2015-01-01 GeneAwards 2014

Best of 2014

2014

The Master Genealogist 2014: discontinued, Ancestry.com 2014; discontinued and Genealogy 2014; events & trends provide an overview of the year's technologies, events, companies, products and services that shaped the year in genealogy, and highlights some industry trends.
There is no Best New Genealogy Product category this year, there are three other categories instead; Best New Genealogy App, Best New Genealogy Utility and Best New Genealogy Add-on.
Here, without further ado, are the GeneAwards 2014.

Best Genealogy Product of 2014: RootsMagic 7

RootsMagic continues to expand to multiple platforms. In February, RootsMagic introduced the RootsMagic app for Android, and in September, they introduced MacBridge for RootsMagic 6, a relatively cheap custom edition of CodeWeavers CrossOver for running RootsMagic 6 on MacOS.
In November, RootsMagic released RootsMagic 7. RootsMagic 7 is a Windows-only application, with RootsMagic for Mac still in development, but RootsMagic does provide free upgrades from MacBridge for RootsMagic 6 to MacBridge for RootsMagic 7. That may be a bit disappointing, but a premature release would be considerably more disappointing.

Last year, RootsMagic was quick to respond to FamilySearch's announcement (actually: decade-delayed admission) that they abandoned PAF with an upgrade offer and a RootsMagic for PAF Users quick start guide. This year, they were quick to respond to Wholly Genes' discontinuation of The Master Genealogist (TMG) with an upgrade offer and a Moving Data from TMG to RootsMagic guide, after adding direct import from TMG in RootsMagic 6.3.3.

Late in 2014, several MyHeritage announcements informed us of multiple third parties integrating MyHeritage matching into their product. Not only was RootsMagic 7 the first product to deliver on these announcements, RootsMagic 7 actually integrated both MyHeritage and FamilySearch matching.

honourable mention: Chronoplex My Family Tree

Chronoplex My Family Tree 1.0 wasn't very exciting, but ever since that first release, Chronoplex has been producing a steady stream of new releases with new features, improvements and fixes. My Family Tree still can't import very large GEDCOM files, even the 64-bit edition reliably crashes when I try to import mine. Perhaps that's because they're trying to showing all individuals graphically, their GEDCOM Validator has no trouble reading the file.
Still, they keep steadily been improving their application in many small ways, and all those changes add up to an interesting application.
There's multimedia support, a to-do list, plenty of reports including a discrepancies report (consistency & plausibility checks), a find & replace that support wildcards, a Statistics page, and more. The public release of their localisation toolkit seems to have worked out well for them, with My Family Tree now supporting well over a dozen languages.
Continual improvement has made Chronoplex My Family Tree an application worth checking out.

Best New Genealogy App of 2014: Heirloom

Heirloom isn't just for genealogists, but there's no doubt though that Heirloom is the scanning app that genealogists always wanted.
Heirloom uses your smartphone's camera as a smart scanner; snap a picture of an photo, and it will recognise the edges, and compensate for perspective distortion. Within a second, it creates a nicely aligned, cropped and perspective-corrected image.
Heirloom says the quality of images made with a 5MP camera or better exceed those made with a scanner. Heirloom is free, but the full-resolution images are kept on Heirloom's server (heirloom.net), you need to sign up. I'd pay for a Pro edition that works offline and saves to my device or a cloud service of my choosing.

Best New Genealogy Add-On of 2014: Family Book Creator

Family Book Creator is an add-on for New Family Tree Maker. Technically not the first plug-in for New Family Tree Maker, that was PassageExpress, it is the first plug-in for its current plug-in API. As the name suggest, Family Book Creator will create books, containing reports and indexes. New Family Tree Maker itself creates reports too, but only in PDF format, while Family Book Creator creates them in RTF format, so you can edit them in your word processor, and provides more options over the output. Family Book Creator's RTF documents are done right; the documents it creates do not use hard-coded formatting but formatting styles, making it relatively easy to change the appearance of the document to your liking. Family Book Creator succeeded in creating a book where New Family Tree Maker itself, even the 64-bit edition, claims to run out of memory. Most of Family Book Creator's shortcoming, such as a slow start-up time, have more to do with the quality of New Family Tree Maker than the quality of Family Book Creator, and Stefan Harms was quick to fix the few issues I reported. What makes this plug-in especially impressive is how well it works within New Family Tree Maker, a genealogy application that isn't known for working well.

honourable mention: GEDCOM Plugin for Notepad++

Stan Mitchell's GEDCOM Plugin for Notepad++ is a plugin for NotePad++, a popular open-source editor. The free plugin adds colour-coding to GEDCOM files.

