{"id":1565,"date":"2015-12-09T13:32:17","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T13:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=1565"},"modified":"2015-12-09T13:32:17","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T13:32:17","slug":"on-familytreemaker-and-the-end-of-genealogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=1565","title":{"rendered":"On FamilyTreemaker and the End of Genealogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ll start with a comment\u00a0that I posted to my personal Facebook wall in response to the Ancestry.com\u00a0<\/em>anncouncement regarding the FamilyTreeMaker software program:<\/p>\n

Ok people. Let’s get real. It’s not like Ancestry.com<\/em>\u00a0destroyed an entire census or anything. It’s software. It will work after they stop selling it. You have not been abandoned and left alone in the wilderness to fend for yourself or starve. Personally I only “used” Family Tree Maker for a few years so I could provide general suggestions on how to use it. That was it. I got off the constant upgrade money pit decades ago. Mom didn’t raise a fool.<\/p>\n

Download the images you need. Write up your conclusions in a word processing format. Get your head out of the clouds and put your feet back on the ground. Download your data, find other software and get back to your research. Problem solve….that’s how dead people are found.<\/p>\n

Your ancestors who had no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no refrigeration, no modern medicine, fewer clothes, and less conveniences are thinking that they spawned a bunch of whiners.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I feel better now.<\/p>\n

Software vendors make no guarantees that their software will be around forever. That “legal stuff” you clicked right past as you installed the software? That is the license agreement and the terms of use. It contained quite a bit of information that you probably thought didn’t apply to you because you weren’t going to ever touch the “source code” and had no intention of stealing the software to create you own. You only wanted to store information on your ancestors. Well those terms\u00a0did apply to you.\u00a0Nowhere did it say that the software would be around for generations and run on any computing platform ever designed. That’s not how software works.<\/p>\n

Sometimes genealogists are like teenagers. When something “bad” happens, they think it’s the first time it ever happened and that the world will end. And a few bloggers and writers act like it will because that generates traffic to their website. The genealogical world will not end and most of us will go right on researching.<\/p>\n

This is nothing new. Years ago I used WordStar. I loved WordStar. I still remember some of the formatting commands from WordStar. WordStar bit the dust years ago. Again, that’s how software works. It’s got a finite lifespan. I migrated data files in that format to more modern formats before it was too late. There is a long list of software that I have used that is no longer published or supported.<\/p>\n

My preference is to have my genealogical data on my own computer using software and an interface that does not require me to have an internet connection. All I need is power and my computer. I use the cloud as an additional place to access and store my information and I use the internet as a place to publish files and information as “cousin bait.”<\/p>\n

I do not use the cloud as the only place to store my data. I do not use the cloud as the place for “data processing.”<\/p>\n

You must be proactive in doing what you can to protect and preserve your genealogical information.<\/p>\n

The software companies are about selling software. Upgrades is how they continue the revenue chain.<\/p>\n

The database companies are about getting subscribers to their service. Hooking you on the data is how they continue the revenue chain.<\/p>\n

The cloud hosting companies are about getting subscribers to their service.<\/p>\n

Their goals do not always mesh with those of the individual genealogist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll start with a comment\u00a0that I posted to my personal Facebook wall in response to the Ancestry.com\u00a0anncouncement regarding the FamilyTreeMaker software program: Ok people. Let’s get real. It’s not like Ancestry.com\u00a0destroyed an entire census or anything. It’s software. It will work after they stop selling it. You have not been abandoned and left alone in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}