Introducing Mayflower – The Official MyFamily.com to Spokt Migration Tool

Mayflower - Official MyFamily.com Data Export & Migration Tool

We’re excited to announce Mayflower, Spokt’s official MyFamily.com data migration tool. We have been working hard in preparation for Mayflower’s release, and we’re so glad that we can finally share it with you today.

With MyFamily’s announcement that site services will soon be discontinued, many hoped the data export tool they promised would be comprehensive. To many users’ dismay (as well as our own), it was not. Instead, MyFamily chose to offer downloads of only the site photos, a small fraction of the massive stockpile of memories and conversations users had created through the years. This shook the entire MyFamily…well…family, and drove the team at Spokt to radically rethink how we do business. More on that in a moment. But first, let us share a brief overview of Mayflower.

We know the clock is ticking on the MyFamily implosion, and that your precious data is at risk of being lost. Building the proper toolset to safely handle the massive amounts of data on each site isn’t a task for the weak-kneed (thankfully our team bears many well-built shanks). Knowing that this type of tool could easily take months or even years to build properly, and knowing that the luxury of time was not on our side, we chose door number three and worked around the clock to get this tool ready for you while there’s still time for it to make a difference. We’re proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish, and we think you’ll be very happy with the work we’ve done.

But the fact still remains: There isn’t much time. From the outset, we made the decision that we’d all feel better about things if we launched our migration tool like a Saturn V rocket: in stages. This allows us to capture the data from as many sites as possible, while allowing us the time to focus on building the full tool properly. It’s a win-win for everybody. Here’s how the stages will work:

Stage 1 – Mayflower, MyFamily.com Data Export: The first stage of our migration tool — the data export from MyFamily.com — is now complete. This means you can initiate a full export today, and in doing so you will be able to capture the data that would otherwise be lost, namely news, conversations, history, recipes, files, and more.

Stages 2 & 3 – Data Conversion and Import: These stages will be released shortly (mid to end July), and will enable the integration of the data directly into your Spokt Hub. Photos, News, History, Threaded Conversations, and more will be placed safely into your hub for safe-keeping and continued access. These stages will complete your MyFamily data migration process.

Stage 4 – Harbor™, Personal Data Downloads: This is the other half of our Mayflower announcement that we’re most excited about: Harbor™, personal data downloads. Many of you have felt harmed in the sudden shutdown of MyFamily, and as such may have a hard time trusting your beloved memories to another company. That’s why today we’re announcing that Spokt will employ an entirely new Open Data Model. Later this year we will release a new site feature called Harbor which will allow you to download your data to your own hard drive. That’s right. Finally, you can control your data. We hope to be around for many years, even decades to come. But if this event has taught us anything, it’s the fact that your data is too precious to blindly hand off to a third-party. Soon, you’ll be able to back up your data your way. We are excited that this will make us more accountable to you, our customer, as we compete for your trust.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to the official Mayflower landing page, read more about it, and start your data export today before it’s too late!

223 thoughts on “Introducing Mayflower – The Official MyFamily.com to Spokt Migration Tool”

  1. DougC says:

    At the top of this blog, you describe the 4 stages of Mayflower development and integration into Spokt.com. It says that Recipes will be included in the Stage 1 Export, but doesn’t describe how/where Recipes will be viewed after Stage 2 & 3 (Data Conversion and Import)are comnplete. Will you have a new “category”/feature in Spokt for Recipes, or ?
    Thanks
    DougC

    1. RJ says:

      Hi Doug,

      No official word yet on where recipes will show up, but they will be captured and imported into Hubs, I can tell you that much today. Our search function is very robust (as other members have mentioned), and I do know we’ve been hearing word of a tagging (or similar) feature. Hang tight – we’re getting close!

  2. Lee Bennett says:

    We’re very happy with Spokt, and have created 3 hubs, so far. One is already very active, and I’ve invited everyone who had signed in to MyFamily over the last 90 days. Gradually, I’ll go through others who’ve participated in the past and send invites to them. On another site, there seems to be an anomaly where people are not getting their invitations. People who would certainly respond haven’t. I’ve sent two or three re-invites. Dan was working on it, but has gone silent (now I know he’s on vacation).

