Tag: LegacyFamilyTree

RootsMagic10 Frustration

AI Image

Did you receive an offer in June to upgrade your RootsMagic for $20.00 to the new version 10? I did but it took me a bit to decide if it was worth it to do or not. Here’s why…

I’m a long time RootsMagic user and was using version 7 because version 8 never worked for me. It couldn’t handle syncing my large Ancestry.com family tree. Last December I had to purchase version 9 since Ancestry.com changed to two-factor identification. The tree still didn’t sync correctly, however, I was able to transfer my working version 7 to it.

Enter Mid Summer’s Day when I receive another email from RootsMagic with the limited offer to upload to their supposedly latest and greatest version. It hadn’t even been six months since I bought the last one!

I did decide to purchase it but I’m getting a tad tired of forking over $20 every six months, especially when I wasn’t sure if it would even synch with Ancestry.

I have made radical changes to the last tree that I synced with RootsMagic7 so I deleted the tree and decided to start fresh with version 10. They have already updated to a version 10.1 or something in July so I updated again as I tried to get my files transferred.

I made 10 attempts to sync in July. Each time the program timed out at some point – anywhere from a few minutes to 10 hours. You read that right – 10 hours as I let it go overnight. Once it times out RootsMagic is supposed to retry connecting with Ancestry.com, however, it won’t reconnect whether you click “reconnect” or let it try to do it on its own.

I reached out to RootsMagic’s IT Department on 29 July as I did when I had a problem with RootsMagic8. Thirteen messages back and forth and the final verdict:

…“I am sorry I do not know why it times out and will no longer sign back onto Ancestry.  I can see where it did many times, disconnect to Ancestry, but signed back on, after so long it just did not sign on anymore.“…

I have followed their process to get a refund. It’s a software company that doesn’t allow you to do that process online. Sigh. Snail mail only. Their chat is also hidden so I had to rely on email to get help. The IT worker wrote that they would try to sync on their home computer as they didn’t have space on their work computer. Although I greatly appreciate someone going to that extent to help a customer, I do question why a software company doesn’t have enough RAM on their work computers to test their product. How can the sell it if it hasn’t been tested on large trees? Why haven’t they tried to fix the problem that I made them aware of 21 months ago?

The response now was not much better than on 8 December 2022 when they responded:

…”I too could not download your Ancestry tree, I do not know if it is because it is so large.  The number of individual is okay, but you have so many citations.  It might be how they are linked to different sources and some may not be linked to any source.  
 
Downloading your file would take many many hours since you also have lots of photos.
 
If I find out what might be the problem, I will let you know. 

Make sure your find is not being downloaded to oneDrive, iCloud or Dropbox
When downloading make sure you have lots of Ram.  I download to an external drive which had more than enough room.“

That response never made sense to me – IT tried to save to an external drive that had enough room and it still didn’t work but I should try that?! I also didn’t understand the reasoning about the citations possibly being linked to different sources or none at all.

I am able to sync my tree with Family Tree Maker. The issue is not with storage on my end or the amount of media and sources.

The issue is that RootsMagic10, like RootsMagic8 & 9 software, cannot handle large trees if you have media for the individuals. The problem is on their end and perhaps they don’t have many customers with large fully cited trees so they don’t care to fix their problem.

Next month, I’ll share how Family Tree Maker’s software works as I have an upcoming blog book review about that product.

In the meantime, if you decided not to upgrade with RootsMagic because you’ve experienced what I have, you might want to take advantage of Legacy Family Tree’s latest version 10  which is FREE! Here is how to obtain that software. Although you can not sync with Ancestry.com, you can save your .gedcom so you can still work on your tree without being on Ancestry. The difference between sync and download/upload is that your media (photos and documents) does not transfer with download/upload. So you don’t see the picture but the data is still transferable.

Farewell, RootsMagic, I will miss using it. Like you wrote 21 months ago, let me know when you fix your software.

Thank you, Software MacKiev for fixing FamilyTreeMaker as years ago the former owners wouldn’t do that and LegacyFamilyTree for offering your product free. It’s good to know we still have a back up for our online tree.

Comparing AI Generated Narratives from Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, MyHeritage.com, Legacy Family Tree, RootsMagic, and FamilyTreeMaker

AI Generated Table

NOTE: This blog was posted on 25 Nov 2023 on the Empowering Genealogists with Artificial Intelligence Facebook group. Since my blog two weeks ago on using AI to write a narrative, I’ve been getting a lot of questions and comments. I’ve been told that AI doesn’t work with some sites; I have found that to be not true. I have also found a temporary work around for footnote/endnote citations that look more like what genealogists use – simply provide this prompt: Please write all footnotes in Chicago format style. You will have to go back and fill in some info, like the enumeration district for censuses, but it will be closer to what we are used to seeing.

I was interested in seeing how a narrative summary with endnotes from various sources that had similar data would be written.

I used the same prompt:  You are a professional genealogist and expert writer. Please write a narrative summary with endnotes from the attached file. (AI seems to place all sources at the end, whether you make the request as a footnote or endnote. This could be due to my requested writings being short.) The endnotes for the example below are funky looking because they are sources from sources, meaning the information that was being compared was the main source, like Ancestry.com, and not where the source cited in Ancestry.com came from.

