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"Along Those Lines"
1/4/2002 - Archive
Working with Ancestry Family Tree Software
First, let me wish you a Happy New Year, filled with joy, prosperity,
love, and success.
A majority of genealogists these days are using a database software program
to record their data, manage it, print reports, and to export files to share
some or all of their data with others. If you're like me, you have seen the
announcement from Ancestry.com about the free genealogy software package available
for download from their Web site and are probably intrigued about it. Well,
I spent a couple of hours on Christmas Day working with it and I have to tell
you that I am much impressed. In the first "Along Those Lines . . ." column
of the new year, I want to discuss the new Ancestry Family Tree software and
how you can get the most from it.
Genealogy Database Programs and Online Materials
Over the years, genealogy programs have come and gone. A few just didn't make
it, while others have been swallowed up in corporate mergers, purchases, and
other deals. Programs for the Macintosh and support for them have dwindled.
However, we have become a computer- dependent society and we demand more and
more features and functions of our software programs.
Over the last decade since Tim Berners-Lee introduced the first Web browser,
the amount of genealogical data we can access online has led the way in Internet
growth. As genealogists, we revel in the explosive growth of data online to
extend and accelerate our research. We generate more and more data ourselves,
posting messages on message boards, participating in mailing lists, exchanging
e-mail with others, inputting data into our own databases, sharing GEDCOM files
with one another, and uploading family trees to a variety of places.
Among the most prolific collections of online information, databases, and freely
accessible GEDCOM-based data is Ancestry.com. The Ancestry World Tree has long
been one of the largest collections of free, user-submitted data. With the combining
of the Ancestry World Tree and the content of RootsWeb's similar project, WorldConnect,
the free family tree materials at Ancestry.com are unquestionably the largest
such collection of its kind on the Internet. In addition, the data remains accessible
to the submitter and will never be published or sold, as has been the case with
some other services.
Ancestry.com's New Software Offering
I have been using Ancestry.com's Online Family Tree facility for some time.
It has allowed me to collaborate with other relatives working on our genealogy
as a collaborative group. The Online Family Tree (OFT) has allowed me to upload
my GEDCOM file as a starting point for the research, and then allow other family
members to view the data. I control access to the data and have given some family
members who know their way around genealogy and research methods, citation formats,
and so forth, the ability to add and update our collaborative OFT. There are
so many functions of the tree that we use, I wrote a column about Collaborative
Research: The New Online Family Tree from Ancestry almost two years ago,
and it just gets better.
The new offering, though, doesn't replace the OFT. Instead, the new Ancestry
Family Tree (AFT) software is downloaded and installed on your own computer.
What makes it tremendously powerful is its ability to search the Ancestry.com
Web site, match on the names of people in your database, and locate the family
tree files that have been uploaded as GEDCOMS to the Ancestry World Tree/WorldConnect
combined file. You can then import data from those files to your computer to
review or to merge into your own database. What is even more impressive is that,
if you are a subscriber to the Ancestry databases, you also can match to records
in the subscription databases and import those records as well! While writing
this column, I did a search for one of my great-great-grandmothers, Violet E.
Lee ALEXANDER, wife of Dr. Isaac WILSON. According to the software listing for
her, there were ten trees and four records available for her. My global search
of Ancestry.com reported that 182,678,565 names, 2,288,892 surnames, and 157,385
databases were searched to produce the list of tree entries presented to me.
The data I found there can be viewed in a number of formats, printed in a variety
of standard report formats, and/or merged with the Ancestry Family Tree.
A search for Violet's grandfather, John McKnitt ALEXANDER, shows 40 trees and
25 records. Of the latter 25, I located materials in the Biography and Genealogy
Master Index (BGMI), Abstracts of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots, message
boards, Gene Pool Records, in the PERiodical Source Index (PERSI), Tryon County
(NC) Court Minutes, 1769-1779, and Chester County (PA) Wills, 1713-1825. There
certainly were resources from these subscription database records I certainly
had never accessed before, particularly the Tryon and Chester Counties' materials.
What great pointers! I can certainly copy and paste these records into the notes
area of the AFT and conduct more extensive research -- even obtain copies of
these documents for my own review.
Family Trees created in the AFT software can be exported easily for storage
and sharing on Ancestry.com or MyFamily.com through the Online Family Tree.
Once submitted as an Online Family Tree, the file can be shared with others
privately or submitted to the Ancestry World Tree to share publicly. (At MyFamily.com,
you can quickly create a private family site, and then you can upload your file
into your private family area so that only those people invited into the area
can view the OFT you have created there as a result of your upload.) In addition,
you can export the data in several formats, including Temple Records, the standard
GEDCOM format and, of course, the AFT format. The GEDCOM format will continue
to be the format you use most to share with other researchers.
Not Just Another Pretty Face
The new AFT software has a number of advantages. First, it isn't 'just another
genealogy program.' It is a full-featured package for a great price for those
who are already paying Ancestry.com subscribers -- FREE. (Memberships are available
to non-subscribers for only $19.95. This unique membership will allow users
to view and import Ancestry World Tree search results directly into Ancestry
Family Tree. The membership also comes with fourteen days of access to our subscription
databases and a $20 discount for members who decide to become annual subscribers.
In addition, new members will also be able to create a premium site on MyFamily.com
– a $19.95 value.) It can be downloaded and run on any PC with a Windows 95
(or higher) operating system, including Windows 98, 2000 Professional, NT, ME,
and the new Windows XP. (Sorry, MAC users. I wish there was a version here for
you, too.)
There has never been a faster way to take your existing database of names, dates
and research, and search for direct matches on the single largest genealogical
database. You certainly can grow your family tree quickly. That is not to say,
however, that you should accept as fact what you find online. Always verify
the evidence yourself, and that means reviewing the source citations provided
by other researchers and obtaining true copies for your own examination.
The new Ancestry Family Tree software looks like a winner to me, and I intend
to keep working with it. After all, I already have found new materials in North
Carolina and Pennsylvania. I think I'm in for a busy winter of research, and
that's alright with me. Maybe you will want to try it out for yourself.
Happy Hunting!
George
EDITOR'S NOTE: For more information on Ancestry.com's AFT software, see
the release.
George G. Morgan is a proud member of the International Society of Family History
Writers and Editors, Inc. (ISFHWE) at: www.rootsweb.com/~cgc/cgc2.htm.
He would like to hear from you at atl@ahaseminars.com
but, due to the volume of e-mail, he is unable to answer every e-mail message
received. Please note that he cannot assist you with your individual research.
Visit George's Web site at ahaseminars.com/atl
for information about speaking engagements. Copyright 2001, MyFamily.com. All
rights reserved.
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