How Far Back Can We Go?

How far back can we research our family tree? It's a question that comes up periodically, especially from beginners who are sometimes overwhelmed with finding other people's trees going back very far. In practice, the answer will vary greatly depending on your tree. One branch might dead end in the 18th century, another might go back to the 16th century, and another yet might link to royalty and date back to Charlemagne (8th-9th century). But how far back is it plausible or realistic? At what point exactly do all these trees that date back to ancient times, mythical figures, Adam and Eve, etc become impossible? 

In general, the simplest answer for European research that has no known connection to royalty or nobility is that the 1500s is the end of the line. Like I say, not all your branches will likely even go back that far. Many times, the trail simply runs cold well before that point. For example, if you're American, you may never be able to find the specific origins of an immigrant ancestor. But if you're lucky, you may find a few branches here and there that go back to the 1500s.

Why the 1500s? Because that's when parish records began to be mandated in Europe. England was among the first to do so. In 1534, England separated from the Catholic Church and formed the Church of England, a protestant church, all so that Henry VIII could divorce his wife and marry his mistress. A mere 4 years later, England required that their brand new church begin keeping parish records of baptisms, marriages, and deaths/burials in 1538. Around the same time in 1540, the Lutheran Church also started requiring parish records be kept throughout their rapidly expanding churches in central Europe. In 1563 at the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church ordered that parishes keep baptism records, and not long after, other orders in various countries required marriages and deaths/burials. This meant essentially most churches in Catholic or Protestant Europe were expected to keep parish records from that point onward.

However, not all churches began adhering to these requirements right away. Many were slow to start keeping records, so depending on the location, you may not find parish records going back quite this far. In England, only 14.8% of parishes were keeping records by 1555, and that had risen to 54% by 1600. Most parishes in Italy didn't start keeping records until about 1595, but at the same time, a few Italian parishes (namely Palermo and Firenze) had taken it upon themselves to keep records long before the Catholic Church mandated it, sometimes going back as far as the 14th century! In France, general compliance wasn't until around the mid-1600s, and most Reformed churches were keeping records by 1650 as well. So in many places, you may only be able to go back to the 1600s.

Additionally, even when records were kept from this early on, not all have not survived to today. Many were damaged, lost, or destroyed over time, through natural disasters or war, or simply deteriorated over time. Some from the 16th century may have survived but there might be large gaps, making it impossible to connect the dots. 

So, how far back parish records go, and whether they've survived to today or not really depends on the specific location in Europe, but in general, it's safe to say the 1500s are the furthest plausible cut off point. Unless a branch has genuine links to royalty or nobility (and there's a lot of false links out there, so be careful), or you're among one of those rare exceptions of parish records going back to the 14th century, a tree extending beyond the 1500s is probably not accurate or reliable.

That doesn't mean every tree going back to the 1500s is reliable though, just that you would have to look more deeply to determine that. As I mentioned earlier, in some cases, your trail may dead end with your immigrant ancestor. If you can't find the specific origins of your immigrant European ancestor, it doesn't even matter how far back European parish records might go. And just because parish records may go back this far doesn't necessarily mean you can use them to reliably trace your lineage. Parish records are notoriously vague, containing very little information that can often make it impossible to say for sure if the records you're looking at are for the right person you're researching. Especially when you only have access to an index and not the original documents (which is common for early parish records like this). All it takes is more than one person with the same name born around the same time and location to completely throw their identity into question. Or one ancestor moving across the country with no record of it, and having no idea where to find them. Records can be so scarce, it's safe to say that if you're not descended from a somewhat notable lineage that was better documented, like wealthy land owners, merchants, or holding some sort of position like a sheriff (not necessarily nobility), there's a very good chance you'll never be able to reliably research back as far as the 1500s, even if the parish records exist.

Now, I keep saying "unless you have a genuine connection to royalty or nobility". So what if you do? Despite the amount of false links out there to royalty, some of them are genuine, and in those cases, it is possible (likely, even) to go back much further than the 1500s. Most royal and noble lines are well documented even before parish records were kept, because their titles were inherited, so documenting their lineages, especially male lineages, was very important. How far back they go depends entirely on the lineage, but many royal lines go back to Charlemagne, who ruled much of Western Europe in the late 8th century and early 9th century. Charlemagne's ancestry has also been traced back to his 5th great grandfather, a 6th century nobleman named Ansbert, whose wife, Blithilde (or alternate spellings), has been claimed to be the daughter of Chlothar I, but this is highly debatable. Ansbert is generally considered the end of the royal line, and not all lines will go back that far.

As you can see, even royal lines only go back to about the 6th century at the most, so proving European descent from BC is just not possible. There are many theories out there, but none are proven. Any tree that goes back to BC is highly speculative at best. That's not to say the family trees of people who lived in ancient history can not be traced within Antiquity, just that there's a known genealogical gap in between Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Sources:

• FamilySearch Wikis:
• England Church Records 
• Italy Church Records
• Germany Church Records
• France Church Records
• Medieval Lands - A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families (using primary sources)
• Descent from Antiquity
• Parish register

Ancestry's "We're Related" App

We're Related app
My relationship to Stephen Amell
is confirmed

Edit to add Mar 28, 2019: Since publishing this article, it's come to my attention that the We're Related app is no longer available from app stores to download. It will still function if you still have it on your device, but you can no longer download it. I contacted Ancestry.com support about this, but they refused to give me any information on when and why the discontinuation happened and why there was no announcement, and instead flat out denied that they even owned the app (see below). Maybe they sold it at some point, but they most definitely owned it at one point, as proven by older community/Facebook topics answered by Ancestry reps as though they manage or own it found here in 2017 and here in 2016. So I've now asked them if they sold it, when and why did that happen and why was there no announcement. No response yet.

I know it's only a little app that produces a lot of false connections, but this lack of communication and transparency with their paying customers is just so typical of Ancestry.com.

Edit to add July 29, 2019: Ancestry.com have finally recently sent out an email about the discontinuation of the We're Related app, and added a help article detailing the same, available here. How odd that they would finally announce the discontinuation of an app they claimed they didn't even own back in March. While it's nice to finally see some acknowledgment of this, it just highlights the fact that their customer service reps either don't know what they're talking about or are just flat out lying.

Ancestry's denial that they ever owned the app which they've
now finally announced has been discontinued.