Each request was made using a new message on ChatGPT.

The files I uploaded individually were:

Ancestry.com from Life Story with and without AI. AI selected “What was (region) like when (individual) was (event).”

FamilySearch.org Source/Detail and About

FamilyTreeMaker from Individual Report

LegacyFamilyTree from Other Reports>Individual Summary

MyHeritage.com side view of Family Tree for named individual

Roots Magic from Reports> Individual Summary

The information for all but FamilySearch.org was generated by me over the years. The data was always entered into Ancestry.com, then synched with RootsMagic and FamilyTreeMaker. A gedcom from Ancestry was uploaded to both LegacyFamilyTree and MyHeritage so no media is available on either of those sites. FamilySearch.org does include a minimal amount of information from me but most of the data was generated by family members.

I then gave ChatGPT the following prompt:

Today you are an expert data analysis and professional genealogist. Prioritize fidelity to the information below; dry recitation, avoid editorialization. Process the data sentence-by-sentence, from beginning to end. Extract this structured data: “Name”, “Relationship”, “Event Year and Location Baptism”, “Event Year and Location Marriage”, “Event Year and Location Children”, “Event Year and Location Death”. The response should have the header row in line 1: “Data From:”, “Name”, “Relationship”, “Baptism” “Marriage”, “Children Name & Birth Year”, “Death”. Column A should have the header row: “Ancestry.com With AI”, “Ancestry.com Without AI”, “FamilySearch About”, “FamilySearch Source & Detail”, “Family Tree Maker”, “Legacy Family Tree”, “MyHeritage.com”, “RootsMagic”. Enclose all cells or fields in quotation marks; omit, ignore, and avoid commas and other punctuation in the original data in your response in an attempt to keep the CSV error-free. Display dates in military format meaning day month spelled out and not by number and year. Display your response in a code window for easy copy-and-paste.

The results are attached above. I’ve color coded them to denote synch (pale green), gedcom (blue), not my own data (yellow).

Interesting how the diacritical marks are shown by Ancestry, Legacy, MyHeritage, and RootsMagic. FamilyTreeMaker omitted them. The apostrophe before and after August was originally quotation marks. Not sure if that is standardization issues or software/technical limitations.

I was surprised that Ancestry, which has the full location for events, simplifies to only provided county and state. The complete marriage location would be Baileytown, Westchester Township, Porter, Indiana. I wondered why Westchester Township was omitted and discovered I had never entered that in any of my generated trees. I had mis-entered death location as Chesterton Township instead of Chesterton, Westchester Township. This is a nice way to enhance and correct your data. (Chesterton is actually in three townships but the events occurred in Westchester).

All of the sites had the names of children. FamilySearch provided the most information (child’s name and dates). Legacy and FamilyTreeMaker both named all children. Not sure why RootsMagic didn’t specify. And now we know MyHeritage considers six children as “several.” Personally, I’d call that a handful plus!

I can see another use for this when trying to figure out where online public trees vary from yours and what source info (if any) they might have. It’s also a nice clean timeline that takes little effort to create.

Next I decided to take the Excel info, re-enter it into ChatGPT and give the original narrative prompt again. Since every narrative had been slightly different I wondered what the final product with the full information available would be. (I should mention I did the first narrative a few weeks ago in RootsMagic and there were three hallucinations but the rest I did on Wednesday and there were none.) Here is the compiled narrative:

Samuel ‘August’ Samuelson was a pivotal figure in his family lineage, with his life journey documented across multiple genealogical platforms. Born on January 3, 1839, in Stora Haddebo, Västra Harg, Östergötland, Sweden, Samuel was the son of Samuel Howard Erickson and Anna Elisabet ‘Lisa’ Torstensdotter. His baptism, a significant event in his early life, is consistently recorded in these sources, reaffirming the importance of his Swedish origins.

Samuel’s life took a significant turn when he married on February 17, 1871. While the exact location of his marriage varies slightly in records, ranging from Baileytown to Westchester Township in Porter, Indiana, it’s clear that this event marked his transition into family life in the United States.

The couple was blessed with several children, though the records differ in detailing their names and birth years. FamilySearch Source & Detail provides the most comprehensive list, including Johan Victor (1872-1921), John Louis (1873-1919), Alfrida (1874-1886), Ada Emilia (b. 1876), and two sons named Gustav Theodore (the first born in 1877 and died the same year, and the second born in 1879). This detail adds depth to our understanding of Samuel’s role as a father and the legacy he left behind.

Samuel’s life came to an end on January 14, 1908, in Chesterton, Porter, Indiana. The consistency of this date across multiple records emphasizes its accuracy and the end of an era in the Samuelson family history.

Endnotes:

  1. Baptism and Birth: Samuel’s baptism and birth details are consistently recorded across Legacy Family Tree, Family Tree Maker, FamilySearch Source & Detail, MyHeritage.com, Ancestry.com (with and without AI), and RootsMagic.
  2. Marriage: The date of marriage is consistently noted as February 17, 1871, but the location varies slightly, as recorded in different databases.
  3. Children: The most detailed account of his children is provided by FamilySearch Source & Detail, with other databases offering varying levels of detail.
  4. Death: Samuel’s death date is uniformly recorded as January 14, 1908, across all sources, with slight variations in the location’s specificity.