I just received this announcement from Ancestry.com, and it’s posted on their blog (just in time for RootsTech): “New Family Tree Maker Options.”
These are the two new options Ancestry is offering:
- Sell Family Tree Maker (both Windows and Mac versions) to Software MacKiev, the current developer of the Mac version, and allow it to continue to connect to Ancestry.com, to include TreeSync. This sounds like an old option to me. I don’t know why Ancestry didn’t sell FTM to begin with.
- Partner with RootsMagic to connect with Ancestry.com, to include TreeSync. This was hinted at in a previous blog post from Ancestry.
Now the questions for users are:
- Should they stay with FTM or go with an application such as RootsMagic?
- Will Ancestry.com partner with any other applications in addition to RootsMagic? There’s nothing in the announcement to indicate that Ancestry’s relationship with RootsMagic is exclusive. Update: RootsMagic has posted an announcement that implies some exclusivity, yet leaves the door open for other applications: “Sync – RootsMagic will be the only software besides FTM to let you share data between your RootsMagic files on your computer with your personal Ancestry online trees” (italics added). Naturally RootsMagic would share data with its own files, but does that mean do other apps will have access to Ancestry.com?
Has the “Replacing Family Tree Maker Series” been overtaken by events? I don’t think so. Some users will be content to stay with FTM, but given the uncertainty the past few months, many users will want to switch to RootsMagic or something else. To help you answer the first question above, I’ve already reviewed how will RootsMagic imports and exports GEDCOM files. In the near future, I’ll review the features that set RootsMagic apart from other applications. I also plan to continue to review the other dozen or so major desktop genealogy applications. So if you haven’t already done so, fill in the “Get Email Updates” boxes to your right to be notified of new or updated reviews.
Please tell us in the Comments what Ancestry’s announcement means to you.
Sounds like TreeSync is gone, and both programs will operate the way RootsMagic does with FamilySearch. Comments?
I think some form of TreeSync will still exist because of statements like, “be able to save your tree on Ancestry with Family Tree Maker moving forward,” and “ability to save your tree on Ancestry.” TreeSync is one way to do this without re-downloading or uploading a tree every time it changes.
The real question, as I think farther, what about Media? I have not shared any media with FamilySearch. I don’t know if that works. I have put people on FamilySearch, while experimenting (did tree sync, exported the tree (via the media folder), imported to RootsMagic and then used FamilySearch compare to add four children to FamilySearch tree. No media was invovled.
If the announcement from RootsMagic is any indication, neither TreeSync nor media should be a problem: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/?p=2612. If RootsMagic will be able to open an FTM file directly, then that should include any media.
Well, this is a case of “too little, too late” to me. And worse still, it is confusing my migration plans. I had almost decided to go forward with RootsMagic. (I have downloaded and tried RM, Legacy and FamilyHistorian. RM was showing the most promise.) But my total disgust and distrust for Ancestry is making me question that choice. Family Historian has moved into first place with me.
What do you like about Family Historian?
As you know, these alternative softwares are all pretty good. Each has all the essential features needed, but also some issues to someone migrating from/ and used to FTM, …and each has some really “plus” features.
But as superficial as it is, the “look” and “feel” Of FH is the closest to FTM. (I’ve really been impressed with RM, but it looks like Windows95.) FH has quickly addressed FTM migrant issues – they’ve already fixed the “view citation media” issue in your series (this was a biggie with me, too).
RootsMagic has also been very responsive to our issues. I know I’m over-reacting, but I really don’t want anything to do with A.com going forward, and a “deal” with them is a negative for me.
I have been testing the free Roots Magic since the Ancestry.com announcement. I think the interface is in need of major work, but “everything works”. Cannot say the same about FTM 2014. Roots Magic has more features. And I like many of them! If Ancestry.com had sold FTM to start with, I might not have let my subscription lapse.
Roots Magic items I do not like are: 1) From the edit person form there is a place to check to show images. To get the image there you have to go to the media gallery and attach the image to the fact in addition to it being attached to the citation. Too much work. 2) Editing images is not good in RM. FTM allows you to edit the image using the editor you assigned in Windows to edit images.
I will continue test RM, but will wait on a conversion until I hear the new owners strategy going foward.
The other issue that I have with RM (and all other software options I’ve looked at so far) is that their database appears to be structured differently than FTM, particularly when it comes to source citations. In FTM you can have one citation that is linked to numerous facts. If you make a change to this linked citation, it is automatically updated for all facts to which it is attached. There is also a Sources workspace where you can easily review and edit citations. In RM, each citation is a stand-alone piece of data and you have to manually copy it to all facts individually from the person’s workspace. For instance, if a marriage record provides information pertaining to the date/place of a marriage, the names of each spouse, their parents’ names, occupations, etc., this citation can be linked very quickly and easily to all facts in FTM but in RM it will need to be copied and pasted one by one using the “memorize” function. If you later make a change to the citation, you have to make the same manual change everywhere else as well – and I don’t think there’s an easy way to view citations except through reports and I have not found a way to make global changes to citations the way you can in FTM. As someone who did not do a great job on citations in my early days of research, I know I have lots of citations that need to be cleaned up and I cannot imagine trying to do it anywhere other than in FTM.
