I have recently started doing genealogy thanks, in part to the new features on Ancestry.com making it a bit easier for me to get research done.

As a result I’ve been wondering if I can purchase FTM 2008 Deluxe and use it with my World Deluxe subscription I already have online.

Does FTM 2008 come with World Deluxe subscription (which I need to get access to any possibly records older than my ggrandpa) or is it just the standard US Deluxe subscription like FTM v16?

If I might make a suggestion, that should be explained somewhere for people just getting started like me or upgrading from older FTM versions.

Thanks

I have spent years researching my family and some I did not know were my family. I will give props to the resources available however the hours and years I have spent doing this - every time I log on - seems like the first time. Everything is gone…all the work…all the hours spent….I will be cancelling my account forever. Sometimes, especially for this price, inefficiency is and always be inadequate. Not that anyone will ever see this; however, think twice before you make the investment unless you want to make a manual family tree….everything you do will just be deleted like you and your family never mattered…this is a rip-off…..

Your statistics mean nothing. You claim that 25% of your subscribers responded to the survey. I attempted to respond to the survey; I completed it in full, and when I hit submit, the survey hung up and would not “send” and eventually my screen froze. I was forced to click the little X in the upper right hand corner and the survey disappeared, never to appear again. I imagine this happened to many of your subscribers who tried to respond to your survey. I have cable broadband, so connection is not an issue.

You anticipated in advance that 4% of your members would be bitter about the change. Are you sure that figure is correct? According to the amount of people that I have spoken to, there is not one person who is happy with the new tree system. Most are planning to withdraw their information, and just use your site for research. These people are members of the “quiet crowd,” those whom you would never hear from, they just react.

Ancestry is shoving this flawed, defective piece of garbage down members’ throats by using an excuse that just doesn’t cut it. “The old tree is old.” That is the biggest piece of bullhocky I think I have ever read.

Your attempts to appease the thousands of unhappy people by encouraging them to submit their questions or concerns to your blog, or by your mealy-mouthed, tongue-in-cheek promises to “try” to correct or “try” to add relevant features that were in the original tree system but are missing in the new tree, are weak and do not carry water. All you are doing is stroking your unhappy customers.

I did not see anything in your response about reinstating the lost descendancy views, the limited ability or non-existent ability to print out information, the ability to download gedcom files from the trees. You might reinstate the Notes section but give people an option to make the notes private or public? What kind of crap answer is that? The original tree system didn’t give anyone a privacy option and anyone who had a brain knew that if you type information the notes section, that information is seen by everyone.

And your decision not to eliminate the One World Tree is more crap. I have written several times to Ancestry asking them to remove all information that was in my tree, because some of that information is 7 years old and is WRONG. I never received a response, and my wrong information is still floating in the One World Tree for someone else to pick up and use in their tree, not know the information they are using is WRONG!! I have seen my family members matched up with people from unknown families. My dead grandmother is matched to a stranger, someone I never knew, in the One World Tree. What kind of BS is that, — and you won’t remove that infected dinosaur. Well… when they said “brains”, you thought they said “trains” and you said “I don’t want very many.”

All you seem to be concerned with is merging information from one person’s tree to another person’s tree. WE DON’T WANT THAT. I do not want to merge information from some one else’s tree into mine - I don’t know if that information is correct, confirmed, documented; if that person in Joe Blow’s tree is an actual ancestor of Joe Hoohay in my tree. I don’t even want the option to merge the information. My inexperienced sister-in-law started a tree in your new tree system, and within days she had her family going back to Viking days and had included every French, English, German and Scottish royal king and queen in her tree. When I saw what she had done I asked her where she got her information, and of course I was LMAO when I asked her. She said she received all her information by the hints. I looked at her in shocked disbelief and then I rolled on the floor holding my sides in laughter.

This is what Ancestry.com is encouraging?

Your new tree system is directed towards the deficient genealogist; towards those who are looking to take the easiest way out to build a family tree. Ancestry.com is encouraging inferior genealogy research and I think it is time to direct this information towards the media, who will be more than happy to pick up the story and run with it.

So, Mr. Freestone, put that pit in your pipe and smoke it.

Dear Mr. Freestone:

I am an experienced genealogist, and have been working on my family tree for over 10 years. I work on my tree every day, travel to states to research and have pored through every dusty cubbyhole possible to get information. I document, confirm, reconfirm, and re-document for accuracy. I attend genealogy conventions and meetings, belong to countless societies, and have a broad range of contacts with whom I chat with on a regular basis. Not too many of my contacts are pleased with the new Ancestry Member Tree but you would not know this, because these people don’t feel it necessary to share their thoughts, they just stop using Ancestry’s resources.

I work on my tree here at home on a home program, and also used the original online tree system at ancestry.com. The online tree is for the purpose of reaching out to other researchers and extended family members, to be able to fill in missing puzzle pieces, find lost branches and tear down brick walls. This is an especially important sector of genealogy. I have since removed my online tree and no longer share my information with Ancestry.com.

The ability to reach out to other members will be lost to everyone when you revert completely to the new tree system in March.

Yes, I am aware that paid members will be able to view certain information, but that information will be limited because features that were previously public have now been eliminated or made “private.” What this will eventually do is drive the people who submit information to Ancestry.com over to Rootsweb so that their tree is again 100% public.

Ancestry will become a magnificent loser in more ways than one.

Stopgap.

You “simplified” a system that was already simplified and user friendly. Names were displayed in family, pedigree or descendant views, however a person wanted to view or work on their tree. Ancestry has now instituted a “main” page with overlarge fonts, a time-line that has limits and range deficiencies, and a view that is frustrating and amateurish. An entire page is wasted to largesse.

Click on the family member’s name, click on the edit profile, click on the events tab, click on the options tab, click out, click back in, click out, click out again, click on the child’s name, click on the tab to enter information, click out, click out on the parent’s name. Ooops wrong parent, click out, click on the correct parent, click on another child, click on the parent, click on the grandparent, click on another sibling, click out, click on the grandparent. Oh my god I’m LOST! Go back to Home Person, and start all over again. click click where is my information? why are there two events pages? What are these options? Those aren’t options that I am looking for, these are useless! Oh my god I am LOST again!! This is simplified and user friendly? ! I can’t stand it and neither can anyone else.

Where is the printer friendly page?
We all like to print out what we submit. We like to print out other people’s pages for our files as a comparison factor.

The merge feature is a monster rearing it’s head. I won’t give my sister editing abilities in my tree because she is inexperienced, and thinks all a person has to do is take someone else’s information and merge it into our tree. I told her to start her own tree and she now has people in it that I’ve never heard of. This is professionalism?

Ancestry.com is promoting substandard genealogy work. Instead, Ancestry should be standing back at arm’s length and not become directly involved in placing names in people’s trees. This could be a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen. I have already heard the whispers.

You want to give people the ability to upload documents and pictures, that is fine, however, give them the original view features that were friendly and helpful. The new Ancestry tree isn’t even like the Family Tree Maker program, of which I am hearing nothing complaints about. I just got an email this morning from a subscriber who bought the FTM2008 and they hate it, and are going back to the old program they are using.

Change is not necessarily good.

The missing Notes is also a problem. Your have posted an excuse that the notes section in the old tree was never intended to be public, which is ridiculous. Then why have it on the tree in the first place? What do you think people used it for - to draw pictures? The Notes section is invaluable, and has obituaries, explanations, and other important relevant information that researchers need to see. This is not for the STORIES or COMMENTS sections. Those sections are buried at the bottom of your over-large page anyway, and people most often don’t even know they are down there, — AND, it’s another click or two if you do find them.

You can possibly reach a happy medium if you reinstate the view and print features of the old tree, reinstate the notes and consolidate some of the extra pages that are absolutely worthless.

