Ancestry "tree search" is a joke! any alternatives?

[Grisel]

Hello Gary,

I use the Rootsmagic program to complement my Ancestry trees. You can upload your Ancestry tree to Rootsmagic and then take advantage of their searching, sorting and listmaking capabilities.
 
Using your example, if I wanted to find families that lived on a certain street, I would just use the Rootsmagic 'Search Everywhere' feature to look for anywhere that street name appeared in my tree. You can also print a list of everyone that lived in a certain place.

Using the Rootsmagic 'Places' feature, you can go through a gazetteer of all place names in your tree and find ones that are misspelled or wrongly entered. Then pop back to your Ancestry tree in another tab and locate the person whose info you want to make changes to.

It's not as easy as just using one program for everything, but if you like to work in Ancestry, Rootsmagic can help a lot.

There is a free version of Rootsmagic, I believe, but I pay for the full version which is a one-time expense of about $40 US.

Hope this helps!

Grisel

[GaryMorton320]

Hello Gary,

I use the Rootsmagic program to complement my Ancestry trees. You can upload your Ancestry tree to Rootsmagic and then take advantage of their searching, sorting and listmaking capabilities.
 
Using your example, if I wanted to find families that lived on a certain street, I would just use the Rootsmagic 'Search Everywhere' feature to look for anywhere that street name appeared in my tree. You can also print a list of everyone that lived in a certain place.

Using the Rootsmagic 'Places' feature, you can go through a gazetteer of all place names in your tree and find ones that are misspelled or wrongly entered. Then pop back to your Ancestry tree in another tab and locate the person whose info you want to make changes to.

It's not as easy as just using one program for everything, but if you like to work in Ancestry, Rootsmagic can help a lot.

There is a free version of Rootsmagic, I believe, but I pay for the full version which is a one-time expense of about $40 US.

Hope this helps!

Grisel

Hello Grisel,

  thank you for the (apropos - I think that is correct) suggestion!

Following a suggestion from an early poster, suggesting "PAF" I did some googling and discovered that PAF was discontinued by FamilySearch and appears to have become or was integrated into the RootsMagic software package. I downloaded and installed the trial/free version.

I was going to post a summary, so I hope that you don't mind me using the reply to you to do this.

TL;DR - the advanced search can do some of the things I would like to be able to do, possibly not everything (but I am still trying to figure it out). Definitely worth adding as a new tool for my research.

This is from an hour or so of playing, so it's only MY take on it. Not meant to cause offence to fans of this software package.

Good
-----

• Read in the Ancestry GEDCOM without problems.
• Allows person filtering on the "People" page e.g. "Smith, Henry" gives me the wanted list of names. Clicking on a name in the list, then shows full details above, including census address information. Can use the cursor up/down keys to quickly move from record to record. So quick to interactively use (as suggested by the earlier poster).
• Can display a list of all addresses, which has a simple filter. This allowed me to find the Yorkhire misspellings (*)
• It has an advanced person search, albeit with some limitations (up to 6 AND terms - no idea if this can be expanded but it is probably sufficient).

Bad
----

• (*) Clicking on an address will not take you to the associated record.
• In the box where full details of a person are given, not all the fields imported from Ancestry are shown (e.g. baptism notes). I am unsure whether this is user configurable.

Examples

1) search for records whch have "Brightholmlee".

I was using a text editor to search for the above place in the raw GEDCOM and noticed that he text is included in the note part of the baptism records (transcribed from the scans). I was able to use "advanced person search" with Brightholmlee selected for "any" field. The filter did work. I could move easily to the associated records, however in the "People" window where all someones details/records are shown, the baptism text (which was matched to) is not displayed. Again this may be configurable.

2) search for Henry Smith with a father called John who lived in Church Street.

I am pretty sure that the search allows the address to be matched on. Yep <<Residence place contains "Church">> Warning - when changing search the default match criteria gets changed to "equals" for stings, whereas I would always use "contains". I do not know if you can add a family relationship. To be determined. I plan to see if RootsMagic have a user forum, and if so I will register and ask there.

Thanks once again for the suggestion. I can see that RootsMagic is a very useful tool to have.

[GaryMorton320]

If you can't get on with Ancestry, move on and use something else.

