Joined: May 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 518 Location: Modesto, CA, USA
Current Thoughts On-Line Family Tree Programs « Thread Started on Jan 21, 2009, 7:46pm »
There are many on line web based genealogy family tree sites. Below is a list of sites on a URL’s sponsored by Geni.com. This GENI sponsored site is not complete because it is a WIKI template. Geni wants other users to fill in the data on their competitors. However, it has the URL’s of many of its competitors. It provides some overview.
However there are concerns and advantages with using these web-based programs. Member Kerry on a previous post mused on some of what will be mentioned below.
1. Security. People have written articles that the genealogy data of living people should not have be on the Internet. These sites do have a dual level security: Full access requires an invitation. Internet searches for relatives. If there is a match in the background, the program invites you to contact the system administrator or the individual matched. 2. Social Network. These sites are really social networking programs such as a Face Book or My Space. In fact FACE Book has a genealogy program but last time I checked the GEDCOM upload was not working and I was not able to try any of the features. These programs emphasize a broad database and involve many sets of in-laws. Generally relatives will maintain their own section of these distant branches. This requires allowing others the freedom of displaying the information in a format they are most comfortable. It allows a great degree of collaboration with minimal time restraints. A criticism of these sites is that they are not serious genealogy research 3. Cost. These sites are started by venture capital and some form of revenue, as a return on investment, is part of their business plan. They allow you to join free of charge and eventually try to make their revenue after you expand your site. Ancestry.com charges U$D20/month, MyHeritage.com U$5/month and Geni.com U$D5/month. Just recently Geni started charging for information that was promised to be free. 4. Photos. Media management is one of the stronger points of web based genealogy sites. As the Chinese proverb says, a picture is worth a thousand words. Media increases the appeal of genealogy by adding faces to names, and making the photos available to relatives world wide. MyHeritage has a facial recognition feature. Most sites have the ability to tag or identify individuals in group-family photos. Having group photos of 20 or 30 people with each person identified is very valuable. Sites are now starting to add video files. 5. Backing up your data. This aspect is very weak. MyHeritage is the most advance. However, it does not back up the Chinese Unicode. One of Geni’s user just wrote a 3rd party program to back up the Geni files (an advantage of having a large user base), linking the media to the GEDCOM. Most will export only the text and relationships to GEDCOM, without multimedia back up.
I have used Verdante.de (www.dynastree.com), Myheritage, and Ancestry.com, and GENI. Myheritage does not have a good GEDCOM export of Chinese characters and until that is improved, you should steer away from that site. It does have a robust Chinese interface, however for relatives based in China. Geni has a large and active user group and there is a review by Phillip about Geni.com.
My current recommendation (subject to change as these sites evolve over the next year) is to develop your GEDCOM using www.dynastree.com. I believe this German site makes a very complete GEDCOM. Once you own a stable GEDCOM, it is very easy to upload your GEDCOM and experiment with the different features in other programs. This gives you full control of your family tree.
Joined: Dec 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 59 Location: Australia
Re: Current Thoughts On-Line Family Tree Programs « Reply #1 on Jan 23, 2009, 9:03am »
I appreciate what the geni.com wiki entry is trying to achieve. But it's a bit like a table comparing new car features. "four wheels - tick". "headlight - tick". The sheer size of the list masks real points of difference (if there are any!). Moreover, maybe I don't just want to pick a car - I want to understand whether maybe I should be getting a bike or sticking with public transport?
It's also focused on the "packaged web site" model. There are alternatives - many single user programs "export" html. This could be deployed to your own website. There are varying degrees of sophistication and so forth - but my main complaint is that range of the comparison is very limited and presupposes a certain range of solutions.
There are plenty of free hosting solutions around. Some of them limit the size of the file and ask you to pay once a limit is reached. Other offer free hosting but you have to put up with banner and keyword adds. Some of these use their own website software although Open Source is an alternative.
My site uses phpGedView (see my profile) Software cost zero. Hosting costs about $20 AU per annum. My DNS name was another $25. No banner ads - and I'm the only one with full access to the data and databases. (There are some services where you can get free hosting of phpGedView in exchange for some ads on your pages. See the ads linked off the wiki at http://www.phpgedview.net/)
Not big on FB as a platform to run my genie stuff. Security is very dependant on the diligence of other users. And some of them are quite clueless.
Joined: May 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 518 Location: Modesto, CA, USA
Re: Current Thoughts On-Line Family Tree Programs « Reply #2 on Apr 12, 2009, 9:50am »
Over the past 6 months, the previously free-of-charge on-line genealogy services I have written about now cost money. In my opinion, the most important service of Geni, Dynastree, and MyHeritage is to allow you to save on your hard drive your own valid and accurate GEDCOM of your family tree (Zupu) complete with Chinese Characters. Of course, there are other advantages inherent with the on-line access such as the ability to collaborate with distant relatives. These still do not cost money.
You can still build your GEDCOM with these on-line programs. Please see my previous post:
However, once you have an extensive GEDCOM, it will cost money to back up to your hard drive the information compiled, especially if your family tree’s GEDCOM contain in-laws. If your family tree only includes blood relatives, Geni and Dynastree will still allow you to download your closely connected GEDCOM for free. The most cost effective method might be to subscribe for the premium services one month and download the completed GEDCOM during that subscription period. This method does not allow you to frequently back up your GEDCOM as changes are made. Frequent back-ups ARE a wise computer-data habit..
