Why Buy Family Tree Maker While You Can?

I’m interupting my vacation again for a post that can’t wait.

When I heard that Ancestry.com would no longer sell Family Tree Maker after 31 December 2015 (yes, this Thursday), I went right out and got a copy. Mind you, I don’t have to pay the $69.99 to download the product, but let me tell you why you may wish to consider buying a copy for yourself.

If you keep your genealogy in an Ancestry Member Tree and you plan on keeping it there, you should rush out and buy Family Tree Maker while you can. If you keep your genealogy in an Ancestry Member Tree and you plan on abandoning Ancestry’s trees because of the recent changes, you should rush out and buy Family Tree Maker while you can. Why?

I had bunches of valuable, digital photos on ofoto.com, a photo storage website. When my external harddrive failed, I lost my local copies. I knew of no way to get the photos back from ofoto. When ofoto sold out to Kodak, Kodak implemented a policy of deleting your photos if you didn’t continuously purchase stuff. That I didn’t know about this policy until after they deleted my photos is tragic.

There was a day when the MyFamily.com website was so important to Ancestry, they changed their name to MyFamily.com. It was inconceivable that MyFamily.com wouldn’t live in inperpetuity. There was discussion, I imagine, about shutting down Ancestry.com, but not MyFamily.com. When they shut down MyFamily.com, many people lost lots of important stuff.

So whether you are planning on getting off or staying on, it is important that you have a local copy of your tree and all the source documents. And you can’t do the source documents by downloading a GEDCOM. If you have attached records from Ancestry.com and records and photos uploaded by other users, then it may well be worth $69.99 to download your sources to your local computer. Can you imagine manually downloading all those census images for each family in your tree? That alone overwhelms me.

So if you have an Ancestry Member Tree, you should strongly consider buying Family Tree Maker. But do it no later than Thursday.

If you decide to buy Family Tree Maker, don’t bother going to the FamilyTreeMaker.com website. Ancestry seems to have removed all the purchase links from that website. Instead, go to http://www.ancestry.com/cs/apps/products. Or use the links provided on Ancestry.com: Click “Extras” on the navigation bar, then “Family Tree Maker Software.”

Now, I’m back to my vacation. Happy News Years, everyone.

Merry Christmas - #ASaviorIsBorn

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays to all of you!

As is my tradition, I offer as a gift a short (2 minute) video from my church. Click on the photo to the right, or go to http://christmas.mormon.org.

If you’d also enjoy some secular Christmas carols, check out these videos with the Morman Tabernacle Choir:

Sesame Street’s Count von Count enjoys “The Twelve Days of Christmas” with the choir’s organist.

”We Need a Little Christmas” - Angela Lansbury and the choir.

”Jingle Bells” – the choir

Merry Christmas - #ASaviorIsBorn

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays to all of you!

As is my tradition, I offer as a gift a short (2 minute) video from my church. Click on the photo to the right, or go to http://christmas.mormon.org.

If you’d also enjoy some secular Christmas carols, check out these videos with the Morman Tabernacle Choir:

Sesame Street’s Count von Count enjoys “The Twelve Days of Christmas” with the choir’s organist.

”We Need a Little Christmas” - Angela Lansbury and the choir.

”Jingle Bells” – the choir

Ancestry.com Announces Retirement of Family Tree Maker

Each year I take December off. Each year without fail Ancestry.com or FamilySearch makes a major announcement that needs to be covered. It’s like clockwork. I wonder if they do this because of the seasonal drop off in site usage?

Ancestry is discontinuing sales of its popular Family Tree Maker desktop tree management software. Ancestry will discontinue sales at the end of the month (31 December 2015). It will continue to support the software for one year (31 December 2016). That includes the ability to synch your New Ancestry online tree with your Family Tree Maker offline tree. “You will be able to use the software, exactly as you do now, including TreeSync, for at least the next year,” said Ancestry’s Kendall Hulet. Family Tree Maker will continue to function to some degree past that date.

Ancestry is exploring the possibility of letting other desktop tree software integrate with Ancestry.com Member Trees. This has been a major strength that FamilySearch has had over Ancestry. Ancestry is not looking to sell off Family Tree Maker to another company. They are just letting it die. They are looking at adding report functionality to Member Trees. Users will lose substantial report capability with Ancestry’s abandonment of Family Tree Maker.

