2015-12-30 Genealogy 2015

events & trends

2015

2015 is the year that NASA's New Horizons probe flew by Pluto, and they found water on Mars. After several failed attempts, SpaceX executed a successful rocket launch, satellites deploy, and rocket landing of their Falcon 9.
Sony finally dumped Betamax.
The Pirate Bay, which went offline late in 2014 after a Swedish police raid, came back online.
The BBC fired Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, the entire Top Gear team left, and then joined Amazon.com.

Queen Elizabeth II became the longest reigning monarch in British history and Ireland legalised gay marriage by popular vote.
The dating cheating site Ashley Madison was hacked and user data was posted online. Analysis of that data revealed interesting statistics and doubtful business practices.

Last year, Microsoft removed storage limits from OneDrive accounts for Office 365 subscribers, promising all subscribers, individuals and businesses alike, unlimited storage space. This year, Microsoft reneged on that promise.

Security researchers are now naming major defects they uncover, even designing a logo for it. This started last year, with the Heartbleed defect. This year, Joshua Drake found an Android defect he named Stagefright.
One effect of naming a defect is that it gets more attention, and that was certainly the intention here. One issue with Android is that the availability of updates and fixes depend not only on Google and the manufacturer of your phone, but even on the carriers, as even the carriers may have modified the OS you use...

Google the company rebranded by introducing Alphabet as the company that contains all their other companies.
Microsoft released Windows 10, the successors to Windows 8, and made it a temporary free upgrade for Windows 7 and 8 users.
Mozilla CEO Chris Beard took issue with Windows 10 taking away user choice and control, by specifically and deliberately overriding choices users had made.

web

Mozilla introduced Rust 1.0, a new systems programming language, and managed to unimpress system programmers by calling their Beta an Alpha release.
Oracle celebrated Java's 20th birthday.

Microsoft got serious about finally abandoning Intranet Explorer. They revealed that its successor, originally known by the codename Spartan, is called Microsoft Edge now. It's a new modern and standards-based browser that gets rid of years of legacy misfeatures; to improve security, Microsoft Edge does not support Internet Explorer's VML, VBScript or Browser Helper Objects (plugins such as toolbars), DirectX filters and transitions, or ActiveX. In plain English: it really isn't Internet Exploder anymore.
However, as Microsoft continues its less than market-savvy practice of tying their latest browser to their latest Windows, Microsoft Edge requires Windows 10 to run it, so even users who would like Edge are likely to continue to use Internet Explorer for years to come.

The Chromium project dumped Google's proprietary SPDY protocol in favour of HTTP/2, which includes improvements that evolved from SPDY.
Mozilla started working on a new extension API, called WebExtensions, which is very simply put about running Chrome extensions in Firefox.
Mozilla, Google's Chromium Project and WebKit (Apple Safari) developers have started work on WebAssembly, a byte code for the web.
HTTP got a new status code, 451: Unavailable For Legal Reasons.

mobile

Google introduced Android 6.0, and introduced Project Fi, a mobile virtual network piggybacking on existing carriers.
Working together with TypeTogether, Google introduced Literata, a new font for e-book reading.

Apple introduced Move to iOS, ann Android app to move content from an Android to an iOS device.
Of interest to genealogists are Apple's rumoured plans to get involved in DNA.

genealogy industry

industry developments

There were no major take-overs or mergers this year. There were ongoing as well as some new partnerships, such as a collaboration between BillionGraves and Findmypast makes BillionGraves data available on findmypast sites. Another is The Freedmen’s Bureau Project; the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) of the United States and the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society are collaborating to index the digitised records of the Freedman’s Bureau on FamilySearch.
For many genealogist, the two major events of the year were the publication of the 1939 Register, and the discontinuation of New Family Tree Maker by Ancestry.com. Some AncestryDNA introductions were criticised, and the introduction of AncestryHealth raised eyebrows. Both Ancestry.com (AncestryDNA) and 23andMe are sharing DNA data with other companies. 23andMe started providing health reports to customers again.

genealogy standards

There was practically no movement on genealogy standards. Throughout most the year, the Family History Information Standards Organisation (FHISO) seemed asleep again, and when they finally published some board meeting notes in November, the focus of these notes wasn't on new technical standards, but overwhelmingly on modifying the organisation; possible moving to another state, creating a new vision for FHISO, changing the organisation structure and amending the by-laws.