There is no reason why “facts and events, relationship events, relationships” should have tabbed separately. This is confusing, redundant and unnecessary. They all mean the same thing, and should be consolidated onto one page, along with Research Notes. Notes in full on a page, not hidden under Edit Profile. Then there is more redundancy and confusion. On each page is Add New Life Event, and then countless More Options. What happened to the simplified entry system that was on the original online tree? Add a census, add a birth, add a marriage, add a census, add a burial. It was easy, friendly and simple. Instead, we are told we must accept a complicated, confusing mess called the New Ancestry Member Tree.

I have run out of words for now. I am sure I will think of more at another time. Right now I am going over to my sister’s house and watch her upload about 700 digital photos to her New and Improved, Simplified Ancestry Member Tree. Linda thinks having an online photo album is wonderful.

As always, with warmest regards,

Nancy

cc: ancestry blog

Just visited the site after a short time off and saw the notes about moving my trees and decided to move one of them. What a disaster, cannot tell you how upset and disgusted I am. There are large chunks of information missing, some family lines are missing 200 years of information. Also, for some reason I cannot understand, one family line now shows their births and deaths as Northumberland instead of the correct place names [mostly Yorkshire]. No idea how I can correct this, even if I had the will to do it. I’ve checked the original tree in case I’d made some errors, but no, the errors are all on your part.

I’m absolutely heartbroken to think I’ve got to basically start again and to think that I’ve only just renewed my subscription.

MR. FREESTONE!

May I have your attention please?!

When you are finishing celebrating the New Year, please turn towards the “new and improved” ancestry member tree and either fix it or get it off the pot.

Another bug found: When attempting to enter a last name that is different from the father’s last name, the program kicks up an error message and will not allow you to save the name with the changes. Not all people keep the last name of their father, or spell it the same way. Some people maintain hypenated last names.

Complaint after complaint regarding the slowdown of the Ancestry website, the inability to load pages, transfer files and the community message boards are a MESS!

When trying to post a message on any of the community boards, an error message comes up and nothing is posted. Try to post again, and it’s the same thing. Go into the message board the next day, and there, before your eyes, are all the posting attempts that were made the day before. Multiple postings of the same post.

WHATS WITH THIS!? We are paying premium prices for garbage?

ANOTHER QUESTION: Many people have removed their family trees from the Ancestry.com website in order to avoid the forced transfer of their trees over to the new trees. These same people are uploading their trees to the Rootsweb website. After transfering their trees to Rootsweb, if you perform a name search, these same trees are again showing up on the Ancestry.com site. Will Ancestry be shutting these trees down and they will just sit stagnant on their website, will Ancestry remove these Rootsweb tress, or will they force transfer these trees to the “new and improved” AMT?

NEED AN ANSWER ON THIS PLEASE. ASAP.

If there is a forced transfer, I’ll guarantee you there will be a mass exodus of family researchers that may be detrimental to the healthy and lifeblood of Ancestry.com.

THE TIME HAS COME FOR ANCESTRY.COM TO REVERSE ITS ILL-ADVISED DECISION TO TERMINATE ONLINE FAMILY TREE (OFT) IN FAVOR OF THE LAME ANCESTRY MEMBER TREE (AMT).

Let me not try to repeat all the things that are right with OFT and wrong with AMT. Principal is loss of access in AMT to all ‘notes’ for public viewers. OFT has been and is a tremendous research tool for persons with serious genealogical interest. The format for displaying GEDCOM files by OFT, as well as by Rootsweb.com, presents all information that any person with a SERIOUS interest in genealogy wants in the form of NOTES. Other information such as photos and other links can already be attached to OFT or Rootsweb files (see, for example, the page for my grandfather at http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=garyscottcollins&id=I112549564). Like Rootsweb.com files, public OFT files are completely public and super fast because the basic displays are text-oriented. AMT is a display-intensive ‘scrapbook’ for photos that is slow as a ‘dog’ because of its irrelevant fancy boxes and silhouettes of ‘fathers’ and ‘mothers’.

No person with a serious interest in genealogy will use AMT! Many, many people currently use OFT.

WE CALL ON ANCESTRY.COM TO REVERSE ITS MIND-BOGGLING DECISION TO KILL OFT. ANCESTRY.COM AND TO PERSONS HAVING A SERIOUS GENEALOGICAL INTEREST WILL SUFFER MAJOR HARM BY THIS ‘DUMBING DOWN’ OF SOFTWARE BY ANCESTRY.COM.

This message has been posted on the following four ‘blog’ sites:

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/19/Online-Family-Tree-Announcement http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/21/online-family-tree-faqs/ http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/21/known-issues-with-online-family-tree-transition/
http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/26/more-questions-and-answers-about-the-online-family-tree-transition/

HOW TO DOWNLOAD YOUR OFT FILE AS A GEDCOM FILE

I have been privately asked for more detailed information by as to how to download your GEDCOM file from Online Family Tree. This was by someone who believes he and his wife lost a large amount of data in their ancestry file when they had it ‘moved’ from OFT to AMT. As previously written, I recommend that users with concerns download their ancestral information from OFT in GEDCOM format. Their GEDCOM file will contain all the information that was in their ancestry file, including information about living individuals.

If I recall correctly, the main OFT web page at http://www.ancestry.com/oft/ used to include detailed information as to how to download your OFT file. Possibly, Ancestry.com removed the information in order to “encourage” owners of OFT files (as in a ‘cattle chute’) to ‘move’ them to AMT, with all the problems that we have seen.

Here are detailed step-by-step instructions showing how to download your OFT file in GEDCOM format (which retains ALL the information that was in the file, including information about ‘living’ individuals that does not show up to public viewers) to your personal computer. These instructions work for Windows/Intel machines using Firefox, IE and Netscape browsers; I don’t know about Mac’s. I guess I must issue a disclaimer that you may use all the above and following information only at your own risk.

1. Go to the main OFT link at http://www.ancestry.com/oft/

2. You may have to login to your ancestry.com account if a cookie is not found and recognized automatically by the web site.

3. Once logged in, you should see a list headed by “Select an Online Family Tree”, maybe with only one line if you work on only one tree file On the left hand side is the filename link (in blue). On the right hand side are several icons. There should be an icon in the middle that looks like a dog-eared, printed page. If you float your cursor over the icon, you should see the message “download”, which serves to identify the icon. Click once on the printed page icon. Then, a new, small browser window will open up, which on my computer is in the lower right part of the screen. The small window might be hidden by other windows. The window has a light blue background and a message something like “Preparing your ancestry file for download; please wait”.

4. Wait until the little browser window closes on its own. What is happening before it closes is that the OFT server is rebuilding a complete GEDCOM file for you from a database in which the data has been stored. I have a 5 MB file, and it may take 3-10 minutes for the window to close automatically–signaling completion of preparation of the GEDCOM file by the server for download.

5. Now, the “printed page” icon should change shape, with the bottom third now looking like a black arrow pointing download. Click once on the “printed page+arrow” icon. Either of two things will happen:

(a) Usually, a window opens asking if you wish to open or save the file to be downloaded. Click “save”, choose a location on your hard disk (if it is not chosen automatically), and then wait for the file to download. For my 5 MB file with a fast connection, this typically takes about 1-2 minutes. If you have a slow connection (58 kbaud), this might take up to 10 minutes (as a guess), so be patient.

(b) Sometimes, information downloaded appears in a “Notepad” or “Wordpad” window as ASCII text. In that case, go to the “File” menu and click on “Save As”, then give a memorable location and filename such as “myancestryfile.ged”.

6. This is your GEDCOM file. It can frequently, but not always, be opened in a genealogy program on your PC for further work and examination of contents without any problem. The GEDCOM from OFT is in a slightly old format, 4.0, which sometimes is not recognized by genealogy programs. If your genealogy program cannot read the file, it may be due to the old format. A free (and outstanding) program that I use to check my own GEDCOM’s is Geneweb (available at http://cristal.inria.fr/~ddr/GeneWeb/en/). It works fine with GEDCOM 4.0 files downloaded from OFT and, if I recall, can also be used to convert them to a more up-to-date standard such as GEDCOM 5.5. Store and backup your GEDCOM file! It’s the output of your hard work!