--------------- Original article:-----------------

As many of you may know already, Ancestry.com has an app available called "We're Related". It's a fun little app that looks at Ancestry's vast database of user created family trees and attempts to find common ancestors between you and famous people, both of today and in history. It probably goes without saying that you should be careful about accepting the authenticity of the connections the app makes, given that it's based on user created trees and we all know how error-filled they can be, but that doesn't mean it can't be accurate sometimes.

Out of curiosity, I set out to determine how many of the famous people it's claiming I'm related to are actually accurate. Admittedly, I haven't gotten very far because most of the common ancestors the app finds are colonial, meaning they can be difficult to research. That doesn't mean the app is wrong, just that a lot of them can't be confirmed or denied either way. But so far, I have been able to confirm one link, and deny another.

I started with the ones who had common ancestors I recognized because they were already in my own tree (the app will extend on your tree to find common ancestors even further back than you've researched). That way, I at least knew my own descent from that common ancestor was accurate, and only had to research the path from the common ancestor to the famous person in question.

So the first famous person I've been able to confirm my relation to is Stephen Amell (shown above). For those of you who don't watch the TV show "Arrow" based on the D.C. Comic's superhero Green Arrow, Stephen Amell is the star of the show (also, you're missing out). He's not exactly an A-lister but it's still pretty cool. Additionally, although the app doesn't mention it, Stephen Amell's cousin is Robbie Amell, who had a brief part in the corresponding TV show, The Flash, and it's their shared ancestry which I also share so I'm related to both of them. Our shared ancestors are Jacob C Gottschalk, who was the first Mennonite bishop in America (not to be confused with the first Mennonite minister in America, the more famous William Rittenhouse), and his wife Aeltien Symons Hermans. My path to Jacob is well documented, since he was a somewhat well known historical figure, at least among Mennonite history, his descendants are well documented, which made researching down to Stephen and Robbie Amell fairly easy as well. Jacob was my 7th great grandfather and Stephen's 9th great grandfather, making us 8th cousins twice removed.

App shows the path from alleged
common ancestor to the Cole
family

Sadly, not all the connection are this easy to confirm, nor are they always so accurate. I went after another suggested relation, Nat King Cole (shown right). The app seemed to think we shared ancestors Peter Schumacher and his wife Sarah Hendricks. Again, these ancestors were already in my tree so I knew they were accurate and only needed to research down Nat King Cole's side. On his path, the app suggested that Peter and Sarah's daughter was Fronica or Frances Schumacher, which indeed she was and I already had her in my tree. The next step showed Fronica's son Peter Van Bebber b. 1695, which was again correct according to the research already in my tree. But next it claimed that Peter's daughter was an Esther Van Bebber b. 1707 who I had no record of and anyone with any kind of observation skills will immediately notice that it's highly unlikely Peter had a child when he was only 12 years old. So I don't know who has this lineage in their tree that the app is picking up, but it's probably incorrect and it's a good thing I checked it before accepting it as fact. Looks like I'm probably not related to Nat King Cole after all. Bummer.

The good thing about the app is that it does use words like "Possible Common Ancestor" so hopefully people don't take it too seriously without researching and confirming connections. Additionally, at the bottom of each pathway (either from you to the ancestor, or the famous person to the ancestor), it asks "Does this path look correct to you?" and offers a thumbs up or thumbs down (shown below). Unfortunately, it doesn't offer any kind of comment box for you to detail what looks wrong about it if you thumbs-down it, but it's better than nothing.

Also noteworthy is the one I found in which the pathway from me to a common ancestor who is in my tree may have been wrong. When looking at the suggestion for my relation to Elizabeth Montgomery, we allegedly share known ancestors of mine, Robert Cobbs and Rebecca Vinckler - however, when I open up the pathway from myself to Robert, there is a very noticeable inconsistency with my own tree on Ancestry.com. In my tree (which the app is supposed to be working off of), Thomas Cobbs Jr is obviously the son of Thomas Cobbs Sr, who is the son of the Robert Cobbs in question, but in the app, it bizarrely has the mother of Thomas Cobbs Jr as Susanna Moon, who is then the daughter of Mildred Cobbs, the daughter of Robert.

Now, I supposed it's not impossible that the pathway in the app is correct and I just have yet to discover it, which would mean I am descended from Robert Cobbs in two ways. But that would also mean Susanna Moon married her uncle, and that sounds kind of gross and highly unlikely. I know it's not uncommon for 1st cousins to marry, but uncle and niece? It's not something I've ever come across (except in royalty/nobility, but that's different). Given the unlikeliness of this situation to begin with, and the fact that I have no record of Robert having a daughter named Mildred, I think this pathway is probably inaccurate. Even assuming for a moment it's correct, it's still strange that the app went with a pathway which is not in my tree instead of the one which is. So make sure you look at each pathway, even if the common ancestor is already one in your tree who you've confirmed. Don't just assume since the ancestor is correct, the pathway to you is as well. Regardless though, I am descended from Robert Cobbs, and so if Elizabeth Montgomery is as well, then we are indeed related, even though the pathway is wrong.

Although I have some criticisms of the app, it does give me a lot to do when I'm stuck on brick walls in my normal research. This gives me something different to explore, while still working on my family tree. Hopefully, as I carry on with it, I can continue to confirm or deny more and more relationships to famous people.

(Note: when you first set up the app, it will take a few days to look for and start generating people you're related to, and it will continue to update and add more and more people to the list over time.)

How to get a Family Group Sheet on Ancestry.com

A couple years ago when Ancestry.com updated their website to the "new site design", the family group sheet feature disappeared. Staff promised it would return, but it never did. At least, not on the surface. There is a "backdoor" method to pull up a family group sheet of anyone in your tree. Here's how it works.

Use the following URL, replacing "TREEID" and "PERSONID" with the corresponding numbers from the URL of your tree/the profile of the person you want to make a family group sheet for: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/TREEID/family/familygroup?fpid=PERSONID

How do you find the tree ID and person ID numbers from your tree? Just open the profile of the person you want, and they can be found in the URL. So, for example, this is the URL from someone my public tree: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/110310542/person/340080162048/facts

The first number, 110310542 is the tree ID, and the second number, 340080162048 is this person's ID. So, taking the family group sheet URL and replacing the corresponding numbers, the URL is: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/110310542/family/familygroup?fpid=340080162048

Here's a quick reference image, for future use:

Ancestry.com to Discontinue Family Tree Maker

Update: Ancestry.com just announced that software developers MacKiev have bought the rights to FTM and will continue to develop it, including a tree sync feature with Ancestry.com. MacKiev have been the FTM developers for Mac for years so acquiring it for Windows is a natural step for them. Additionally, Ancestry.com have made an arrangement with RootsMagic to allow integration with them, including a tree sync feature. This is even better news than I expected, because now users will have two options for syncing their Ancestry.com tree with desktop software, where previously FTM was the only option.

