Speculations on RootsTech 2013

I am wondering if RootsTech 2013 will be used by genealogy software developers, including FamilySearch.org to make some major or perhaps incremental announcements? FamilySearch.org for one, is overdue for changes to the Family Tree program. The "Release Notes" online date back to 15 November 2012 and the Reference Manual has had no update since 3 January 2013.

The one big change that hasn't been addressed at all by the other software developers is their direct support of the Family Tree program. Some of the existing software, such as Ancestral Quest, presently refer to the connection with New.FamilySearch.org as a "Family Tree" connection although the connection is really making changes to New.FamilySearch.org. The real issue is the continued connection between New.FamilySearch.org and the newer Family Tree program. There are still a huge number of people using New.FamilySearch.org that have not noticed the announcements and postings on the program about Family Tree. With yet no official announcement from FamilySearch mandating a change over to Family Tree, many people are still using New.FamilySearch.org out of inertia and desire to avoid change.

FamilySearch may also take the opportunity of RootsTech 2013 to announce its FamilySearch Photos program that has been in Beta test for some time. There have been a number of recent incremental changes to the program, but it looks to me that it is not quite ready for a big time announcement. I also wonder if FamilySearch has the potential storage capacity and bandwidth available for a major increase in storing photos?

All these are speculations. I also wonder about Ancestry.com. Since its sale to a European investment group, there haven't been any substantial announcements or changes to the program. This is especially true of Ancestry.com's purchase of Archives.com. That websites has yet to show any Ancestry.com branding and I am guessing the two sites may continue to be operated as separate entities. Unfortunately, there also hasn't been a dramatic increase in the utility of the Archives.com search engine. In searching for an ancestor is both easy to find and has records in a variety of databases, I find that Archives.com gives only 10 suggested records out of thousands online and of those all but two are false positives. The same search on Ancestry.com gives over a thousand records but unfortunately with about the same level of false positives. This occurs even when I put in a specific birth date. For example, I search for my Great-grandfather, Henry Martin Tanner, and put in his birth date of 1852 in California and get hundreds of responses for records after 1900 for Henry Tanner Moekler. When I change the search to look for Henry Martin Tanner in Arizona, I get Martin Henry Tanner in Utah. This happens even though Ancestry.com has found more than a dozen historical records for Henry Martin Tanner from my family tree. Oh well.

Maybe, both Ancestry.com and Archives.com could get together and improve their search capabilities.

I assume that other genealogy companies will use RootsTech 2013 as a venue for making some kind of announcement, so I am prepared to feature those in blogs from the scene.