    I too would like to see something like MyFamily’s banner header that can give individuality to our hubs. I liked to use a seasonal banner, which gave the site a festive look. Someone else suggested using the space now occupied by the “Mayflower” announcement, as a kind of “Hub Avatar”, and that’s another alternative.

    Good work, Spokt folks!

    1. RJ says:

      Thanks for the encouraging words, Lee. Hopefully the suggestions we sent you have helped. Have a great week!

  3. Jim Keeley says:

    Ok, some members on our site are saying I am wrong about 69 dollars per site. They say it is 89 dollars per member. Is there anything that will clearly show me what I just paid for. Thanks

    1. Bob Shalvoy says:

      I paid $69 for the migration and $29 for the yearly subscription.

    2. RJ says:

      Hi Jim,

      You are correct, your members are mistaken. A single Spokt Hub costs a flat $29/year and allows unlimited members. A Mayflower migration costs $69 per MyFamily site, and this is a one-time fee charged to whoever initiates the migration. The migration gathers EVERY user’s data from the MyFamily site, and not merely the data for the user who initiates the transfer.

      In essence, you can move every member’s content from your MyFamily site over to Spokt and pay $69 + $29 for the first year, and $29 for each year thereafter.

      I hope this helps!
      RJ

  4. Bob Shalvoy says:

    ^ My payment was for the entire MyFamily site and was not per member.

  5. Jim Keeley says:

    Thanks rj. I think you should post that info so all can see. I know of other sites not trying you guys because the think it is zzz69 per member. It is that last sentence about a person moving their stuff to a new hub. You could be losing customer because of it.

    Jim k

    1. Jim, see the first two questions on the FAQ page, for your answers.

    2. RJ says:

      Thanks, Jim. If you can help spread the word, that would be most appreciated. We’re fully focused on capturing people’s data and responding to any support requests. We’re tired, but love seeing how many people we’re having the opportunity to help!

  6. Jim Keeley says:

    You guys and girls, are not promoting this product the way it should. The HOOK should be:

    Migrate to spokt

    For less than 100 dollars blah blah blah

    You get what I mean…..I know of a number of myfamily sites that would jump on it

    Jim k

  7. Jim Keeley says:

    Buried in the FAQ is not the place for a HOOK. Should be on your home page. Just trying to help.

    Jim k

  8. Jim Keeley says:

    Some of our members forgot myfamily username, is that going to be a problem?

    1. RJ says:

      Jim,

      Members can use either username or email address for the login field.

      Also, if they click the “Forgot Password” link, they’ll be sent an email that lists their username as well (they can ignore the email otherwise, and won’t be required to reset their password if they only needed their username).

  9. Bob singer says:

    I would like to join the new site. I’m not sure what I have to do. Or do you send me an email? If that’s it could you please send me an invite. Thanks. Bob singer

    1. RJ says:

      Hi Bob. If you’d like to create your own private Hub on Spokt where you can invite other members, you can do so by following the link I’ve posted below:

      http://spokt.com/signup

      Please let us know if you need anything else. You can also contact us through our contact form at http://spokt.com/contact

  10. Jim Keeley says:

    What I meant RJ. When trying to match the old username to the new username, for the migration, will it be a problem. If they don’t remember the my family username? Just trying to prepare for this migration that all my members are anxiously waiting for.
    Was in data processing for over 50 years and understand what you’re going through. Hanian there.

    Thanks Jim k

    1. RJ says:

      Hi Jim,

      I am not sure on the exact workings of the import process, but I’m very confident that the engineers are finalizing a solution that will make this process very smooth for you.

  11. Velma Silva says:

    I’m a little confused on if I should start inviting our members now or wait when Mayflower actually adds the files into my Spokt hub? I started to invite a handful of members and some have come in. They are way too many to do them individually, for we have a multiple classes-High School Members.
    Also I have the option to migrate a second website but would like to integrate into the one i’ve already opened in Spokt. Can that be done Once I pay for the 2nd Mayflower export of $69? Or would I have to open a 2nd Hub for that? My 1st one is in the queued – export stage now.
    Thanks for making this happen for us.

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Velma, it’s up to you if you want to invite your members to Spokt before. If you have a lot you might as well wait and we’ll take care of it for you. Each export costs $69. If you wish to import them into one Hub you are free to do it and pay the $29 for the single hub annually. All the content and members from both sites will be in the one hub and if that works for you we have no problem with it.

