Why duplicate?

[Michael Talibard]

I am puzzled as to why so many Reunion users want to keep their full tree on Ancestry as well. I don't do this, so I must be missing out on certain advantages, but thus far I can't see what these are. Could someone enlighten me?

For some years I have left a small skeleton version of my tree up there. This I once put in manually: it wasn't much work, because there's not much of it. I don't recall why I did that, except that Ancestry seemed to assume I would, and occasionally they send me hints as to what I might add to it, but it's always info I've had in my Reunion tree for ages, and see no reason to duplicate. For me Ancestry has always been a research tool, not a repository of results.

If one wishes to maintain trees in both places with equal thoroughness, one needs to use Gedcom uploads—I get that. In reading several of these ReunionTalk fora, I keep coming upon discussion of problems associated with this process. Iberbach, for example, recently bought FTM (apparently that's a necessary intermediary) and lots of you helped her make that work. Reading all this, I can't find where it says why she wished to do this. And there have been posts recently from Robin about merging trees and from Ryan about a problem with 'class', etc etc. These all inform us HOW to do these things, but not (so far as I can see) WHY one wants to. Is it seen as a form of publishing?

[Blaise A. Darveaux]

Excellent question, Michael. I am eagerly awaiting to hear responses. I maintain my 2500 person Darveau(x) Descendancy online at a free server. Yes it is bare-bones and not very flashy, but if anyone wants to know how they are related to someone else, it is there for their use. It is not private and Google has harvested data from it, so it is easy to find. Plus, my son owns the domain name Darveaux so all people have do to go there is type Darveaux.com.

Many years ago I did upload a GEDCOM to Ancestry, but then I read in the fine print of their user agreement that any information uploaded to them becomes their property to do with what they pleased. I immediately took my data off. Maybe I was incorrect about that, or they changed that policy since, but haven't gone back since and have never had an Ancestry.com subscription. As far as looking at other trees, I see a lot of garbage or information purloined from my site without acknowledgement.

As far as other people who put their trees there, I am going to guess that nobody ignores the 800 pound gorilla in the room and Ancestry.com attracts many more eyeballs then like where I have my site at.

[Bob White]

Ancestry is a major research tool for me. Having it as a full tree enhances the research process by finding more hints than a basic tree would by a country mile.

FTM is my storage area, so to speak, since by synching with Ancestry, it puts copies of all entries on my local drives. On one hand, one could design and maintain a library of documents and/or clutter up multimedia with tons of documents -- which is time consuming. On the other hand, I can let FTM work for me. Reminder: This is for documents that one might look at again either never or rarely. So, I let FTM do the work for me. If I need to look at a death certificate that I found two years ago, it's a simple matter of firing up FTM, going to that person and selecting the document to look at.

Bottom line, it's a matter of efficiency. e.g. I don't desire to spend endless hours maintaining some sort of filing system when FTM can do the work for me automatically.

Regarding Blaise comment about the user agreement.... I only consider maybe 1-2% of my tree data to be "mine".... (This would mainly be original writing by me about me, my immediate family and some close relatives.)

The other 98-99% came from books, on-line research, newspapers, Wikipedia and equivalents, purchases of birth/death certificates, etc., etc...... As such, I cannot claim ownership. My attitude about doing genealogy is that I am assembling data as it applies to me. I am not buying it or punching a claim marker in the ground. Thus, I am not losing any sleep over this ownership issue.

[Rcljersey]

Hallo Michael, My guess is this depends on how you got into the hobby and how you go about it. I came via about 12 years of pre computer research, then some 15 years of using a PC when FH software was finding its way. I switched to a Mac in the mid 2000s and quickly became a Reunion convert. I thought then it was the best FH software around and by and large I still think that. My approach had always been to verify facts before adding them to "my" tree . If I couldn't , I added notes and research logs to record my best guesses, and kept a series of 'trial' trees, usually hand drawn until proven..

Ancestry was in its infancy back then, and I used FindMy Past, Free BMD, Scotland's People, Family Search and other online resources as their content grew and they became established. I've never felt the need to have a tree in Ancestry but one or two family cousins do so. I think if you've come to the hobby later and are more schooled in the online way of doing things, perhaps a tree in Ancestry makes some sense. But for me I often don't trust the entries that I see on Ancestry trees without knowing the proof or the source of the people or facts I find. I have several contacts who see something on line and assume its a verified fact.

And for me, the hobby is a personal journey; I would prefer to write the story of my family or research for those who come after me, rather than broadcasting it to one and all , especially if there were unverified entries there. But its a fast changing world, my kids were on Facebook but now use Instagram or Linked In and other platforms, and are far more used to an online world than I was or am. I know I should probably add it as multimedia but I still keep much of my research data in paper files......

Like you , I can't see any advantage in having an Ancestry tree as well as Reunion. The only times I have recently considered having more than one active tree or FH program is when I come across a cousin or new contact who is a committed Windows user and wary or not at ease with a Mac program such as Reunion. Clearly we can exchange PDFs and other outputs. I did buy and try Family Historian, a PC program but felt that learning Reunion was a big enough task without learning another program too. For me as others have said, Ancestry is more a research tool, but I guess others use it as well as Reunion because they have both research and a means of presenting it in one package.

Finally I'd be happy to share some of these thoughts directly with you, and compare Reunion usage once again, as we did before.......

[lrberbach]

Iberbach, for example, recently bought FTM (apparently that's a necessary intermediary) and lots of you helped her make that work. Reading all this, I can't find where it says why she wished to do this.

Hello, Michael! I'm not there yet! I'm "tangled in my underwear" with GEDCOM tags. Getting there, but it has been hours of work. At this point, I am not sure it is worth it considering the time and financial investment. I think I am just to anal about getting all of my research over to FTM in all the right places, especially the sources. Ideally, it would be great if Reunion synced directly with Ancestry, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. I have been with Reunion since I began researching in the 1990s, so I won't be switching totally to FTM.

There are two reasons why I want to maintain a fuller tree on Ancestry.com.

First, I also have been keeping a "skeleton" tree on Ancestry for years. I like to compare the hints with my Reunion research to see sources I might have missed. However, in order to update the Ancestry tree using GEDCOM, the hints start all over again (and DNA comparisons, too) unless you religiously enter new information in both Reunion and Ancestry. I haven't done that. However, it is looking like I will have to do that anyway with FTM. So maybe no advantage. As to Bob White's response about the depth of information FTM finds with a fuller tree, I can't speak to that yet.

Secondly, I worry about what will happen to my considerable research after I "kick the bucket"! I will turn 70 this year and my kids are not interested in genealogy at this point anyway. What will happen after a few years when Reunion software isn't purchased and updated? Maybe there are some suggestions out there that I haven't considered? I do maintain a webpage (http://www.reedandberbachfamilies.com/), but that, too, requires a financial commitment. Not sure that will happen. I do agree that there is a lot of bad research in Ancestry family trees, but longevity seems more of a sure bet.

I do have a question for those who are currently using FTM. Is there a list of default Reunion source fields and tags anywhere? I changed some of mine a few years ago when I knew even less about GEDCOM than I do now! I would like to start any changes on an even playing field. Many thanks to all who have helped in the past!