Modern Software Experience

2017-12-31

events and trends

fidget spinner

2017

2017 is the year of fidget spinners, the year that England started the Brexit negotiations, and that asteroid Oumuamua became the first known interstellar object travelling through the Solar System. It is the year that Michael Phelps did not race a shark, but lost anyway. It is the year that the USA lost net neutrality, that Apple had to explain why it was deliberately slowing down older iPhones, and that Facebook management showed how that they aren't out of touch with reality at all, but know that they are so beloved and trustworthy that everyone will gladly upload their private photos and videos to them, to make sure they remain private.

new releases

On 2017 Jan 31, Heredis introduced Heredis 2017. Some of the major new new features are the dashboard, which provides an overview of your research through user-selectable widgets, and complex search, which allows you to combine various search criteria, and book creation based on Filiatus.
It all sounds good and Heredis looks nice, but amazingly, Heredis 2017 still doesn't support Unicode.
In March BSD Concept added Heredis for Android to their line-up of Heredis for Windows, Heredis for Mac OS X, Heredis for iOS, and Heredis Online.

Chronoplex introduced My Family Tree 7.0 and GEDCOM Validator 6.0. My Family Tree 7.0 added direct import from PAF, and improved support for older GEDCOM version; My Family Tree 7.0 will now even import GEDCOM 1.0 files. GEDCOM Validator 6.0 adds support for .NET 4.7 and improved detection of older GEDCOM files.
Chronoplex My Family Tree 7.1 added support for FTW TEXT and direct import of Family History System (FHS) files.

The biggest Legacy Family Tree news came a few months after the release of Legacy version 9.0; the entire company was sold to MyHeritage.

Millennia introduced Legacy Family Tree 9.0. Legacy Family Tree 9.0 still suffers from the same limits as previous versions, and still doesn't support Unicode. New features including hinting, online backup, new reports, hashtags, and enhanced colour coding.
The biggest Legacy Family Tree news came a few months after the release of Legacy version 9.0; the entire company was sold to MyHeritage.

new genealogy software

New genealogy products and services introduced this year include Acoose.NET Centurial 1.0, Heirloom Software Origins, endian.net FamilyStudio2 0.9, ProStamm, Ask the Ancestors, GedTree, Cuzins, DNA Match Analyzer, and Folder Marker Genealogy Folder Icons.

MyHeritage is likely include some of Legacy's features into Family Tree Builder and provide Legacy users with a relatively smooth migration path.

MyMillennia

All of Millennia was sold to MyHeritage; that includes not just Legacy Family Tree, but also Legacy Charting, the Legacy Family Tree Webinars, and the Legacy cruises. MyHeritage hopes to build out the Legacy Family Tree Webinars, but the Legacy cruises are probably over - and so is Legacy Family Tree.
MyHeritage has promised to issue at least one more major release (Legacy version 10), but that is all they promised. A Millennia blog post stated unequivocally they that will not invest a Unicode rebuild of Legacy; that is a two decades-delayed admission of failure to keep up, that the product is finished. They decided to sell the company while Legacy is still worth something, because it still has a significant user base. MyHeritage did not really buy Legacy Family Tree or the Legacy webinars, they bought the Millennia customer base.
MyHeritage has always claimed that Family Tree Builder is the best genealogy software, and the last few years, MyHeritage has actually tried to make it true by rebuilding Family Tree Builder into a modern genealogy application. MyHeritage is likely include some of Legacy's features into Family Tree Builder and provide Legacy users with a relatively smooth migration path.
Neither MyHeritage nor Millennia has blogged about plans for Legacy Charting, a modern desktop charting product that significantly outclasses the legacy product it is bundled with.

On 2017 March 19, Ancestry.com bluntly turned TreeSync off without providing a replacement.