Best New Genealogy Utility of 2014: GEDCOM File Finder

GEDCOM File Finder is a free utility that will not only find GEDCOM files, but also identify the file type of not-quite-GEDCOM files, the character encoding, and the actual GEDCOM version, even if the creating application got it wrong. If you work with GEDCOM files, GEDCOM File Finder is a must-have utility. The information GEDCOM File Finder provides will help you solve problems.

honourable mention: RootsMagic pre-import utility

The RootsMagic pre-import utility (RMpi) is a free Windows utility by Tom Holden, that tweaks third-party GEDCOM files for more complete import into RootsMagic.
For example, RMpi converts an old-style ADDR record with multiple CONT lines into a modern ADDR record with ADR1 and ADR2 subrecords.

Best Genealogy Organisation of 2014: Global Alliance for Genomics & Health

The Global Alliance for Genomics & Health (GA4GH), formed in 2013, introduced the first versions of its file format specifications, tools for manipulating those file format, its Matchmaker Exchange and its Genomics API. GA4GH set out to create industry standards, and that's exactly what they did, without forgetting accountability, privacy and guiding frameworks.

honourable mention: MyHeritage

MyHeritage announced partnerships, introduced new collections, updated their mobile app and improved their site, but so did the major competitors. MyHeritage didn't introduce a new version of Family Tree Builder, and did not acquire yet another company. They did promote their APIs, and not with yet another doomed-to-fail API contest. Instead, they convinced third parties to integrate MyHeritage SmartMatching and Record Matching into their products. They announced sponsorship of the Dutch Windows application Aldfaer, which will integrate MyHeritage matching, and collaboration with Genealogie Online, which will start showing MyHeritage matches. Calico Pie's released Family Historian 6, and RootsMagic released RootsMagic 7, both already including MyHeritage matching. MyHeritage claim that their matching technology is the best is just marketing talk, but they sure seem determined to make it ubiquitous. The presence of MyHeritage matching in third-party products & services is sure to drive more visitors to MyHeritage properties, increasing their brand recognition, subscriber base and revenue.
All that is mostly good for MyHeritage, and matching against their mostly small and low quality trees isn't such a hot idea, but matching against their extensive record collection is a Good Thing, is good for genealogy.

Best New Genealogy Organisation of 2014: Spokt

Spokt wasn't formed in 2014, but it was in 2014 that they became a genealogy organisation by developing Spokt Mayflower.
Spokt Mayflower is a tool they developed to migrate MyFamily.com user sites to Spokt.com. This temporary service required wasn't free, but Spokt made a real effort to do it right, with a four-stage process. Stage 1 is getting all your data from MyFamily.com, stage 2 is configuring your Spokt hub to import that data, and stage 3 is performing the actual import. The fourth stage isn't really a stage at all, but an essential site feature that MyFamily.com lacked; Harbor, a download utility for all your Spokt data.
Spokt went out of their way to preserve family history that Ancestry.com was about to destroy.

Special Recognition 2014

Genealogy Person of the Year: Billy Hawkes

Billy Hawkes is the Irish Data Protection commissioner. He swung into action when the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht published all the General Register Office (GRO) Birth, Marriage and Death (BMD) indexes on IrishGenealogy.ie, including those of the living.
However much we'd like to have the indexes, we need to respect the privacy of others. Commissioner Billy Hawkes put the privacy of citizens before genealogy, and that is the right call.

Initially, all access to the database was immediately withdrawn, as that is the easiest thing to do. Eventually, a compromise was reached on the availability of BMD records; birth records are public after 100 years, marriage records after 75 years, and death records after 50 years. This happen to be the same privacy limitations as used in the Netherlands.

