The New England Historic Genealogical Society aka AmericanAncestors.org has introduced a free online family tree program called AmericanAncesTREES. I received an email invitation to join the new program but, as yet, I do not see anything on their website about the new offering. The program is apparently in "preview" mode.
One of the options for starting the family tree was to import information from my FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Here is the promo about the features of the tree from my email.
About AmericanAncesTREES
American AncesTREES is a FREE, easy-to-use, online family tree that keeps your family history data safe and secure. AmericanAncesTREES offers many features to help you organize and advance your genealogical research, including options to:It certainly looks like an interesting option for a family tree program. I chose to import 4 generations of my information from the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. That went smoothly and I got the following.
- Choose with whom and how to share your tree
- Grow your tree with record hints from AmericanAncestors, FamilySearch, FindMyPast, NewspaperArchive, and BillionGraves, and search hints from Ancestry and MyHeritage.
- Use research logs to track your findings
- Make and share videos of your family stories
- Import an existing tree from Family Search, or import a GEDCOM
However, the first time I went back to look at the family tree I imported, I got the following message:
The message says:
This tree is LockedWe're sorry - your tree has been locked. You have 6.0 gigabytes of media in your trees, which is more than the maximum allowed media storage for this plan. To unlock your tree, either remove some of the media from your trees, or upgrade to a PRO plan by clicking on your user name in the upper-right corner, then on Account.
I was not asked to limit or otherwise determine the amount of "media" I wanted to import so this is a surprise. In looking at the media, it looks like they imported a whole bunch of stuff for every person. I can certainly eliminate some of it, but then why would I want to do that. They mention a "pro" version of the program and this is what is displayed.
1 GB of storage is hardly anything. Even 2 GBs or for that matter 10 GBs is hardly enough to contain even 4 generations of media from the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. If I added any generations, I would easily go over 10 GBs. I guess I will wait a while and see what happens.
Yep, this program is RootsFinder, the new Dallan Quass online tree. I spoke to him yesterday about it at Jamboree.
ReplyDeleteI feel like American Ancestrees is late to the game and that they don't quite get it. Maybe that's why it is still in Beta, to work out the problems. Still for me, I don't know if I want to maintain another version of my tree. Are there enough users for possible collaboration? Are their sources unique enough to warrant the cost? I received the invitation, but I just set it aside....
ReplyDeleteJames, could you please include a link to where the AmericanAncesTREES program can be found at the americanancestors.org site? Their home page does not indicate where the program is.
ReplyDeleteAll I have is a link from an email which they said was my only way to get to the family tree. I am assuming from this statement that they are only inviting a few people to upload trees until they work out the problems, if any.
DeleteInteresting indeed - and yes, even 10 GB is not enough for most people who have big trees. $34.95/year isn't bad, however, if people are already using Ancestry or FMP, which offer free tree-building, I'm not sure how this is going to gain traction, especially with such strict limitations.
ReplyDeleteI know I'm late to reply here. 10 Gb is enough for around 10,000 media items on average. The most media that anyone has uploaded to RootsFinder so far is 12,140 media items, and they're using 8.2 Gb. I'm happy to increase the 10 Gb limit though.
ReplyDeleteWould it be possible to build a tree containing a family group only?
ReplyDeleteIt could be a good place to enter sources and conflict resolutions for individuals that used to be a brick wall, or individuals that were mistaken for others by other genealogists...
I am thinking of publishing an article or a report somewhere on the Internet in order to dispel some myths and correct errors about a certain family. The point is to put it out there in order to stop the perpetuation of these mistakes. However, if such a tree (only for a few generations) and its digitized sources could be preserved for posterity by the NEHGS, it might make more sense to post the information there. There is no way of knowing if Blogspot will exist in 50 years, but the NEHGS will probably still be around under one name or the other.