All is right in the genealogy world again!

---

Today, Ancestry.com announced their plans to stop creating and selling Family Tree Maker as of December 31, 2015. Tech support will continue until January 2017, and it sounds like it's at this point that TreeSync will be disabled as well.

I can not even begin to describe how upset I am by this. The loss of TreeSync means there is literally no way to mass download the Ancestry.com documents I've attached to my tree. The only method is to manually download each documents one by one, which is simply not possible with the size of my tree. The only other solution is to perpetually maintain my subscription (how convenient for Ancestry.com), because when canceling a subscription, you lose access to the original documents attach to your own tree. I find it totally unacceptable that I will not be able to access, download, and archive these documents I've paid a lot of money over the years to have access to, once I unsubscribe. Therefore, my only option is to download what I have with FTM's TreeSync before it's disabled, and then cancel my subscription and use other resources from then on.

This will mean my research will take a huge hit, of course. Ancestry.com is undeniably the biggest online resource, and cutting myself off from that will make my research much more difficult. But I really see no other way around it.

The least they could do is maintain and open up their API for the sync so that other programmers could create third party software that syncs with our Ancestry.com trees. But that will never happen, because that would mean users don't have to perpetually subscribe to access the documents attached to their own tree (as if they don't suck enough money out of us already). They won't even maintain the sync for their own product, let alone for a third party.

It's true that you can always download your gedcom from Ancestry.com and use all your data in a third party software for the more advanced data management options the online tree doesn't offer, but it will not contain any media or documents, which is the backbone of any properly researched tree.

Congratulations Ancestry.com, on this completely regressive decision. Genealogy is my biggest hobby and this is the most depressing genealogy news I've heard in... well... ever.

How to Make a Descendant Report in FTM Excluding Living People

For obvious reasons, when producing a descendant report, we often want to exclude living people, or at least hide their details. FTM does, in a way, provide an internal way of doing this. You merely privatize your tree by clicking on File > Privatize. This hides personal details of whoever the system determines might be living (this is reversible using the same setting so nothing will be lost, but you should avoid syncing your tree while it's privatized in FTM because it can screw up your online tree).

Unfortunately, FTM doesn't do a very good job of this. In my experience, it wants to mark anyone born after 1895 without a death fact as "living", even though it's highly unlikely anyone would ever live to be 120 years old. This is contrary to the online tree, which marks people as living if they were born within 100 years and have no death data input, a much more sensible criteria, if you ask me.

So what if you want to customize the cut off point in FTM for your descendant reports and make it 100 years instead of 120? Well, there is a workaround for it but it requires several steps and creating a duplicate tree. Still interested? Read on.

1. Go to File > Export. This brings up a window that allows you to select which individuals you want to include in the export, so choose "Selected Individuals", shown right.

2. This brings up the window where you can choose who you want to include or exclude, shown below.

Click "Filter In" and you'll get another window where you can choose the criteria for who to include. To start, you'll need you to filter in everyone who was born after 1915 by selecting "Birth" in the fist drop down menu, then "date" in the bottom one, "is after" in the last one, and then typing 1915 in the text field, then click OK (shown below). This will include people born IN 1915, not strictly born after that year.

I know this sounds counterproductive because you're trying to exclude a lot of these people, but trust me, in order to exclude some of them, we first have to rule them all in.

3. Now click "Filter OUT" this time and exclude anyone who doesn't have a death fact. You do this by selecting "Death" in the first drop down menu, then "Any data" in the bottom one, and then "does not exist". You now have a list of people born after 1915 who are deceased (ie, who have a death fact).

4. Now click "Filter In" again, and include everyone who was born before 1915 by selecting "Birth", "Date", "is before", and type 1915 into the text field.

5. The only thing left to do is include everyone who doesn't have a birth date/fact, if you know that such people exist in your tree. Since we have only included people born before 1915, or after 1915 who are deceased, people with no birth fact will not be included if you don't rule them in. So click "Filter in" again, and this time choose "Birth", "Date", "Is Blank". Shown left.

This doesn't always catch all people with missing birth data though, so for good measure, also do a Filter In for "Birth", "Any Data", "Does not exist" (shown right). Don't ask me why you can't just do one or the other, you have to do both for it to be inclusive.

You can now export your tree with this list of people, which should include everyone except those born after 1915 with no death data. Save the file with a new name, so as not to overwrite your original tree. I call mine "Descendant Reports Tree" plus the date. Once exported (and I would not include media when exporting since you're only doing this for the sake of text reports), you can open the new file and now you have a tree that doesn't contain anyone born after 1915 who might still be alive. You can create reports from this tree without any fear of anyone living showing up. Yes, it does mean that you have to do this every time you want to update a descendant report, but it's the only way I have found to create a descendant report with a sensible or customized cut off point for living people.

The New Ancestry.com Design

If you haven't noticed already, Ancestry.com is updating their site design and layout. I believe they are trying to make it more tablet friendly by providing bigger buttons to click, and fewer options on each page to make everything cleaner and easier to view/use on the smaller screen of a tablet.

Switch between New and Classic site

They had several months of Beta testing it by providing it to certain users and getting their feedback and now it's gone semi-live to all US members. They are now in a transition stage where you can currently swap back and forth between the "classic site" and the "new site" (shown left - clicking your username in the top right corner of the site will give you the option to switch) but in time, only the new site will be available.

This is concerning because at the moment, there are a lot of problems with the new site. Many complaints have been addressed and resolved, which I'm grateful for (see this list of upcoming additions they're working on re-adding), but they have only been regarding missing features which have since been re-added. The bigger concern is the lack of efficient functionality, which in some cases would require another redesign of the layout to resolve, something the developers seem unwilling to do.

Granted, while leaving the new site to return to the classic site, we are given the option to provide feedback on what we don't like about the new site. Unfortunately, there is a max character limit and my complaints exceed it. I have detailed them on the Ancestry.com message boards but I will do so again here, so I can also post multiple screenshots of what I'm talking about. I have highlighted in red the most concerning issues which should take priority for resolving. I am also updating it regularly to note new issues that have cropped up or one which have been resolved.