Ancestry Sync

Ancestry.com introduced TreeSync with New Family Tree Maker 2012. TreeSync allowed you to sync your desktop database with your Ancestry.com Member Tree; well, if it worked. Ancestry.com never got it to work reliably, users continued to have problems and Ancestry continued to claim TreeSync improvements in every Family Tree Maker update and upgrade since the introduction of TreeSync. The discontinuation of Family Tree Maker implied the discontinuation of the TreeSync feature, but then Ancestry.com disdiscontinued Family Tree Maker by selling it Software MacKiev, and when they sold it, they also announced that they would replace TreeSync with something new, to be supported by both Software MacKiev Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic (RootsMagic TreeSync). The plan was to have the TreeSync replacement ready by the end of 2016, but as Ancestry.com failed to meet their own deadline, they postponed turning TreeSync off - until 2017 March 29.
On 2017 March 19, Ancestry.com bluntly turned TreeSync off without providing a replacement. Software MacKiev Family Tree Maker's TreeSync feature stopped working, and many users started blaming Software MacKiev for it. It took a few months for RootsMagic 7.5 (2017 Jun 28) and Software MacKiev Family Tree Maker 2017 (2017 Jul 16) to become available and offer the TreeSync replacement.

Family Tree Maker 2017

Software MacKiev Family Tree Maker 2017 was released on 2017 Jul`16. This first major release of Family Tree Maker by Software MacKiev boasts FamilySync as a replacement for and improvement on TreeSync; you can now sync multiple desktop databases with the same online tree. Not very special, but noteworthy nonetheless is that Family Tree Maker 2017 will now match your tree against FamilySearch records. It can be considered a me-too feature, that fits into the trend of matching your tree against multiple third party sites, but it's also a feature unlikely to be approved if Family Tree Maker were still owned by Ancestry.com.

Ancestry cloud

There is nothing about this on the Ancestry.com blog, but Ancestry has moved to the cloud. Ancestry.com has retired its own server park, and is relying on Amazon Web Services (AWS) now. Ancestry.com allowed AWS to publish the news once the migration was done.

This provides new background to the highly visible Ancestry.com management blunders of 2016 and 2017, which severely damaged customer trust in the brand; the massive RootsWeb failure last year and the blunt disconnection of TreeSync this year. It now seems that once Ancestry.com had decided to move their data to the cloud, they also stopped investing in their own servers, even when that investment was necessary to maintain operations, and of all Ancestry.com operations, RootsWeb got the shortest stick of all.

Ancestry.com decided to replace TreeSync, not (only) because of it shortcomings, but because it was designed to run on their own servers, and, moving forward, they needed something that would work well with their cloud servers.

Ancestry.com decided to replace TreeSync, not (only) because of it shortcomings, but because it was designed to run on their own servers, and, moving forward, they needed something that would work well with their cloud servers. They were overconfident that they would have this ready before the end of 2016, and apparently never considered the need to re-upload a freshly synced tree to the cloud, or the other way round. This left them unable to provide a smooth transition from the old TreeSync to the New Sync, so they brusquely turned the old syncing off just before they uploaded all the Ancestry Member Trees to the cloud. Once the actual New Sync (and not just a test server) was up and running, it took Ancestry.com, RootsMagic and Software MacKiev some time to perform final tests and fixes.

CEO changes

Ancestry.com's Tim Sullivan has stepped down as CEO, to continue as chairman of the board. Howard Hochhauser is acting as interim CEO.
The IPO announced in June has been postponed. This isn't the only Ancestry.com management change. There have been quite a few management changes important enough to warrant Ancestry.com press releases this year.

Last year, Annelies van den Belt's tenure as CEO of findmypast / DC Thomson Family History / Whatever-their-Name-is-Now ended, with Jay Verkler, the guy who gave her so much bad advice, taking over as interim CEO. During the year that Jay Verkler was interim CEO, findmypast accomplished nothing worth noting, yet DC Thomson still made him as chairman of the board. On the same day that Tim Sullivan stepped down, Tamsin Todd took over as CEO of findmypast.

standards

GEDCOM 1.0

On 2017 Jan 10, Louis Kessler's released Behold 1.2.2, with one new feature: the ability to import GEDCOM 1.0 files. On 2007 Apr 16, Chronoplex introduced My Family Tree 7.0, which includes GEDCOM 1.0 support too. As far as I know, this makes Behold 1.2.2 the first genealogy viewer, and Chronoplex My Family Tree 7.0 the second genealogy editor to support GEDCOM 1.0. Before, GEDCOM 1.0 was only supported by the ancient and discontinued Family History System (FHS).
The Chronoplex GEDCOM Validator 6.0 supports GEDCOM 1.0 too. Very few people still have GEDCOM 1.0, but it is good too know that there are products that will import those files.

