I probably would never have done manually. Without Ancestry Family Tree, I would need to repeat this major effort every few months to see if any new data had been submitted. Now all I have to do is to periodically load Ancestry Family Tree and then sit back and watch as it does the comparisons for me.

Ancestry Family Tree is an evolutionary new product that advances today’s technology another step forward. As our society moves more and more towards being an online, "networked society," the capability to automatically compare your data against huge compiled databases seems to be a natural application for home computers. Unlike some other services, your Ancestry Family Tree data is not stored online unless you wish to place it there. Your data remains on your local hard drive under your control. You can add data, correct data, and otherwise groom your information as many times as you want. Should you wish to share your information with others, you may do so at any time, but everything still remains under your control. Even after you place your data online, you may go back later to make corrections, add new data or to even remove your data entirely from the online database. These methods of user control should be emulated by the other online genealogy databases!

The Ancestry Family Tree software is free to members of Ancestry.com and available to others for $19.95. That price includes a 14-day trial that allows the user to view and import Ancestry World Tree search results directly into Ancestry Family Tree.

Ancestry Family Tree has more power than some of the commercial genealogy programs. It is a full-featured genealogy program that stores data on your local hard drive and optionally on the World Wide Web. You can use it offline as much as you like. In fact, there is no requirement to ever log onto Ancestry.com and search the databases there. However, I am sure you will want to use this most powerful database search feature.

For more information about Ancestry Family Tree, go to: aft.ancestry.com/

• Read the next article in this issue.
  
• Return to the previous article in this issue.
  
• Return to the Table of Contents