Tuesday's Tip - Ancestry is discontinuing FamilyTreeMaker.
Tuesday's Tip - Wow, some big news today that Ancestry is discontinuing Family Tree Maker effective at year end. They will continue to support it for a time but this is something I did not see coming. Now you might ask - so what, we use Legacy Family Tree. I think it is interesting because FTM was a pretty big player in the field and Ancestry is making a point to force the issue on having online trees by claiming that software is not the future of a genealogy management program. I think they are wrong - what do you think?
I think this will mean that there will be mass migration from FTM to other programs and hope that it is not a painful experience for FTM users. I also think we need to continue to have our genealogy (cause it is about more than trees!) offline on our computers and backed up externally (think external hard drives) as well as parts or the whole of it in the cloud. Never, ever depend on someone else (read a company) to keep track of your genealogy for you.
It will be interesting to see what the other software companies, including our favorite, have to say on the reasons or how (if at all) this affects them. I am glad that I purchased Legacy early on in my research (around 2006) and that Legacy continues to update and upgrade its software. And a friendly reminder to make sure you can get to your data, backup your data, and control your data.
Love, love my own software that I can assess anytime I want. So glad I found Legacy a few years ago and hope they will continue to be around a long time. I can't imagine only having an online tree.
ReplyDeleteI switched to Legacy 7.0, many years ago, and so glad I did, now working with 8 and STILL learning (goes with old age) Also learn the same thing more than once!
ReplyDeleteCould not agree more Tessa Keough. And, the bit about "declining desktop software market", well, in my opinion (2 cents or less worth) is that they either have NO clue, or this is all about $$. They are a FOR profit organization and it is their business to earn $$ for owners and such. Just because their bean counters say such and such, in this case, that desktop software is declining, means diddly. What it means is they don't want to spend $$ to keep the software up to snuff, a loss leader, as you may?? Interesting days a coming.
ReplyDeleteYes we are all continuing to learn things in Legacy and thankfully they keep updating and taking care of business. Happy to be using Legacy and happy to be in this group (and the one over on Facebook). Love learning and sharing.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about online trees being The Thing. I wouldn't want it myself. I like having control of what I do on my desktop.
ReplyDeleteI have learned over the past year in contacting DNA matches for information that a HUGE proportion of them (of the ones that have responded and 80% of them haven't) ONLY have their genealogy at Ancestry Trees and also have no idea how to get it out of there, having no clue what a gedcom file is or how to download one. What people write to me over and over and over again is, I don't know what a gedcom is or how to make one.
It seems they get pulled into genealogy by Ancestry ads to build a tree and never look past that. I guess they think they don't need to.
I have no online tree and never will. I left FTM after about 15 years for Legacy last year and am glad I did. There appears to be an interesting contempt for the customer.
ReplyDeleteI left FTM in 2009 after ten years of loyalty. I left because the "re-design" of the program in 2009 made it clear that Ancestry was interested only in what generated cash. Well, I get that but they really did a disservice to those of us who had been loyal FTM users for years. I messaged the FTM list at that time that if Ancestry could make such huge changes which appeared only to benefit links to Ancestry and "shaking leaves" that there was no end to what might be coming in the future. They, apparently, decided that they were not getting the "bang for the buck" with FTM and have enough people building "trees" on the website. We all know what those trees are worth. I feel sorry for all those who built legitimate family trees on Ancestry and don't know how to retrieve their information.
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit surprised. Thought FTM was owned by Broderbund. Did not realize it had been bought up by Ancestry. The things that happen when one isn't paying attention... It's a bit worrying, though. For some years FTM was the go-to genealogy application, advertised more widely than Legacy and available in many retail outlets. I've not used it, but still, when a main player suddenly drops dead we might want to verify the health status of our current software. In these days nothing is forever.
ReplyDeleteFTM had several owners over the years as I recall. It may have been first established by Broderbund. I used it way back then, but dumped it for Legacy, as friends of mine introduced me to it. The Gedcom transfer was not a big success, as I have since discovered, so I am working my way through fixing things up. Big job, but I am not in a rush.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with your comment. I bought FTM for the cheap subscription that went with it and have only used the sync feature. I am using Legacy to sync with Family Search Family Tree and am gradually building and connecting with others. I am still undecided as to which software I will use for my ONS but have been using Family Historian for years. I bought Legacy to help me with writing my citations but am still finding my feet with the program.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons I like Legacy so much (oh well love it is more accurate) is that you can use just the basics, and then over time add more of the features into your work flow. And I really believe that each of us makes it our own program - whether that is with a color/font scheme, using media, using source writer or sticking with sources, or any of our other options (you know me and preferences!).
ReplyDeleteSome use all the features, others use many, and some use only a few. For some the free version is sufficient (and I like that they have a free version - kudos to those companies who provide that service). That is just enough for those getting started and is not overwhelming (think back to when you first started).
As to the long haul - none of us know what that is - but the same team is at Legacy (they simply add to it) and Legacy is offering more, not less and we get regular updates. The Legacy team works hard behind the scenes. The updates to Research Guidance are piloted by Michele Simmons Lewis and we all know that the Legacy Webinar series is a great example of providing value and education - free on day and for days after is a real boon for genealogists on a budget. Dave Berdan Geoff Rasmussen and the rest of that team should be commended for providing such an excellent product at such a reasonable price.
Legacy is one of the best values in the genealogy marketplace in my humble opinion. I think the Ancestry/FTM situation is an example of a large company having a number of products and using its dollars to focus purely online because that is where they have seen the future - that is not where I am at (or where a number of us are), but I have always appreciated their website and records.
I never found FTM to be an intuitive program (was the program I first used when my cousin introduced me to genealogy - within 3 months I was looking for better software and I found it with Legacy). There will be lots of talk - but lucky for us, this change does not affect us. Do be sure to be welcoming and encouraging to those who want to switch their software. Let's get them to switch to Legacy!
Tessa, one of my close genie cousins has built a wonderful family tree on Ancestry with photos, document scans, etc. But, she doesn't have a genealogy program, aka FTM. Do you know if it is possible that Legacy could develop a transition program for people like my cousin to use to copy their data directly into Legacy? Right now, it appears that people like her will have to pay $69.95 for FTM and then transfer their data to another program. Oh wait, Ancestry is going to make a lot of money selling a soon to be retired program. :-(
ReplyDeleteJudy - I am not an employee of Legacy (our LVUG Community is unaffiliated but we are real big "fans" of Legacy). I have no doubt that something will be done to ease the transition by Legacy (if possible - I am also not a coder). I would guess that Legacy will be speaking to this, perhaps on their blog or it might even get asked in Webinar Wednesday - if I see anything, I will post it here. Wow is that how much that FTM software costs? Yikes. Has anyone in our LVUG Community seen or heard anything?
ReplyDeleteI also have a large family tree on ancestry, but I plan to keep it there in addition to using Legacy. I do find it helpful to make those "cousin" connections. I also have my DNA on ancestry. I do believe that fewer people are using software to store their family tree information. That is probably a very correct assumption. I, however, think that is a huge mistake. Any serious researcher knows to keep a hard copy. Did anyone see "Fear the Walking Dead"? I doubt there will be a zombie apocalypse, but it sure was interesting to see that infrastructure fell apart so quickly! That would include the cloud that everyone uses.
ReplyDeleteI am on of the FTM users impacted and have pulled some thoughts together in a recent blog post - http://murosky-ancestral-lines.blogspot.com/2015/12/family-tree-maker-is-being-retired-now.html
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