  12. Kathy says:

    Any idea when version two will be ready for migration?

    1. RJ says:

      Hi Kathy,

      We’ve chatted with you through our support channel, but for the sake of others we’ll answer you here as well. 😉 We’re preparing to roll out 1.0 imports this week, then we’ll be squarely focused on 2.0 migrations. Stay tuned to the blog, and as soon as we are ready to accept 2.0 imports we’ll make an official announcement there. Thanks!

  13. Velma Silva says:

    Will there be a place to put a permanent cover photo on the Hub? I’ve noticed that the only photo you see is the newest one that has been uploaded. Also, the photos don’t show the explanation of the photo (wording the user added to the top of the photo) unless you click on the photo.

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Velma,

      Keep posting and you’ll see a nice collage instead of the most recent. We are also thinking of ways to improve the hub home.

  14. Nancy Bryant says:

    Check Mayflower Status. After days of it saying Export Complete, next step Process data, today it’s back to saying Queued, next step Export. What’s happening?

    1. RJ says:

      Hi Nancy,

      Sorry for the confusion. Some Mayflower customers may see their status temporarily change this week. We are currently upgrading our Mayflower server group in preparation for upcoming Stage 2 and Stage 3 release, and all of migrations with “Export Complete” status will be showing “Verifying Export” shortly.

      RJ

  15. Nancy Bryant says:

    Some of our My Family members are not very computer savvy and our having problems with the Invitation screen. I think the problem is that some of the information is pre-filled for them (email address, first and last names) while others are pre-filled with examples ( user name and password) I think in this case it would be better to leave the latter two blank and perhaps reorder so that the two that need to be filled in are at the end. Also, it’s confusing to also have a place to put password in the second column. I know that’s for people who already have joined but that’s not completely clear. It says – if you have a user name, enter password here. I think they think you mean their My Family user name which they already have.. I spent many years designing ATM screens and know it’s critical to be very clear when designing screen to be used by many people. I still have a couple of people who have not been able to sign up in spite of many tries and many emails from me!

  16. I to am l;ooking for ways to use a calender and event tool/page.
    I have been building our HUB that combines 2 MYFamily sites. A number of family members are contantly on Me about a calendar/events posting tool.
    Very much looking forward to the inclusion of these features.

    I and My HUB Members want to Thank You for establishing this alternative to MYFamily.
    As Larry said above Calendar is extremely important tool.
    Bill Henning

    1. RJ says:

      Hello William. Thank you for your suggestions. We have announced that we will be adding a calendar feature to Hubs, though currently our top priority as I’m sure you’re aware is Mayflower migrations. Once we have the import process and 2.0 migrations well underway, we’ll be putting additional resources on completing the features we’ve publicly committed to.

      Thanks again!
      RJ

  17. LV says:

    Like Kathy on 7/21, I am anxiously awaiting Mayflower tool for migrating My Family 2.0 version. Any estimated date?

    1. RJ says:

      Hi LV,

      We are moving full-throttle to deliver imports this week. Keep your eye on the blog for the official announcement. Thanks!

    2. LV says:

      Thanks for the positive news on version 2.0 migration. You all have some exciting plans for the future so I am excited to get My Family data imported to site. Thank you all!

  18. Velma Silva says:

    Is there a way that as an administrator we can word the Invitation ourselves? Seems like a lot of our members are confused with the invitation put out by SPOKT. Some even say, I think I accepted, but they are not in.

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Velma, we are actually working on that!

    2. Joy says:

      Velma, if you click on “Having Trouble?” next to the person’s name, it will give you a link that you can send manually.

  19. mary says:

    Mayflower shows STATUS processing complete and NEXT STEP import. What is happening? Am I suppose to import? Sorry, I’m confused.

    1. Jim Keeley says:

      Same as Mary. I guess we are waiting for an email, for further instructions.

    2. Velma Silva says:

      Mary, the way I understand it, we do nothing. When they are ready–Mayflower tool will automatically bring it into our hub! I was told possibly by end of July it would happen. Mine also says (Processing: Complete/Next Step: Import). Shouldn’t be long!