Worst of 2014

Worst Genealogy Product of 2014: Family Tree Maker 2014

Ancestry.com's New Family Tree Maker remains a public embarrassment. In 2013, Family Tree Maker 2014 introduced a 64-bit edition of this Microsoft .NET application, and the increased address space masks problems related to its voracious memory appetite, but masking problems is a stop-gap measure at best.
That even that 64-bit release still includes Wholly Genes' dated, 16-bit and now discontinued GenBridge library is bizarre, but is just one of many data points suggesting deep problems with a very troubled and ineffective development team.

The users who complain that New Family Tree Maker fails to install properly, despite repeated attempts and assistance from the helpdesk don't know how lucky they are.

An easy to fix defect, first reported in 2007 (!), and in fact before the first official release of New Family Tree Maker, namely the erroneous version number output in the (ostensible) GEDCOM files it produces, still hasn't been fixed, and that's symptomatic; it is painfully clear that Ancestry.com's Family Tree Maker team isn't bothering to listen to any feedback, but arrogantly, conceitedly ignoring all of it.
The continual stream of dissatisfied comments on the Ancestry.com blog, the many problems and frequent complaints posted on FaceBook and the Ancestry.com message board, and the strongly worded negative reviews New Family Tree Maker continues to earn on Amazon.com and GenSoftReviews are a public disgrace.

The users who complain that New Family Tree Maker fails to install properly, despite repeated attempts and assistance from the helpdesk don't know how lucky they are. Users continue to have problems with TreeSync, originally introduced in 2011, three whole years ago, but that is not even the worst problem. User continue to complain about the product not installing, being slow, crashing and freezing unexpectedly. Worst of all, users continue to report that Family Tree Maker messes up their database, destroying years of research, and that is completely unacceptable.

dishonourable mention: Legacy Family Tree

Now that TMG has been discontinued, Millennia's Legacy Family Tree has gained the dubious distinction of being the best-known genealogy application technologically stuck in the early 1990s. That Millennia does not offer a mobile app isn't a big issue, as there is a third-party product. That Legacy's user-interface looks & feels dated isn't a real problem, as it is quite usable. The real problem is that Legacy is a dated design build on legacy technology.

Genealogist love to explore the past, but like to use modern technologies to do so.

Legacy still doesn't support Unicode, which implies that, while GEDCOM 5.5.1 has been the de facto standard for more than 15 years, Legacy Family does not even fully support GEDCOM 5.5 yet! Millennia plays down problems users are having running Legacy on newer version of Windows. Its once generous-seeming database limitations are such that it stopped being able to import my GEDCOM file years ago. Genealogist love to explore the past, but like to use modern technologies to do so. Millennia needs to wow us with a completely redesigned & rebuild Legacy Family Tree say something not unlike Legacy Charting, the Best New Genealogy Product of 2008, or get out of the game.

Worst New Genealogy Product of 2014: Family House

Brightsolid - and I really mean brightsolid, not findmypast or DC Thomson Family History, but the other part of the company that split itself up - introduced the Family House app for both Android and iOS. Family House succeeds in showcasing what's wrong with desperately trying to gamify everything, even genealogy.

The iTunes and Google Play store description of Family House is Your very own Family House awaits you! Create and share adorable likenesses of you, your family and your friends while building up your dream home..
The brightsolid blog describes the app as free-to-play game innovation that uses emerging technologies to deliver historical, educational content to the end user.. If that marketese sounds unintelligible yet somewhat familiar, that may be because Family House is un-innovatively similar to Funium's Family Village, the Worst Genealogy Product of 2011.
Most users will not need a string of multi-syllabic words to opine about this app, but will find themselves perfectly capable of doing so using a short string of short words that's significantly less detached from reality - if they manage to play it.

Family House is an ostensible game that's doubly unplayable - proverbially unplayable because it is bland and boring, and literally unplayable, because the buttons you need to click that almost outside the screen - even if that screen is 800 x 1280 pixels, a fairly decent size for a tablet, and larger than most smartphone screens.

