Transportable tree - ipad?

[polly88]

Can anyone advise me on the best way to "carry" my tree around with me? At the moment I am never at home - looking after relatives etc - and I would love to be able to work on my tree whilst away. Would an ipad be the answer? Has anyone got one? Would love to know people's thoughts.

[polly88]

I think I've posted this in the wrong forum. I've just seen a similar thread. Can someone move it for me please? Sorry for my ignorance/uselessness!

[Elaine ..Spain]

No problem Polly, either forum would have been suitable - but have moved it across to Family Tree Software.

Which software program do you use to record your family tree? Is it compatible with ipad technology?
This is coming from someone who knows very little about ipads! ;)

What about a netbook - probably a lot cheaper than an ipad.

[polly88]

No problem Polly, either forum would have been suitable - but have moved it across to Family Tree Software.

Which software program do you use to record your family tree? Is it compatible with ipad technology?
This is coming from someone who knows very little about ipads! ;)

What about a netbook - probably a lot cheaper than an ipad.

Hi Elaine

I use Family Historian; everyone seemed to rate it very highly but I find it quite a difficult software, and am still struggling to get to grips with it. I also have a tree on Ancestry but I don't always subscribe to Ancestry; I buy Family Tree Maker whenever it has an offer of a free six month subscription to Ancestry. I also have an old tree on FTM!!! No wonder my laptop is sometimes slow. I need to get rid of some of my old trees. I am always scared of losing everything! I back up on an external hard drive but even that I find weirdly hard to understand.

As far as I can tell FH is not compatible with ipads. But you can get an Ancestry app.

I'm not sure about a netbook; I already have a laptop and I wanted something extremely portable and lightweight.

Isn't life complicated?

ps thank you for transferring this.

[Elaine ..Spain]

As far as I can tell FH is not compatible with ipads. But you can get an Ancestry app.

The problem I can see is that if you start working on and updating your tree via the ipad to Ancestry, then your tree on Family Historian is not going to be synchronised.

Personally I would not recommend to have the only copy of my tree on Ancestry - far safer to have it under your control on your own computer.

[mikeg13]

Way I got round this problem, with a limited budget, was to buy one of the cheap Android pads on Ebay, then downloaded free version of Legacy brought an android app called Families. next step was to make a Gedcom from my tree in FTM installing it in to Legarcy and then using available app from company that supply Families put it on the pad.
If you keep your tree on Ancestry, you would make Gedcom from there to install to Legacy, sounds complicated but it works just needs bit of patience, just wish had done it before as it makes carrying it so much easier

[Elaine ..Spain]

Mike, how do you manage to synchronise your data on the android with the data in FTM?

[mikeg13]

I use Legacy as a sort of exchange, every couple of weeks (or when put fair bit to tree) use gedcom to update pad, or if have new info on pad just manually enter it in to FTM, it is poss to go both ways via Legacy but have as yet not tried that.
Am getting to like Legacy and am thinking of using that instead of FTM so it would be easier.

Can get onto internet with Pad and if I want work on my tree on Ancesty

[Elaine ..Spain]

This may sound a daft question but as you can see I don't know anything about ipads/androids!
Can you install something like Dropbox on the android so that your data file is accessed via dropbox and therefore no need to keep exchanging the info between the two computers manually.

[mikeg13]

Not as far as know on one I have, but maybe on some of the more sophisticated android pads, sadly have to do everything on very limited budget and this cost less than £70 total

[Elaine ..Spain]

OK.. thanks!

[jtaubman]

I use Family Bee on on my Android phone and can pick up my gedcom from my dropbox on it with out too much of a problem. Just trigger a download on dropbox when I need an update.


As to FH on the iPad, please see this discussion, which covers several of the tools already available for the iPhone and iPad which can read GEDCOM, and therefore FH files,.

http://www.fhug.org.uk/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=forum&board=General&op=display&num=4668