Genealogical Nivana or Armageddon?

Question

Wow, it has arrived, the biggest day in Genealogy that I have been waiting for, RootsMagic now syncs with Ancestry.com.

Nirvana: if you are a careful and diligent sourcer, you can now pull sources from Ancestry into RootsMagic and then sync with Family Search and then with WikiTree.  And cross pollinate if you are so inclined.  I still need to see this in practice and I still wish that WikiTree synced with RootsMagic but I think a slow explosion of data sharing is about to happen.

Armageddon:  Will this mean that we are going to start seeing the Ancestry garbage sneak in the back door to WikiTree?  

Time will tell, but add in My Heritage and Findmypast we now have the waters of the Genealogical world connected through sourcing canals.

Are the waters contaminated or enriched?

RootsMagic and Ancestry: Working Together at Last

Comments

Fortunately it's a Share, not a Sync. This means that each individual and each fact and each source must be looked at individually to be moved between RootsMagic and Ancestry.

Also, by default, Ancestry trees created by an upload from RootsMagic are private and non indexed (searchable).

I experimented with this but was not happy with the sources from Ancestry (I don't want a separate source for each census citation, instead I maintain a separate source for each census event and capture citation details).

It does help integrate search capabilities, which can do nothing but help. I find a combination of RootsMagic hints and WikiTree RootsSearch are quite powerful.

Answer 1

I thought Ancestry garbage was already leaking into the tree at a spanking pace?

(And by garbage I mean completely unsourced trees copied from other people with no sources)

Comments

I've also noticed and I don't think it's leaking. It's a great big crack.

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I was trying to be subtle in my rant ;-)

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Well I meant it is coming in through the front doot and now we will have to check the back door.

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You're so right Emma.

Answer 2

Smart Matching = Weapon of Genealogical Mass Destruction

Comments

One day, critical mass -> runaway chain reaction -> meltdown.

Answer 3

In the early days of people having commonplace interaction with computers, there was the recurring lecture about how "computers don't make mistakes".

But in recognition of the human element in the programming of these virtually infallible devices, another common phrase emerged:

"To err is human; but to REALLY screw things up requires a COMPUTER!"

We all know how it goes. Even if it's "Armageddon" at first, it doesn't necessarily mean it will stay that way. Or, it could just turn out to be a bad idea.

"Time will tell"? I say, "Indeed!"