What next? You have several options:

1. You may upload your GEDCOM as a public GEDCOM file on Rootsweb.com by going to http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igmuser.cgi. (You can get additional information about uploading at the Rootsweb site.) If you upload the file to Rootsweb, it will be accessible to the public in essentially the same way as your public OFT file has been. Go for this if you want a public file like the one you had!

2. You may upload it to many other genealogical sites, but you will have to research for yourself what the pros/cons are for posting. Pay attention to who controls and can disseminate, the information in your file.

3. You may upload it to Ancestry Member Trees, but I would recommend against that because none (zip, zero, nada) of your notes will be accessible if you make your file public. However, it is good if all you want is a scrapbook with a slick graphical interface and, maybe, photos and stories about some of your relations.

4. You may publish a GEDCOM file, photos, stories, with many variations, to your own web site using various web tools. It is not possible for me to survey the tools available, but I find that these sites are sometimes difficult to use because of the variability in organization of information. For me, the very best organization is as found in OFT or Rootsweb.com files.

5. I’m sure that there are other options I have missed. Let me and others know.

Hope that helps.

I recently have posted several messages to the four ‘blog’ sites known (listed below) that are concerned with possible termination of Online Family Tree (OFT) by Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com customers (as well as central management personnel at Ancestry.com) deserve to be able to read comments by customers who use or have used OFT. The vast majority of those have, to date, expressed very major reservations about the proposed “replacement” of OFT by Ancestry member Tree (AMT).
Several recent, multiple postings of my own have been briefly posted with the ominous message “YOUR COMMENT IS AWAITING MODERATION”, after which they were quickly deleted. While I can understand rationales under which some comments posted to Ancestry.com might be considered off-target for a particular ‘blog’ and, and therefore might be a source for moderation, such moderation has never been previously announced. Obviously, such “moderation” can be a facile substitute for “censorship”.
Therefore:
1. READERS need to be aware that such unpublicized “moderation” exists now! They need to search broadly on the Internet to find “unmoderated” comments that are not biased by “moderators”, who in this instance can be confidently assumed to be part of Ancestry.com’s promotional relations department.
2. ANCESTRY.COM: Which of your ‘blog’ sites are moderated and unmoderated??
The four ‘blog’ sites concerned with proposed termination of Online Family Tree are:
http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/19/Online-Family-Tree-Announcement http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/21/online-family-tree-faqs/ http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/21/known-issues-with-online-family-tree-transition/
http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/26/more-questions-and-answers-about-the-online-family-tree-transition/

I think this whole new ideal sux’s ,it has runied a lot of people hard work and time .You came up with this tree,Do me a favor sit down do yours works about ten years on it amost night and day, then upload your to the new tree,cross your finers and pray,kiss all your hard work goodbye. I keep hearing only 30% is wrong ,30% of what number 30 million, 25 million ,15 million 10 millon are could the 30%be of 300 million either way that’s a lot of mistakes,for a tree that was working fine until someone like Ford had an better ideal.Thiers hasn’t work and neither will your. The tree’s as they are now,are nothing but trash.Junk would be a much better word.I join if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I was going to pay and join but not now not even if you dropped the price to a dollar it not worth it.

It is 11:48 PM CST on December 31, 2007.

All the family trees at RootsWeb and all the Ancestry World Trees at Ancestry.com no longer exist.

A message comes up, “Database no longer exists or is being configured.”

I do not want to overreact, or jump to conclusions, but dear Lord, please don’t tell me those trees have all been deleted.

I am sorry, I stand corrected. The message for the “old” original online tree system reads “Database doesn’t exist or has not been configured.”

That tells me the trees are gone.

However, the new Ancestry Member Trees work.

This is responding to Post no. 3 (Jim):
Many royal and noble peers have children who were not always remains as peers amd eventually married commoners and have their descendants married into the common population rather than married into the royal/noble peerage and continued the lineage. You would be surprised that many royal and noble peers often have many, many illegitimate children who, most of them, did not actually lay any claim to peerage title or inheritance, married into the common population, have children and descendants remaining as commoners through intermarriage with other families, both of lower-ranking peerage and common levels. However, not all genealogical records focused solely on the common descendants descending from the royal/noble peerage over the centuries, instead only focusing on the privileged children waiting on peerage inheritance over the times.

There are a lot of hidden genealogical sources out in the Web that the Ancestry.com does not know yet. Though, I’ve founded few very good genealogical sources so far and the information is quite a gold mine.

Big problem is that there is a lack of records TRACING most, if not all, the commoners (both legitimate and illegitimate children) descending from the royal/noble peers of England, Europe, Russia and other places. So we have very little way of knowing which of our ancestors who married to somebodies descending from the peers.

One last thing, Ancestry.com have been more considerate of other people’s concerns, like yours or Nancy Self, but you must bear in mind that Ancestry.com have retained some repositories of information coming from some past genealogists who have ulterior motives to conceal or fabricate family lineages for reasons only known to them. OR have some repositories of family trees that does not have all the actual records thoroughly researched in the past century or before.

Rob,

I think you misunderstood Jim’s post. Jim’s post was referring to someone who has no experience in genealogy, has not performed any research on the family, and then blindly accepts the Ancestry hints as gospel evidence of family history.

I think we all know that royal families had many children born on the wrong side of the blanket. Many families who were not royal had children that were illegitimate. I have many of those in my family and some of those truths were buried deep. That subject is irrelevant to the dangers of accepting Ancestry tree hints as true and confirmed.

This is not an argument about who was born on the right side of the blanket, what information Ancestry has in their repository(ies) or if that information is accurate or fabricated.

This is an argument about the new Ancestry Member Tree, its shortcomings, the bugs contained within, the missing elements, and the general overall unhappiness of the majority of submitters to this new tree system.

The argument also lies with the fact that trees are being withdrawn from Ancestry.com’s database on a past-paced basis and the information is not being resubmitted under the new member tree. You may form a question in your mind as to how this is verified; experience and name searches. I’ve been working on my family for a few years, and flip-flop back and forth within my family. I’ll work on one line and switch to another a week or two later. During my period of working on one branch, I’ll search out other trees and print their information for viewing later. I have performed this procedure with countless names. After printing of tree information, I usually follow up on it within two to four months. With the printed documents in front of me, and because I am home on vacation these last two (2) weeks, I again searched out some of those same names to check for additions or changes. The trees are gone. All the trees associated with one particular name especially were gone. I have hard documentation in front of me that showed there were four (4) tees posted online for one particular ancestor, and she is wiped from Ancestry’s system as if she had never been there. Other names are also gone; other trees gone and they have not been uploaded to the new tree system because I looked. This has happened only within the last few months. There are, most likely, a myriad of reasons why all these trees have been withdrawn, but, considering the rate at which these trees are disappearing — I am going to point my finger at the new Ancestry Member Tree because the exodus and complaints are just too coincidental.

I will also agree with others who post that most unhappy subscribers will not complain by post or in writing about the new tree system. Most of these people are passive, and prefer to sit back on the sidelines to work quietly on their own. These same people are the ones who, without notice, delete their trees from Ancestry.com and work on their genealogy programs at home.

Ancestry.com is misguided in thinking that they can offer the public what they consider a modern, high tech, gimmicky-gadgety genealogy program to their paying subscribers. Some people will eat those gimmicks right up, but there are others who don’t need the gimmicks. All they need is a place to put in their information, with notes.