    3. Dan says:

      Hi Velma, yes we started downloading your data from MyFamily.com the minute you made your purchase and at the end of July we finished the last part of the code to import the sites into Spokt hubs. Many have imported their sites already and many, many more will later this week!

    4. Is there any way I can upload a picture. Then I could show you what you will see when then migration is complete.

      The STATUS will show “MIGRATION COMPLETE”

      The NEXT STEP will show “ENJOY SPOKT!”

      BEFORE that happens, at some point, you will see the IMPORT button and all you have to do is click on it. The program will do all the rest for you.

      IT IS REALLY THAT SIMPLE!

    5. RJ says:

      Hi Mary. Thanks for the question.

      We are preparing to roll out the final imports this week. We’ll need a few details to process your final import. We will let you know once we’re ready to import your site so you don’t miss it. Thanks for your patience as we finalize your import!

  20. RonR says:

    Hi RJ.. Our site is in the same stages as Mary’s. We are assuming “processing complete” means Stage 1 is complete and we are waiting for stage 2-3 to apply. That our assumption of course. Can you better explain?

    1. RJ says:

      Hi Ron. You’re correct – your site is prepped and ready for import. Once we begin importing you’ll start to see the content show up directly in your Hub. We appreciate your patience in the meantime as we get the final pieces in place to make this happen smoothly for you.

      Have a great week!
      RJ

  21. Can I import my site from Family with photos and everything yet?

    1. RJ says:

      Hello Beverly. We are finalizing the import process for your site, and should have it finished shortly. We’ll be notifying you soon to let you know how to initiate the final import.

      Thanks!
      RJ

  22. Gary Smith says:

    I’d imagine that the unfortunate choice of the term ‘import’ obscured their intended news that they are ready to ‘send’ the gathered data into your Hub.

    1. Stevej says:

      I do agree with you, Gary although, being English I’m not so sure about the awe, more a case of ‘looking forward to it’!

      Having said that our position is, that faced with being unceremoniously thrown out of MyFamily after 15 years, the finding of an viable alternative was exceptional but being also able to carry forward our data (in whatever form that takes), is a huge and unexpected bonus.

      We appreciate the degree of difficulty you have in the data transformation from one system to another due to both being built on different principles, so I’m sure you will let us know as and when there is something to say!

  23. BillR says:

    It would be nice to see a demo site with sample imported data from a MyFamily 1.0 site, once the import portion is working, just so we can get an idea of how Mayflower will organize and make the data available. Any chance of that happening?

    1. RJ says:

      Thanks for the suggestion Bill. I’ll pass that along to our product team to see if there’s a way to navigate around the privacy and technical issues.

  24. I would really like to see a sample page before I sign up for spokt. My whole family group really loved MyFamily1.0 and did not want it to change and are very disheartened that it is closing. I think one of my administrators said we had been members for 17 years.

    1. RJ says:

      Hi Connie,

      Have you tried the Demo Hub? It doesn’t have a lot of content, but you should be able to see enough to get an idea of Spokt’s basic functionality. Of course, we also handle the safe migration of all of your data from MyFamily, so those many years of posts and memories will be preserved. Let us know if you have any questions. You can contact the support team directly at http://spokt.com/contact

      Thanks!
      RJ

    2. Captgrail says:

      The Demo hub is NOT a good example. It’s content is 7 years old and has nothing to do with genealogy. What is really needed is an example of a migrated site. That is what people are looking for. You guys are missing out on subscribers in my opinion because of this unknown. Even screen shots of a migrated site would be more helpful. If you read your comments another user has even offered to share their site – you should give her a rebate on the cost of her migration!

    3. Dan says:

      Hi Captgrail,
      How long until the demo hub contents are more genealogical? 50 years? 100 years? Just kidding! Seriously we are proud of our 7 year old demo hub. We’ve had a great 7 years, lots of happy users and lots of great memories. We built Spokt to be a family communications website like MyFamily.com was. If people choose to post genealogical content that’s wonderful. Do you have a MyFamily.com site that you’d be willing to invite us to in order to see how you use it? Use our contact form: http://spokt.com/contact if you’d like to get in touch with us.