FHISO

In 2016, FHISO reorganised itself into a simpler organisation, and announced that it was working on a citation standard. This year, they published a draft of the promised citation standard. Their citation standard is published in two parts: a conceptual parts, and a so-called RDFa binding for use with XML and HTML, with so-called bindings for GEDCOM and GEDCOM X being planned. This is no GEDCOM replacement, the proposed standard is just about citations, nothing else. It is a technical standard with lots of terminology that makes it precise but hard to read.
A practical problem with the proposed standard may be that it seems to aim for a theoretically perfect system, instead of real-world relevance. The real world needs a solution to the compatibility mess that the vendor-specific citation templates have gotten us into, and neither of the two draft even contains the word template.
Still, FHISO is alive, there are draft standards, and they are open for public comment.

trends

larger

The large databases keep getting larger. MyHeritage announced that they now have more than 8 billion records; that is somewhat misleading, as they are counting each profile in member trees as a record, and are counting all uploaded photos as records as well, but it remains an impressive number. The large DNA databases have seen rapid growth; MyHeritage has more than one million people in their DNA database, and Ancestry has more than five million people in their DNA database.
The largely overlapping Dutch services WieWasWie and OpenArchives do not count the size of their databases in records, but in person entries; each name in a record is an entry. WieWasWie and OpenArchives now contains some 145 million and 174 million person entries respectively.

The pre-Unicode genealogy applications are definitely on their way out now, and with them, their character set limitations and conversion problems.

Unicode

The pre-Unicode genealogy applications are definitely on their way out now, and with them, their character set limitations and conversion problems. Personal Ancestral File (PAF), discontinued back in 2002, continues to remain popular, but it is Unicode-based. Most pre-Unicode software has been discontinued or replaced by new Unicode-based releases, and new genealogy software is almost with exception Unicode-based. In 2014, Wholly Genes discontinued The Master Genealogist, and this year, Millennia sold Legacy Family Tree to MyHeritage, thus signalling its now inevitable-seeming discontinuation. In 2016, Family Historian switched to Unicode, and The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding (TNG) finally made Unicode the default encoding of TNG installations. Many genealogy products now use UTF-8 as the default or even only encoding for their GEDCOM files. The most significant pre-Unicode holdout after Legacy Family Tree is Heredis, an otherwise pretty nice product that remains relatively unknown outside of France.

integration, sync

Integration of desktop applications and mobile apps with online trees and record collections is not just a nice-to-have feature anymore, but something a lot customers now expect from their genealogy software. When Ancestry.com turned of TreeSync, many Software MacKiev Family Tree maker were quite upset, but now that Ancestry.com's still unnamed New Sync is working, Family Tree Maker is no longer the only desktop product to integrate with Ancestry.com, RootsMagic does so too.
Integration is not just about online trees and record sets, several genealogy applications integrate with services such as DropBox, and one of Legacy Family Tree 9's new features is Legacy Cloud Backup. RootsFinder is a new online genealogy applications that provides free hinting based on multiple third-party collections.

multi-platform

Multi-platform products continue to be popular. and the best know product now clearly nearing retirement, Legacy Family Tree, offers plenty of integration with online services, but is a single-platform product. The already multi-platform Heredis added an Android app, and Ancestry.com added DNA features to its iOS and Android app.

GEDCOM support

This year continues the trend of improved GEDCOM support, and not just because two applications support GEDCOM 1.0 now. Last year, MyHeritage improved Family Tree Builder including the Family Tree Builder GEDCOM header. Software MacKiev Family Tree Maker 2014, released last year, is the first version of New Family Tree Maker to feature a valid GEDCOM header, and this year, Software MacKiev Family Tree Maker 2017 improved Family Tree Maker's GEDCOM support further. Ancestris, still at version 0.9, is yet another product for which the vendor claims 100% GEDCOM support as a major feature. Last but not least, Legacy Family Tree is now clearly on the way out.

consolidation

It is tempting to think of the acquisition of Millennia by MyHeritage as part of a trend of consolidation. It is true that we have seen other acquisitions in the past years and will surely see more in the coming years, but this is just one acquisition. It is perfectly normal for some vendors to bow out, and others to sell their business. There still are new vendors entering the genealogy industry.
It is true however, that the few big companies that already dominated the online tree and online records business are now dominating the consumer DNA business as well, and the barrier to entry has increased.

