over 11 years ago

Why family history apps are cool

When Google launched their mapping website in 2005, it didn’t seem to be significantly different from their competitors. In fact, there was pretty stiff competition in the digital mapping market at the time from companies like MapQuest. What wasn’t apparent initially was that Google was offering an API for developers to access this mapping environment programmatically to embed their own data. It wasn’t long before people started creating what was coined “mashups” with sometimes very large and complex sets of data and spreading that information graphically across the map. Now people could visualize all sorts of things from the locations of recommended restaurants to the location and frequency of world-wide emergencies. Businesses were no longer satisfied with posting the addresses of their retail stores on their websites. Now they had to show those locations on a map and guide their customers to the closest stores. People everywhere now expect to be able to use their phones to give them directions to any target location while alerting them to potential traffic problems along the way.

Like Google Maps, FamilySearch has a web service API, powering integrated apps with millions of family history records. Viewing and manipulating a complex dataset like families and their relationships isn’t as easy as plotting a data point on a map but it means that the integration is that much richer. Current family history “mashups” allow you to do all sorts of cool things.

You can still use a map but now you can plot where your ancestors have lived and migrated over the centuries (https://rootsmapper.com/).
You can use the GPS and camera features of your phone to take pictures of family gravesites and load them directly to your family tree to share with extended family (http://billiongraves.com)
Have you ever wondered if you are related to famous people, royalty, or just the guy you know at work with the same last name? (https://roots-fb.cs.byu.edu/)
Want a colorful wall chart that you can print out and show off your ancestors? (http://www.tengenchart.com/, https://createfan.com/)
What about visualizing and analysis tools that can find problems or missing data in your family tree and help you fix them? (https://www.findarecord.com/, http://www.puzzilla.org/)
Even powerhouse genealogical research sites like Ancestry.com, FindMyPast.com, and MyHeritage.com have announced partnerships with FamilySearch and are working on their own data integrations with FamilySearch, making your experience on these sites as well as FamilySearch.org better.

What cool new ideas will you come up with?