    4. Gary Smith says:

      If I may barge in to offer my MyFamily site as an example of combining family happenings both today (hey, cute baby!)and centuries ago (“Gary’s 8th great grandparents were Quakers, arriving in the Fall of 1677 on the ship’Kent’ just as Charles II was happy to get rid of dissenters, like the Quakers”). We included birthdays of both the living and the dead; some long dead, and celebrated with postings events in the past that threw light on our families’ collective history. The link is: http://tinyurl.com/d3zpryx
      Cheers, Gary Smith (now I’m starting to worry)

    5. Dan says:

      Hi Gary, You have an import in progress, right? When it finishes please let us all know how it looks.

    6. Gary Smith says:

      I just read the arrival announcement and gave my OK; immediately all my pictures from the defunct site were there! Wow! I’ll reply later about my take on the newly inhabited Hub. And, my Thanks to the Great, Creative, Over-worked Crew! — Gary Smith in Berkeley

    7. Dan says:

      Hooray Gary!

      Thanks for sharing your successful import with the blog!

    8. Ken says:

      Just received my Import in my Hub. Great work in a lot less time than I anticipated. Great work and many, many thanks to all the hard work that went into this effort. I could never have copied all the information by myself.

    9. Spencer Wulwick says:

      Connie –

      Don’t be disheartened – Joining up with Spokt is the right thing to do. They already have many of the same features and they are working on adding more.

      The BEST part is that unlike myfamily.CON, they are very responsive and eager to provide their customers what they want.

      The VERY BEST of all of this is that they offer an opportunity at an extremely low price (a one-time fee of $69.00 for everyone and everything on your site) – TO SAVE AND ENABLE you to IMPORT – very easily – everything you have on your current myfamily.CON account. Until I found them, the cheapest price I found to have someone do it was $8,000.00 and when I called and left a message, they didn’t even bother to call me back.

      If you have any questions about my comments or experience with them, please feel free to email me at spencer@mvmem.com or just pick up the phone and call me at (954) 900-2994.

      Best of luck.

  25. Jim Keeley says:

    Anybody see an actual import? I am in the queue, wonder how long it will be?

    Jim k

    1. RonR says:

      We have not Jim. However, we would much prefer to have everything well in order rather than meet a deadline and it’s an unrecoverable mess.

  26. Ken says:

    I’m getting concerned about the import process as I thought we would play a role in where the data might land within the SPOKT family hub. Very little communication leads to a lot of confusion and bad feelings. An update of status would be most helpful right now. Still feel good that our data will be saved but July 31st is almost over.

    1. Patti McCreight says:

      My thoughts exactly.

  27. Gary Smith says:

    In reference to the “Anybody see an actual import?” query, I’d suggest, if I may, that there may be hundreds of ex-patriot MyFamilians who’ve signed up for the transfer and are waiting in queue for their turn at bat. SPOKT has taken on a mighty task, and I’m just waiting in awe.

  28. Beverly says:

    How do I know that you are processing my web page? I am not sure if I ever hit the right button to make it import into your site?

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Beverly,

      I checked your status and it looks like you did everything correctly. Currently your site is in the Import Queue. This link should tell your status at any time: http://spokt.com/mayflower/migrations.

  29. RonR says:

    It’s August 3rd. Have we been SPOOKED by SPOKT? We agree with you Ken regarding the lack of communication.. The natives are getting restless.

    1. Gary Smith says:

      I’m satisfied with the regularity and content of SPOKT messages I receive. I myself have found no reason to complain, considering the probability that SPOKT has a long, long list of disenfranchised Ancestry clients in the homestretch queue. — Cheers

    2. Spencer Wulwick says:

      I’m someone who has been waiting to see something with my own eyes – and guess what – I HAVE NOW SEEN SOMETHING WITH MY OWN EYES. I was absolutely flabbergasted. I know that you will be too. They have done a FANTASTIC job in preserving for me my entire myfamily.CON website. My information, photos WITH ALL MY DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS AND COMMENTS, news items, etc. etc. is now safely preserved in my hub spoke.

      I know that they are making a few “tweaks” to get it perfect . . . and that’s a great sign of professionalism and concern for each and every one of YOU. They are not striving for 98 or 99 percent perfection. They are striving for 100% and all I can say is BRAVO!!

      Please remember that when I was seeking to have this information preserved on my own, I was quoted between 40 & 50 THOUSAND dollars and the cheapest price I was quoted was $8,000.00. Yet, when I called the guy back (who I found through the son of a very close friend of mine – he didn’t even call me back.

