Key concepts for 2001 are integration and collaboration. There were developments on the genealogy standards front. A growing number of Genealogy APIs enabled synchronisation between desktop, web and mobile devices. Social genealogy sites did very well. Genealogy webinars were the hot new thing.
Real-Time Collaboration introduced the first betas of AncestorSync… Ancestry.com followed with the TreeSync feature for Family Tree Maker. Both AncestorSync and Family Tree Maker 2012 were available as public betas.
Synchronisation of genealogy data isn't new. Leister's Reunion for iPhone synchronises with Reunion. Synium's MobileFamilyTree Pro syncs with MacFamilyTree. TelGen's Families app synchronises with Legacy Family Tree.
This year, synchronisation became a big topic because of AncestorSync and TreeSync.
Real-Time Collaboration introduced the first betas of AncestorSync, a product that promises to synchronise between many different desktop and web applications.
Ancestry.com followed with the TreeSync feature for Family Tree Maker.
Both AncestorSync and Family Tree Maker 2012 were available as public betas.
Genealogy vendors seems to have discovered the power of Public Betas.
Public Betas create a buzz, allow users to have to have a look at what's coming, and provide the vendors with more feedback on their product.
There have been Public Betas for genealogy applications in the past,
and some genealogy vendors are continually releasing betas, but this year there were more public betas than ever before.
Wholly Genes released a public beta for The Master Genealogist (TMG) version 8 early in the year, and released TMG 8 in December.
Real-Time Collaboration released public betas of AncestorSync for Geni.
Ancestry.com released the Family Tree Maker 2012 Public Beta.
After I discovered and revealed the existence of Family Graph API, MyHeritage released its new API while still in Beta.
Another trend is increased awareness of the importance of genealogy standards.
GEDCOM developments started with the anachronistic release of the GEDCOM 5.6 draft, which dates back to late 2000.
It finally became public, but not because FamilySearch published it, and it is of historical interest only.
GEDCOM 5.5.1 remains the version to use.
At the beginning of the year, there were no GEDCOM 5.5.1 validators.
At the end of the year, there are two.
Mid 2011, Nigel Munro Parker introduced GED-inline, a new GEDCOM validator.
GED-inline was the first GEDCOM validator to support GEDCOM 5.5.1, and Tim Forsythe responded by upgrading VGED to support GEDCOM 5.5.1 as well.
The state of genealogy standards became a topic of interest with multiple genealogy bloggers.
In 2010, two organisations for creating a successor to GEDCOM were created, OpenGen and BetterGEDCOM.
OpenGen activity ceased after the first quarter of 2011.
The Build a BetterGEDCOM Project is still active.
FamilySearch did not support either project,
but the existence of OpenGen and BetterGEDCOM prompted FamilySearch to start promoting its own file format to replace GEDCOM, outside any standardisation organisation.
They talked about their upcoming FamilySearch SORD during their RootsTech conference in February, and I revealed their GEDCOM X project in November.
Real-Time Collaboration, the makers of AncestorSync, started the SourceTemplates Initiative. Millennia, the makers of Legacy Family Tree, donated all 1400 citation templates that form the basis of the Legacy SourceWriter introduced in Legacy 7.0 to the SourceTemplate Initiative.
Support for GEDCOM, GEDCOM dialects, and not-quite GEDCOM variations continues to vary wildly from one application to another. Louis Kessler added support for FTW TEXT format to Behold, while New Family Tree Maker still cannot read those Family Tree Maker Classic files, and shortly after releasing version 1.0, added support for GEDCOM 5.5 EL in Behold version 1.0.1.
Since the introduction of the Geni API and the publication of Genealogy APIs late in 2010, several major new APIs have been introduced.
A very positive trend is the emergence of genealogy APIs. Since the introduction of the Geni API and the publication of Genealogy APIs late in 2010, several major new APIs have been introduced.
Early in 2011, AppleTree, another social genealogy site, introduced the AppleTree API Beta.
In August, I uncovered Ancestry's Family Tree Maker SearchService, an hitherto undocumented API used by Family Tree Maker.
This scoop was quickly followed by another one; the MyHeritage Family Graph API.
