Family tree software

[muzzer]

I can’t find a comparable live thread so am starting one. Am revisiting family history and looking to get some nice new fancy software to record the results of my labours. Does anyone have any recommendations? I want to be able to upload pix, text, and links, and share the whole thing with other users.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Sorry, no actual experience to relate I haven't pursued this activity. In case you don't get much input here, there has been a regular 1 page feature on family history in Computeractive magazine, certainly over the last year. Available for pre-order on a CD for a tenner or so:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-Active-Back-Issue-issues/dp/B0833WXZS6/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ASIN%3A+B0833WXZS6&qid=1580043269&sr=8-1

ASIN: B0833WXZS6

[Dave2002]

I have from time to time thought of doing this, before what information I already have disappears. One set of notes I was given was sent by Fax, and the paper has faded a lot, though I have another data source which may be able to confim most of what was on the fax. As older members of my family fall off the log, it may be harder to reconstruct some of this in future.

Having said that, I can't say it generally worries me a lot. However, if anyone has ancestors who lived in Scotland, the library in Dundee offers a pretty cheap tracing service. I'm not sure of the current prices, but it used to be rather less than £50 to get a few hours work, and a computer search, given some basic starting points.

We discovered this by accident, as at one point we had a flat in Dundee, and some of our friends went to Scotland for a short period to check up on family trees, and it was only around that time that we discovered that they could have saved a lot of time and money by putting in a request direct to the library - which obviously can be done by email or post, or perhaps even online. Several members of my family have sinced followed that route through the Dundee library.

There is also this resource which I found by a quick search - http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazi...tish-resources
- again for people with Scottish ancestors.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Thanks for that information, Dave. Mrs CS antecedents on the side of both parents are all Scottish, but her research on one side the family came to a halt in Marylebone (London) on 1756. Why the marriage was in London is a mystery, but its difficult to guess where they came from before then...#

I'd thought the only way forward was to enlist expert help - so the Dundee library option is a lower cost option and I'll suggest, is worth a shot.

[Richard Tarleton]

I can’t find a comparable live thread so am starting one. Am revisiting family history and looking to get some nice new fancy software to record the results of my labours. Does anyone have any recommendations? I want to be able to upload pix, text, and links, and share the whole thing with other users.

I've uploaded my family tree along with profiles of key family members, photos, documents etc. to both Geni and MyHeritage, with some spectacular results. The two sites are connected. One result is that you are constantly updated with "matches" which provide the opportunity to link to other family trees with members in common - this has resulted in may connections with linked branches in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. The sites' algorithms do make some duff connections which you are free to reject - it's no substitute for doing your own research first.

Another example - I was contacted by a Danish academic who has been able to solve a long-standing literary mystery surrounding a Danish author thanks to stumbling across a profile for a family member that I had posted on Geni. You build the basic family tree yourself, and the results will come flooding in. You can if you like make your family site "private", as some do, but that entirely defeats the object. Having constructed a "paper" family tree, and written a family history, membership of these two sites has taken my project to a whole new level. PM me if you want to discuss this further!

[muzzer]

That’s very interesting, thank you. Presumably the share/ search feature involves the names and dates of birth you add to your tree being compared to all the other members’ entries and all the “owners” of a certain entry asked if they want to get in touch?

[Dave2002]

Thanks for that information, Dave. Mrs CS antecedents on the side of both parents are all Scottish, but her research on one side the family came to a halt in Marylebone (London) on 1756. Why the marriage was in London is a mystery, but its difficult to guess where they came from before then...#

I'd thought the only way forward was to enlist expert help - so the Dundee library option is a lower cost option and I'll suggest, is worth a shot.

It certainly is worth a shot with the Dundee people, thought it might make sense to phone or email them first. There is a limit to how far they will go. I think the Scottish people are building up a large database, so the initial search is quite quick and cheap - though perhaps guided by a human. I believe that if the trail goes coldish, you can pay more, and then a researcher will start looking at more documents, but there is then a charge for time spent and you have to decide how much effort and funding you want to put in to the exercise.

We were certainly pleased and perhaps surprised with what was unearthed quite quickly, but if you've already done a lot of work on your own family tree it's possible you may not find out anything more than you know already. It's certainly worth discussing with the Dundee people though, to see what they can offer.

It's cheaper and quicker/easier than traipsing round countries looking at gravestones, which some people do.

[Richard Tarleton]

That’s very interesting, thank you. Presumably the share/ search feature involves the names and dates of birth you add to your tree being compared to all the other members’ entries and all the “owners” of a certain entry asked if they want to get in touch?

More or less. You get an email notifying you of "record matches", which you can accept or reject. It gives you the names of the managers of other trees/family sites for you to get in touch. I've had some excellent results in this way.

