Two New Certifications for FamilySearch Partner Products

Since the recent criteria change by FamilySearch.org for categorizing its Family History Partner Products, only two products have moved up in their certification rankings. The two programs who recently qualified for full Family Tree Certification are Ancestral Quest (and Ancestral Quest Basics, the free edition) and Celebrating My Family History. Previously, the only software program with full certification was RootsMagic.

If you visit the FamilySearch Family History Products page, you will see that the method used by FamilySearch to indicate certification has changed. FamilySearch has implemented a series of icons that describe the various levels of interactivity with the Family Tree program. You can see instantly now the degree of connectivity between the products and the Family Tree program. Here is a list of the icons from the website:

  Tree Share (full tree read and write) - Certified to read and write Family Tree data to match, compare, and modify records. Also includes required certification for sources, discussions, change history, and interaction with community members.

   Sources (Tree Access or Tree Share required) - Certified to read Family Tree data allowing user to match and reference online "sources' such as records, photos, documents, and media that provide evidence of events and relationships.

   Discussions (Tree Access or Tree Share required) - Certified to read, write, and comment on discussion threads for individual records in Family Tree.

   Change History (Tree Access or Tree Share required) - Certified to read and list changes made by contributors to the Family Tree, sources, and discussions.

   LDS Support (Tree Access or Tree Share required) – Certified that specific data and features for 'LDS members only' can only be accessed when the user is appropriately logged in to FamilySearch. Tree Access Certification is necessary for reading ordinance information, Tree Share Certification is necessary for requesting, changing, sharing, and printing Family Ordinance Requests (FORs).

I am sure that I will have more information about this subject in the not-too-distant future. I also hope to have some interaction with the programs. But that will take some time which I don't seem to have too much of lately.