1. Inadequate handling of Before, After, Between, and even About date tags. When viewing Facts, it does seem to respect the "Before" and "After" date options, but it does not respect them very well in the LifeStory view. The event shows the "Bef" or "Aft" tag but in the description, it says "She died IN 1859 when she was 68 years old" instead of saying "She died AFTER 1859" (shown below). Equally, under the individual's name at the top of the profile (while in LifeStory) it just shows a year range of the person's life and does not note even "About", let alone the others, though it does say "about" in the description. Regardless, this will be very misleading to many people, not only while viewing other people's trees but also even while viewing our own.

New site LifeStory handles Before/After/Between, and even About
date tags poorly

Of course, the system doesn't handle the "Between" tag well either, but that was always a problem with the classic site too. Instead of redesigning the whole site to make it look prettier or work better on a tablet (because no genealogist in their right mind would ever do heavy tree work or research on a tablet anyway), they should be focusing on resolving problems that have plagued the site for years.

Member Connect in profile on Classic site

Resolved: 2. Missing Member Connect in profiles. I know Member Connect can be found under the Community section but it's still missing from the profile view. On one hand, I appreciate that they are removing an emphasis on using member trees to do research but the Member Connect tab on each profile (shown right) was still useful for having a quick look at what info and sources other people had for a certain individual. To do this now, I will have to do a search for public member trees who have the same individual and click on each one to get an idea of what info/sources they have. This will be much more time consuming and a major disruption to my workflow.

ETA (Edit To Add): This feature is listed on the things to be re-added.

ETA: This feature has now returned, however, the header details with the individual's vital data from your own tree, along with the other profile options, are not included on the Member Connect page like they used to be. Better than nothing though.

Can't view sources attached to some facts
without lots of scrolling

Partially resolved: 3. Poor handling of the way the sources for a certain fact are now shown. We used to be able to click on the sources for a fact and see a short list of the sources attached to that fact (shown below). Furthermore, from there we could click on those sources and view the citation details. Now, while clicking on a fact does draw a line to and highlight the sources for that fact, if one source is at the top of the list and another is at the bottom, we can't view all the sources attached to that fact at the same time. Even if there's only one source attached to that fact, if the fact is lower down on the timeline and the source is up at the top, I have to scroll all the way up to the top of the page again just to see which source it is (shown left). This is also a major disruption to my workflow, adding lots of unnecessary and tedious scrolling up and down.

Classic site shows condensed view of fact and all sources attached to it
Also, all sources shown are clickable, taking you to the transcription
or citation details

Edit Fact does bring up a list of sources, but you
can't click them to bring up citation details

Granted, there is the option to double click or press "Edit" on the fact in question and then go to "Source Citations" to see a list of all the sources attached to that record (shown right). Unfortunately, not only does this require extra clicking but also, this list is intended to merely give you the option to delete those sources from that fact. If the source came from a site outside Ancestry.com, the source is not clickable so you can't open the citation details from there. While Ancestry.com sources are clickable, they only take you to the image of the original document, you can not open the citation details or the transcription of the record from there either. To view the citations details or transcription, you have to close this window and still wind up scrolling up/down the page to find the right source and open the details.

In other words, there is no easy way to quickly view all sources attached to one fact and from there open the citation details/transcription. From talking to others, it seems many, like me, dislike this while there are also others who prefer having all their sources listed in the middle of the page and don't mind the scrolling. So I think I have a solution that would suit everyone: simply bring back the ability to click on "(x) Sources" on the fact to show a small list of the sources (and allow them to be clickable). Basically, it would work the same way it does in the Classic site, but the option to click the fact and show the purple lines to the sources in the middle of the page would remain. So people who want the old method could still use it, while people who prefer the new method could ignore the old method and use the new one. This should be a simple solution that suits everyone and isn't difficult for the developers to implement because it doesn't require rearranging the layout.

ETA: This is partially resolved now. While "(x) Sources" on the fact is now clickable (yay), it opens the same list of Source Citations attached to that fact as if you were to open the fact details and click on Source Citations. So it does save you an extra click, but unfortunately "Other Sources" still aren't clickable from here. Also, this now appears to be "sticky" so if you click on it, from then on opening the fact details will take you straight to the Source Citations instead of defaulting back to the Fact Details. Unnecessary and annoying.

Partially resolved: 4. Everything on the new site seems to take more, extra clicks to accomplish the same thing, such as what I detailed above in point 3. Another example: to make a photo the primary photo for someone's profile, we now have to edit the photo details whereas previously the option to make a photo primary did not require going into "edit".

ETA: Many of the updates have reduced the amount of clicks.

To be resolved: 5. Inconsistencies/inaccuracies with the Historical Insights in LifeStory view. Others in the support community have pointed out date inaccuracies, such as an event during the Great Depression being put in 1953 instead of 1933. But also, I just don't understand how the system decides which historical events to put in which profiles. For example, it mentions the first World Series in 1903 in my great grandfather's profile... but my great grandfather was born in 1902 so he wouldn't have even remembered this event. His parents probably would have remembered it but when I open his parent's profiles, the first World Series isn't mentioned in LifeStory. I could excuse it showing me an event that occurred when my ancestor was only a year old, but I don't understand why I don't see the same Historical Insights on his parent's profiles, where it might make more sense.

August Bauer did not immigrate in 1848, but LifeStory
makes it looks like he did - also, no known "wave"
of German immigration during the 1840s.

When I look at another person, LifeStory tells me he immigrated from Germany during a wave of German immigration to the US in 1848 (shown left), but when I look at the Facts view, he actually immigrated in 1840. Granted, the wave of immigration might have covered 1840 and was not solely in 1848... but LifeStory doesn't tell me this and doesn't tell me the actual date my ancestor immigrated in. Looking at LifeStory, it looks like this person immigrated in 1848, not 1840. This is very misleading and a huge concern. What's more is that according to Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics, the biggest decade of German immigration to the US was actually in the 1880s, not the 1840s. Germans were immigrating to US very consistently throughout history. Unlike other cultures or regions of Europe, there weren't really any German "waves" of immigration, it was more like a steady stream. This is why the Germans have the highest numbers of immigrants in total. There was a dip in immigration around 1770-1830 and so there was a spike in immigration in the 1840s but this applied to all immigration, coming from many different regions, not just Germany. Getting major dates wrong like putting the Great Depression in the 1950s instead of the 1930s is ridiculous but at least it's an obvious error that likely won't mislead most people. Everyone knows when the Great Depression was. But getting your history wrong when it's a lesser known fact is going to be extremely misleading to a lot of people.

