A genealogy notebook the ancestry sites can't lock away.
Family history research is a decade-scale project. Its home shouldn't be a service that changes terms every eighteen months.
Ancestry sites are useful and, at the same time, an awkward container for the actual research — the notes, the sources, the tentative trees, the photos, the letters transcribed. A file holds the working record; the sites become one source among many.
Working notebook, not a tree
The Research Log holds the trail — sources checked, dates confirmed, letters read, contradictions logged. The tidy tree is downstream; the notebook is where the work lives.
Sources and citations
Every fact with its source. When the record changes hands to the next family historian, the sources travel with it — which is the difference between a tree and a project.
Handed down
Copy the file to the next generation's laptop. They keep going. The heirloom is the notebook, not the subscription.
What to reach for
Common questions
Import from Ancestry / MyHeritage?
Both export GEDCOM. The Research Log accepts key facts pasted from GEDCOM; the tidy tree stays wherever you keep it.
DNA?
DNA lives on the testing service; the file records what the results told you and where.
Photos?
Store them in folders; the log references filenames. Keeps the file lean.
Handed down how?
Copy the file. That's the transfer. Also print — the paper copy is often what makes it to the next generation.