In revising their tree program, Ancestry intends to recover programmer costs by eliminating the FREE viewing public and switch to a PAY-ONLY system. My suspicions are that this will backfire. We are on a quick-slide into a recession, and the real estate/mortgage crisis along with constantly rising energy costs and taxes, are preventing people from paying for luxury items such as cable TV, broadband internet, and subscriptions. Middle-income people are putting the monthly cable bill money into their gas tanks. Ancestry.com will contribute to this crunch by forcing researchers to pay for their formerly free family tree searches. Ancestry tries to get around this fact with a concession loaded with double-talk:
“Will this continue to be a free feature? Or will everyone have to have a paid membership to use this?
Your family tree in the Ancestry Member Tree system is FREE for you and all your invited guests. (Others who want to search your tree must have a paid subscription in order to do so.)
Some related Ancestry.com features, such as viewing and attaching historical records to your tree, require a paid subscription. But you are free to ignore all paid features on the site.”
What Mr. Freestone is telling us is that no one will be able to see any Tree unless they pay for it — period. Invited guests may be few and far between, because not everyone will let an unknown party view their tree. This is common sense. Some people will share everything, but there are those who will not share.

I will never submit my information to the new Ancestry Member Tree.

Thank you, Dave, I clearly understood the issue, I was only responding to the last small part of Jim’s post (the one about royal ancestors, etc.), not his whole post and just had to breeze through the entire comment section to get the gist of the whole issue with Ancestry.com over the controversy with the new AMT system.

My actual point, among other things, was about the lack of documented records on the children and common descendants of the royal/noble peers, other than children who did inherited royal titles and passed them onto the next generations. For example, King Father have 5 children, one is a prince who is expected to become a king after King Father’s death, two other siblings might marry a royal or noble person of some notes and the other two siblings might end up marry commoners but not retain any royal/noble title. When all 4 siblings have children and grandchildren, most end up as distancing away from the royal/noble status. That’s why documented records only focused on royal/noble descendants, not their relatives and their common descendants. Hence the problem of finding which common descendants come from which royal/noble ancestors over the centuries.

Records lost forever or burned/destroyed or somebody were not doing their jobs at conducting head-counts and identifying who related to who of everyone who have lived and died in a country and compiling the data for future references?

I’ll be sure to watch the issue on the new AMT system regarding certain information and improvements. Methinks there’s an ulterior motive behind Ancestry.com’s recent moves and improvements, probably responding to the DNA-gathering compliance and privacy laws of late, especially with Ancestry.com’s new partnership with Sorenson Genomics. The latter have a foundation dedicated to creating the world’s most comprehensive correlated genetic and genealogical database. All based on DNA samples sent in or will send in by members of Ancestry.com. I’m just speculating.

I would strongly suggest that anyone who posts a family tree do so through World Connect but keep your on files on your own genealogy program just in case that too is dumped. I really thought that was the case last night when nothing was available.

As we have all seen, Ancestry is after lots of quantity and hang the quality. As others have suggested here, large numbers of inexperienced people love to just merge everything that even looks like it connects which results in so much junk.

NOTES: I transferred one of my trees to the new setup, but don’t see NOTES. NOTES have all my info as to each individual and I want that info public. What is
status of idea that NOTES be
public?
ONEWORLDTREE: I like this feature. So it ain’t perfect. It’s a research tool and starting point.

After reading the never ending list of complaints I am very glad I was never willing to do an online family tree. I have enough trouble understanding why I am charged for 2 separate ancestry accounts.

May I ask what seems to be dumb questions? I need to know the right answers.

1) Where are the “Online Family Tree” files on the Ancestry system?

2) Are they searchable by any subscriber? If not, why not?

3) Why don’t they show up when I search for ‘Family Trees’ on the main Ancestry search page?

I’ve accessed Ancestry for several years, but until the recent posts, I had not heard of “Online Family Trees.” I had heard of “Ancestry World Trees” and “Ancestry Member Trees” but not “Online Family Trees” and I’d like to think that I’ve been paying attention.

The value of any submitted family tree to me, as a genealogy researcher, is in the genealogy reports that can be generated by the system, including notes and sources. By reviewing these items, I make a judgment about the veracity and value of the information. I love the WorldConnect/Ancestry World Tree presentation format. I intensely dislike the complex, inflexible and unusable “Ancestry Member Tree” format. There are too many clicks required to see very little information. You’ve made it very difficult for me to use effectively or judge the quality of the information.

My 2 cents - Randy Seaver (please visit my blog at http://randysmusings.blogspot.com for daily genealogy news and analysis)

Randy, as an ancestry.com user here are my answers to your questions. I hope this helps.

1) Where are the “Online Family Tree” files on the Ancestry system?

The primary location for me is/was the website myfamily.com

2) Are they searchable by any subscriber? If not, why not?

NO. They are COMPLETELY private trees, UNLESS the user who is uploading the tree chooses to submit the tree to Ancestry World Tree. If they click that check box while uploading then the non living people would be indexed and searchable. After the tree is uploaded it can be edited online individual by individual much like the Ancestry Member Tree but without photos, stories, audio, video, etc.

3) Why don’t they show up when I search for ‘Family Trees’ on the main Ancestry search page?

If the user clicked the box to submit to AWT then they will be under the Ancestry World Tree category of the search results.

Online Family Tree (OFT) is (or has been to date) an outstanding resource from ancestry.com for researching ancestry files. I had the idea to suggest an opportunity to publicize its features to those who hadn’t tried it out. To prepare for this, I “uploaded” a GEDCOM file to OFT this night using the still existing upload page at http://www.ancestry.com/oft/Upload.asp. However, the uploaded file was completely defective. Since I had separately and successfully updated previously existing OFT files in the same period, it appears that ancestry.com is sabotaging new entries. (Kenny Freestone, can you confirm or deny such sabotage, in your role as mouthpiece for Ancestry.com??)

Ancestry.com touts the advantages of the Ancestry Member Tree (AMT) over Online Family Tree (OFT). It should be noted that display options of OFT files are exactly the same as those of ancestry file at rootsweb.com. What are the pros and cons of the OFT and AMT systems??

1. OFT is a free system, with publicized results publicly available. AMT is a subscriber system, requiring ~$100-200 annual subscription fees to ancestry.com for access. Nobody will see your AMT file if they don’t pony up ~$100-200 each year.

2, OFT provides copious research notes by the writer of an ancestry file. AMT makes such research note unavailable–even if you are a subscriber!

3. OFT provides an option to view a table of descendants, a very powerful way to examine an ancestry file. AMT has no such option.

4. OFT has a fast text-oriented interface while AMT has an interface dogged by having to provide vacuous, generic, graphical images of “father” and “mother”.

5. AMT allows file owners to attach photos and other media to their files. While this can also be done by OFT, in the AMT system, other members can “grab” and keep your photos or other media and attach them to their own files. While I have not investigated it closely, it appears that other members can “attach” parts or all of other ancestry files to their own. Who wants imbeciles stapling their own file information to their own??

6. No person with a serious interest in genealogy would ever have anything to do with AMT. It’s a total loser!

If it ain’t free (1), if there are no notes (2), if there is no option for a table of descendants (3), if it’s slow as a dog (4), and if others can instantly paper clip your findings as their own (5), then I think it’s a total loser.

Let me reiterate that, on the day that OFT goes defunct (if it hasn’t gone so already, see above), I will cancel, once and for evermore, my subscription to Ancestry.com.

From a previously loyal subscriber over 3-4 years, and an imminent unsubscriber,

Gary Collins

(01.07.08 note from Kenny: Hi Gary, we are not sabotaging new (or any) entries. We haven’t changed the upload system, so perhaps this is an isolated bug? If you continue to see problems please send me an email (kfreestone at tgn.com) and we’ll investigate.

We hope to continue improving the Ancestry Member Tree system to the point where everyone will be happy with it. –Kenny)

Yikes! This ALL sounds so darn confusing.

I haven’t made the change yet, am afraid to, after reading so many negative statements from other members.

Gary.