ETA: The latest update says of inaccuracies in LifeStory: "We are looking at the language in the narrations and how to better generate narratives."

Resolved: 6. When looking at a media gallery, there is no longer any way to view just stories or just photos. Sometimes I have dozens of photos and only a few stories and I want to look at one of the stories. It's so much quicker and easier to just click "stories" and then pick the one I want rather than having to scroll through dozens and dozens of photos to find the story I want.

ETA: Not only can we now sort by the type of media OR show only one type of media, we also have the option to sort it all alphabetically which is something people have been asking for for YEARS. They're finally listening!

Resolved: 7. Placement of notes. While notes are still available, it's not longer easy to see whether there is a note attached to an individual or not. You have to click on "Tools" and then "View Notes" whereas before, the option to View Notes was displayed on the profile home page, serving as a clear reminder that there's a note for that individual. I don't know how often I will think to check "Tools" for possible notes.

ETA: There is now a global tree setting to show the link for Notes on the profile instead of buried in Tools. Under Tools, click "Show Research Tools" and then the link for Notes and also "View in tree" will appear below the person's name and vital data. Again, this is a global setting for your tree so despite the fact that it is turned on/off within an individual profile, it will apply to all profiles in your tree.

Partially Resolved: 8. No more Military pages? Is this feature being retired or will we see it again? I have data on certain military pages that isn't on the main profile, so if it's being retired, I need to go through them and move them over to the main profile before we lose access to the classic site and they are lost forever. However, if we will see the military pages returned to the new site, I don't want to waste time duplicating data on the main profile. At the very least, an official comment on whether this feature is being retired or not would be helpful. So far, all they have told us is that in the future they will evaluate whether to re-add the military pages or not. So this is still up in the air.

ETA: Military Pages will return but as view-only. You will no longer to be able to edit or add data to them, or create new ones. I imagine they do plan to retire this feature eventually though and are bringing it back as read-only so people can copy the data from the military pages to the main profile and no data will be lost.

Resolved: 9. When adding a new person, we don't get an option to add death details. We do get an option to add the person's email address though - because that is so useful in genealogy where most of the people you're adding to your tree are deceased. Otherwise, we can only add name and birth details. What if we have their death details too? We have to create the new person first, open their profile, and add the death details from there. Unnecessary extra steps when there's no reason the death details can't be available to add at the same time you're creating the new person.

ETA: It now appears that if the person is living, the death data isn't available to input but if you click "deceased" it will appear. I imagine this was their intent all along but perhaps wasn't working properly at first/at some point.

Resolved: 10. Editing a fact and hitting "save" doesn't update the display. While it does update the fact, in order to actually see the changes, you have to close out of the edit window and refresh the timeline page. Worse is that the edit window gives no indication that the changes to the fact have been successfully made. In the classic site, it would have a note saying the data was successfully updated. Now, when you click "save", you're left wondering if it worked or not and to find out, you have to close the window and refresh the page.

ETA: This appears to be resolved now. Editing a fact now confirms it was successfully saved with a notice in the popup window and when you close the window, it updates on the profile without having to refresh the page.

Mostly Resolved: 11. The lack of any indication of media on the profile. I have a lot of documents attached to a person or one of their facts/citations but without clicking "Gallery" or opening the fact/citation details, I have no way of knowing when this is the case. We used to have a preview of our media gallery on the home page of a profile and while this didn't show the full gallery, it did show us when any media at all was attach to that person. Additionally, attaching media to a fact or citation used to show up on the fact in the timeline. Not anymore. I know I personally am going to be missing a lot of things because I don't realize it's there! I'd like to see media thumbnails return to the facts in the timeline, and I'd also like to see an indication of which "Other Sources" have media attached to them and which don't.

ETA: Along with "(x) Sources" in small type at the bottom of each fact, there is now the same indication of media attached to that fact (or media attached to a citation which is attached to the fact). Like Sources, it is also clickable, which takes you straight to a list of the media attached to that fact. It's not a thumbnail, but it's something. Staff say they are evaluating whether to include thumbnails again or not.

ETA: Thumbnails have returned the facts they are attached to. However, there is still no indication of media on the Facts page if it's not attached to a fact (ie, still missing the "media preview").

Resolved: 12. Age of individual not showing in Facts timeline, only LifeStory. Facts view is more suitable for doing research on the individual and I don't want to have to click over to the LifeStory view every time I want to see what age someone was during a particular event in their timeline.

ETA: Ages are now showing on the Facts timeline. They are a faint grey, barely darker than the background, but they're there.

13. Image Display. Images that I have uploaded to my tree won't zoom in to the full sized image. It only zooms in about 50%, if that, making documents difficult or even impossible to read because the text or writing is too small. On top of that, unless you use the full screen button and then zoom in, the quality of the image is pixeled and blurry (shown below). At least there is a work around for this by using the full screen button (above the zoom button), but it's annoying and shouldn't be happening. The fact that there is no way to view the full sized image that I uploaded is unacceptable. I basically now can't read half the documents I've attached to my tree. Here's the original document of the examples shown below for comparison.

ETA: There is a workaround for this by right clicking the image and opening it in a new tab. In Chrome, the option is "Open image in new tab" (in Firefox, it's "View Image", which doesn't open it in a new tab but it's better than nothing - IE has no option for this at all). This will provide the full sized image in your browser without any clunky, buggy image viewer. It's a reasonable workaround for now, but this issue still needs to be resolved since many won't know about it.

Pixeled

Even when pixelating is resolved, image is still too small

Resolved: 14. Bug Report: Once you have ticked the box for "Use as Profile Image", you can't untick it. You can change the Profile Image to a different photo but you can't untick it to leave the Profile Image blank. You can untick it while uploading and keep it blank this way, but once there's a designated Profile Image, you can't revert back to nothing.

Resolved: 15. The titles of photos get cut short when viewing full size. Many of my photos are actually scanned documents and I need to see the full title of the image in order to know what document I'm looking at.

16. Viewing a hint doesn't allow you to attach it to someone else. You might sometimes get hints for someone in your tree which are actually a match for a different person in your tree by the same name. In the past, there was an option to save the hint to someone else in your tree. That is no longer an option when viewing a hint. You will have to find the same record yourself to attach it to anyone else.