Several years since the introduction of GEDCOM X (2011-12-12), FamilySearch has grown silent about their proprietary standard.
The GEDCOM X project is on github. It is little known fact outside of programming circles that everyone can monitor github activity. FamilySearch's GEDCOM X project on github saw very little activity; practically none since mid 2013. Most activity moved from the GEDCOM X project to the GEDCOM X for Java project, which FamilySearch supposedly uses internally, and activity there is also lower than it used to be.

The Genetic Genealogy Standards Committee introduced the final draft of the so-called Genetic Genealogy Standards, but these are really guidelines, not standards like those set by the Global Alliance for Genomics & Health.

There was no real news about APIs. The MyHeritage Family Graph API and FamilySearch APIs remained the only major APIs available to third-party developers; Ancestry.com continued to keep its APIs proprietary, and FindMyPast does not seem to have APIs yet.
However, now that Ancestry.com decided to discontinue New Family Tree Maker, they are likely to open up their TreeSync API to third parties. That is not merely speculation, Ancestry.com practically said as much in their More Information on Family Tree Maker Desktop Software blog post.

The AncestorSync product and the associated SourceTemplates Initiative seem completely dead; not even their respective websites remain.

stories

It's a rare genealogy application that does not include some family history features. Over the past years, genealogy companies have become increasingly interested in (owning) your personal photos and stories. There are new sites and apps focussed on telling stories, through text, audio, photos, vidoes or any combination thereof. Many of these sites aren't genealogy or family history focused at all, and do not even provide GEDCOM import to help you get started. There seems to little compatibility between different vendors and products, and no standards at all. Caveat emptor.

software

The genealogy software field remained very active. Although this overview mentions quite a few existing and new programs, it still isn't close to a complete list, merely a quick impression of the state of the market.

desktop software

After the announcement of TMG's discontinuation last year, there was some speculation about the future of Second Site, a web site builder that reads TMG databases directly. John Cardinal, Second Site's creator, has been using some of my GEDCOM test files, and has given me permission to tell that he is working on a similar program that reads GEDCOM files.

Progeny has adding support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to their charting products, and allows editing the chart in a vector graphics program such as Corel Draw or InkScape. SVG charts are also well suited to sharing on the web, not only because vector images scale well and SVG is a web standard, but also because it supports hyperlinks.

Synium introduced MacFamily Tree 7.5. Heredis introduced Heredis 2015. Ancestral Systems introduced Clooz 3 and, later in the year, version 3.5. Progeny Genealogy introduced Charting Companion 6 with two new chart types; fractal trees and dandelion trees. Alexander Bisset introduced version 5 of the open source Family Tree Analyzer. David Nebesky introduced version 2.0 of Genealone and Genealone WP (for WordPress). More than two years after version 1.0, Louis Kessler introduced Behold version 1.1, which includes Life Events. Behold 1.1 is still a genealogy viewer and editing remains planned for Behold 2.0.

ENI Software introduced Every Name Indexer (ENIndexer). The new Swedish company Genney introduced Genney 1.0, a desktop genealogy application for Windows, MacOS and Linux.
Visual Family Tree Maker by Jerry C. DeKeyser is new Java-based desktop genealogy application available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Aksel Gregersen (Sorky) introduced Family Tree Helper, a Windows application that will turn a formatted text file into a GEDCOM file.
Logíque, a new company in Salt Lake City founded by Logíque, a new company in Salt Lake City, That their Indiegogo crowdsource campaign received only US$ 454 for a campaign goal of US$ 43.600 did not discourage them, they still went ahead and pre-announced Ged-I. They promise Ged-I will read unformatted text, and turn the family information in that text into a GEDCOM you can import into your favourite genealogy application. There is no Beta yet, they expect to release it next year.

software trends

There is a noteworthy trend of vendors offering a ready-made solution for running their Windows application on Mac OS X.
Last year, RootsMagic introduced MacBridge for RootsMagic, a way to run RootsMagic (for Windows) on MacOS. In January, MyHeritage introduced Family Tree Builder for Mac, or rather Family Tree Builder Mac Extension, for running Family Tree Builder (for Windows) on Mac OS X. In August, Incline Software introduced Ancestral Quest for Mac, a ready-made package that is really Ancestral Quest (for Windows) on Mac.
Both RootsMagic and MyHeritage are known to be developing a native genealogy application for Mac OS X.