The timing of the announcement is interesting. The days leading up to Christmas have the lowest usage rate of online genealogy websites. And the announcement was made just days before the shutdown of the Old Ancestry online tree user interface. (That happens tomorrow, by the way.)

Why should you care that Family Tree Maker is going away? How is that bad news? Why did I immediately go out to procure a copy? What do I think about the New Ancestry online tree interface? I’ll try to answer these questions and more in January when I return from my hiatus.

In the meantime, for more information:

• See “Ancestry to Retire Family Tree Maker Software” on the Ancestry Blog for the initial announcement.
• See “More Information on Family Tree Maker Desktop Software” on the Ancestry Blog for a follow up.
• See “FTM Users: Join MyHeritage and get Family Tree Builder with an Unlimited Size Family Site for Free” on the MyHeritage Blog for a special offer for Family Tree Maker owners looking for an alternative.
• See the Family Tree Maker website to order a copy and to see Ancestry’s claim that Family Tree Maker is “the #1-selling family history software.”

Jo Duffy's Darned Confusing Birth

We depend upon records to reveal the “truth” about the past. Yet sometimes records have anomalies. Some are amusing or humorous. Some are interesting or weird. Some are peculiar or suspicious. Some are infuriating, or downright laughable.

Records are the darnedest things!

(This article is based an Larry Martin’s winning entry to my RootsTech 2016 contest. Congratulations, Larry!)

Josephine Demerris Duffy is Larry’s wife’s late mother who has a darned confusing birth. She and her family always celebrated her birthday on May 17th. But birth records disagree as to the date and place of the birth.

Chicago, Cook County recorded her birth as 17 June 1912, on East Oak Street in Chicago, of Irish parents.

Josephine Demerris Duffy birth certificate¹

According to published abstracts, Cook County recorded her birth a second time, specifying the same date and parents, but with a different birthplace and ethnicity: Cullom and Canadian.

Josephine D Duffy birth record on Ancestry.com²

There is no town named Cullom in Cook County but there is a Cullom Avenue in Chicago. The 1910 Census shows Josephine’s parents lived on East Oak Street (above their grocery store), however, and not on Cullom Avenue.

John Duffy in 1910 United States Census³

Like any good genealogist, Larry used the Ancestry.com database as a finding aid. He has ordered the cited microfilm. When it arrives he will see this:

Josephine D Duffy in birth register⁴

It is apparent the indexer took “Cullom Avenue” from the wrong line, but where he got “Canadian” from is anyone’s guess. The information in the register matches the certificate. I haven’t shown enough to see, but all surnames on the page start with the letter D and the entries are not strictly chronological. While the opposite page contains additional information, the certificate contains even more.

The Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago, recorded her baptism of 2 June 1912, noting her birthdate as 17 May 1912, with her parents listed properly.

Josephine Duffy in baptismal register⁵

The baptismal dates are in strict chronological order for several pages before and after this page.

What do you think? When was Josephine born?

Yes, records are the darnedest things!

---

Sources

     1.  Cook County, Illinois, birth certificate no. 3659 (1912), Josephine Demerris Duffy, County Clerk, Chicago; FHL microfilm 1,288,245. Birth year is not specified, but determined by previous certificate.
     2. Detail from screen image, “Cook County, Illinois, Birth Certificates Index, 1871-1922,” database, Ancestry (http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=FSCookILBirth&h=2061451 : accessed 27 November 2015), Josephine D Duffy, 1912; from "Illinois, Cook County Birth Registers, 1871-1915," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N7XY-4HV : accessed 27 November 2015); citing p. 75, no. 3659, County Clerk, Chicago; FHL microfilm 1,287,756.
     3. Clips assembled from "United States Census, 1910," image, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-23041-3426-94 : accessed 26 November 2015), path: Illinois > Cook > Chicago Ward 21 > ED 913 > image 24 of 57; citing NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.). Don’t snip up your images in real life. It is a violation of Board for Certification of Genealogists, Genealogy Standards: 50th Anniversary Edition, Kindle Edition (Nashville, Tennessee: Ancestry.com, 2014), no. 28.
     4. Clips from an image of Cook County, Illinois, “Apr – July 1912, Register of Births, A to Z,” 66:75, no. 3659, Josephine D Duffy, County Clerk, Chicago; FHL microfilm 1,287,756.
     5. Holy Name Cathedral (Chicago, Illinois), baptisms, 1908-1915, Josephine Duffy, Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago; digital image,"Illinois, Chicago, Catholic Church Records, 1833-1925," FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11395-27252-84 : accessed 27 November 2015), path: Holy Name Cathedral Parish (Chicago: State St) > Baptisms 1908-1915 > image 150 of 246; FHL microfilm 1,578,586.

