Ancestral Quest - Coming Soon

Coming Soon -- Direct Access to New FamilySearch

Over the last several months, Incline Software has been focusing on adding a set of new features that will tie in to new, free, online resources from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). As most genealogists will know, the LDS church has made enormous genealogical resources available to the public for years. They are currently developing a new set of resources that should be a great boon to anyone doing genealogy. We understand that these resources will be made available soon to the public at large, but at current they are being tested. During this test period, these features are only available to controlled areas of the world, and at present only to members of the LDS church.

The new features of Ancestral Quest, dealing with the Family Tree of new.FamilySearch.org, came out of beta testing and were released to a limited number of users on July 29, 2008 (see the press release). Just as New FamilySearch is being rolled out, these features in AQ will be rolled out first to a small number of users, then to a larger group, and hopefully within a month or two, will be released worldwide. On September 11, Incline Software released a new build of AQ with these new features, and entered the third phase of the roll-out. Once fully released, AQ will take on a new version number, and will be Ancestral Quest 12.1. AQ 12.1 will be a free upgrade to users who own AQ 12. (So if you don't have AQ 12.0 yet, go ahead and get it now -- the upgrade to 12.1 will then be a free download for you when it is ready.)

Watch a tutorial on how to use the new features in AQ 12.1.

What Users are Saying

"This new Ancestral Quest is absolutely brilliant for interfacing with the New Family Search site or the old Family Search site. It does both. I can do both at the same time, well one after the other.

I can see myself losing lots of sleep. When I am excited about something all I want to do is use it. This is brilliant for genealogy. Absolutely brilliant.

This program is extremely fast."

- Ken Doyle, Australia

"As I use AQ 12.1, I find myself wanting to exclaim over and over again how nicely the options are laid out and how logically the NFS functions are invoked."

- Marshall Brough, Australia

If you would like to participate in the third phase of the roll-out, please click here.

Certified PAF Add-In
With these new features, Ancestral Quest is a FamilySearch certified PAF add-in. You can try AQ 12.1 for free during a 60-day free trial.

To see if you are eligible to use these resources, go to http://new.familysearch.org and see if you can set up an account. If you are successful in setting up an account, then you will be able to use these new resources.

The new features in Ancestral Quest 12.1 all have to do with accessing some of these new resources directly through Ancestral Quest. At present, the only new FamilySearch resource that AQ 12.1 will work with is their new “Family Tree” – a huge database comprising most, if not all, of the family history databases that the LDS church has collected over the last century. You may very well find that you and your ancestry are in that database, which currently contains about 500,000,000 lineage-linked records!

You will be able to do the following using AQ 12.1 (remember that even though the functionality is built into AQ, unless you have established an account with FamilySearch, you will not be able to use these):

* See if any of the records in your database are already in the new Family Tree databases of FamilySearch.

* If your records are already there, you can enhance the information in these records by comparing your local records side-by-side with the corresponding records in FamilySearch. You can then import new information from FamilySearch records into your local records with the click of a button, and you can export information from your records directly into the FamilySearch database for others to benefit from, again, simply with the click of a button. (It is important to note that even if you find that both your database and the FamilySearch database have the same record, you do not have to bring down any information, nor do you have to upload any information. You will have that option.)

* If you see duplication of records in the FamilySearch database, you will be able to easily combine these records, thus helping to make the FamilySearch database better for all users.

* If you find records of family members in the FamilySearch databases, you will be able to easily import those records into your database, thus extending the lines in your local database.

* If you find that you have records in your local database that are missing in the Family Tree of FamilySearch, you can easily upload those records, thus making your research available to others throughout the world.

* For LDS members: As you work with the new features of AQ 12.1, and view the FamilySearch Family Tree records side-by-side with your local records, you will be able to also view the LDS Ordinances on FamilySearch. You will be able to copy this ordinance information into your local records. Thus, using these new features, you will be able to easily tell whether additional ordinance work is needed for members of your ancestral family.

If you are a user of Personal Ancestral File (PAF) 5.2, you will find that Ancestral Quest 12.1 can work with your local file just like PAF 5 does, but you will be able to synchronize your PAF data with the data in FamilySearch using these new features. Because AQ uses the same database as PAF, you can continue to use PAF if you like, while using AQ to synchronize your data with the Family Tree database of FamilySearch.

* Currently, the access which has been provided to us for use in AQ 12.1, allows for all of the current new features we have listed above. We understand that additional new types of access will be provided over time from FamilySearch, so you can expect this list of features dealing with FamilySearch to grow in the coming months. Check back on this page from time to time to see if we have added new functionality.

* If you are a non-English speaking person, be aware that Ancestral Quest 12.0 already has the ability to enter any character from any language into your file, and it also allows you to translate the program screens and reports into any language. If volunteers have already created a translation of AQ into your language, you will be able to use Ancestral Quest in your native tongue.

Ancestral Quest and Incline Software are trademarks of Incline Software, LC. FamilySearch and the FamilySearch Logo are trademarks licensed to the Genealogical Society of Utah and are registered in the United States of America and other countries.