I will also be interested to see how this database structure difference will work when RM is able to import FTM files directly without going through GEDCOM. I’m sure they’ll be able to work something out, but unless they make some fundamental changes to their database structure in RM, I’m not optimistic that RM will ever handle citations the way FTM does.
Karen, you can view and edit citations in the Edit Source window; click on the “Detail text” tab. However, I’m with you; I like how FTM handles sources and citations and how, if I change one citation that is linked to many facts, I can change them all. So far, RM’s handling of citations is a show-stopper for me. But we’ll see how things shake out when RM is able to open an FTM file directly.
I am in the same boat as Karen. I agree with you and Keith – this is a major problem. I didn’t realize you couldn’t link a citation to multiple facts/people in RM. However, isn’t it the GEDCOM standard to export/import as multiple citations? When I read this in Keith’s posts I stopped in my tracks with fixing FTM for GEDCOM. An example of Keith’s “perils” of adhering to the standard – we are caught between a rock and a hard place. Because the genealogy community can’t agree on how to move forward, we are stuck with computer infrastructure that is archaic, given the rate of change in computer technology. GEDCOM is a kind of patois that allows us to imperfectly communicate and share our findings. Since the experts on GEDCOM unable to reach consensus on how to move forward, it looks like the genealogy community will vote with its feet.
Margaret, yes, it is tree that each citation in a GEDCOM is unique, even if it’s duplicated many times, which is what happens when you export an FTM tree to GEDCOM. It will be interesting to see how RootsMagic handles this when opening a FTM file directly.
Since the news in December, I have explored a few of the Mac options and quite like Reunion, though I need to “scrub” my FTMM3 tree before exporting the GEDCOM. Now I need to decide whether to stay with FTMM3 or migrate to Reunion. I still feel that FTMM3 is buggy – it can be slow and sometimes crashes…
I appreciate all the work you have done to share your experiences with these different software programs here.
The announcement on the RootsMagic blog http://blog.rootsmagic.com/?p=2612
indicates that in addition to Sync capability, Ancestry trees and .ftm files can be imported directly into RM without an intermediate Gedcom file, “giving you the cleanest, most complete transfer of your data”.
Good news, indeed
Thanks for the quick heads-up. Another decision to make.
Basically, I feel like rob. I’m relieved, but disgusted at the same time. Ancestry.com could have looked into/set up these options before, instead of dropping their bombshell in December. On the other hand, maybe it shows that we do have some power to influence them. Maybe we gave RM and MacKiev some leverage in negotiations. Way to go everyone, and thanks for your leadership, Keith and Ben!
Margaret, Good points about the power of customers to force changes on a company, and than you for your kind words!
Well, one thing is for sure, Ancestry might have a lot of info in their database, but they no longer have the level of empathy towards genealogists that they had; my suspicion is that the recent takeovers and venture capitalists want to make every last penny they can from it. How is this relevant, as someone else said ‘…. distrust for Ancestry…’ To me they have become the equal of their ‘money is the bottom line’ competitor Findmypast (as shown by FMPs total disregard to customers with the UK 1911 census and recently the 1939 census substitute). OK, you say they are all businesses, fine, but in that case they should not expect any loyalty if they treat their customers in this way, and potential customers should be very wary of any of their enterprises, especially if by ditching one of them it leaves you stranded. i.e.you should at least have an ‘escaape route’.
If they were loyal to their customers, (and I would imagine they make far more out of annual subscriptions than any software they might sell), they would open up their API and let other developers interface too, and in the long run that should surely create more ‘regular’ subscriptions and income.
But why use Ancestry or any online trees. I am a long time subscriber to Ancestry and had my tree there for many years and made many contacts and am grateful to others who also share their data. Online trees can be excellent as a ‘shop window’ but to me keeping your ‘Master’ online is asking for trouble. I can see the temptation, easy to drag or click items etc, but what if you have no internet and how do you: back it up, revert to an older version, share, migrate to another product. In particular Ancestry has never divulged its API and its own export (and import) Gedcom is not very good. I don’t know how it syncs with FTM now, but in the past when I tried, it was a nightmare and they openly admitted that things like notes just did not sync or got truncated.
But one thing I have learnt over many years in IT and home computing is that 2 way syncing is the best way to either loose data or duplicate it, and sorting out the mess can waste a lot of time.
