Family Pursuit Web-based Genealogy Software to be Unveiled at BYU Family History Conference

I just arrived in Utah where I will be attending the Computerized Genealogy Conference to be held on March 16 and 17 at Brigham Young University. One of the first e-mail messages I received on my cell phone after getting off the plane was the announcement of what is promised to be a major new genealogy program with a twist: it is web-based. I expect to see this demonstrated in a few days and expect to write about it. Until then, all I have is the announcement, written by Family Pursuit:

PROVO, Utah-March 13, 2007 - Family Pursuit, the first web-based genealogy management system to offer true collaboration tools, organized research utilities, and complete back and forth revision changes, will unveil their online data management system to attendees at the 2007 Computerized Family History and Genealogy Conference March 16th and 17th in Provo, UT, at the Harman Continuing Education Building on the BYU campus.

As the first online service to offer a true collaborative platform, many leading genealogists have already started talking about the impact of Family Pursuit in their industry.

"This type of genealogy research and data management is truly the wave of the future. The ability for extended family to organize and share family history research online will permanently change the way things are done," said professional genealogist Mary E. V. Hill. "The ability to collaborate at this level is not being met in any other program or online service. Family Pursuit allows all in the extended family to take an active part."

Conference attendees interested in being a part of the beta test can visit Family Pursuit's booth in room 2277 for a demonstration from company co-founder Mike Martineau. Family Pursuit will also be hosting a lab titled, "How Family Pursuit enables your family to coordinate research efforts," on Friday evening at 6:15 pm in room 2265. For more information visit www.familypursuit.net.

About Family Pursuit

Started in 2004, Family Pursuit, a Provo, Utah company, provides web-based applications to accelerate family history work by providing a framework for genealogy researchers to work together in their efforts and to easily share their ideas, theories, research and conclusions. Family Pursuit enables genealogy enthusiasts to involve family members who have never engaged in family history work, bringing families together in sharing the rewarding experience of researching, exploring, and creating a personal understanding of their heritage. Visit www.familypursuit.net for more information.

Comments

[Kathryn Lake Hogan]

Web based genealogy software isn't new. Furthermore, Family Pursuit isn't the first company to markdet web based genealogy software. PedigreeSoft has had their software on the market for at least the last six months, if not longer. I had the opportunity to speak with their representatives at the St. George Genealogy Jamboree in February. PedigreeSoft allows its users to work concurrently with others on the same family database as well.
Check them out at www.pedigreesoft.com

Should be interesting to compare what Family Pursuit has to offer.

Kind regards,
Kathryn

[Luther Olson]

After all that Ancestral Quest has done for this denomination over the past few years, first to help keep PAF alive while it was mired in DOS format long after everyone else was in Windows, and then by giving them the code for PAF 4 (after a less than successful version 3), I resent the statement "the first web-based genealogy management system to offer true collaboration tools, organized research utilities, and complete back and forth revision changes ...)

Is this to imply that AQ, through various versions over a number of years, doesn't include a "true collaborative" option?

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, we could just assume that Family Pursuit was created by someone who hasn't been around genealogy software long enough to be aware of recent developments. Or is it merely the need for them to jazz up the promotion for it's presentation at the '07 conference.

Luther

[Dick Eastman]

Ancestral Quest isn't web-based. Therefore, I don't see any conflict with the statement of "the first web-based genealogy management system to offer..."

Actually, I just met the author of Family Pursuit for the first time today and had lunch with him. He seems to be a very serious and motivated genealogist.

- Dick Eastman

[David Pugmire]

He may be motivated, and a great genealogist, but isn't the first to offer an online collaborative system. I somewhat hesitate to claim to be the first, and yet my collaborative system was online in 2000 (long before the days of PhPGedview, PedigreeSoft, etc.)

That said, Family Persuit is apparently the first to promise the public a more global system with research tools in the manner which they have. To that, I tip my hat.

-David P.

[Trevor]

I too agree that Family Pursuit is not the first. SharedTree has been around for about 6 months and claims the same online collaboration on a global genealogy tree. Also, unique privacy features not found in other software allow people to privately track living people as part of their larger global tree as well. I expect many companies to try this online approach in the next couple of years. I call this whole software genre MMOGA (massively multi user genealogy applications) after the already popular MMORPG genre.

http://www.sharedtree.com
http://www.sharedtree.com/w/MMOGA

[Gary Turner]

This concept is not new, FamilySearch has been working on a similar online system for several years and it will be free. It is now in Beta2 testing. It will combine all the databases at FamilySearch into families and pedigrees and will eventualy include links to all the 2.4 million scanned microfilms from their collection. There are Screenshots of newFamilySearch Beta2 at: http://newfamilyhistory.googlepages.com/home

Gary