Major genealogy software has been going multi-platform for years now, to give users maximum flexibility. New products like Genney and Visual Family Tree Maker confirm this trend.
Ancestry.com's decision to discontinue New Family Tree Maker for Windows and OS X goes against that trend, but their family tree offering is still multi-platform; the Ancestry Member Trees on the web work with the Ancestry app available for Apple iOS, Google Android and even Windows 8 (Windows Mobile).
Still, however bad New Family Tree Maker is and however much of a Good Thing it is that Ancestry.com is discontinuing it, suddenly lacking a desktop genealogy software application weakens their competitive position.

Pre-announcing new software, not just before general availability, but even before there is a Beta, seems to grow popular with vendors. Pre-announced products include RootsMagic for Mac, MyHeritage Family Tree Builder for Mac, and Ged-I. It are not just desktop products that are being pre-announced, this is true of web sites as all.

web

Origins.net closed down on 2015 Mar 16. Origins.net was acquired by findmypast in 2014, and all records previously available at Origins.net are now at Findmypast.
Early in January, the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) website was restarted.
WikiTree, a social genealogy site started in 2008, surpassed 10 million profiles in 2015.

Twile introduced Twile, a website for creating timelines with photos squarely aimed at genealogists.
RootsBid introduced RootsBid, a market for genealogy projects.
ZoomPast is a new genealogy hosting site with a zooming user interface for exploring your tree. The Indian company Bizarre Software Solutions (that really is their name) started Family Linker, an online family tree program. Another Indian company, Pepperpot Systems & Solutions started My Family Root, another online family tree program.
KinKlan introduced KinKlan, a Russian social genealogy site that promises to pay you for the profiles you create. DrevoMoe by DrevoMoe is new Russian genealogy site with supports for multiple languages, including English.

FamilyinaTree is a new commercial printing service for family trees, offering a variety of modern designs.
Dallan Quass created GenealogyGophers, a site that lets you search through 80.000 digital genealogy books.

Thomas O'Donoghue of Ireland introduced Family Connect, but should have kept it in alpha; practically nothing works yet, not even the Our Story or Contact Us links.
HistoryLines by HistoryLines will create a timeline showing major events that happened during your ancestors life, and generate a copy & paste story for it; this new site is not related to and should not be confused with the older Android app of the same name.
GenSoup, an European web site based in Austria, opened for Beta invites.
The genealogy site Vita Infinita was announced, but has not entered Beta yet.

Mozart.MD by Mozart Medical is a webapp for registering health information aimed at doctors registering their patients, that includes family relationships. TapGenes by TapGenes is another new site for recording your family's health information, but aimed at users, that has yet to enter Beta.
Scientists from the New York Genome Center and Columbia University introduced DNA.Land, a website were you can upload DNA data you got from another company, sharing it to be used in scientific research, and to receive “information about your ancestry, traits, and relatedness with other individuals.

browser extensions

A minor but interesting trend is the growing number of browser extensions and add-ons for genealogy.
Over the past few years, several such extensions were introduced already, including RootsSearch by Justin York, phpGedView search by Johan Borkhuis, Ancestry Family Search Extension by Tony Ruscoe, Find-A-Record by Find-A-Record, and 529andYou by neanderling. Most browser extensions are for Google Chrome.
AncestryDNA Helper by Jeff Snavely is a Chrome extension that downloads matches from AncestryDNA. 23++ by David Johnson is a Chrome extension that add some functionality to the 23andMe site. ISOGG Y-Tree AddOn by Felix Immanuel is a Chrome extensions which add functionality to the ISOGG Y-Tree web page. Hope Chest by Eric Vance and FamilySearch Tools by Jonathan Wainwright are Chrome extensions that add functionality to the FamilySearch site. DNArboretum by neanderling is a Chrome extension that presents 23andMe and FTDNA Family Trees in ahnenlist format.

