16 Software Migration Conclusions

Portability an Industry issue

Mostly nonexistent, lack of a standard for portability between programs since 1995 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedcom

FAN measurments - has a neat chart for bits per generations

http://www.tamurajones.net/TheFanValue.xhtml

GEDCOM has not been updated for:

People birth, death, and marriage are supported in the GEDCOM standard and appear to transfer between programs with out loss of data

Citation standard - therefore migration between programs, one can expect to loose all citations, or a good portion of them

Evidence Standards - I do no know of any two programs that support the portability of Evidence standards

Media (Pictures, scanned documents, links - Multiphase problem: 1. lack of standard for filing media; 2. lack of standard for labeling media (file names); lack of standard for maintaining links between the software and the file locations

Experts are telling me that GEDCOM 5.5 covers some of these issues, I cannot verifi it yet

DNA - I could not identify any standards for porting this information between programs, but did not put much effort into it

Portability becomes essential when considering different platforms in the same household for the same data, I was not able to identify any standards in this application i.e., one platform would be a Windows based laptop, the second platform would be a android based Pad, third platform would be a IPad. Work seems to be gong on in thsi area on a software vendor by software vendo basis, but no standards.

Observation - None of the software vendors are taking a leadership role in standards development, this is basciall a greed based response in trying to tie up users to one solution and eliminate flexability on the user part to migrate to the supplier providing the better solution at some point in time. Historically whe an industry adopts a policy of greed, the industry collapses, and an outside mabric prevails and build a product based on a new approach that has a margional utility so great that it colapsed the industry and all new players evolve. In and environment of Opensource, Genealogy Software is amazing closed.

Summary:

Migration between Genealogy Software products will be very time consuming expecially for large files - It makes no sense for me to incorporate media in the genealogy software, my HTML filing system is more efficient that anything offered for some time in the future I have to change software vendors again, adding media to a software program is a waste of my time. I made a mistakd two years ago to commit my media to a software program.

Systems have to be developed for storing citations outside of the software - I am thinking of a Excel data base -

Systems have to be developed for storing Evidence outside of the software - I am thinking of adding a column in the Excel data base for citations above -

DNA - no answer at this time/future consideration - limiting factor to presueing this type of genealogy - very expensive and if I cannot find a software solution, not worth presueing.

Softwware

Essently there of the packages are identical in features for my needs, Performance appears to be on the same parr, In fact if the responsesa are accurate I should get a substantial increase in performance from my current situation. The final decision has to be made on support. I have to say the the FaceBook site Technology for Genealogy is emerging as a support system, and a equalizing system for three of the four programs being considered.

MyHeritage is just too bleeding edge, I am eliminating it at this time, but it has future potental to be the industry colapser I discussed above. I ahve three family members using it and will keep an eye on it's progress.

Cost and the fact that TMG and I do not appear to be compatable, I gave it a good look again, I am just not confortable in the way it presents the data/input.

Legacy, a very close second, only lost out in my feelings because I cannot identify any one locally that uses the program.

RootsMagict the winner for me, first advantage was support of UNICode for my German Place names, and the thing that put it over the tiop is very personal, David Beall my partner in managing the web site called me to tell me, he uses rootsMagic, and is someone I can discuss issues with and get solutions. We communicate well. The answer supprises me, RootsMagic was dead last when I started this process. My bigest concern with them at this time is will they make the 30 years, well they have made the last 20, we will see. I was impressed that the CEO would get on FaceBook and help a user with a problem.

Return to Contents