      Now is the time to give them a little “breathing” space because they are working diligently to give you a product that leaves no room for complaint.

      As soon as they work out the “tweaks” and are satisfied with what they are ready to give each and every one of you, I will invite you to my hub so you can see the phenomenal job they have done at the incredibly low – low price of $69.00. Now is the time for celebration and all it takes is a little more patience.

      Anyone still having questions is welcome to call me at (954) 900-2994. In a world that has gotten selfish and greedy these people are demonstrating the best behavior and a refreshing demonstration of humanity and consideration for others. Again – BRAVO!!!!!

  30. Spencer Wulwick says:

    I would like to add to my previous comments that I even had an unexpected surprise. The “search” option in myfamily.con – with regard to all items – was limited to the TITLE section of news, photos, etc.

    So I was absolutely astonished when I did a search for a particular first or last name – I found in SPOKE about 7 or 8 ADDIITONAL PHOTOS that didn’t come up in myfamily.con. Apparently, they (Spokt) search through every single word in the entire site.

    This was a very pleasant and unexpected BONUS that I am thrilled to have.

  31. Nancy Bryant says:

    I want to second Spencer’s comments as I too have seen the results with my own eyes. I understand how those of you who are still waiting are getting impatient and worried. I’m sure I would be too. But I want to reassure everyone that we made the right choice when we chose Spokt. They have been incredible in their support, in their attention to detail and in ensuring that ALL of our data and photos are saved. I’m sure you too will be very happy! I do know that there were a few glitches at first as is to be expected in an undertaking like this. But those were corrected very quickly so that right now I do believe my Hub is almost perfect. If anyone is interested in taking a look at my Hub please email me at nancy_bryant@yahoo.com and I’ll be glad to invite you to my Hub so you can take a look. I want to do everything I can to support these guys right now because what they are doing is so awesome and so rare in this day and age Please be patient with them for just a little while longer,

  32. Barbara Hanes Franklin says:

    I will be doing the “migrating” through Mayflower this Friday when I sign up for the SPOKT site to export from myfamily.com. ***In the meantime, I have a question…. What about the family trees we created in myfamily.com…. can they be exported to the Spokt site?

    Thank you in advance for your answers 🙂

    Barbara

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Barbara,
      How have you been uploading family trees to MyFamily.com? Are the in the actually MyFamily.com website in one of the content sections (like File Cabinent) or is it at tree.ancestry.com?
      We transfer over all content that is part of MyFamily.com but do not transfer information from other sites like Ancestry.com.

    2. Barbara Hanes Franklin says:

      Thank you, Dan, for your prompt and friendly reply. The tree was created in family.com in a link provided by ancestry. Now the tree has been exported to ancestry (by ancestry). There was no choice in the matter. I now am left with 11 years of research in the tree and do not know how to save it.

      Warmly,

      Barbara Franklin

    3. Dan says:

      Hi Barbara, you are welcome to attach the tree file to a news post. Others will be able to download it. I have never used the ancestry tree application so I don’t know what else it did. Spokt does not have any features that allow you to edit a family tree from within the site.

    4. Barbara Hanes Franklin says:

      Again, Thank you very much for replying. I have another question. You are only at 1.0; thereby, how much is that? I am currently deleting alot of unrelated stuff on the myfamily site before I do the Mayflower migration. On the myfamily site I am currently using 40% of 1GB. Is that too much to export?

      Sincerely,
      Barbara Hanes Franklin

    5. Dan says:

      Hi Barbara, That is not too much to Export. We’ve exported sites that are over 10GB in size and we could do much larger.

    6. Barbara Hanes Franklin says:

      Thank you!!!! 🙂

      ~Barbara

    7. Nancy Bryant says:

      Hi Barbara, Ancestry did this to all trees created on My Family a couple of years ago. You can transfer an Ancestry online tree to FamilyTreeMaker and save it in your own computer but you have to purchase FamilyTreeMaker (from Ancestry) to do it.

    8. Barbara Hanes Franklin says:

      Thank you, Nancy. I will check that out. Thankyou for taking th etime to help me :::)))… ~B

  33. Mary Havens says:

    I received the email and have the status “migration complete” but nothing has changed on my site. Another member posted ” immediately all my pictures from the defunct site were there”. Thanks for all you hand holding.