WordPress Plugins

There is also a small but growing number of genealogy plugins for WordPress. The oldest and best known one is RootsPersona by Ed Thompson (ed4becky). There's also Genealogy by Zack Katz, Genealone WP by David Nebesky this year, W. D. Lyons introduced WDL Family History and Genealogy Pedigree Chart.

apps

Together with Reunion 11, Leister Pro introduced ReunionTouch, a single so-called universal app that succeeds the two previously separate apps, Reunion for iPad and Reunion for iPhone. ReunionTouch requires Reunion 11.
MyHeritage gave its Android and iOS app an make-over.
Sherwood's Branches for iPad added DropBox support.

Apple introduced the iWatch, and Ancestry introduced an Apple iWatch app as part of their iOS app. It won't let you do genealogy, but it will provide On This Day alerts and tree hints.

Graver by Graver Applications LLP is a new Android app for capturing and geotagging grave markers. After installing this on my Asus PhonePad, I soon found that the PhonePad was dead, because Graver had managed to drain the entire battery...
The Twile site has an official companion app.
Genealogy: GEDCOM viewer by ELOL is a GEDCOM viewer for Android that supports UTF-8, UTF-16 and ANSEL. Little Family Tree by Yellow Fork Technologies is a paid Android app aimed at toddlers and pre-schoolers, an iOS variant is planned for 2016. FamTree (My Family Tree) is a new Android app by Fam Tree Team. VeryFamily by VeryPhone is a French genealogy app for iOS.

record access

Free UK Genealogy introduced FreeREG2, a replacement for FreeREG, and kept in running in parallel with FreeREG for a while to help make sure it is working as intended. The FreeREG database contains over thirty million baptism, marriage and burial records from 1538 through 1937 taken from UK parish registers.

In July 2014, Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes objected to the availability of data on living people on IrishGenealogy.ie, and access to the data was disabled. In April of this year, access was restored, but only to birth record of more than 100 years ago, marriage records of more than 75 years ago, and death record of more than 50 years ago.

Brooke Schreier Ganz's Reclaim the Records filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) petition for access to the 1908-1929 marriage licenses and affidavits, and won that access; these records are public now.

The Society of Genealogist reported that law reforms are underway that will allow the General Register Office (GRO) to offer Birth, Marriage and Death record access through other means than an expensive certified copy.

The Sorensen Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF) was an independent DNA research institute. In 2012, upon the introduction of their renewed AncestryDNA service, Ancestry.com announced that it had obtained all SMGF assets. In an email to customers, Ancestry.com's SMGF Team promised that the site would continue to operate for the foreseeable future.
However, on 2015 May 14, Ancestry.com took the site down, because it has come to our attention the site has been used for purposes other than that which it was intended, forcing us to cease of operations of the site. This vague reason is probably an oblique reference to the police case that used SMGF data and reportedly (but not really) arrested an innocent man.

Ancestry.com

In January, Ancestry.com announced that they are building a new headquarters at an estimated building cost of 35 million dollars.
Ancestry.com introduced a new website. It was in Beta during most the of the year, and replaced the previous design in December.
They introduced Ancestry Academy; pay-to-view educational videos.

In March, Ancestry.com had to suffer the news that co-founder Dan Taggart, who has not been associated with the company for years, was charged with sexually abusing a teen.
The National Personnel Records Center halted all contract work by Ancestry.com when they found that one working was trying to appear more productive by literally throwing records in the trash can. They also said goodbye to Lou Szucs, Ancestry.com employee number 1.