It is hard to express just how utterly misguided this app is. The first thing this app teaches that you about family is that you have to keep your relatives paying rent for living in your house, and the second thing that you should put more stuff in their rooms to raise the rental value... and then I gave up trying to hit those almost-offscreen buttons.
Brightsolid really didn't think this through; this forced attempt to turn genealogy into a game makes Farmville look like the game of the year.

Worst Genealogy Organisation of 2014: Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com started what's arguably their worst year ever by blindly copying FamilySearch databases, without doing any sanity checks.
The discontinuation of the GenForum, Mundia and older DNA tests are perfectly reasonable business decisions, but destroying the DNA data and samples is considerably less than reasonable.
The discontinuation of MyFamily.com may be understandable, but that Ancestry.com did not bother to offer users complete downloads of their sites is not.
How selling MyCanvas will work out for Family Tree Maker remains to be seen, but it hardly matters. For the seventh year in a row, Family Tree Maker remained Ancestry.com's most problematic product; it's the one product they should have discontinued.

Ancestry.com dumped bad databases on users, destroyed DNA data and samples, deleted family history that users had created on their website, and kept selling a desktop product known to mess up user databases.

dishonourable mention: FamilySearch

In a deeply misguided attempt to get genealogy applications developers to use their proprietary GEDCOM X specifications, FamilySearch silently removed the GEDCOM specifications from their website, inadvertently demonstrating just why FamilySearch's eagerness to control genealogy standards disagrees with other vendors.
FamilySearch restored the GEDCOM 5.5 and GEDCOM 5.5.1 specifications to their site after I called public attention to the matter. There is no telling whether they finally understand that specifications should remain available, and the specifications will remain available on their site or not.
To safeguard the continued availability of GEDCOM specifications, and not just GEDCOM 5.5 and GEDCOM 5.5.1, the FamilySearch GEDCOM Specifications page provides all available FamilySearch GEDCOM specifications.

Worst New Genealogy Organisation of 2014: The Mallorian Group

The Mallorian Group introduced itself through a crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo for The White Stone Project, complete with a YouTube video (now set to private).
Judging from the video and the use of the first person throughout the Indiegogo campaign Story, the Mallorian group is just one middle-aged woman who describes herself as an experienced and accomplished software designer and developer, worldwide who helped several global companies create high-quality software entertainment products over several years..
The White Stone Project promised to create a new genealogy site / search engine / social network, because what's out there isn't good enough and this new project will change all of this, and bring it to a whole new level, by providing evolutionary next-gen software designs and processes, connecting people and records with greater speed, accuracy and quality, by using state-of-the-art technologies now available.

They promised to do all that for US$ 50.000, because US$ 50.000 is enough to get a team of 8 programmers, artists, designers, and researchers working to complete our project within a 10 month timeline. That's US$ 5.000 per month to pay eight people, so that works out to a remarkably generous average monthly salary (before taxes) of US$ 625.

This, ahem, down-to-earth pragmatic proposal, this quality investment opportunity for an industry-shocking paradigm-shifting real-world project, complete with an amazingly accurate plan and realistic budget somehow did not make it beyond the crowd-funding campaign stage. The Mallorian group raised a total of US$ 84 for the White Stone Project.

Not-so Special Recognition 2014

Geungle is buzzword-compliant vapourware.

Vapourware Award: Geungle

Pentandra announced Geungle in May of 2012, as coming soon, with a Beta supposedly coming in July (of 2012). The Pentandra website calls Geungle a platform for scholarly genealogical research, sometimes referred to as generational history. That Geungle website is a single page telling you that Geungle is process-centric, case-oriented and collaborative, that it support Open Research, that it will be your digital archive, that it is standards-based, has reports, import and export, is socially adept and cloud-based. Two years later, that buzz-word compliant page is still all there is. There is nothing else there. No Beta. No Alpha. Nothing. Geungle is buzzword-compliant vapourware.

Vapourware Award: YouWho

YouWho, raised venture capital in 2011, vaguely announced themselves in 2012, went into private Beta in 2013, and in 2014... nothing happened. Nothing at all. They did not even tweet once. Oh yes, one thing happened; their website died.

2015-01-01 GeneAwards 2014

Best of 2014

2014