Resolved: 17. There is no way to edit someone's living/deceased status after creating their profile. When you add a new person to your tree, it does give you the option to tick deceased or living, but once you've created the new profile, there is no way to change this status later apart from adding a death fact. But what if you know the person is deceased but don't know the date or place? Or what if you accidentally clicked deceased and later need to change it to living? This should be a privacy concern.

ETA: You can now change the living/deceased status under "Edit > Quick Edit".

18: The transcription box of an uploaded image/document doesn't show up when saved. When you're editing the detailed, the transcription box is there, and the data you type into it will be saved when you click save, but it doesn't display anywhere. The description box still functions normally and displays the data saved in it, but there are many documents I've uploaded which have data in the transcription box. While that data isn't lost, if it doesn't display, what's the point?

Resolved: 19: Stories can not be added to facts/events. That says it all, really.

ETA: This has been acknowledged as a commonly reported issue but no word on whether they will definitely resolve it or not.

ETA: Stories can now be attacked to facts.

20: Suffixes aren't included in the drop down list of people when searching for another person to add an image to. This is only problematic if you have more than one person with the same name and none of them have a birth or death date. However, if you do have a son and father, for example, with the same name, and no dates for either of them, but you do have a 'Sr' and 'Jr' put in for their suffixes, these will not show up in the drop down list and so there is no way to tell them apart.

Note: the suffixes do appear on the selection drop down list when searching for a person to attach a record to. This is only problematic when attaching an image to another person.

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I am not a glass half empty person, so I will not leave this post without mentioning some of the improvements. Unfortunately, there are fewer than I would have liked to see.

1. The addition of family events being shown in the timelines - ie, birth of the individual's child, death of their parents, etc. I've been wanting something like this for a while because it really helps put the family timeline into perspective, not just the individual's timeline. Also, the ability to hide this feature in case other users don't find it as useful and feel it only clutters the timeline was very wise.

2. Likewise, the ability to show/hide alternate facts. Finally! I don't have to click/open a fact to see if there's an alternate fact. One small example of extra clicks being reduced.

3. The option to "ignore" historical insights/events in LifeStory that don't apply to that individual, as well as the option to hide that global feature entirely. If the problems with the historical insights can't be resolved, at least we can turn them off.

4. The re-addition of many features people have pointed out were missing at first. Such as the ability to add or create a story was originally missing from the new site but has since been re-added. Supposedly, Weblinks will be returning as well so hopefully that is true since I have used this feature at times. ETA: Weblinks are now back too!

5. The fact that LifeStory and Facts views are "sticky", meaning whichever one you last viewed will be the one to appear when you open another profile. I was worried LifeStory would be the default and every time I opened a profile, I'd have to click on "Facts", but this is not the case. Thank you.

6. The look. I will admit that the new design does look nice. I know some people have problems with the contrast being too low but I did not find this to be a problem for personally. The cleaner, simpler style does look good, but it should not be at the cost of the functionality.

7. Quicker and easier to attach a source citation to other facts. Previously, if you had a source citation attached to someone and you wanted to attach it to other facts too, you had to click on "View All Sources" and then click the citation in question, followed by "edit this citation" and then tick the facts you wanted to attach it to and save. Now, you just click Edit on the source from the home page, then click Associated Facts and add the ones you want.

8. Undecided option for hints. No longer do you have to decide whether to accept or ignore a hint, or leaving it hanging in your list of hints still to review. You can now hit the "Maybe" button and it will be stored in a new "undecided" section.

9. Being able to link a spouse to a marriage fact. Previously, if you had created a marriage fact and not linked a spouse to it, you had to create a new marriage fact instead of being able to link them afterwards. This was problematic because certain Ancestry.com marriage collections won't automatically link the spouse when you're attaching the record and it's creating a marriage fact. So you used to have to attach the record, create a different marriage fact with the spouse linked to it, swap the record to the new fact, and then delete the old fact. Annoying and time consuming. But not anymore! Now, it's super quick and easy to just open the marriage fact and select the spouse you want to link it it, then hit Save.

FTM: Creating a Duplicate, Scaled Down Tree OR Splitting a Tree

With ventures into DNA in particular, I see a lot of people wanting to offer a scale down version of their tree, like a simple pedigree, but they may not know how. So I'm going to show you how to do so with Family Tree Maker. I'll be using FTM 2012 but I imagine other recent versions aren't going to be too dissimilar.

Export options

Step 1: Go to "File" > "Export". This will open a pop up window with your export options (shown right). On the right, you can choose options like include or exclude media - note that excluding any/all of the options, your source citations will still remain, minus any photos attached to them. You can also choose your output format as either an FTM file, or a Gedcom. I like to do mine as Gedcom because then I can directly upload it to places like Gedmatch.com or FTDNA, 23andMe, etc. I recommend not using the option to "privatize living people" since most sites you'll be uploading to do that anyway. But all these options are really your own choice.

Choose individuals to include in export

Step 2: In the same window, on the left you have the options for "Entire File" or "Selected Individuals". Obviously, exporting the entire file will mean exporting your entire tree. If you're trying to scale down a secondary version of your tree, choosing "Selected Individuals" is what you want. After a moment another window will pop up with a list of everyone in your tree on the left side, a bunch of buttons in the middle, and a blank list on the right (shown left). Make sure that you, the home person, is selected on the left (I scrolled down so you wouldn't see my own personal details highlighted for privacy reasons). 

Details of ancestors to include

Step 3: If you want to create your pedigree, which would be a tree of only your direct ancestors, all you have to do is click the button that says "Ancestors". Yet another pop up window will appear (shown right) with options on how many generations to go back and whether to include all parents/spouses or only preferred ones, and whether to include any descendants of these ancestors and if so, how many generations down the line. If you're strictly doing a pedigree, especially for DNA purposes, you'll probably want to choose only preferred parents/spouses, and UNtick the descendants to include. As for how many generations back of ancestors to include, I like to be comprehensive and include them all so I put in the number 999, which might be overkill but it assures it'll include every generation. Click "OK" and on the right hand side of the previous window (shown in Step 2), you and all your direct ancestors will now be listed as the individuals to be included in the export. Click "OK" again and now all those selected individuals will be listed on the original window show in Step 1. If you're happy with this, click "OK" again to export your new, scale down tree. You can then open it as a new tree in FTM (I'd name it something different so you can tell the two apart), or assuming you exported to Gedcom, you can upload directly to someplace like Gedmatch.com. If you want to include more people, not just your pedigree, read on...