Pre-Holiday Ketchup

Each year I try to take off the month of December (from blogging). You’re busy. I’m busy. We’re both busy. But before I go, it’s time to catch up.

RootsTech 2016 has announced to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that Family Discovery Day 2016 will feature newly called apostle, Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Ruth. Other speakers include Rosemary M. Wixom, Primary general president and Stephen W. Owen, Young Men general president.

To speed the publication of newly scanned microfilm, FamilySearch has released a new feature. Soon after scanning a roll of microfilm, FamilySearch will show a camera icon next to the film number in the catalog. Click the icon to see the images from the film. Since films will be published before FamilySearch has added waypoints to facilitate browsing the images, FamilySearch has also implemented a thumbnail view. This allows quick visual identification of volume covers, indexes, probate packets, and the like. Catalog icons also allow searching a single film (once indexed) and ordering the roll for viewing in a local FamilySearch center. Digitized films will not appear in the list of historical record collections until after they have been waypointed, so be certain to check the catalog if you don’t find a collection you need in the collection list. (I’m a big proponent of the catalog. The collection list can’t scale to tens of thousands of collections.)

As before, some images are restricted. Restrictions vary. At their simplest, you must sign in before being granted access. However, many restricted images are viewable only at a FamilySearch family history center unless you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For more information, see “News Flash! Digitized Microfilm: From the Drawer to Your Computer” on the FamilySearch blog.

FamilySearch recently announced they are revamping the Memories section of their website. They are adding a Gallery that enhances the ability to add, organize, and view photos, stories, documents, and audio recordings. For more information, see “Coming to FamilySearch! A Memories Gallery to Enrich Your Family Tree” on the FamilySearch blog.

Ancestry announced the results of their annual Find a Grave Community Weekend. Hundreds of volunteers worked in upwards of 70 cemeteries. They

• Added 320,935 new photos
• Fulfilled 10,899 photos requests
• Added 242,793 new memorials
• Grew the number of registered users by 3,308

Congratulations and thank you, everyone. For more information, see “Members Fulfill 10,000 Photo Requests During Find a Grave Community Weekend” on the Ancestry Blog.

You know I needed to write a catch-up article when you see news items that are weeks old. I don’t recall ever pointing out the user-to-user messaging system FamilySearch introduced back in August. One of the most frustrating aspects of a collaborative tree such as FamilySearch Family Tree has been the inability to collaborate with users who chose not to make their email addresses accessible. There’s nothing like someone messing up your tree and having no way to discuss with them their changes. Now users can send messages to other users without using email. For more information, see “FamilySearch Messaging on FamilySearch.org” on the FamilySearch blog. To read about features released in October, see “What’s New on FamilySearch—November, 2015.”

RootsTech has announced that Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kerns Goodwin will be the keynote speaker at RootsTech 2016 on Saturday, 6 February at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Steven Spielberg based the movie Lincoln, in part on her book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. She received her Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. She’s also authored biographies of several other U.S. presidents.

“Goodwin will share her insights into the personal and family lives of past presidential leaders and the influence their ancestors had on their personalities, behavior, decisions, and careers,” said Paul Nauta, FamilySearch spokesperson. “She will also share anecdotes about her own family and experiences which have shaped and influenced her life.” For more information, see “Pulitzer Prize Winning Biographer, Historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, to Keynote RootsTech 2016” on the FamilySearch blog.

That’s all the time I have. See you in January!