“New: Switch to new Ancestry API. Ancestry is switching to a new API (the system RootsMagic uses to communicate with it). RootsMagic users should experience better reliability in uploading and downloading data from Ancestry. Very shortly, Ancestry will be turning off the old API, and all versions of RootsMagic before 11.1.0 will no longer be able to interact with Ancestry.”
So, if I’m reading this right, nothing prior to version 11.1.0 will be able to Treeshare with Ancestry in the near future. Correct?
Doesn’t give those of us who have decided not to upgrade to 11 any choice, now does it - that is if we want to use the TreeShare function. Great way to get folks to buy the new version. I just completed what might be my last RM9 treeshare. Not happy.
I have RM11. I bought it to see if I’d like it any better than 9 or 10. I don’t. Downloading a tree with ANY version of 11 doesn’t help me out. How do I get that download into RM9? Manually because RM11 is not backward compatible. And I used the same version of Family Origins for 30 years.
Sorry, with those constraints… it’s either a GEDCOM or “flying phalanges”.
Edited to add: If creating new, full databases from Ancestry back into RM9 is not the aim… filtering .GED export down to only most recent Date Last Edited ~could~ help reduce dragNdrop/merge ”hell” when incrementally adding to your existing RM9 work.
Yes, this will mean any version before 11.1.0 will stop working with Ancestry when the old API is shut off. Development worked hard to not have to force a file format change to work with this new API. We don’t do file format changes in a middle of version numbers, so at least current RM11 users only need to update. Older versions are never updated. I know it is hard to have things break, we’ve all gone through this before when Ancestry and FamilySearch changed their login procedures. If we want the benefit of working with third parties we need to stay current with their changes.
If you already have bought version 11, then why not simply use it? Why do you really need to keep going back to 9?
As for the same version of Family Origins, unfortunately life has changed a lot since those days. First off, you didn’t have the interaction between the software and Ancestry/FamilySearch so there weren’t other parties that had to be considered. I am sure if RM had a choice, they wouldn’t want to have to keep updating software thanks to a third party company deciding to change how they allow access to their material
If I’m reading what Bruce said correctly, Ancestry is turning off the old API, not RM. So, if you are concerned, it might be a good idea to complaint to Ancestry’s customer support. It’s frustrating to everyone when vendors say “hey, we’ve unilaterally decided that you can’t communicate with us this way anymore,” especially if a feature is stable and has been working for several years.
Having worked in software development for many years, though, I understand why RM isn’t patching all of their older versions to use the new API. It’s a huge effort in terms of testing, product support, etc. They’re reliant on what Ancestry allows them to use, and supporting two interfaces across many back versions is a real challenge.
The only part about RM11 that I think is an upgrade is the fact that I can see a person’s sources on their profile. Other than that, it offers me nothing that I don’t already have in RM9. The interface of RM11 is worse than RM9 and I wasn’t the only one who complained about the aesthetics of RM9 vs RM7.
Ancestry isn’t changing how they allow access to their material. They are changing the way RM software accesses their platform. I can still log into Ancestry and acquire data and download images to my computer all by myself. Now, only one version (not four) of RM will be able to access Ancestry via treeshare and that has to eliminate a lot of trouble shooting for both RM and Ancestry.
@martisiq I guess I am confused as I thought you were only using RM 9 to tree share BUT still moving that info back to RM 7…
Sorry to say BUT RM had NO choice in this matter–Ancestry is turning off the OLD API and I suspect FTM is having a similar issue of having to fix their system and probably some of their users have to upgrade --I personally want to say Thanks to RM for fixing version 11 instead of releasing a version 12
from something rumors I read – FTM 2024 should be less impacted as some of the was known but likely will need an update. FTM 2017 will likely need a mandatory update and legacy versions will likely be out of luck. As for the timing my understanding is less than ~30 days (just a rumor from another discussion on different board I read somewhere).
Agreed to RM fixing in RM11 – I think ideally they would have liked to change the database structure to account for all the API change but this will get users by until then . FTM seems to have a slight relationship advantage over RM with Ancestry (but to be expected)
I initially started with RM9 because of the enhanced sources capability but continued to use RM7 as my main database. I hadn’t tried treeshare in RM9. I was spending so much time in RM9 dealing with getting my sources cleaned up, that I more or less abandoned RM7. I still like the aesthetic of RM7 but I have gotten used to RM9. I tried RM10 - nope. Hoping RM11 would be better. Nope, the aesthetics were even worse. One good thing was including the source files with the media files on a person’s edit person page, along with all the others (notes, dna, etc). I am not very adept at treeshare and although I like the concept, it doesn’t always work the way its meant to. I expect I will continue with RM9, do updates manually, and hope for an aesthetically pleasing update in the future. If I could get Family Origins to create a gedcom, I’d still be using that program. That’s why I went to RM7 in the first place.
Yes, Ancestry is indeed changing how their system is accessed. That is precisely what the updated API does. As for esthetics, there is no really significant differences. Some stuff got added, yes, but nothing that changed what I view to be a horrid user interface. I watched your battles with sourcing and the going back and forth. That seemed to mostly be a you thing. You seem to be gung-ho on sources yet when you got answers to you questions, you seem to think it was too hard as I recall you saying.
However you look at it, Rootsmagic isn’t doing you wrong here. Rootsmagic has never had a policy of updating old versions so if you wish to use the interactions with FS and Ancestry, it is going to have to be done in RM11. You have chosen to not get comfortable using RM 11 so exporting GED files back to RM9 is simply a price you have to pay and the risk of any data loss is a further cost.
When I found Roots Magic, I believe the current version was 9. But 7 and 8 were still downloadable from RM’s website, but there was nothing indicating those versions were no longer supported and a key to unlock the full version was not available. I loved the fact that RM7 looked and operated much like Family Origins. Then I found out that RM no longer supported it and I could not get a key. I learned that here. I did get one, however (not from RM), and started using RM7 and loved it. But with RM9, I could actually modify my sources more easily. Ancestry does bad things to sources. A lot of their downloaded sources look like gibberish and no one could find a record based on their source if their life depended on it. I want to know where the source came from (and not just Ancestry (dot) com). What good is keeping track of family records, if the “source” of those records can’t be found by the information found in the citation. RM11 is more difficult to use; there are more clicks required to accomplish a task and some things just don’t make sense. Now all sorts of treeshare problems are popping up with RM11. I struggled with TreeShare. I could not seem to make it work right. I’m still not sure I’m doing it right. But right now I’m still able to tree share with RM9 and I learned to do it a little at a time, meaning, I only do a limited number of people at a time. You can bash me for “not getting comfortable” with RM11. I don’t have to. There’s no rule that requires me to do that. Its a personal choice to use RM11. I’m waiting until it gets less clicky and boxy and the TreeShare problems are fixed. BTW: Here’s a sample of why I am so “gung ho” on sources. Tell me you can find this source based on the “citation” that Ancestry provides. I just turned 79; I do not have the longevity necessary to repair all these sources, but I’ll use RM9 for the time being to repair what I can. RM11 would allow me to do that per person, not per source. But that is the only advantage working in RM11 would give me. The rest of it would mean extra steps to do tasks that are simpler to do in RM9. Being able to see a person’s events without having to open the “edit person” page let’s me see if I have already added, corrected, or deleted an event (fact). I could go on, but there’s no point.