Ancestry.com does NOT charge someone to build and maintain their tree in the Ancestry Member Tree system.

http://www.ancestry.com/myancestry

The FAQ’s, answered this question:

Does an Ancestry Member Tree cost money?

Your family tree in the Ancestry Member Tree system is FREE for you and all your invited guests.

Gary, invited guests are FREE ancestry.com users, and they can be assigned security in the tree as Guest, Contributor, or Editor. Editors have full rights in the tree but cannot download the gedcom.

Of course the AMT’s need some enhancements, so can you please be more positive, and submit your enhancement requests for what you would like to see added/improved. I have done that and I am confident that the reports and notes issues will be resolved to bring that part of the system in line of the OLD OFT system.

Thanks

Leonard, get your head out of that dark place and read all these comments again. I also suggest you read Kenny Freestone’s comment again.

The trees are NOT public.

While Ancestry does not charge someone to build their tree, people who want to view the tree must be a paying subscriber to Ancestry.com UNLESS the owner of the tree has personally invited someone to view their tree, OR given an outside stranger permission to view their tree by invitiation.

The majority of people who view family trees are not paying subscribers, so Ancestry wants to boost their revenue by creating a pay system to view family trees. The ability to view trees will NO LONGER BE FREE, unless the tree is uploaded at Rootsweb.com.

And, since Ancestry.com owns Rootsweb, you can bet that service will not remain free for very long. Goodbye Worldconnect.

Leonard, you are really missing something here. People HAVE SUBMITTED THEIR REQUESTS FOR ENHANCEMENTS to the AMT system. Kenny Freestone does not guarantee any changes to the new tree.

Kenny Freestone’s silence tells us that the viewing capabilities of the AMT will remain as such. Defective, primitive and difficult to use. You can’t print, you can’t view descendants, the family BETA view is defective, and the photos being uploaded clog down the entire system.

My friend has already uploaded 381 pictures to her family tree and she is still going strong. All the pictures were taken in the last 20 years of her children, grandchildren, mother with a dog, mother putting laundry up on the line, mother sitting at the dinner table. I am seeing this more and more. Throwaway photos not relevant to genealogy — get the picture? (pun intended)

So Leonard, you can go and keep telling Kenny what you want to see in the new tree. Keep on posting your endless, one after the other posts as a new thought enters your mind. But keep in mind that most of your requests have already been made by other people, and have been met with silence.

Ancestry is going to do what they want to do, sit back, reap in the money and watch the misery.

I pulled my tree off last night by the way. Another tree bites the dust.

(01.07.08 note from Kenny: Hi Daisy, Implementing new features takes time, and often when we work on them we do it quietly so as to not create expectations that we can’t meet. I am reading and taking notes on ALL the suggested features in this blog and elsewhere, and hoping to implement all of them. Please understand that I won’t promise any new features, not because we won’t or don’t want to do them, but because I won’t promise something until I am 100% confident we can deliver it to you. –Kenny)

Hey Daisy,
Thanks for your rudeness and personal attacks. You are a gem.

I don’t have my head in a dark place, thank you very much.

I never said the trees are PUBLIC.

What does that have to do with my comments?

And guess what? Its not all about OLD photos from the past. Today’s photos will be the past someday. These trees are also about family networking, sharing, having fun. Past and present.
Not only will we put the last 20 years of photos online but eventually we may have the past 100 years of photos online.

Thank you very much.

And you know what else, the AMT are fairly new, and we have seen a constant stream of new functionality being implemented all through last year. Of course not totally bug free. Here are some of the wonderful enhancements.

http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/tutorial.aspx

Goodbye Daisy, we will miss your rude comments.

Got to go now and load a photo of me and by CAT for the family to see. LOL

Thanks
Leonard

The old OFT system was completely private and the owner of the tree invited others to view the tree and collaborate online just like the new AMT system.

The difference regarding the PUBLIC/PRIVATE issue was that the user could specify whether the tree is made public or not by selecting whether to submit to Ancestry World Tree or not, an automatic process done at the time of GEDCOM upload to OFT and could be turned off and on as desired after the fact as well.

If the user wants to make their AMT public, all they have to do is upload the tree to Rootsweb (not automatic).
It accomplishes the same thing. That a big deal for me, just one more step that I have total control over.

Also, the AMT’s will be included in the indexes and paying members can contact you for more information on ancestry.com If you do submit to rootsweb anybody can can view your FREE public tree on rootsweb and contact you that way.

So for us we will maintain our trees in the AMT system and upload them to rootsweb as we see fit for sharing with everybody in the world. We may or may not want to share with the whole world via rootsweb.

There is much flexibility here, except for those who don’t want to be included in the indexes at all could do that with OFT, but cannot with AMT. Some will pull their trees because they don’t want to be contacted at ALL or have anybody living or dead in their trees indexed for anybody else to see.

Thanks

Leonard, Please. You are very boring.

So you like the new tree very much and have nothing but wonderful things to say about it. We get it.

Now go play with your rocks.

Thanks Dave, you too.

I guess you think this blog is just for negative comments.

Some people are here to get help understanding what it means to migrate, the positives and negatives. Change means they have to learn new things.

You apparantly are here to personally attack.

So when someone asks for clarification on something and someone replys trying to help, you attack.

Typical rudeness.

Re: comment 23 by Leonard Noland, apparently in response to my earlier comment 21.

Dear Leonard,

(1) I don’t think I ever wrote that Ancestry.com charges a person who wishes to build an AMT tree. It’s been clear that anyone can start up an AMT for free.

(2) After that, an AMT tree is visible to “invited guests”, but anyone else has to pay a hefty subscription fee. If there were an option to invite “EVERYONE” (anybody with internet access), AMT would be of more use, but it’s crippled anyway because notes cannot be displayed to viewers, it lacks the ability to provide a view of descendants of an individual, it displays very slowly due to the large graphical display overhead, et cetera.

(3) You ask me to “please be more positive” in my description of AMT’s problems. What in your opinion is there to be positive about? Ancestry.com has apparently decided to trash the excellent research tool OFT in favor of the defective “pay per view” AMT system. You write like an Ancestry.com employee.

Sincerely,

Gary Collins

Re: comment 20 by Leonard Noland apparently in response to comment 19 by Randy.

Some statements made by Leonard are incorrect. It is unclear that he really has any experience with Online Family Tree (OFT).

(1) OFT files can be created (even now, go to http://www.ancestry.com/oft/ ) either by uploading a GEDCOM file or by starting from “scratch”, as with the AMT system. Once uploaded, the “owner” (originator) of the file can update the file using a neat web interface. The interface provides “pointers” to additional information about individuals in the file that may be relevant. It’s a tremendous research tool and I recommend that everybody try it out, even at this (possibly) late hour.

(2) The “owner” of an OFT file chooses to make its contents public or keep them private. If public, the file is available and searchable in the same way as Rootsweb.com ancestry files. That means to ANYBODY with access to the Internet—without need to pay a subscription fee. Public displays of OFT, AWT and Rootseb files look almost identical. Rootsweb, and I believe, AWT files, have mnemonic database names whereas names of OFT databases are numerical with a preceding colon, for example “:123456”. So, it is completely untrue that OFT file are only private.

(3) Whether or not the file is made public, the “owner” of an OFT file can invite others to be “editors” of the file itself or as viewing “members”. Both editors and members can view the entire file, including information about living individuals.

Leonard is trying to make you believe that OFT and AMT are very similar systems. Thst’s simply not so.

Gary Collins

I just can’t see the reason that I would want to maintain two separate family tree databases. Once I uploaded my FTM GEDCOM to this new AMT, it became its own animal. I scarsely have enough time to do research much less duplicate the results of that work into the AMT. Eventually I will just go ahead and delete my AMT on here as it will be completely outdated to the current information in my FTM database.