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Mary, please click the link in the email (http://spokt.com/mayflower/migrations) You’ll see a button on that screen that says “Finalize Your Import Now” It’ll take you through the matching process and then you’ll see start seeing your content.

    2. mary says:

      Thank you, it looks wonderful but there is a lot to look through. What a relief to have it all saved. One more question (yea right) do all the members received an email that the migration is complete. I don’t see a way for me to send out a email from Spokt.

      Mary

    3. mary says:

      Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem. All the MyFamily photos only show S9 in the block and no photo. Breath, Mary, Breath.

    4. Dan says:

      Hi Mary, please don’t scream. We’ll take care of you! You know that, right?

    5. mary says:

      Yes, I trust Spokt. I worked customer support and in my experience yours is the best.

  34. BetsyA says:

    I am looking at moving over. One question I have is do you have a calendar function that will notify members of birthday and anniversaries and when new material has been posted? I know for the younger members of our family they like knowing that grandma’s birthday is coming up even if they do not go to the site often. It is important to me that after 13+ years I will be able to keep attracting all the generations. Thank you.

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Betsy, we do not currently have a calendar but plan to begin work on that feature later this year. Users can choose to receive email notifications for new content!

    2. BetsyA says:

      Follow up question is that with the migration you are not bringing over the calendar? I have about 100 family members with their addresses, birthdays, anniversaries and who are related too. What features is it that your site offers?

    3. Dan says:

      Betsy, we bring over the members and birthdays but not other calendar items.

    4. BetsyA says:

      That includes addresses?

  35. reyz says:

    I noticed that the embedded photos (from flikr) have different aspect after the migration. The height size have increased considerably.

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Reyz,
      Can you send a link of an example using: http://spokt.com/contact – We’ll take a look and see what we can do to help you out.

  36. Chief Scribe says:

    We ordered three sites migrated at once on August 5.

    One site came in a few hours ago with a notice and then has loaded most or many of the posts. However photos still seem all to be missing the poster (a little deal), the date (a littler matter) and the Description (critical for identifying what the poster, whoever that now unknown person, was claiming as to name and source and all other kinds of identification.

    I also now have members named John R.I.P. and I have no cousins with such a strange jibberish surname. For unknown reason my coding of the full name with a few extras including that non-surname and the years above the ground for each now-deceased person.

    It is a bit horrifying to see R.I.P. as a family surname and yet neither I an administrator nor the owner can seem to be able to give back our now departed members their identities.

    All this being said, I had a nice call from R.J. on a prior migration and R.J. seemed to echo Dan that problems would be solved. R.J. knew just how many of my MyFamily site posts were yet to be seen at my hub. R.J. indicated that the problem was known and it was being worked upon. I provided R.J. with one of the pages that was missing, there is only three dozen or less in thousands of items captured, and its address. R.J. believes that the migrated database actually has the data missing and it is being worked on.

    So far I can have no complaints for as a former programmer I know the problem of debugging on the run and will recommend the migration tool as I know most all of the problems will be solved by Dan’s IT team before year’s end (at least I hope and know it is possible).

    There will be more little flaws showing up and I will report them on a contact form during the first 7 days just as I did with R.J. the other night. Some may not appear during the first week, but to be curet, some must be found while the sites are still open and ample time is also left.

    Still I believe Ancestry.com would be well served to keep the sites open an extra month as our MyFamily 1.0 has been failing often, and yet not seen, as the front door to us and the new ones is always working and that is all that is measured.

    Any of us needing more time should be at their door and on their 800 lines, not MyFamily which is dead, but Ancestry.com’s nice customer service folk, and their managers and the managers of their managers, and…

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Chief, we’ll get the name issue nailed down. We didn’t foresee people putting suffixes into the name fields but have no problem going back over our code to come up with a solution.

    2. Chief Scribe says:

      Dan,

      Your group at your well-established site is proceeding at all due speed and has prevented Ancestry.com from wiping all of us off the face of the earth as working groups. I am sure most all of us appreciate your alacrity in meeting the time constraints of Ancestry.com and the limited, if any, cooperation of that mean monstrous monopolistic megalith. Your site has enough weight that I suggest if need be due to erratic expected up and down times in September to demand, for your clientele, an extension if it begins to appear to be necessary. You can count me and my membership, although moved, fully prepared to have our militant members go public for months and years in the future to expose a failure. We know that in June Ancestry.com reduced our number of servers and now we crash and do not crash their other sites. We crash as they at MyFamily puppet of Ancestry.com had already cut our servers and usage by their bad acts and thus appear to need less bandwidth than is our true size, particularly at this time of emigration.

