Goodbye Ancestry

msallen

Software is "retired" all the time. Ancestry are under no obligation to keep creating new versions, or supporting old ones if they're not making money on them.

Any reputable genealogy package will be able to import a gedcom. Whilst I've never used FTM I'm sure it must be able to export in gedcom format.

Having said that your current version of FTM will still carry on working "standalone" after Ancestry stops supporting it - there just wont be any more updates for it, and if it connects into their website this ability will probably disappear too.

For what its worth I use Family Historian, but I'm still on version 2.x - I haven't paid to upgrade for years and years, but it still does exactly what it it did to begin with and suits my needs. If Family Historian stopped being produced tomorrow it would make not a jot of difference to me.

50Twuncle

msallen wrote: »

Software is "retired" all the time. Ancestry are under no obligation to keep creating new versions, or supporting old ones if they're not making money on them.

Any reputable genealogy package will be able to import a gedcom. Whilst I've never used FTM I'm sure it must be able to export in gedcom format.

Having said that your current version of FTM will still carry on working "standalone" after Ancestry stops supporting it - there just wont be any more updates for it, and if it connects into their website this ability will probably disappear too.

For what its worth I use Family Historian, but I'm still on version 2.x - I haven't paid to upgrade for years and years, but it still does exactly what it it did to begin with and suits my needs. If Family Historian stopped being produced tomorrow it would make not a jot of difference to me.

Yes - ancestry can import and export both GEDCOM and FTM files (amongst other formats)
The advantage of using an FTM file - is that all of my 1000 + docs (certificates, jpgs etc) are all combined with the tree as a single file - that is what is good about .ftm files !!
Anyone can use a GEDCOM - they do not have any details on them...........
My tree currently is a 580Mb FTM file !!
or a 90kb GED file !!
You can see the difference ..

Sooler

50Twuncle wrote: »

So you reckon that 2013 FTM will not be compatible with 2016 Ancestry - but 2012 will be ?
balderdash !!

:wall:

ie) Does the version of FTM affect the version of Ancestry that you have access to? No

olbas_oil

I have been very impressed with Ahnenblatt. It is free and runs on Windows. The developer is German, but there is an English forum/help. It will import/export gedcom. I'd describe it as mid-range, a simple user friendly interface, but perhaps missing some of the power of Gramps (also free, but simply too complicated for me).

I also use Heredis because it runs on an iPad, and I can take my data into the field.

These are stand-alone solutions. They don't link up to Ancestry, so you have to do online research separately and then copy/paste results. However I think this is a good thing. I hate the way that sites like Ancestry provide hints that are based on other users family trees. The primary evidence is seldom there, and if you make contact, the answer is usually that they copied it from someone else. Thus evidence based research gets buried beneath a stack of wishful thinking. I would have hundreds of royal and famous ancestors if I was lazy enough to believe the hints ancestry throws my way!