Hunting Dead People - The New Generation of Genealogists

Ancestry App for iPhone

I have cursed Anestry.com so many times over the last 5 years with their incessant new updates & rearranging of the way you use their site along with an  increase in membership fees... This time they did something right ... finally!

I have had the Ancestry.com app for my iPhone for just a little while now. I wasn't impressed with it. It simple listed my tree(s) I had with Ancestry.com & an alphabetical list of individuals attached to that tree. Pretty worthless... 

UNTIL NOW! The NEW Ancestry app (or update for those of us with the previous version) has finally started to catch up with family research in the 21st century & everyone on the go! 

It now gives you a view of your tree as an actual tree with a home button that will take you back to your set home person so you can swing through the branches of your tree(s). The option to add & delete individuals (no more letting my little man play with mommy's phone... LOL) , the ability to edit information for persons attached, & the ability to search for individuals you have saved to your tree! You can also view a list of documents or "evidence" you have saved to individuals, add photos from your iPhone, or view attached photos. And with internet access, you can access Ancestry.com through the app itself! Truly worth the effort now & the download.

The best part... IT'S STILL FREE! Yes, it is still free to download. Thus if you have an Ancestry.com account you have an app that will take your work with you on the go! Even better, it is always free to simple create a tree with Ancestry.com with no attached records, so it is never completely worthless :) You can use it as your own family tree app on the go & never upload to Ancestry.com.

It's still not as fancy as say Reunion, but it is definitely comparable. If you don't use Reunion on your Mac, their app, which is $14.99, is completely worthless to you.  Thus, I am very excited to have the Ancestry app taking up memory & space on my iPhone :) 

Restart

  After almost 15 years of research, college classes, a bunch of lectures & conferences, I decided to move away from Windows completely & move solely to Mac. Mostly because of a crash & burn in Windows on my Parallels platform, I now sit here researching Mac compatible genealogy software...& lesson learned on not backing things up...I get to also start from scratch reentering ALL my research by hand.

  After much research I was certain I'd found my answer: Family Tree Maker by Ancestry. I am able to download my tree(s) from Ancestry into Family Tree Maker, as well as attached resources! So half the work is done for me!! Genius, right?

  Well besides now learning a very non-straightforward system (thank goodness I bought the handbook), it also lacks MRIN options either automatically or self entry!!! How am I supposed to create my hard copies & keep them organized?

  It turns out Family Tree Maker for Mac is based off their Windows 2010 version, where they took out MRIN's... Of course! But the new Windows 2011 version has added the option back!!! So I guess I'm waiting on a new Mac version...? I've emailed them, ... But no response. Here's hoping a new update for Mac version soon :)