Step 4: After adding your own ancestors, while still in the Step 2 window, you will find you can add individuals simply by double clicking their name on the left hand side (or single clicking it and then clicking the "Include" button) and they will appear on the right hand side. So let's say you wanted to include an aunt or uncle whose DNA kit you also manage. You can do so by double clicking their name. Someone like an aunt or uncle has the same pedigree as your parent, their sibling, so there's no need to hit the "Ancestors" button again. If you want to add the pedigree of someone who has different ancestors than you do, like a cousin or your own spouse, all you have to do is select their name and hit the "Ancestors" button again. If possible, I highly recommend creating a separate tree/pedigree for your spouse though, instead of combining them, since the two of you are not genetically related (hopefully), and so having your pedigrees combined might be misleading to DNA matches looking at your tree.

I hope this helps people who are trying to export only certain individuals from their tree into a new one. Any questions about it, feel free to ask below and I'll do my best to explain further.

P.S. - This method also works for splitting a tree. Instead of selecting yourself in Step 2, you will select the person where you want to split the tree from - i.e., the person who will be the home person in one of the new trees. For example, if you are splitting a tree to have one tree for you maternal side and one tree for paternal, you will choose either your mother or father. Or if you are splitting up your tree four ways, one for each grandparent, you will pick one of your grandparents. Then in Step 3, you will choose the options for "include all parents," "include all spouses," and "include ancestor's descendants" by (x) many generations. I would put in 999 generations like you did for the ancestor's generations to make sure it's all inclusive. Export the tree, and then do the same thing for the next person where you're splitting the tree (so if you chose your mother first, now you'll pick your father). Once you have exported a tree for each new home person, you can import them into FTM, check to make sure all individuals, data, media, etc was included, and then you can delete the old, original tree if you want to (you can always keep it as a back up option if things went wrong with the split).

Free Family Tree Software Review: Ancestris

Continuing in alphabetical order of free tree software reviews, this one is about Ancestris.

Upon opening Ancestris, there are options to take a tour of the software or use other learning tools. I decided to skip this and clicked on My Ancestris which then gave me the options to create a new genealogy or open an existing one. Creating a new one takes you through the first steps of setting up a new tree. Right off the bat, I didn't like this process, since under "modifications of properties" it had a section for making "jurisdictions" (locations) fields required and organizing the sort order (shown right). For new comers, this might be confusing as you may not yet be sure how to best set this up, and I found it totally unnecessary.

The fourth step is finally useful and has you enter the name and birth data for the first person in your tree, normally yourself. You also have the option to enter death data (leave blank for yourself, obviously) and occupation and residence. The last step has you enter the parents, spouse, and children details (and other relatives, oddly), but clicking on "Add his/her father/mother" first generates a popup box that basically tells you what you already know, that you're about to add the father of this person (shown left). It gives you the option of changing the person's ID number, which again is unnecessary. Just click proceed, and then you'll finally have the same options to enter the details as you did with the original person.

Another annoying feature is that when adding a mother, the married name is automatically put into the surname field (shown right). This is bad form because the standard in genealogy is to name women by their maiden names. A newcomer who doesn't know this might assume it's better to enter the married name since that is the default here so this could be very misleading and really screw things up for people who don't know better. I also noticed that surnames are automatically formatted to be in all caps (shown right). This is a format some people use but not all and there doesn't seem to be a way to change it if you prefer it without all caps. If there is a way to change this setting, like everything in this software, it's not obvious how to do so.

So far, the only positive thing about this software is that the place fields (and the name fields, though I don't know how useful this would be in practice) offer a drop down menu of previously used locations so if you have a lot of events in one place, you don't need to type them all out every time. That said, you wouldn't be typing out too many locations anyway because another let down to Ancestris is that the only facts/events that seem available are name, BMD, occupation, and residence (only one residence so you can not enter more than one location a person lived in). You can also enter a nickname and name prefix/suffix but no alternate names or any other alternate facts. All very limiting to detailing anything more than the bare, vital facts.

When you are finished with these steps, you can now view your tree, either as a pedigree (what they call a "Dynamic tree") or a family group sheet which they call a "Browser" (shown left and below). They don't make the tabs very clear what they are, they just have the title of your tree on every tab. I only figured out what they called the different views/tabs by looking at the "View" menu and matching the icons, which might be too small to make out quickly or easily for some.

On the left, you have your tree views, on the right you have the details of the individual selected, which you can view either as editable fields ("Ancestris Editor") or as an outline list ("Data Publisher") - again, the tabs for these different views aren't obvious what they are. On the "Data Publisher" view, there is another box below it titled "Individual" but it gets cut off and there is no scroll bar, you can only adjust the divider in between the two boxes to see more (shown below right).

The pedigree view (Dynamic Tree) is not much better, it's clunky looking and it took me a minute to realize the blank box below the two parents is meant to be for their marriage data. Another thing they don't exactly make very clear (shown right).

At the bottom, there's a list of immediate family members and their details. Again, the tab for it just lists the tree name instead of a description of the view type (shown right). Apparently this is called the "Entities Table", as listed under "View" in the top menu above the toolbar.

Adding more people to your tree is also not very intuitive. If I want to add the parents of an individual, that's easy enough because in the family group (Browser) view there are fields to click to add them. But let's say I want to add another child. I first looked around for an "Add" button but when I couldn't find one, I right clicked the individual while in pedigree (Dynamic tree) view and then hovered over "Individual (ID number)" in the menu that appeared. Another menu appeared from that, giving me the option to add various types of family members (shown left). This seems to be the only way to add someone who is not a parent, it's only available in pedigree view and only by right clicking and selecting an option that doesn't even describe the function it runs.

So what are the positives to this software?! Well, they do have a lot of charts and reports. If you already have a tree you build online and you're looking for some free software just to import your gedcom and generate charts and reports, this might work for you. But in terms of actual data management, especially for beginners to genealogy, this is NOT intuitive. Again, even just bringing up the charts and reports is not straight forward. It's easy enough to click on "View" and select "Lists and reports" but then it opens a blank new tab and you have to know to click on the correct icon that has a green triangle on it. That opens up a lists of reports you can choose from. Also be aware that a lot of the charts have to be output to a file like SVG and then displayed in a web browser instead of being displayed within Ancestris.