Throught the year, Geni was reaping the benefits of publishing its API late in 2010. Tpstry, itself introduced in 2010, allowed users to import their data from Geni, and Progeny introduced Charting Companion for Geni.com. Real-Time Collaboration started its AncestorSync Beta with AncestorSync for Geni, and about one year after the introduction of the Geni API, there were two mobile apps for Geni; MobiWolf's GeneDroid and TelGen's World Family Tree. Geni.com's own iPhone app, hinted at early in the year, still hasn't been released yet.
MyHeritage started the MyHeritage App Contest to promote their Family Graph API, but the contest wasn't a success, and they had to prolongue the submission period into 2012. MyHeritage is practically sure to be working with Real-Time Collaboration to ensure support for MyHeritage in AncestorSync. MyHeritage introduced MyHeritage 1.0, a mobile app, for both iOS and Android. The MyHeritage 1.0 app is read-only, because the Family Graph API is still read-only.
An issue with all these Genealogy APIs is that the application developer is at the mercy of the API provider. TruScape Solution decided to discontinue their Traces of the Past app because of changes FamilySearch made to its FamilySearch Family Tree API.
The GEDCOM X file format that FamilySearch is working on is not just a file format, it is a code library and API as well.
The New FamilySearch (NFS) API used to be secret, with documentation available to registered developers only.
Little over a week ago, I revealed that FamilySearch has published the FamilySearch Family Tree API publicly.
However, because the FamilySearch Family Tree site itself still isn't public, vendors who invested in the FamilySearch API saw little or no return on their investment.
There is no doubt that smartphones and tablets are cool; there's hot action in apps.
There is no doubt that smartphones tablets are cool; there's hot action in apps. TruScape Solution's Traces of the Past app was discontinued, but the year saw quite a few new genealogy apps for mobile devices.
In January, Ancestry introduced Ancestry for iOS and in December, they introduced Ancestry for Android as well.
In December, MyHeritage introduced the first version of their MyHeritage app for both iOS and Android.
Ancestry's Android app appears to lag behind their iOS app in features,
and MyHeritage's Android app is isn't really an Android app, but an Adobe AIR app.
Geni teased an iPhone app, but did not release it.
MobiWolf's GeneDroid, a Geni client for Android, became available in August.
In September, TelGen, the makers of Families, introduced World Family Tree (WFT), a mobile app for Geni.com, for both iOS and Android.
The FGS introduced an app for the iPhone and iPad that
offers such services as FGS radio, the FGS Voice newsletter, access to the FGS blog and the FGS conference programme.
The app was developed by A. C. Ivory and is similar to the Ancestor app for his own Find My Ancestor site and blog.
Wolfram introduced the Wolfram Genealogy & Research Assistant.
One thing that is known about the YouWho service to be introduced next year is that it should be available for your desktop, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
Several desktop applications have an official mobile companion app.
Almost no one remembers the PAF Viewer for Palm OS, which works with Personal Ancestral File (PAF) on Windows.
Synium has MobileFamilyTree for iOS, which works with MacFamilyTree on MacOS.
In June, Synium introduced MobileFamilyTree Pro, a full genealogy application for iPhone and iPad, that does not require MacFamilyTree.
It still syncs with MacFamilyTree, but you can use it with other applications as well, as it includes GEDCOM support.
Last year, TelGen introduced Families, a mobile companion app for Legacy Family Tree. That initial version was for iOS only.
In February of this year, they released Families for Android.
Ancestry.com does not have a companion app for Family Tree Maker, and MyHeritage does not have a companion app for Family Tree Builder. Both companies position their web site as the centre of your genealogy experience. You can get data from their desktop app into their mobile app by going through their website; first, you upload your data from the desktop to their site, and then you use their mobile app to access their site.
There are quite a few apps for cemeteries.
The Find Grave app introduced in 2010 is still in Beta.
AppTime, the developers of MobileTree, introduced the BillionGraves camera app for iOS in May.
When they introduced version 2 in November, BillionGraves became available for Android too.
RestingSpot introduced RestingSpot for iOS and Android.
Historic Graves introduced the Historic Graves Finder.
Some cemeteries, such as the Allegheny Cemetery and the Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) have their own app to help you locate a specific grave
Users of social genealogy sites had some less than encouraging experiences this year.