In April, Ancestry introduced New Ancestor Discoveries, an enhancement to their DNA Circles, for AncestryDNA. They claimed that it is a revolutionary new technology and a breakthrough in consumer genetics that makes genealogy easier than ever, letting you discover ancestors you never knew you had, through DNA alone.
Their unrestrained claims were roundly criticised, especially because of the way Ancestry tries to sell the feature; AncestryDNA actually presents particular individuals as new ancestors, when it merely finds common DNA matches. Moreover, the matching algorithm behind New Ancestor Discoveries relies on Ancestry Member Trees, which are most certainly not quite as accurate as Ancestry.com implies by their sales pitch.
In reply to blog post criticising the introduction of New Ancestor Discoveries, Ancestry.com admitted that their confidence level in such discoveries in only 70%, and dared to call that good.
Ancestry.com introduced AncestryDNA to Australia and New Zealand and later, Canada.

Ancestry.com was first to introduce an genealogy app for the Apple Watch.

In May, Reuters reported that Ancestry.com might be for sale. This was never confirmed or by Ancestry.com, and Reuters did not offer further reports.

Last year, Ancestry.com discontinued the MyFamily.com. Ancestry.com has not provided any statistics about MyFamily.com users, but Spokt marked the one-year anniversary of their Mayflower conversion tool for myfamily.com with an infographic.

In July, Ancestry.com not only announced that AncestryDNA had shared its data with Calico, a Google-owned company, but also introduced AncestryHealth. Right now, AncestryHealth lets you build your health history using an Ancestry family trees; i.e. Ancestry.com allows you to give your data personal data to them for free...

Early in December, Ancestry.com announced the discontinuation of New Family Tree Maker, without any replacement, migration strategy or even a FAQ. That Ancestry.com blog post and the follow-up blog post set a new record for Ancestry.com blog comments; their combined comment count passed 10.000 already.

HeritageQuest

On 2015 Mar 4, HeritageQuest Online, owned by ProQuest, started running Ancestry.com software instead of their own. This is a change in software, not ownership. Along the bottom of the web page it now says Distributed by ProQuest and Powered by Ancestry.com. The change in web platform comes with an expanded collection, but users were quick to complain about the whole-sale replacement of HeritageQuest images, index and search engine with the Ancestry.com images, index and search. That isn't just because they don't like the so-called new search that Ancestry.com users have been complaining about for a few years now.
Experienced users of both platforms consider the HeritageQuest images more legible. They also consider HeritageQuest's own index better, and HeritageQuest search more powerful than Ancestry.com's old search.
A better index can make the difference between finding and not finding what you're looking for, especially when coupled with powerful search capabilities.

MyHeritage.com

In January, MyHeritage announced that Family Tree Builder is available for Mac OS X. There is no actually Family Tree Builder for Mac product, the product they offer is Family Tree Maker Mac Extension, which allows running Family Tree Builder (for Windows) on Mac OS X, just like MacBridge for RootsMagic allows running RootsMagic (for Windows) on Mac OS X. In between the lines of that blog post, they announce that they are developing a native Family Tree Builder for Mac.
Geni.com, owned by MyHeritage since 2012, finally added support for adoptions.

In April, MyHeritage released Instant Discoveries, which is a marketing name for matching a miniscule tree of a user, their parents and grandparents to MyHeritage's trees and records, and then presenting these matches. Instant Discoveries was actually introduced late in 2014 as a limited public beta.

In July, MyHeritage introduced Global Name Translation, which is a fancy marketing name for recognising name variations, including translated names. Although hardly a breakthrough innovation worthy of yet another trademarked name, its usefulness should not be underestimated, especially if you don't know a language like Russian.

In November, MyHeritage introduced Search Connect, yet another big name for a small but handy feature. MyHeritage remembers your searches, shows you who else performed the same search as you, and lets you contact them. There are privacy issues, and MyHeritage offers the possibility to opt-out of recording your searches, but should be offering opt-in.

MyHeritage also expanded its European records collections. They worked with the Danish National Archives to bring the entire Denmark 1930 National Census online, and published Swedish parish registers.
In December, MyHeritage took another page out of Ancestry.com's playbook, by adding a huge collection of histories, city directories and yearbooks.

23andMe

23andMe discontinued its Family Tree product, migrating all users to MyHeritage. This collaboration was announced last year, but took effect this year.

