As others before me have - thank you for detailing the problems and the steps you've taken with Ancestry to get solutions.
I dedicated the holiday season to cleaning my files after converting from TMG and consolidating the research I had done on Ancestry. What I realized in doing this was that while my data entry war far from perfect, it was generally more complete than what ATM was including (especially on census records) and more accurate. I ended up starting a list of things I wanted to be able to do better.
I am very glad to be using FTM2012 and the sync functionality with ATM - in many ways it has jump-started all of my research and publishing efforts. It does need some changes:
1. better use of screen real estate - there is no reason to have three tabs (facts, timeline and relationships) when one with all of this data would be better (children's birth dates, timeline ages, etc can all go on one screen) or give us the option of what can be in one screen/window - the layout in ATM is better than FTM. If you want more views, put a 3 or 4 generation family sheet under one and a "Family View" chart like the one on ATM under another.
2. more flexible data manipulation. While new or inexperienced users might accept whatever is given them a large group of users seems able to understand data structures and the technology that exists. (I think most genealogists crave that complexity and love unraveling the mysteries!) More ability to find/replace/merge/bulk change all parts of the database - there should not be 4 copies of the 1870 census, one for each member of the household, we should be able to merge them and keep all the links to the data; let us report every possible way - the more ways we can look at the data the more we can see what we're missing and the more research we'll do.
3. editing the data should be easy and fast with all the necessary pieces in one place and the window should be big enough to see what you need to see - not some tiny box you throw up with half the data. And if we choose Manhattan, New York, New York it should stay that way and not change itself to Manhattan, Kings, New York.
4. Every date driven area should auto-sort - child-order shouldn't even be an issue!
Genealogy is probably one of the most complex uses of database software so I get that it's hard; on the other hand Ancestry in particular has had years to work on this.
Lori
I dedicated the holiday season to cleaning my files after converting from TMG and consolidating the research I had done on Ancestry. What I realized in doing this was that while my data entry war far from perfect, it was generally more complete than what ATM was including (especially on census records) and more accurate. I ended up starting a list of things I wanted to be able to do better.
I am very glad to be using FTM2012 and the sync functionality with ATM - in many ways it has jump-started all of my research and publishing efforts. It does need some changes:
1. better use of screen real estate - there is no reason to have three tabs (facts, timeline and relationships) when one with all of this data would be better (children's birth dates, timeline ages, etc can all go on one screen) or give us the option of what can be in one screen/window - the layout in ATM is better than FTM. If you want more views, put a 3 or 4 generation family sheet under one and a "Family View" chart like the one on ATM under another.
2. more flexible data manipulation. While new or inexperienced users might accept whatever is given them a large group of users seems able to understand data structures and the technology that exists. (I think most genealogists crave that complexity and love unraveling the mysteries!) More ability to find/replace/merge/bulk change all parts of the database - there should not be 4 copies of the 1870 census, one for each member of the household, we should be able to merge them and keep all the links to the data; let us report every possible way - the more ways we can look at the data the more we can see what we're missing and the more research we'll do.
3. editing the data should be easy and fast with all the necessary pieces in one place and the window should be big enough to see what you need to see - not some tiny box you throw up with half the data. And if we choose Manhattan, New York, New York it should stay that way and not change itself to Manhattan, Kings, New York.
4. Every date driven area should auto-sort - child-order shouldn't even be an issue!
Genealogy is probably one of the most complex uses of database software so I get that it's hard; on the other hand Ancestry in particular has had years to work on this.
Lori