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Family Tree Software Alternatives, Part 1: How to Scrub Your Data (Updated 16 May 2018)

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After Ancestry.com announced that they were abandoning (aka “retiring”) their venerable Family Tree Maker (FTM) desktop application in Dec 2015, many users and genealogy bloggers asked, “What do I replace FTM with?” Several genealogy desktop app retailers offered discounts and help guides on how to transfer a family tree from FTM to their software. Most of them make it sound as if it’s as simple as exporting your FTM tree to a GEDCOM file and importing the GEDCOM into their application. I say, “Not so fast.” [Read more…] about Family Tree Software Alternatives, Part 1: How to Scrub Your Data (Updated 16 May 2018)

How Well Does Ancestry.com Handle GEDCOM? (Updated 30 Apr 2016)

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Ancestry.comA few of our readers have asked what problems Ancestry.com has with GEDCOM files. One reader reported, “If you mainly work on your tree online in Ancestry.com and rely on TreeSync to move the data to FTM [Family Tree Maker], a lot of the source and citation descriptions get truncated during the download due to their length. So unless you check every source and citation after running TreeSync, you’ll end up with a lot of incomplete source and citation descriptions.” My personal workflow is the opposite of this, so I haven’t had problems with sources or citations getting truncated. I mainly work in FTM and then sync my tree with Ancestry.com. [Read more…] about How Well Does Ancestry.com Handle GEDCOM? (Updated 30 Apr 2016)

Family Tree Software Alternatives, Part 12: Ancestral Quest 14 (Updated 20 May 2018)

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Details about Ancestral Quest 14*AncestralQuest14

Application: Ancestral Quest
Current Version: 15
Supported OS: Windows, Mac (bundled with CrossOver)
Mobile Apps: None
Price: Free (basics edition; Mac version available for limited time), $29.95 (Windows, full edition), $38.95 (Mac, full edition)
Publisher: Incline Software
Website: http://www.ancquest.com/index.htm
GenSoftReviews: 4.67 stars out of 5

[Read more…] about Family Tree Software Alternatives, Part 12: Ancestral Quest 14 (Updated 20 May 2018)

The Perils of Following the GEDCOM Standard (Updated 28 Apr 2016)

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Vicious Circle
Jacek Malczewski, Vicious Circle [Public domain, USA], via Wikimedia Commons
After testing a few desktop genealogy applications for how well they handled GEDCOM files, it occurred to me that I should write an article about my testing philosophy and methodology, as well as some of the problems with complying with the GEDCOM standard. Take a moment to ponder that: this series was motivated by the problem of genealogy software like Family Tree Maker (FTM) not complying with the GEDCOM standard. But there may be unintended consequences, both for users and software publishers, of following the standard. [Read more…] about The Perils of Following the GEDCOM Standard (Updated 28 Apr 2016)