Sorry but that it both an unhelpful and unfriendly posting. I have no idea if it is in jest or not.

Just to explain, I really really like the Ancestry web based interface. I think it is an excellent way of managing your family tree and I have therefore recommended this site to friends who have gone on to subscribe and create their own trees.

So I do "get on" with Ancestry, I am simply frustrated at one very important feature, the one where you find people in your own tree, which I am surprised is so basic, and even then an obvious improvement of ordering the results by year of birth has not even been considered.

I know it is dangerous to criticize the subject of forums (phone, software package, whatever) because some people who read the posting/question/observation about the product, regard the criticism as an attack on them. Speaking to a friend, he told me that he doesn't like to use forums for this very reason.

Ancestry won't change just because 1 user can't manage

I know. In the same way Nokia would never change just because 1 user asked for a bigger colour screen and make it touch sensitve, since they couldn't manage with the small B&W screen and push buttons, which everybody else found perfectly adequate. 

[GaryMorton320]

I'm tempted to ask you to give me a link to your tree and the link to the FindMyPast record and I'll see if I can find Henry for you.

Goodnight, sweet dreams

 

Thank you for sticking around and giving replies and suggestions.

It is unfortunate that in forums, slight difference in opinions can explode into outright hostility. Sadly I have observed this (as a lurker) too many times.

I would be delighted to have the opportunity to properly show you what the problem is, and have a chance to chat properly. If you would like to get in touch, please private message me and I am sure we can arrange something.

[Gadget]

Did you look at Family Historian. It does have the address search, etc, that you needed and many other query possibilities.

[Erato]

"Following a suggestion from an early poster, suggesting "PAF" ..."

I wasn't actually recommending PAF.  It's an antique program but it does what I want and I've never found any good reason to change.  Maybe I'm just too lazy or cheap.  I did download and try Gramps but found it to be overloaded with junk I don't want or need.  I came away convinced that, as with so many things, less is more.

[majm]

There is a saying “You can please some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can’t please all the people all of the time,”

Thank you for the insult!

I have entered first name and surname and I get a list. My gripe is that the list is unhelpfully split up and does not allow it to be ordered by year. Yes I have gone through each page and selected possible candidates by opening a new page, but this is slow and tedious.

Gosh it's like going into an Apple forum and criticizing some feature of the iPhone. 

Perhaps I am coloured by my work where I am expected to point out shortfalls in certain software packages which I use, and then make formal proposals (to the provider) as to how to change them to make them work better suited for us. Time is money.

Time is money.... 

I have been following this thread.   

Once Upon A Time,  preparing a family tree chart was a great way to learn skills with calligraphy pens and expensive paper.   Draft copies could be sketched up,  uncles, aunties, cousins, could gather around visiting your parents,  talking all night, sharing original family papers.   Time was NOT money.  Time was well spent. Time was shared with face to face contact .... home cooking, fire wood chopping and stacking, beds to be made, laundry duties ... all the while Time was sharing with extended family.   

Money is needed to obtain official records.  Time is needed to train yourself in interpreting those records.  Money is needed to hasten the formal training.

Erato mentioned PAF.  Yes, no charge and easy to use and make files to share electronically.

Yes, there are some posts on this thread that a reader may consider as unhelpful or unfriendly.  But err .... umm .... those seem to be from the originating poster and not from RChatters replies.   Just my opinion....     

Back to that thought that Time is Money .... 

Family History Researching is time consuming and obtaining archival material can be expensive,  but, like many history researching practices, the reward often sought has never included an expectation of any financial reward.  Surely the reward is in sharing the knowledge the research exposes.

JM.

[GaryMorton320]

Did you look at Family Historian. It does have the address search, etc, that you needed and many other query possibilities.

Apologies. It is on my to do list. I was playing more with RootsMagic today and doing a little more searching on a particular name.

[suey]

"Following a suggestion from an early poster, suggesting "PAF" ..."

I wasn't actually recommending PAF.  It's an antique program but it does what I want and I've never found any good reason to change.  Maybe I'm just too lazy or cheap.  I did download and try Gramps but found it to be overloaded with junk I don't want or need.  I came away convinced that, as with so many things, less is more.

I’m with you Erato, love my old PAF5.  After all these years I know my way around it and it’s easy to use. Has everything I need.