So for me, Ancestry is still a good database and ‘shop window’ for a copy of my tree (even then I prefer Rootsweb trees), but I would rather keep my master tree on my PC/Laptop where I have control over it, in a genealogy program that does a far far better job at reporting, printing trees, data manipulation etc etc. For me the answer is Family Historian, and Rootsmagic was a close second, but for those who go down the Rootsmagic path in order to sync with Ancestry trees, TAKE GREAT CARE, if possible I would suggest you treat Rootsmagic as your ‘master’ and only sync 1 way from it to Ancestry, and take a backup before any syncing. This could be a good opportunity for Rootsmagic, but it could also be a nightmare, I just hope they can do it better and in a much shorter time scale than FTM did!
And, as Keith and many other pundits have said, there is no rush, the dust is still settling, make this ‘forced opportunity’ an opportunity to reassess how to store/ share your data for the long term.
Best of luck.
Jim, some good points, especially about TreeSync. I agree that syncing one way from FTM to Ancestry is a good idea; I rarely (though occasionally) sync the other way, and never both simultaneously. It’s also a good idea to sync frequently, rather than letting a lot of changes pile up.
This is good news. While I am still not happy with the way Ancestry handled this, the sale of the software means extended support and a longer time frame to decide either to stay with FTM or move to another product. Secondly I will be quite interested in how RM handles direct import of an FTM database. One of the features that FTM has that I was finding a show stopper for me moving packages is the ability to link, rather than copy, a citation to multiple events. This ability fits my style of source citations and provides the ability to edit a citation and have the change show up on every event/fact that the citation is linked to. I have yet to find any other program that provides this ability.
I agree completely. This was a show-stopper for me as well.
Keith, Thanks for your analysis. I have used FTM on my Mac for years and the last version was not very good–a new genealogy program for Mac users would be a welcome update. Is there any evidence that the “suggested” replacements will be any better than the latest version of FTM for Mac? Looks like the landscape is changing, so, I will wait to see what other programs may replace the FTM. Again, Thanks Bill
I thought Family Tree Maker for Mac improved a little bit with every iteration, and I found FTM 3 to be quite stable and smooth. Now if MacKiev will continue to improve it, and especially fix the problems with GEDCOM, it might be worth sticking with. But as you say, a wait-and-see approach is best.
I was really excited about this when I got the email from Ancestry, even though I already spent $24.99 on MacFamilyTree. I was ready just to continue on with FTM. However, after sleeping on it, I realize that I really love the design of MacFamilyTree – much more than FTM, and certainly more than RM (which feels/looks like something from 10 years ago). I love Apple products, and you can really tell that MFT was designed specifically for Mac. Plus their iPhone/Pad app is better than any other mobile genealogy product out there – basically, a complete version of the desktop software on your phone. FTM is also great software, but I like MFT better. So, the questions is, how much is the quivering leaf and TreeSync worth to me? I’m still on the fence.
MacFamily Tree is one of the apps I will be reviewing at Part 5: Importing Your FTM Tree into MacFamilyTree 7. Stay tuned for updates!
Looking forward to it!
I am very happy that I have switched to Rootsmagic. It has all the functions that I need and it’s publisher is GREAT! Also, I can see hints from several different websites. I find that I had become complacent with FTM and Ancestry.com and am glad that they gave me a ‘nudge’ and caused me to re-evaluate my need for Ancestry.com. I am not going to renew my Ancestry.com subscription in April. I have been a member since 2002, but it is time for me to use other websites, and I am very interested in contributing to wikitree and familysearch, since their focus is building one ACCURATE family tree rather than many trees filled errors. It is time for me to move on, and leave my dependency on Ancestry.com behind! It feels good!
I’m interested to hear your experience with FamilySearch Family Tree. My own experience has been very different. While FamilySearch is trying to get people to help build an accurate tree, too many people are still stuck in their old ways of adding information without adding source citations. I have carefully built my own Riggle line back to 1600, but all too often cousins come along and change things willy nilly without bothering to read my sources, reasons, notes, or discussions. I think RootsMagic is part of the problem; it’s too easy to merge profiles from RM without reading the existing information on FamilySearch. It’s gotten to the point that I’ve given up on FamilySearch Family Tree. But I’ve been keen to work more on WikiTree, as well as Geni.com. I like the approach the latter takes with curators for common profiles.
The entire process Ancestry has taken us all through for the past 2 months or so was disturbing. I didn’t see any words about Ancestry selling FTM – only that it was being “acquired.” That item is about as wide open (not that it matters) as whether or not there will still be TreeSync (this DOES matter). Our primary use is Ancestry with backups to FTM through TreeSync – which hopefully will still be an option – whether it be to FTM or to RootMagic.
Steve, the announcement from RootsMagic is pretty clear that they will be able to sync between RM and Ancestry, so I can’t believe that FTM would not continue to do so.