First let me say that I never have used OFT so I cannot comment on whether it is better or worse than Ancestry Member Trees. I do have a tree in the Ancestry Member Trees. This I created by uploading a gedcom to Ancestry. While some may disagree with me, I do not like editing the tree online and a few months ago I inquired if I could just upload a revised gedcom as I would to WorldConnect or Ancestry World Trees. I was told that I could only delete the current tree and then upload a new one. I should think that uploading a new gedcom would be the same difference and would make it easier - especially for those who still use dial-up connections. Needing to be online to add, edit or delete something from the tree can be much more time consuming than just uploading a new gedcom.

Many researchers - most I would guess - use some type of Family Tree software which is of course where their gedcoms originate. By using the Ancestry Member Tree and needing to add to it rather then uploading a revised gedcom, it causes us to duplicate steps. First adding into our own software and then online at Ancestry Member Trees. I think this is an unnecessary step and this should be revised to allow revised gedcoms to be uploaded and REPLACE what is currently online. Just like is done at WorldConnect - where I also have my gedcom uploaded.

Additionally, anyone who ONLY adds their information to an online database is making a HUGE mistake. Any online database should be in addition to a database kept in some type of Family Tree software or at the very least, a word processor on your home computer.

In reference to WorldConnect and Ancestry World Tree, you state that WorldConnect will not be affected in any way. You also state that gedcoms that are uploaded to WorldConnect are by default also included in Ancestry World Trees (as I know by experience). Will this practice continue? Also, I have often wondered if the changes I make at WorldConnect are also reflected in Ancestry World Trees immediately as they are at WorldConnect?

As far as OneWorldTree goes, it does not appear that it is ever updated! Another researcher and I have common lines that are my direct ancestors. She has misinformation in her gedcom that I have tried many times to get her to correct. I have also left post em’s where I can on Ancestry, but my information, which is correct, is not included. It looks to me as if Ancestry only included a certain percentage of the vast number of trees housed there. Or does one have to SPECIFICALLY upload to Ancestry World Tree to be included? I have only uploaded to WorldConnect. Does that make a difference?

As a tool, overall while I do use OneWorldTree as part of the search process, it is only one of many that I conduct at Ancestry. I do not consider it the best tool, nor do I consider it useless, but I do feel that it could be improved and most importantly, include all of the trees!!!

And lastly, I would like to throw in my two cents about what most of the posters here seem to feel is Ancestry ripping researchers off and “stealing their information”. so this is directed to those who have made a post on this subject:

I see that I am in the minority on this one. Ancestry is providing a way for you to put your family tree online. While I agree that anyone should be able to search, not just a paid subscriber, the main point here is that Ancestry is providing the space to put the tree online. It also is providing for you to invite other family members, whether or not they are Ancestry subscribers, to view and add to your tree. The point here being that Ancestry is providing a service.

But if anyone doesn’t like this aspect, then put your tree at WorldConnect where anyone can find you and your information! I can’t count the number of people who have found me from my WorldConnect gedcom. I have made numerous connections and gained more information by doing this.

As for images and other documents that are added to these trees and having them taken by other researchers and uploaded to their own trees: To me, genealogy is about sharing. If we do not share it then how do we make connections? But if you do not intend to share it and have others make use of the information, photos and documents, then DON’T put it online ANYWHERE! Whether it is a website you have hosted somewhere else or using Ancestry Member Trees, anyone interested will find a way of using the information you have there.

BUT, documents that you paid for are NOT under copyright law. Photos you own or took can be under copyright as well as any narrative you have written in your own words, but FACTS are NOT copyrightable!! So your trees that include those facts are not considered to be under copyright. It MAY be that your compilation MIGHT be something that can be copyrighted, there is much debate about this very subject, but the facts themselves can be extracted and used without any copyright infringement.

So please, know the real facts and stop beating a dead horse!

After much reading and consideration; I too have deleted both my OFT (which I didn’t realise was still here), and my AMT from Ancestry.com. So yet another tree and many links to the past has bitten the dust!

This new system appears to be nothing more than the “dumbing down” and commercialization of genealogy for the masses; destroying it’s real purpose for those of us serious about researching our family histories.

I sincerely hope Ancestry rethinks and listens to it’s users. More importantly, I hope they take advice from serious, experienced genealogists, in order to build a site that can successfully serve both the ‘experts’ and the novices amongst us without losing the integrity that real genealogy requires.

I am a long term paying customer of Ancestry and am very disappointed at the direction it’s taking. Having taken many, many surveys about the site at their request; I repeatedly asked that they NOT FIX WHAT WASN’T BROKEN. Seems it fell on deaf ears. The site now, as far as the family trees and the resulting erronious information floating around on it is concerned, is rapidily becoming a joke!

Re comment 32 by Linda:

Linda makes the point that Ancestry.com is providing a service by hosting ancestry files on their servers. This is true, but nowadays the costs of hosting ~10 MB are infinitesimal. Look at all the Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, storage given away for free. The implication of Linda’s remarks is that we should consider ourselves beholding in some sense to Ancestry.com. I don’t believe so. As a very perceptive contributor to one of the four “OFT” blogs previously commented (I don’t recall whom and am sorry I’m too busy to check), Ancestry.com has gained back terrifically in annual subscription fees from users by providing free access to ancestry files.

I started my own genealogical study in 2002 using Online Family Tree. I started entirely “from scratch”, beginning by entering my own name and those of my parents in the web interface. I have never paid subscription fees for use of OFT—and probably never would have at the inception of my family research. However, after a year or so, I started a subscription to Ancestry.com for access to search over their massive numbers of databases. I have paid perhaps a total of $1000 in subscription fees to Ancestry.com over the past 5 years.

OFT is (was) a tremendously powerful tool for genealogical research for those who work full time and don’t have the time, for example, to travel and research court house or church records on their own. When OFT disappears, so will my subscription. It’s a matter of principle for me.

I bought a copy of Family Tree Maker 2008, but find it useless for my own purposes. This is because I want to be able to export a GEDCOM from any ancestry tree program I use while preserving individual ID numbers of the GEDCOM file that had been originally uploaded. OFT and Rootsweb worked together very well in that regard. The original ID numbers assigned by OFT were preserved across download of a GEDCOM to my PC and then upload to Rootsweb.com. The end result is that my Rootsweb ancestry file has had fixed ID numbers for individual entries for years. This has allowed me to create links from other files to entries in my ancestry file. You can see this if you click around my “photos” page on rootsweb’s freepages, at http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=garyscottcollins. If you click on names in the page, you will be redirected to entries in my ancestry file. There are also links to photos stored in freepages.

So, with OFT possibly being “deep-sixed” by Ancestry.com, I am looking for other programs, either on my PC or on the web, that will maintain individual ID numbers. FTM can’t do it. Yesterday, I learned that Family Tree Builder may do the job, and I’ll check. Of course, I would be happier if Ancestry.com could revise FTM so that one could preserve ID numbers when a GEDCOM is uploaded., but experience tells me that I should have to be willing to wait many years—if ever—for such a change to be made.

Sincerely,

Gary Collins

P.S. Kenny Freestone may wish to comment on direct costs of storage to ancestry.com of, for example, 10 MB of storage per annum, which I expect to be of the order of ten cents.

P.P.S. Perhaps Kenny Freestone can explain the corporate strategy behind the move by Ancestry.com to replace OFT by AMT. I’m sure he is fully aware of it. Are there financial exigencies that require this shift?? Or is it just somebody’s idea to make bigger bucks off of Ancestry’s present and potential subscribers, irrespective of Ancestry’s position to date as a promoter and supporter of genealogical research??

Dear Readers,
Looking for other blogs concerned with the proposed changeover from OFT to AMT, I happened across the blog Online Family Trees (OFT) at Ancestry Transitioning at http://blogs.ancestry.com/circle/?p=2165.
I entered the message copied below, but the message was not registered. Possibly there is another explanation, but I fear that the message has been censored. I encourage other readers to try to copy and submit the message within quotes below to the blog site given above. It is important that concerns raised about termination of OFT get wider distribution. Thank you.

