Sunday, October 15, 2006

Ancestry Member Trees

Ancestry.com announced several months ago (link: http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=11344) that they were going to provide an enhanced "Ancestry Member Tree" which would permit stories, photos, documents and the like to be attached to individuals in the databases uploaded by members to the site.

This service is described in the article as:

The new Member Trees on Ancestry.com have features similar to family tree software programs available for personal computers—you can create family trees, upload GEDCOM files, and even attach photos to the people in your tree.

But unlike a family tree created on a personal computer, Member Trees are stored online, where you can easily share them with your family and find (or be found by) other family historians searching for the same people. Another benefit of online trees is that you can work on them any where you can connect to the Internet—the library, on vacation, or even when visiting family.

There is a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list at http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/learnmore/FAQ.aspx.

In all the hoopla over the completion of the census records, I missed this announcement and the details of this new user-submitted database.

I haven't uploaded my GEDCOM files to anything yet - to Rootsweb WorldConnect, to Ancestry or to GBenealogy.com. My excuse is that I'm "not done yet." I do have it in my genealogy will for my daughters to upload my GEDCOMs in certain places, and to put my unfinished genealogy reports on a web page.

For now, I'm happy carrying my genealogy databases around with me on a flash drive, and in the near future I can put the software and data onto a laptop which my wife is getting for her birthday (don't tell her, please! - it's our secret).

Has anybody uploaded their data to this new Ancestry database? Does anyone have any comments about the ease of uploading, or the ease of finding data in the information already uploaded by genealogists?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Randy,

I have uploaded my file to both Rootsweb and Ancestry. So far I have had 2 or 3 people find me through Rootsweb. One lady distantly related to my husband and one lady related to me. It's been great to email with both of them. My file is no where near done either (and it never will be done), but the whole reason to do it is to connect with other family members.

I, personally, think that Rootsweb is easier to search. I don't have an Ancestry membership and when I try to just search the family trees the site tends to bring me to pages where I need to subscribe and that gets annoying.