The Ancestry wording is strange, but I agree that the RootsMagic wording is clear. The advertising on mackiev.com also clearly lists TreeSync as a capability, so that’s a strong indicator. I hope you are right!
The Ancestry wording is unnecessarily vague. It’s almost as if they put it out before all the details were finalized.
Many people that posted to Ancestry’s announcement had questions about TreeSync. Ancestry did respond finally:
“Kristie Wells
REGARDING TREESYNC:
Family Tree Maker will continue to have syncing capability with Ancestry trees, however this feature may evolve as Software MacKiev updates the software.
It will use different underlying technology than our current TreeSync but it effectively provides the same basic functionality of allowing the user to keep data in their online tree and data in their desktop tree consistent.
Same for Rootsmagic.
February 2, 2016 at 4:50 pm”
Will the media transfer be easier? I have yet to be able to import photos and documents from Ancestry to RM. I can’t find the GedCom media file – how do you get it from Ancestry. I successfully transferred the text files but the media files transfers as an icon only and I cannot open then in RM.
Yes, it should be. According to RootsMagic, “You’ll also be able to download people, events, and even pictures from Ancestry onto your computer through RootsMagic” (emphasis added).
Ancestry’s GEDCOM files contain media URLs, but I haven’t gotten them to open in a browser. Prior to now, Family Tree Maker was the best way to download media from Ancestry; now we’ll have another option with RootsMagic.
I wonder how A.com will handle this too. They limit the ability to view proprietary images on the website to members (e.g. censuses), but you can save them to your computer directly from the website, or download them via treesync or webmerge. Then you can do whatever you want with them. Since a lot of what A.com is charging for is the ability to look at/download these images, I would think they will want to keep some control over them. Maybe they are trying to figure this out. But I guess they can count on our insatiable appetites for information – we will keep paying for the right to come back and get more.
Thank you, Keith. With their carefully worded announcement, I am not sure if Tree Sync (two-way) or Merge will continue under the new agreements. I do not use Tree Sync but in this day and age, people will want true syncing because they will want to make their changes on Ancestry, on their desktop, laptop and phone (maybe even their watch). I also wonder if RM and FTM will remain sort of exclusive in their interaction with Ancestry. My gut feeling is no. I could see Ancestry not providing all the knowledge required to sync with the Ancestry trees while they owned FTM as it gave them a competitive edge. But now…
I thought it over very carefully and decided that I will continue with my FTM Transition Plan implementation. My curiosity is now peaked as to what is out there. Will I find something I like better than FTM as my primary data entry program? I am now including FTM as one of my alternatives to evaluate and plan to run my test scenarios through FTM and score them like I plan to do with all the other programs.
Please see the comments above about TreeSync. Both Ancestry and RootsMagic have made clear that both FTM and RM will be able to sync with family trees at Ancestry. RootsMagic seems to imply that their arrangement is exclusive, but essentially they say that RM is the only app that will sync between RM and Ancestry—well duh! Anyway, I’m with you, I think there’s a business case for Ancestry to open up TreeSync to any app that wants to go through the trouble of implementing it (remember all the trouble FTM had to begin with?). After all, every new tree that’s synced with Ancestry is more fodder for their database. I also agree that FTM is now one of the alternatives, since MacKiev will continue to develop it. If MacKiev can fix the bugs and problems, I might just stick with FTM. I haven’t found anything I like better yet.
I used Reunion and only switched to FTM because of its ability to sych data. I liked many features od Reunion better. is it in the running to replace FTM?
Dorothy
Since FTM will continue to sync with Ancestry, even after Jan 1, 2017, why not stick with it? But if you like the features of Reunion better, then by all means. However, have you read my review of how well it handles GEDCOM? Personally, I don’t care for Reunion; it loses too much information when importing a GEDCOM, it doesn’t even produce an import log, it moves all citation media to the corresponding sources, and it has too many non-standard structures when it exports to GEDCOM.
Many thanks for your comment.
I am not clear. Ancestry.com with continue to synch with FTM indefinitely even tho they are no longer selling/making a new program?
Do people have a second genealogy program because they are concerned that ancestry.com will lose their data? go out of business? as a back up program?
Both Ancestry and MacKiev have stated that FTM will continue to sync with Ancestry family trees. Until Jan 1, 2017, TreeSync will continue to work; after that, FTM will use a different technology, but it will still be able to sync with Ancestry. Personally, I don’t care what technology they use or what they call it, as long as the sync works.
As for a second genealogy program, do you mean in addition to Ancestry or in addition to FTM or both? Personally, I use FTM because I find it easier to use than the Ancestry website and it has more features. I would rather keep my family tree on my own computer, where I have complete control of it. I like the sync feature because it makes it easier to get hints from Ancestry and to search the Ancestry database. For me, my Ancestry tree is the backup, and I can access it even when I don’t have my Mac with me.
Many thanks for your helpful answer