Gary Collins

“Researchers concerned about the replacement proposed by Ancestry.com for the Online Family Tree (OFT) web interface for ancestry files by the Ancestry Member Tree (AMT) interface should consult extensive additional comments on four interrelated Ancestry.com blogs at

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/19/Online-Family-Tree-Announcement http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/21/online-family-tree-faqs/ http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/21/known-issues-with-online-family-tree-transition/
http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/12/26/more-questions-and-answers-about-the-online-family-tree-transition/
Sincerely,
Gary Collins”

I’ve responded to Gary directly, but I thought this would be useful to post here too since other folks may run into this problem at one time or another.

Gary’s comments on the 24/7 Family History Circle blog were blocked by a spam filter because of the multiple links, which were posted back to back with no text between them. This is a common format in spam posts, of which the blog gets more than a thousand per day. I use a spam filter called Akismet, which is usually very good at keeping the good posts, or at least holding them for moderation, but because of the links, two attempts by Gary to post his message went directly into the spam bucket.

To clarify, as a rule, we do not moderate posts on Family History Circle. The exceptions being posts that are insulting or offensive to other readers. (You can insult me all you want, but I stick up for my readers!)

I was able to repost Gary’s comments by inserting text between the links.

Juliana

Pleae get down to busy and tell us how to use the new programs. I have
tried for 30 minutes and get the same
old “We started a new program. Just got back from vacation!

Do you type in a name, place,
date?
How do you get upgraded. I just renewed my subscription to Delux Ancestry.com. Help
Ancestry.com. Ham ready to cancel.

Re comment 36 by Juliana Smith about my comment 35, thanks for figuring out the problem, for clarifying moderation policies on the 24/7 Family History Circle Blog, and also for reposting my message.

I’ve spent some time looking at the alleged “Sourced” versus “Unsourced” listing of trees until the Public Member Tree system.

Virtually every source I h ave traced goes back to OneWorldTree, Public Member Trees, or the death and birth files on Ancestry.

In other, words, this is a self-perpetuating system that feeds on postings on Ancestry to document postings on Ancestry. So, the first person to post a tree, whether there is any facts behind it or not, is going to have their research enshrined in the system and passed on.

This is not research. This is systemetized hearsay. The most specific source I’ve found refers to a “Descendants of ” the family being researched. It doesn’t say who wrote it or when it was written.

As I’ve said in a previous post, the whole OneWorldTree system is ghastly. Ancestry has no business trying to endorse a particular view of which tree is more likely correct. You can’t determine facts by consensus if the system is full of things that, even if true, aren’t documented.

Leonard,

Thank you for your very concise answerrs to my dumb questions. I appreciate the help and information.

Cheers — Randy

The major problem with Public member trees is the navigation and the number of clicks it takes to see information compared with the current system. I am spelling out my view of how many clicks it takes to do anything further on in this posting.

On a tree with lots of detail, in Ancestry World Tree, I can see the following in one screen:
Person’s name, full dates. Spouses name, birth date and marriage date. Plus locations.
Sources.
Narratives
parents’ names
Names of children, their birth dates and locations
Which children have postings for their children.

Here’s some of what what happens when you go to the opening page under Public Member Trees.
These start with the page with the information about adding stories and pictures, which have very little information about the person or family.
From there it takes

1 click to get the detail on the person
1 click to open options
1 click to open sources
1 click to hide sources
1 click to open fact events (which few are filling out)
1 click to open relationship events (ditto)
1 click to return to the main screen for the person

Plus, if there are notes that were in the tree on AncestryWorldTree, these are lost in the “Research Notes” which I find almost impossible to remember where it is. Actually, since I started using this, it seems to me Research Notes has disappeared.

So the information I’ve written detailing information—say in support of conclusions that are based on circumstantial evidence—I’ve got to re-enter this as a story.

Now, it is possible to do this more easily through the family Group sheet, but that’s buried under the Family Tree.

In fact, if the group sheet or tree were the first things that came up, this would be a lot easier. In fact, the group sheets look good, except they don’t have as much detail as the current system.

I like the new structure that pulls all of the other trees that have correalting information open at once, but I’ve had some problems with accepting the information and having it overwrite the information in my tree of birthdates and other vital statistics of my on grandparents, when I knew my information was more accurate. The old structure did not change my information if I saw a tree that had some of my common ancestors unless I allowed the changes. Now I am not accepting or linking other peoples trees to mine because I do not want to spend the time repair my own tree.

When I’ve found mistakes or try to report missing information and errors in links, it is nearly impossible to contact anyone at Ancestry.com directly. I usually forget about reporting any errors, because it seems to be impossible to do.

(1) In bobwscott’s excellent message 42, he makes plain that the AMT interface, which he calls the “Public Member Tree” interface, is extraordinarily inefficient, with all the “click, click” ing around that is needed. Plus the notes are “almost impossible” to find.

(2) Barbara’s message 43 makes clear the danger that information in one’s AMT ancestry file can be “overwritten” by what appears to be an “accelerated” mechnanism to “glom” new data onto existing files. This might be exhilarating for “newbies”, but nobody with any xperience wants a pile of garbage glommed onto their ancestry file.

GEDCOM download & Online Family Tree

Problem:
You click to download your GEDCOM but it displays or shows it to you instead of asking you to save it to your PC.

Solution: For Microsoft Internet Explorer Users Only.

Click the Back button on your Web Browser to get back to the (download GEDCOM) icon.
This time, Right-Click (press the Right mouse button) on the (download GEDCOM) icon.
A little meun window will appear with options.
Select “Save Target As…” from the menu and a standard Microsoft Directory Save window will appear with a file named xxxxxxx.ged in the “File name:” box.
Name the file the way you want and make sure it ends in “.ged”. Like “MyOnlineTree.ged”. Then save it to a folder on your PC.
Your OFT GEDCOM file has been saved to your PC!

This is an older Web Style method for presenting files for download. It was intended to give you the option of viewing it online or downloading it.

Even though I know how to deal with this I still think it should save the file directly to your PC simply because that’s EXACTLY what you were expecting it to do when you clicked on it!

To be fair;

A note for you computer users: You are missing out on making your PC much easier to use by NOT KNOWING how to use Right-Click mouse menus! You can copy text directly off a Web Page if you learn to use these options which is GREAT for genelogy work.

Online Family Tree BUG REPORT #1
Surname Titles such as Jr., Sr., I, II, III, Esq. etc., do not follow the GEDCOM 5.5 Standard and do not work at all in OFT!

NO ONE should use OFT until this error is corrected!

To prove and replicate this error simply create a new Tree and Name it “Test”.

Add a male person named “Harvey Dinkle, Jr.” and save it.

Now try to add his father as “Harvey Dinkle, Sr.” and OFT will complain that the father’s and son’s last names are different and it will refuse to save the record.

Near the top of the record it will display an option to save the record without checking for errors. Save it now using that option. We just forced it to accept our data! You can’t tell by looking at it but your 2 records are corrupted internally within OFT. It will now produce corrupt GEDCOMS too.

Now to see what went wrong you need to go to “Manage Tree” and tell it make you a GEDCOM of you OFT.

When it’s ready simply click the (download GEDCOM icon) and it will display the gedcom in your browser window.

You will see that the names for your 2 records are as follows.
Harvey /Dinkle, Jr./
Harvey /Dinkle, Sr./

That is NOT CORRECT!

This how it should have saved it.
Harvey /Dinkle/, Jr.
Harvey /Dinkle/, Sr.

Note that the “/” character is supposed to enclose ONLY the last name and then the surname titles (Jr. & Sr.) are supposed to follow ending “/”. That’s the GEDCOM 5.5 Standard which OFT does NOT follow. It doesn’t even offer you a way to correct it either. You can’t use edit to fix this error because it’s a programming and interface error!

