Family Tree/New Family Search

March 21, 2013

From Temple Ready to New.Familysearch and now Family Tree.
Change is about making something better or improving.  We usually have less difficulty if the change is a smooth transition and makes things easier.

Family Tree at this point in time is a change but it's also duplication.
New.family search was initially designed to be used as a replacement for Temple Ready in processing temple names and saving us from duplication.  Unfortunately, the software engineers/updaters again didn't listen to the users and family history  professionals and put duplicate databases of Ancestral File from users multiple correction databases in New.Family Search.  Then add the Pedigree Resource File (PRF) and you have more duplicates.  Fortunately, PRF was done so only the most recent file was kept on updates. Then we were instructed that we could clean up new.familysearch duplicates and have clean files.  But the new.familysearch program wasn't set up for live individuals.  People tried to use it for that but had to add live data and it wasn't accessable to anyone but the user.

Along comes Family Tree, an online proposed solution for the need to have a genealogy program like Personal Ancestral File (PAF), Ancestral Quest, Legacy, FamilyTreeMaker, RootsMagic, The Master Genealogist and other lesser known programs. While all these programs have their pluses and minuses and some charting software or database software is used to do the same things they are all used to record genealogical data. You could now cleanup duplicates in Family Tree and do live individuals and do temple submissions.

So instead of adding the additional features of Family Tree to New Family Search they are now requiring duplicates to be cleaned up in Family Tree.  And as a user and discussing it with many users (including advanced) the problem remains of adding more work to clean up duplicates.

My biggest problem with changes is the lack of ease in moving data between existing genealogy software and  New.familysearch and Family Tree.  So now we have to enter information and sources in Family Tree or whatever genealogy software you are using then transfer the information to new.familysearch to do ordinance work.  And don't forget cleaning up duplicates in New Family Search or Family Tree.

While some of the genealogy programs sync with new.familysearch for ordinance work creation and updating, others do not.  And the level of success varies.  Meaning sometimes you still have to do it in New.familysearch.

For users entering data and doing research and sourcing documentation Family Tree is cumbersome at best in forcing you to switch between screens, something most genealogy programs do a better job of.  And Family Tree has your good data along with all the bad data people submit and mix in with the good.

As a user of genealogy software for over 20 years I find the Family Tree program to be an addition that is a step backward rather than forward.  Just because something is new doesn't mean it's better is another way of saying it.  So for now, I'd stick with genealogy software programs above and not use Family Tree.  Even for a new user I wouldn't recommend it over other software.  Hopefully the designers and people at New.Family Search will listen more to qualified beta testers in the future and researchers and get it right for a change.  Having spent over 30 years working with software engineers it's easy to know why they shouldn't be leading the way in designing software for family history.  The blunders of DOS PAF, Ancestral File Submissions then stripping sources, Ancestral File Corrections, Ancestral File computer merges, Pedigree Resource Filer, Temple Ready & IGI seperate, NewFamily Search Database duplicates and now Family Tree duplicates and sourcing are a history lesson on not listening.  Were their improvements along the way, yes some, but much more could have been done to avoid more problems and improve.
Competent professionals in family history have identified these blunders and issues long before releases and given feedback but were ignored.

They are still ignored. We continue to keep hope alive waiting for the day when these problems will be avoided by listening to users and professionals.

All for now, James.