Therefore, be aware that, after spending a lot of time filling out your family tree on the formerly free on-line genealogy programs, there is a service charge to archive your data as a GEDCOM.
Re: Current Thoughts On-Line Family Tree Programs « Reply #3 on May 12, 2009, 2:38pm »
I am so glad I found this site! I am a complete newbie when it comes to family tree building. It was only spur of the moment that I was compelled to start anything when I went to a family reunion and realized I didn't know half the people or how I was related to the other half. Quick search on google came back with Myheritage.com. It seemed like good idea, web based, other's can sign in and contribute, media files, no fear of my computer crashing but as time has gone on I realized the issues:
1) Family size is rapidly expanding beyond the free 500 members 2) Unable to post in Chinese (well this is mostly because I am completely illiterate) so I have been butchering everyone's Chinese name to resemble something in English 3) The site's software seems incapable of allowing non standard relationships such as god mother, god father, etc. 4) Also after reading some of the posts, I think medical information is very valuable
Joined: May 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 518 Location: Modesto, CA, USA
Re: Current Thoughts On-Line Family Tree Programs « Reply #4 on May 12, 2009, 5:12pm »
Hello Luv,
1. The last I heard, with MyHeritage.com, is that if one person purchases the upgrade, then everyone is allowed to enjoy the over 500 person maximum. Other on-line genealogy sites allow different privileges with a paid subscription.
Just remember to [select], [copy], then [paste] the Chinese character. They should display on Myheritage.com.
3. Non standard relationships are difficult for all genealogy programs. Adoptions are now very 'standard' but most software do not have a good work-around. All genealogy programs have the assumption that one has only one pair of parents (a genetic truism), but cannot display non genetic relationships well.
I enjoy the ability of MyHeritage.com's ability of exporting your 'tagged' family photos into Flickr and Picassa. It makes backing up your photos easier.
You should be able to export your data as a GEDCOM with MyHeritage.com. I think it exports the Unicode Chinese character well, but it has been a while since I have checked. Use your saved GEDCOM on your hard computer drive and try any of the other on-line genealogy programs. If you have over 500 names, you don't want to re-type the information again.
Keep us posted about your thoughts and experience.
Joined: Dec 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 59 Location: Australia
Re: Current Thoughts On-Line Family Tree Programs « Reply #5 on Dec 8, 2009, 7:16am »
Greetings luv,
sorry for the late reply.
If you are only doing this for yourself, then I'd think twice about putting this on a web based service. It would be better to work on your own PC and get the backup habit. I would particularly go that way if you were thinking about "medical" information - particularly in respect of living people. It may be unlikely but there is always the possibility of information "leaking" on the internet.
If you want to do the on line collaboration thing with family then web hosting has enormous possibilities. I've already said my mind on this subject in some of the other posts.
On the subject of god parents - they are allowed for in the GEDCOM spec. Not sure about MyHeritage implements things but in phpGedView it works this way: You can record the Baptism event on an Individual. One of the optional fact's that you can record on the BAPM event is an Associated person (ASSO). Against that person you can record what the relationship is (godfather, sponsor, rabbi, circumciser,... ), As I said, PGV can do that, I assume the more mature packages can do that, not sure about the newer web based programs.
I am not looking forward to trying to enter data from a same sex marriage. Call me conservative, but I'm happy to leave that challenge to my successor. <dons flame proof clothing and awaits return fire>
Joined: Mar 2012 Gender: Female Posts: 320 Location: USA
Re: Current Thoughts On-Line Family Tree Programs « Reply #7 on Dec 1, 2012, 5:02am »
Hi Doug, Thanks for the update on these genealogy websites. I have always use Ancestry.com, but would like to know if MyHeritage or Geni is better for Asian genealogy?
Joined: May 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 518 Location: Modesto, CA, USA
Re: Current Thoughts On-Line Family Tree Programs « Reply #8 on Dec 2, 2012, 4:31pm »
Fay Chee
Ancestry is a good product and they used to have a sister site called Jiapu.cn which served the Chinese population. I am still connected to my Shanghai’s cousin’s Ancestry and MyHeritage site and they (along with my Geni) display Chinese characters fine. Neither Ancestry, MyHeritage, nor Geni display surname first. If most of your Chinese family who log into your tree live in the USA, then they would understand the surname last. There are work-arounds to get the name displayed to be more culturally sensitive manner if need be.
More importantly, if your family tree has over 400 profiles, then the important (non Chinese genealogy) feature is being able to get all your information out intact (including sources and Chinese characters) in a good genealogy (GEDCOM) data file. This is in case your company changes their terms or close business. The magic number 400 is the maximum number you can manually enter into a new family tree.
Joined: Mar 2012 Gender: Female Posts: 320 Location: USA
Re: Current Thoughts On-Line Family Tree Programs « Reply #9 on Dec 3, 2012, 9:37am »
Doug, Thanks for explaining about the various genealogy websites. Up until now, I have had very little use for entering chinese characters or anything other than my dad's pictures and name. Now I have a whole new branch of relatives to enter..... Fay Chee
Another site is closing and this one you only have 1 month to try to download your data. I think it is being acquired by Ancestry.com. As the economy improves, owners are cashing out and larger companies are acquiring less successful sites (I did not think Geni was unsuccessful). Just have a strategy to preserve and back up your data if you use an online service.
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