Geni limited free access even more and the FaceBook app FamilyBuilder was sold to a company that provides background checks.
The social genealogy shake-out is continuing; some small sites are bought by bigger ones, but many simply disappear quietly.
Many of the sites listed in the Social Genealogy Sites overview are defunct now.
Despite all this, users continue to trust their data to social genealogy sites.
The numbers of profiles on social genealogy sites continues to grow at an impressive rate.
After the acquisition of the remnants of FamilyLink by MyHeritage, the We're Related team continues independently,
but there seem to be no public numbers other than the decreasing number of active users shown by AppData.
There seems to be no recent data for LiveFamily née FamilyBuilder either, but there are plenty of numbers from other sources.
WeRelate has more than 2 million profiles, while WikiTree is closing in on 3 million profiles.
The TNG Network has indexed more than 8 million names in over 2000 databases.
The Dutch Genealogie Online just passed 15 million profiles.
Its number of profiles is likely to pass the number of Dutch residents (16,7 million) next year.
AppleTree has more than 44 million profiles.
TribalPages claims more than 80 million profiles.
Geni.com passed 100 million profiles early in the year and during the year their Borg Tree assimilated more than 60 million profiles.
The RootsWeb WorldConnect Project has more than 666 million profiles.
GeneaNet has more than 870 million profiles and MyHeritage just passed 900 million profiles.
MyHeritage finally surpassed GeneaNet, and both are practically sure to surpass 1 milliard profiles next year.
Ancestry.com's Mundia already boasts more than 3 milliard profiles.
Crowd-sourcing has been a big thing for years, continues to be a big thing, and may get even bigger.
Digitisation continues, with more and more collections available online. The digitisation is mostly done by the usual suspects; the big genealogy companies and the archives themselves and often indexed through crowd-sourcing. The partnership between Yad Vashem and Google announced in January took a slightly different approach; Yad Vashem made their photo collection available online, and Google used experimental OCR to digitise text the content, thus making the documents discoverable online.
Crowd-sourcing has been a big thing for years, continues to be a big thing, and may get even bigger. American genealogists are looking forward to the release of the 1940 USA Census, and Archives.com is hoping that many will join the 1940 US Census Community Project to help index the images.
An issue with crowd-sourcing is ownership of the created index. When you index for FamilySearch or Ancestry.com, they become the owner of the index you create. This year, Ancestry.com introduced the Ancestry Content Publisher Programme, which allows societies to use Ancestry's indexing tools, but they do not make it clear who will end up owning the index. The 1940 US Census Community Project is a great idea, but FamilySearch is claiming ownership of the index. The Dutch project Vele Handen (Many Hands) got it right; it is just a service, the index becomes property of the database owner.
Genealogy webinars became so ubiquitous that DearMYRTLE started the GeneaWebinars site to keep track of them.
Genealogy webinars did not just became popular during 2011, but soon settled in as an accepted part of the online genealogy world. Genealogy webinars became so ubiquitous that DearMYRTLE started the GeneaWebinars site to keep track of them. So far, most genealogy webinars are aimed at beginners, but that is likely to change over time.
When the social genealogy site WeRelate was started in 2006, it was started as a genealogy search engine with a wiki component.
The wiki proved so popular that it became the focus of the site, and the search engine was eventually retired.
MyHeritage has a genealogy search engine, but it still does not work in anything but Internet Explorer.
This year saw the introduction of two new genealogy search engines, Mocavo and Ancestry Web Search.
Mocavo is a new genealogy search engine. The search results did not impress.
Interesting is the ability to upload your GEDCOM and receive notifications for matches.
Mocavo introduced advanced search, but wants a hefty subscription fee for that feature.
Ancestry.com introduced Ancestry Web Search.
Ancestry.com works with genealogy database site owners to index their site;
the number of indexed sites is limited, but the sites that are in there are fully indexed.
Ancestry Web Search isn't very visible because it isn't available on its own domain, but only as part of the regular Ancestry.com search.
If MyHeritage were to upgrade its dated search engine, the competition might heat up and result in better genealogy search engines for all.
Updated Android Market links to Google Play links.
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.