Friday, July 19, 2013

Ancestral Quest is Share Certified with FamilySearch Family Tree

The following is from Ancestral Quest.  

Salt Lake City, Utah (July 19, 2013) – Incline Software, LC announced today that Ancestral Quest™, its Windows®-based family tree software, was recently awarded Family Tree Share certification by FamilySearch™.
FamilySearch Family Tree Share Certified
In 2008, Ancestral Quest (AQ) became the first desktop family tree product to be certified by FamilySearch to sync with their databases. This current upgrade to Family Tree Share certification by FamilySearch was granted on June 21, 2013, and all copies of AQ downloaded or shipped since that date have directly shared data with FamilySearch’s new Family Tree database rather than with their older New.FamilySearch database. The upgrade was timed to precede FamilySearch's discontinuance of updates to New.FamilySearch in early July and their announced termination of support for Personal Ancestral File™ (PAF) on July 15, 2013.
Ancestral Quest retail box image
Ancestral Quest brings its award-winning “Most Comprehensive Syncing” capability into the next generation of FamilySearch’s database, Family Tree. For current users of AQ, this means that there was no interruption in their ability to use AQ to share data with FamilySearch’s databases. For those who are looking for a personal family tree program, AQ will get them started with a premier program in every respect.
The PAF Connection
The Windows versions of the program known as Personal Ancestral File, were created from Ancestral Quest code provided to FamilySearch over 14 years ago, by Incline Software. PAF and AQ have since then been sister products, with PAF being maintained, distributed and supported by FamilySearch, whereas AQ was maintained, distributed and supported by Incline Software. The parent code for both products was initially developed by Incline Software.
With the termination of support for PAF, users of PAF will feel right at home with moving to Ancestral Quest. D. Hambleton, a former PAF user said, “In my humble opinion, Ancestral Quest is what a fully updated PAF program would look like. I made the switch some years ago and found the new program like working with an old friend, with added features.”
The close connection between AQ and PAF means that Ancestral Quest provides users of PAF with two paths to move forward:
1) They can convert their data to the native AQ format, and move forward with a program that will feel like a major upgrade to PAF.
2) They can continue to use PAF and other PAF add-on utilities from which they benefit, while using AQ as a supplemental program to provide additional functionality, including the ability to share data between their personal file and FamilySearch’s Family Tree, wonderful new charts and reports, and access to scores of additional tools such as AQ’s To-Do Lists and new Research Timeline. Because AQ is able to read a PAF file in exactly the same way as PAF itself does, users can go back and forth between using PAF and AQ while using the same database. No conversions, importing or exporting are necessary to do this. Ancestral Quest is the ONLY1 Family Tree certified product that can share data between Family Tree and a PAF database.
Ongoing Support for PAF
PAF users who use the registered version of AQ in conjunction with PAF, will continue to receive support for PAF from Incline Software by calling 801.280.4434.
Continued Access to New.FamilySearch (nFS)
Ancestral Quest is the ONLY1 personal family tree software product that can both share data with Family Tree and also allow users to continue to see the extra opinions stored in nFS for the birth, christening, death and burial events of a record. Users can choose to see only data from their own personal database and the data of Family Tree, or they can choose to see data from three databases simultaneously in an easy to read format: their personal database, the data of the matching record of Family Tree, and the additional opinions from nFS. FamilySearch has announced that this access to nFS data will continue through the end of this year.
When FamilySearch selected data from New.FamilySearch to create the data in Family Tree, sometimes the best data was transferred. However, all too often, erroneous data for records was selected, leaving the better data in nFS where it would no longer be seen. By seeing the data from nFS, as well as the data from Family Tree in AQ, users can review all of the data gathered by FamilySearch, to make sure that the best data is moved to Family Tree, or into their personal files. Importantly, it is only when the extra opinions of nFS are visible that a user can tell that a current record in Family Tree is a combination of the records of several different people. This allows users to make better decisions 1) about whether to link their personal record with the Family Tree record, or 2) about which records were lost to Family Tree and need to be recreated. Only Ancestral Quest provides this view of all three databases.
Background
Incline Software™ developed Ancestral Quest in 1994, and has been enhancing it ever since. AQ is a powerful yet easy to use, full-featured genealogy records manager, used by both beginners and professionals. Its reporting and sourcing capabilities are excellent. AQ has scrapbooking capabilities that allow users to preserve their precious photos, video clips, audio clips and other documents for posterity, keeping the memory of ancestors alive for generations to come. AQ can also generate a web page with not only the data, but the scrapbook items as well, so this information can be easily shared with family across the world on the Internet, or placed on a palm or tablet device to be taken on the go.
Genealogy enthusiasts can acquire Ancestral Quest 14 in four ways:
1) For someone just getting started, Ancestral Quest Basics is a free personal family tree product that can be downloaded and used without cost – it contains all of the essential features of a genealogy record keeping program. This is not a “trial” version of AQ that will expire. It is a complete desktop family tree software product that can be used for free as long as the user wishes to work with it.
2) The registered version of Ancestral Quest contains all of the essential features of Ancestral Quest Basics, but unlocks all of the additional features, for a download price of $29.95.
3) Users of earlier standard versions of AQ, who have not already done so, can upgrade to Ancestral Quest 14 at the discounted price of $19.95.
4) With the introduction of Ancestral Quest 14, Incline Software has implemented a new concept in upgrades that might be unique in the industry. Users of earlier versions of the software will be able to download and use the newer version, thus taking advantage of improvements to the features for which they are licensed, without paying an upgrade fee. However they would not have access to major new features introduced in the new version unless a new key is purchased. For example, if the user had purchased version 12.0 or 12.1, and then downloaded version 14, all of the features of AQ 12.1 would be available to that user in version 14, including improvements to those features, even if a new version 14 key is not purchased. The user would only need to purchase a version 14 key to be able to use the new major features of AQ 14. All users of AQ 12.0 and 12.1 are therefore encouraged to download the latest build of version 14, as their old version will no longer sync with FamilySearch's databases, but they will only need to purchase a key if they wish to use the new features introduced with version 14.
In addition to English, Ancestral Quest is also available in German, French, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. You can learn more about Incline Software, Ancestral Quest, and Ancestral Quest Basics, by visiting www.ancquest.com or calling Incline Software at 1-800-825-8864.

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