You are now the proud owner of a corrupt and useless Genealogy file which you can’t use correctly in ANY Genealogy Program including Family Tree Maker 2008.

EVERY Family Tree has some or ALL of these surname titles and OFT will turn your genealogy work into useless trash if you try to use them!

This problem was reported to Ancestry.com, Technical Support who told me that I SHOULD EXPECT TO HAVE DATA LOSS and that this problem does NOT really exist despite my evidence!

When I’m paying for it I expect it to be CORRECT!

I wanted to tell him that he should expect a pay loss during his payroll calculation but I didn’t.

NO ONE should use OFT until this error is corrected!

Online Family Tree BUG REPORT #2
Marriage Event Notes do not follow the GEDCOM 5.5 Standard and do not work at all in the New OFT!

NO ONE should use OFT until this error is corrected!

Using your genealogy program of choice on your own PC to prove and replicate this error; Simply create a new Tree and Name it “Test”.

Add a male then add a spouse for him.

Now enter some made up date for their maggiage.

Now go to the Marriage Notes and put in “Married by Rev. Harvey Dinkle” and save it.

Export this 2 person tree to a gedcom and upload it into a new tree on OFT.

Now try and find your precious marriage notes. They aren’t there. They are ALL GONE!

I lost 827 sets of marriage notes because OFT failed to follow the GEDCOM standard.

I’m not just complaining here. I’m PROVING that these problems actually exist and are not being fixed!

You can even use FTM 2008 to create your tree. It still won’t work correctly because OFT simple doesn’t have any Marriage Event Notes!

Online Family Tree BUG REPORT #3
Military Service Event does not follow the GEDCOM 5.5 Standard and does not work correctly in the New OFT!

NO ONE should use OFT until this error is corrected!

Gedcom 5.5 has 2 basic event styles. Standard and non-standard. Non-standard is properly known as User Defined Events.

OFT does recognized both of these but when it come to the Standard Military Service Event it treats it like it’s a User Defined Event.

When you upload a GEDCOM containing standard Military Service Events; Instead of putting your Military Service data into a standard Military Service Event it puts it in a User Defined Event that is labeled as “Military Service”. The proof that it’s User Defined is that you can rename it to anything you like. You can’t rename standard events.

Now OFT does have an event called “Military” (not Military Service) but it doesn’t seem to be able to handle the standard because it never puts any data from a gedcom in there.

The proof of this is to simply upload a 1 person gedcom with Military Service Event data and then go look at OFT’s Events list.

Sure enough, OFT’s “Military” section is blank and as noted, your standard data is in a User Defined Event labeled as Military Service.

When you download this gedcom later your Standard Event will now be incorrectly transformed into a non-standard event.

You now own another corrupt gedcom thanks to the new OFT system.

My opinion on all this is that the programmers were pressured so hard to make OFT link up with all of Ancestry.com’s research features that they didn’t have the time to do the most important thing.

To insure that they have basic GEDCOM 5.5 Compatibility.

Now here’s a parting note that troubles me: I manually put some data into OFT’s “Military” event. Then I went to their new Beta Military Service page designer. It doesn’t even read it’s own Military event on this page. You have to enter it all over again. Not only that but this special page has no GEDCOM standard to support it so it’s a total waste of your time because it’s unique to Ancestry.com’s website!

It is a sincere desire of mine to see all these things fixed and for the new OFT to really shine but Tech support doesn’t even respond to my emails on the issue.

I have properly documented their errors and not just slammed them with vague emotional outbursts but to no avail.

I am convinced that every customer support employee [except 1] at Ancestry.com has a sticky note on their monitor that says:

Just tell them that “We are aware of the problem” to get them off your back. If that doesn’t work, just ignore them!

I have only found 1 tech who understood and had a sincere desire to help. To him goes my greatest appreciation because he’ll get fired for making the others look bad and they’ll black-ball him.

I wonder what wonderful thing Ancestry has done now to the Online Family Tree-at this moment it is not working. Kenny, what have y’all done now.

I have lost my tree !? Boo-hoo I’m upset.:-( Can you locate it ? It’s name:
Sloane Christine Smith.

I did hit the beta button to see what that would do . It just seem to chane the tree format. It took so many hours to do my tree . Will you help me please ?
Thank you,
Sloane

“Bug Reports” 46-48 by Thom Kline mistakenly fault OFT when they should fault AMT.

Thom, I think you have it completely backwards. You erroneously referred to Online Family Tree as the offender when it is AMT (Ancestry Member Tree). For example, OFT has no “Military” event option (message 48). Instead, I think you intended to write

NO ONE SHOULD USE AMT UNTIL THIS ERROR IS CORRECTED!

and I would add…

EVERYBODY SHOULD TRY OFT WHILE IT IS STILL AVAILABLE! Go to http://www.ancestry.com/oft/ and start a file or upload a GEDCOM!

RE: OFT

Gary. It wasn’t clear to me which is which. If the newest tree system is the one called Ancestry Member Tree than I stand corrected and my bug reports are to be directed to the new AMT!

Thanks for catching the mistake.

Thom

Hi, I added some people in the tree, one aunt who is single but with three children. Those children do not appear in th etree, unless I add a lifetime event (divorce) but then that person appears as husband.

Is this a known bug?

Bart

I am wondering if I upload my family tree to make a book, will my tree be made public, I only want the tree visible to me and not have it out there for everyone to see. I would like to do the Ancestry press but I dont want any one else to see my tree.

Reply to #53, Bart.

You should not have to do anything special for the children to appear. It’s a BUG! You should never need to find a way to “trick” a genealogy program into doing what you need.

If your Aunt has 3 children but never married than I suggest that you document it exactly that way.
Enter the kid’s father as the spouse of your Aunt.
Next enter Not Married in the Marriage event date field.

This method allows you retain the children’s birth parents while making it clear that the couple was Not Married.

The new Ancestry Member Tree (online), Family Tree Maker and Personal Ancestral File programs all accept this documentation convention for single parents.

Regarding Comment #46 by Thom Kime concerning Titles

In our trees we put the titles along with the first and middle names in the
field named: First & Middle Names
Example: Charles Brazzil Jr.
We put the surname in the field name:
Surname
Example: Gregg

The resulting GEDCOM is as follows:

1 NAME Charles Brazzil Jr. /Gregg/

Reply to #56, Leonard, regarding surname titles.

While it may be that the method you described is how you do it, is important to note that MOST all other software including Ancestry.com’s retail software, Family Tree Maker, DOES NOT do it that way which makes your Ancestry Member Trees online incompatible with Ancestry.com’s own retail product. At the very least that just really bad marketing when your online and retail products are not compatible!

Also, your described method does not follow the GEDCOM 5.5 Standard and would require untold hours of special editing of everyone’s files just to suit AMT which would then create gedcoms in an incompatible format. Which is what it is doing already.

If you are going to require me to edit over 380 persons in my file to accommodate your special non-standard format than AMT is totally worthless!

I’m in it for the collaboration feature. We have 5 clan genealogist using standard gedcom formats and now WE have to change to suit your software? We are paying to have it OUR way, the Standard way, not your way.

As proof of my claim, enter Charles Brazzil Gregg, Jr. into FMT.

The resulting STANDARD gedcom is:

1 NAME Charles Brazzil /Gregg/, Jr.

PAF 5.2 will also produce the very same gedcom as will about 6 other programs that I am familiar with. Do you now intend to argue that FMT is the problem and not standard?

This is the Standard Format, what is there to discuss? AMT needs to meet the standard and to be compatible with it’s own retail product FMT and it simply does not and is not!

I’d also like to point out that FMT does NOT have specialized name fields such as FIRST, MIDDLE and SURNAME. It is a single line, space and comma delimitated entry system and so is it’s advanced edit structure