Ancestry.com did not only announce that they have more than 5 million people in their DNA database, but also that they sold more DNA kits than they have subscribers...

DNA

The big companies are attracting millions of new customers with their DNA tests. Ancestry.com did not only announce that they have more than 5 million people in their DNA database, but also that they sold more DNA kits than they have subscribers...
There is fierce competition with each other for the consumer DNA market, with vendors continually improving and expanding their DNA offerings. Meanwhile, the number and quality of third party DNA analysis tools continues to increase.
The business is more than important enough for patent disputes. In a settlement over an intellectual property dispute concerning their saliva-based DNA testing, Ancestry.com has agreed to pay to OraSure subsidiary DNA Genotek US$ 12,5 million.

It is not impossible for a new player to break into the genealogy application market, but it is certainly harder than a few years ago.

barrier to entry

You hardly see new word processors or spreadsheets any more, simply because the existing ones are so good, and the amount of work to produce a serious competitor has become so significant. A few well-known players dominate that industry, and the genealogy software industry is moving in the same direction. The genealogy industry developments of the past decade or so have raised the entry barrier a new player has to jump. To truly compete with the leading genealogy software vendors, a new genealogy application should be not just be easy to use and include excellent GEDCOM support, the application should also be feature-rich (including DNA support), multi-platform, and integrate with multiple online services. It is not impossible for a new player to break into the genealogy application market, but it is certainly harder than a few years ago.
The French genealogy application Heredis ticks many boxes and may be on the verge of becoming a major player, but only if BSD Concept upgrades their code-page product to Unicode.

64-bit genealogy software

There is yet another 64-bit genealogy application for Windows, but just like Software MacKiev Family Tree Maker and Chronoplex My Family Tree, Acoose.NET Ancestris is not really a Windows application, but a Microsoft .NET application. We are still waiting for a 64-bit build of a true Windows genealogy application.

genealogy TV

Genealogy TV continues to be popular. The BBC's Who Do You Think You are had its fourteenth season, Who Do You Think You Are USA had its ninth season, while the Dutch series Verborgen Verleden (Hidden Past) had its eight and ninth season. ITV's Long Lost Family had its seventh series, while Long Lost Family USA had its second season. PBS' Finding Your Roots had its fourth season, but Genealogy Roadshow did not.

Where Do You Think You Are Going?

In related news, the Who Do You Think You Are? Live event, held in Birmingham, billed as the world's largest family history show, turned out to be the last ever Who Do You Think You Are? Live, because the organisation had been operating at a considerable loss for several years already.

2018 predictions

It is not hard to make a few almost-sure predictions. Large database will once again get even larger. DNA test will again get better, cheaper or both. Genealogy TV will continue to be popular.
FHISO will release another ivory tower draft standard. The 17+ years old GEDCOM 5.5.1 specification will continue to be the industry standard.
Ancestry.com will talk about an IPO again, perhaps even go through with it. DC Thomson Family History / findmypast will continue to exist. FamilySearch will continue to abuse the word innovation to mean something we are hoping you don't know about yet. Software MacKiev will release Family Tree Maker 2018. MyHeritage will release Family Tree Builder 9, MyMillennia will release Legacy Family Tree 10 and the feature sets of these two products will be closer together.
Dirk Bötcher will release Ahnenblatt 3.0. Louis Kessler will release Behold 1.5, and it will be genealogy editor instead of genealogy viewer. Heirloom Software will not release the Universal Genealogy Transfer Tool, but will release the first public version of Heirloom Origins.
MyHeritage will buy something. Reclaim the Records will continue to reclaim records, and Crowd Sourced Indexing will continue to crowd-source indexes.

The GeneAwards 2017 will be announced on 2018 Jan 1.

links

new releases

new genealogy software

MyMillennia

Ancestry Sync

Family Tree Maker 2017

Ancestry cloud

CEO changes

standards

GEDCOM 1.0

FHISO

larger

Unicode

integration, sync

GEDCOM support

DNA

Where Do You Think You Are Going?

 

Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.