[StephenMcK]

Yes, I do mine online via the Ancestry site having started on My Heritage but then found them too revenue extracting.

Some interesting connections have come to light such as my 11 times great grandmother, Mary Webb of Stratford on Avon, whose grandson wrote a few plays, I think.

[ardcarp]

Whilst I admire people who try to follow ancestral lines, I'm always minded that everyone has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-great, etc etc, and it's a bit like the Chinese puzzle of doubling rice grains on each square of a chessboard. There isn't enough rice in the whole world. In other words there are so many paths to take, it's quite possible to end up related to everybody! Following a family rumour that our family was somehow related to the Lords St Leven in Cornwall, my sister tried tracing the line only to find a great great grandfather who was a knife grinder in Aston, Birmingham, so illiterate that he could only make his mark on a marriage document.

[muzzer]

I’m not so interested in the tracing back as being able to work out what went on in human terms, and with the software to be able to include information contemporary to an individual - pictures, maps, certificates, social history. The particular period in issue I find fascinating, and if my research turns up much more intrigue and unexplained drama then there could be a book in it. I know that’s not an uncommon feeling at this stage of research.

[Dave2002]

I've uploaded my family tree along with profiles of key family members, photos, documents etc. to both Geni and MyHeritage, with some spectacular results. The two sites are connected. One result is that you are constantly updated with "matches" which provide the opportunity to link to other family trees with members in common - this has resulted in may connections with linked branches in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. The sites' algorithms do make some duff connections which you are free to reject - it's no substitute for doing your own research first.

Another example - I was contacted by a Danish academic who has been able to solve a long-standing literary mystery surrounding a Danish author thanks to stumbling across a profile for a family member that I had posted on Geni. You build the basic family tree yourself, and the results will come flooding in. You can if you like make your family site "private", as some do, but that entirely defeats the object. Having constructed a "paper" family tree, and written a family history, membership of these two sites has taken my project to a whole new level. PM me if you want to discuss this further!

That's very interesting. I thought to try doing this a year or so back, but what I thought I wanted was a stand-along package - and when I found a couple of sites which would enable me to start "for free" I was pleased, but when I found that I had to sign and put my data up for everyone to see I drew back.

For me there is so much misuse of data by sites, and also by unknown third, fourth, ...n th parties, that I generally prefer not to engage with sites which want me to "give up" my identity, and try to build up a profile of me and my family etc. I have also been amused at a recent advert for Apple - which is based on the concept of "privacy" - the problem being that Apple's "promise" that the company will keep all one's data private may not be true for all time, for various reasons. Handing over data in the way Apple and similar companies suggest requires trust, something which cannot be guaranteed, though in fairness, up to now it does seem that Apple has made efforts to not give away personal data.

Your examples of using sites where data is shared between similarly minded people investigating their ancestors and heritage are interesting, and suggest that there may be some merit in sharing data on sites in a public project, in which data is widely shared. This does not mitigate against my concerns, but does indicate some putative positive benefits for people who are willing to participate in this way. That's really interesting.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Following a family rumour that our family was somehow related to the Lords St Leven in Cornwall, my sister tried tracing the line only to find a great great grandfather who was a knife grinder in Aston, Birmingham, so illiterate that he could only make his mark on a marriage document.

I'm so glad that story had a happy ending after all, ardy.

[Dave2002]

I'm so glad that story had a happy ending after all, ardy.

Could have been worse. Thomas Hardy wrote novels based on that kind of thing.

[Richard Tarleton]

Whilst I admire people who try to follow ancestral lines, I'm always minded that everyone has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-great, etc etc, and it's a bit like the Chinese puzzle of doubling rice grains on each square of a chessboard. There isn't enough rice in the whole world. In other words there are so many paths to take, it's quite possible to end up related to everybody!

This is the premise of the Geni site, whose emphasis is on interconnectedness. MyHeritage, on the other hand, concentrates on your direct ancestry. And you are right - regarding my 9x great grandfather who was born in Dorset but went out to Massachusetts in 1635 on a pilgrim ship aged 18 and founded a dynasty from which my father's mother was directly descended - father-son all the way - he was but one of my 1,024 9x great grandfathers. And they tended to have large families, so the ramifications are huge. But the beauty of these online trees is that they are three-dimensional - you can open and close the different branches at the click of a mouse. It's impossible on paper, there isn't enough room to include everybody even for current generations. As to my 25x great grandfathers, of whom William the Conqueror was one , we each have 67,108,864 of those (and a similar number of great grandmothers ).

We learnt my 9x great grandfather's story through story through good old-fashioned research, but Geni and MyHeritage have provided the links to numerous other pilgrim families into which my 9x great grandfather and his immediate descendants married - and to their origins in Tudor England and beyond - into which people have been doing parallel research. And this is only one branch of the family.