The only other positive is that it does support sources and even repositories. I know that seems like it should be standard on every tree software rather than a noted bonus, but as we've seen before, that's not always the case. However, this alone is not enough to make it worthwhile because yet again, adding a source is not intuitive. You can not add a source in the "Ancestris Editor" like you might think (isn't that what an editor is for?), even though there's a tab for it. Instead, you have to go to the pedigree view (Dynamic tree) and right click the individual, highlight "Individual (ID number)" and then choose "Add Source". But bizarrely, this won't add a source to the individual, it adds it to the whole tree! Despite the fact that each fact for each individual has a "Source" tab, I can't figure out a way to actually use these. I'm not saying it's impossible but I'm fairly computer literate so if I can't figure out how to do it, it's not intuitive in the slightest.

Pros:

• Locations have drop down select of previously used places
• Supports sources and repositories (limited though)
• Lots of charts and reports

Cons:

• Not intuitive or easy to use at all
• Only basic, vital facts/events available to add
• Not able to customize much (ie, no option to turn off surnames in all caps)
• Woman's surnames default with married name (you can change it but it's bad form for the default to be married)

Conclusion: If you're willing to wrestle with the functionality of this software, the reports and charts might be worth it, for a free option, but there are probably better ones out there. I can see nothing else redeeming about this software, it's very hard to use even for a seasoned genealogist and computer user.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Free Family Tree Software Review: Ancestral Quest Basics

Ancestry Quest has a free "basics" version and a full $29.95 version. They have a detailed comparison on their website but I am only going to review the free version and compare it against other free family tree software.

When you download Ancestral Quest Basics, there is a form to fill out your details but note that it is no required. You can just click the download button. One annoying feature of this software right off the bat is that once installed, you have to reboot your computer before using it. Many years ago that used to be the norm but not anymore so already this software feel outdated. Before the software opens, it asks you to set a few preferences.

One of the benefits to this software is that it has a built in option to search Ancestry.com for records. If you have an Ancestry.com subscription, this might be beneficial. But then, if you have an Ancestry.com subscription, I would highly recommend using their own software, Family Tree Maker, since it has the ability to sync your online and offline tree, which isn't possible with Ancestral Quest.

Getting started options

It's also highly compatible with PAF - Personal Ancestry File which was created by FamilySearch.org. They have since abandoned their PAF software but it is still supported by Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree, and RootsMagic, and will link to your online FamilySearch Family Tree, just like Family Tree Maker links with your online Ancestry.com tree. So the real benefit of Ancestral Quest is if FamilySearch.org is your favored online source.

Once you get passed all these options to enable or not, you finally have the option to create a new tree or open an existing one. There are several options, including things like importing from a gedcom or from your FamilySearch tree. I always start a new tree because I'm assuming most people interested in free software are newcomers to genealogy who may not have a tree built yet. It will ask you to name your tree and where to save it, and then again asks if you want to register (and buy) the full software.

Add/edit individual with pedigree view in background

Finally, you get a blank pedigree in which you can start filling in names. It shows you where to click to add the first person in your tree, usually yourself. This is beneficial for first time users who may never have built a tree before and don't know where to start. Clicking this brings up a popup box that allows you to input your details. I notice right away that Ancestral Quest allows you to add source citations for each fact by clicking on the "S" next to the fact. This is a definite plus over the previously reviewed Ahnenblatt software. The other benefit over Ahnenblatt is the ability to add more than just vital data and basic facts. As you can see in the screenshot to the left, you can click "add" under "other events" and get a huge list of different types of facts/events you can add to an individual. Clicking the "more" tab allows you to enter things like an AKA name, physical description, and cause of death. Some of these options are not always available with other free software. Ancestral Quest also has a tab in the individual's details for contact information, which is really only beneficial for living people in your tree. In pedigree view, when you hover over an individual's name, it displays a quick view of their BMD data (birth, marriage, death). To view more of their details, just double click their name and the window shown in the screenshot above left will appear again.

Family view tab showing immediate family of individual

Once you've created the first person in your tree, it jumps from pedigree view to the "family" tab, which basically shows the individual's immediate family. You can enter your parents from here or by going back to the pedigree view. When you click on "add father" and type in a name and click okay, a window to input his marriage details pops up, which is a little confusing because you haven't even entered the mother/wife's name yet! If you then enter the mother's name, the details of the father's marriage do seem to get added but I did not find this process intuitive at all.

The design of the software uses some largish fonts and buttons, which may be beneficial for those with poor eyesight but personally, I found that made it difficult to visually pull all the details together.

Along with the Pedigree and Family view tabs, there is a tab for "Name list" which lists all the people in your tree. The "Individual" and "Timeline" tabs are only available with the $29.95 version.

In the toolbar along the top of the screen, there are more options to play with your data. Some are restricted to the $29.95 version, such as "publish a family book" and the to-do list. The option to "edit individual" just brings up a person's details to edit, you can accomplish the same thing by double clicking their name in pedigree or family view. In addition to the list of all people in your tree, there are tools for search your tree by name, number, or relationship. There is also the option to merge two duplicate individuals, a more advanced feature you may not often see in free software.

The Basics version does allow you to create some reports and charts, though they are limited. You'll find them by clicking the printer icon in the toolbar, which may not be very intuitive. From here, there appears to be many options but once again, clicking print or preview on many of them brings up the option to upgrade to the full version. That can get annoying. Their website I linked to before details which reports and charts are available for which versions so I won't get into all that.

Exporting your tree only gives you options for various Ancestral Quest versions, Heritage Family Tree Deluxe, Family Tree Maker, PAF, and "Other", which apparently is code for gedcom. Why they couldn't call it gedcom is beyond me.

Pros:

• Overall easy to use, with only a couple exceptions
• Links to your FamilySearch family tree
• Will search records on Ancestry.com
• Has some features other free software may not, such as citations for facts and many event types
• Offers some reports and charts

Cons:

• Has many features which are only available in paid version but doesn't indicate that you can't access them until clicking on them (they could be greyed out to indicate no access but aren't) - the constant clicking on items not available gets annoying (though they make clear on their website what features aren't available with the free version, it's not like I have an eidetic memory)
• Upon opening the first time, it asks you to set a lot of preferences that newbies may not know much about
• One or two features are not hugely intuitive

Conclusion: An easy to use option for beginners but also allows some growth, not only with the free version but also offering more features with the full $29.95 version, which is affordable. Biggest benefit is being able to link your Ancestral Quest tree with your FamilySearch tree. If FamilySearch (which is free) is where much of your research is going to be, and you can put up with many features not available with the free version, this software is a good option to start with.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars