I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles, Amazon products, videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts, and more. Sometimes, Snap Shots brings you the information you need without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead" before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.
Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.
Oops. As has been rarely the case, I am, nonetheless, once again an idiot. Confused. Mistaken. Off base. Wrong. There. I said it. However, this time, it's good news! The last time I was here, I went off on a bit of a rant about Family Tree Maker (FTM) and Ancestry.com. Well, everything I said about FTM is still 100% spot on. But, I was totally wrong about Ancestry.com. My bad. In my panic-stricken state, I did not carefully read the information on their website. I then freaked out, came over here to kick and scream, and then totally embarrassed myself by throwing a fit on the Ancestry.com blog. I mean, who could blame me??!! Never mind. And it wasn't a huge fit - just a small, polite, paragraph informing them that I couldn't believe how pathetic they are. Not really. I was still hyperventilating. I hadn't reached my in-your-face stage yet.
It turns out, though, that I had already been using the new tree system, so I haven't lost anything. I just totally forgot that, long ago, I had started an online tree with Ancestry's very first online tree attempt. Once the new one came out, I restarted a tree with the new system - I hadn't loved that first one, so I rarely used it. So, huge sigh of relief!
Not that this is a concern for anyone else, but since I complained about them and even took away my referral/recommendation here publicly - and I know how valuable that's been - I thought I should be forthcoming with the latest turn of events. I still hate Family Tree Maker, but if you've never used it before, maybe it's not so bad to deal with. I just don't know. But as for Ancestry.com - I heartily and happily recommend it (just don't try accessing it with Firefox)!
In 2000, I began working on my family genealogy. I ordered Family Tree Maker software to use personally. I can't remember exactly when I started using Ancestry.com, but it had to be around that time, as they seemed to have the largest collection of genealogical records. All was well - and I was a very happy camper - until a few months ago.
When I bought my laptop in February, I decided to download the latest Family Tree Maker software, both onto the laptop and onto my desktop. I'd had the software for a couple of months but hadn't gotten around to downloading it. After all of the downloading was done, I opened Family Tree Maker to see if I could tell that everything was still okay with all of my information. The screen that opened up in front of my face was a screen I'd never seen before! All of the wonderfulness that I had grown to know and love - through all the years and yearly updates - was gone and replaced by new and different everything. Do you know how I hate change??!!
For the last couple of months, I've only opened Family Tree Maker if someone has a specific question, because when I see the new, updated version, I become very angry and possibly irrational. This is frequently accompanied by screaming and yelling. Why? Well, when I started all of this, the only thing I knew for sure how to do on a computer was play Solitaire and Mah-Jongg and find a few places on the internet. I was still terrified that every time I touched the computer, all would be lost. I downloaded this new genealogy software, and from the first second, it was obvious what to do and where to go. I loved it.
So several years go by, I've spent ridiculous numbers of hours on the computer, and I'm actually quite proficient on my "computation machine."* But this new software is so horrible, so unnatural, so not user friendly, I absolutely hate it! However, the other day, I decided to figure it all out. Now, as I mentioned, there have always been yearly updates. For example, a few years ago, they added a cool feature. You would go to a person in the tree, and there was a button to click to do a search on the person at Ancestry.com. I loved that, too. Very handy dandy. This latest update, however, didn't just have a few cool new things and a couple of tweaks. They have changed every.single.thing. There was no reason for this. It was practically perfect.
In the meantime, also a few years ago, Ancestry.com started a new feature: Online trees at their site. I decided to start an all-encompassing tree with all sides of my family, Tim's family, the kids' family. I entered that information myself, I didn't upload any of my existing trees. I enjoyed working on this, and Ancestry had added a number of fantastic features. You could add photos, military pages, and whenever you added a name, their system would indicate if that name had any records on their site. If this information was, indeed, concerning your family member, you could attach the record to the person. I loved this, too. I spent many hours going through all of these features and adding to my tree.
At the same time that I began having trouble with Family Tree Maker's new version, and I was getting used to this laptop (with Vista, yuck!), I started having trouble accessing Ancestry.com with Firefox, my favorite browser. This was very frustrating, and I had never had a problem with this in the past. Because of all of this confusion and drama, I had not been visiting Ancestry.com like I had in the past.
Last week, Tim brought up the idea of adding a genealogy page to my blog. This reminded me of Ancestry.com's feature of being able to invite family members to see one's tree and add stories and photos. I thought I'd check that out before trying to figure out how to do a new blog page. I went to Ancestry.com only to find a message that I needed to convert my old tree, because they are doing away with the old stuff, and get their new tree. So, OK, I did that. Well - more screaming and gnashing of teeth! Not only did all of the notes, facts, photos, and military pages not convert, but it added over 400 people!
I cannot adequately describe my fury! It makes me sick to think of all of the work that I've lost. I have discovered that Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com are now owned by some company that has also added a number of other previously independent genealogy websites. I don't know when this happened, but I'm guessing that they are the geniuses that came up with this nonsensical, pathetic mess that now exists. I have also discovered that I am not the only customer that is thoroughly disgusted and unhappy about all of this...this...travesty of...I don't know what. Up till now, I have always recommended Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com. No more.
*In writing this, I was reminded of the comedian, Brian Regan. No, he doesn't do a bit about genealogy, at least to my knowledge. But he is one of the funniest comedians I've seen. I watched this to help calm myself down and actually chuckle aloud:
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