23andMe continued its discussion with the FDA. In February they reported that they were granted authorisation to market the Bloom syndrome carrier status report, the first time the FD granted authorisation to market a direct-to-consumer genetic test.
In June, 23andMe announced that they had genotyped one million customers.
This year, 23andMe also announced that they are working with Genentech to analyse Parkinson genomes and that they are sharing anonymised data with drug company Pfizer.

DC Thomson Family History

Throughout the year, FindMyPast introduced several new record collections. The most important one of these is 1939 Register, and upon its release, anticipation turned to disillusionment; entries are redacted, findmypast's prices are steep and they removed TNA references to thwart smart searches.

Late in 2011, FindMyPast started working with Archives.com and FamilySearch to index the USA 1940 Census. Today, findmypast.com offers all the major Americans collections, including census record, BMD records, immigration records, passenger lists, military records and & newspapers, but nothing special in addition to that. After four years, FindMyPast still seems a minor player in the American market.

One important factor stymying findmypast's ambitions is the lack of software to engage prospects and customers. FindMyPast has an online family tree that was much improved by its 2014 rewrite and the introduction of their record hints feature, but it remains relatively unknown.
What's more, DC Thomson Family History does not offer any desktop software at all, and no apps for Apple iOS or Google Android either (that awful Family House app is a Brightsolid product, that DC Thomson Family History does not share any responsibility for).
Although many users have desktops and smartphones, DC Thomson Family History continues to pursue a web-only approach. Findmypast also continues to go it alone; they are supposedly working on genealogy APIs for third-party developers to hook into, but have not published any yet.

Television

Who Do You Think You Are had its 12th series, while many national adaptations of the formula across the globe continued on as well.

The American PBS broadcasted the second season of its Ancestry.com-sponsored Genealogy Roadshow.

In 2014, Sony got hacked, and a lot of private emails became public. We learned that Ben Affleck has requested the PBS show Finding your Roots to leave out mention of his slave-owning ancestors.
Once this got out, PBS started an investigation and mid 2015, PBS decided to suspend the third season of Finding your Roots pending staffing changes, because the show had violated PBS standard by allowing undue influence, and failing to report Ben Affleck attempts to affect program content.
In June of this year PBS published conclusions and corrective measures, which includes withdrawal of the Season 2 Ben Affleck episode from all forms of distribution. Season 3 of Finding your Roots will start broadcasting in January of 2016.

VH1 started the new TV show Swab Stories, which solves mysteries by testing cheek swabs in a DNA truck.
Although Alex Hailey's ostensible family autobiography Roots has not only been discredited as a work of fiction, but has also been exposed as largely plagiarised from Hal Courlander's The African, A+E Networks is producing a remake of the 1977 ABC television show Roots, to air in 2016.

Netherlands

Vele Handen (Many Hands), the crowdsourcing platform created by Picturae, went international. The site in the United Kingdom is known as Heritage Helpers.

The family tree building part of WieWasWie has never worked right. When the WieWasWie Beta was introduced in 2012, it included family tree building. Even before the public beta, during 2011, Bob Coret, using the private Beta, discovered that WieWasWie failed to import GEDCOM files correctly, that the import was slow, and that the program itself was slow. WieWasWie's solution was to turn GEDCOM import of, and limit family trees to just 500 profiles... WieWasWie went on to become the Worst New Genealogy Product of 2012.

The Central Bureau of Genealogy (CBG) has been managing the site since the Beta, but it was only late in 2014, that they obtained full ownership.
Early in March 2015, the CBG announced a major change; WieWasWie would focus on historic documents, and no longer offer a family tree building facility. The CBG suggested that users switch export their data from WieWasWie and import it into StamboomNederland. The WieWasWie product was so poor that hardly anyone used it; after several years, there were only 1.237 trees with 76.222 profiles, for an average of 61,6 profiles per tree.

In response to this announcement, Bob Coret took a look at WieWasWie GEDCOM export and StamboomNederland GEDCOM import. He found that, years after attention had been called to this, the WieWasWie GEDCOM still lacked a GEDCOM header, and StamboomNederland still cannot handle sources, and that you will lose data if you follow CBG's advice...

updates

2015-03-31 instant update

Added that HeritageQuest census were not just better because of a better index and search engine, but also because of more legible images. Thanks, Judy Russell