      Your migration tool is substantially moving the pages and I am told the migration data base may be able to resolve each of the other posting problems, so I only worry that maybe something was left behind.
      I am impressed by your three choices of small, smaller and smallest photos, but only wonder when I press download original to get the true full photo, is the displayed image actually at the site (which it must be logically but linguistically it sounds like it is being brought in from some outside database)? Let all be aware that only “download original” will display a scan at a full sized form necessary for more than a few of my photos to be read (and many need to be read as they are maps or charts or other representations with words only legible when at full sized).

      I am highly pleased and hope you get all the clientele you can serve.

      I know you will strive to keep us pleased and Spokt has done so, so far.

      Little details can be overlooked. One thing I have now noted is that Description at Photo captures less of the code in that box than does a Post at say History, losing some of the posted code. I would have thought it would take some effort to leave stuff out in Photos that is not left out usually in History but it seems to be consistent. So far it is mainly the YouTube video codes, which appear usually at History and News, now just News here (which is acceptable) but never so far at Photos. Almost every Photo scan I had posted would have a video tangentially, or closer, related to the post.

      And as to suffixes and multiple first names being overlooked, but what did you do with all the Dutch folks whose surnames are such as Van Gelder, Van den abele and the old Norman English descendants such as the St. James, St. John and those thousands of others with two or three separate words forming the full surname.

      But it is the deceased who were honored and now forgotten as their names which could be three names followed by a birth and death date after the surname followed by a R.I.P. just to alert the reader now read abjectly:

      Thus if you let the Administrators change Members names, or perhaps less problematically just re-run the Members part of the sub-routine and download whatever shows in the captured members name, perhaps blindly with the first word and any prefix as the first name and the rest as the last name.

      Tom R.I.P. with no remembrance of even a surname, nor the dates of birth and death as well, is quite disturbing as it can not be corrected by us.

      The others can correct it if they join, but these folks are not to be here again in correcting form as we must correct all those who would forget.

    3. Dan says:

      Hi Chief, we’re working on a solution but it is going to take some time.

  37. Eleanor Pope says:

    I would like to have Kelley and Associated Families website and Yadon and Associated Families Website completely reestablished by using spokt. I understand there is a fee of $69.00 each to have these sites reestablished. What is the first thing I must do to get the ball rolling?
    I appreciate your efforts.
    Thanks,
    Eleanor Pope

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Eleanor,
      1. Sign up & Set up your hub
      2. Initiate your mayflower migration
      3. Sit back and relax while we do all the work.

      Start here:
      http://spokt.com/mayflower/myfamily-migration-export-tool

  38. Beverly says:

    I want to commend you on the wonderful job you ALL did transferring my Web page over to your site. Some of my members even mentioned that it was so easy and liked posting on it. Thanks again!
    I have a question. How can I update E mail addresses and new address changes on this site?

  39. Gail says:

    I would like to see some samples of the sites at Mayflower. I looked at Familylobby and read comments about their sites however they are missing some key components that I had hoped for.

    Did I miss something to click on to see samples? or a tour?

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Gail, look for a blog post later this week with some screenshots!

  40. Suzanne says:

    I sent an email a few days ago and have received no reply, so I’m trying again here. I recently completed (I thought) migration of our myfamily site to spokt.com. When I went to our hub, I saw that there is nothing more recent than 2008, though it should have included all the years since then. I suspect there was a “hiccup” in the connection. What can be done? Should we repeat the process? Help!

    (For the record, I think you have undertaken a Herculean task and by most accounts are doing a terrific job!)

    1. Suzanne says:

      um…oops… It appears to be user error on my part, although it presents a new issue I’d like some help with. A few years ago myfamily.com created a new version (2.0) to which we all had the option of converting. I did that, but held onto the original 1.0 website as well for reference. The urls are very similar and I apparently submitted the wrong one for migration.

      Is there anything I can do at this point to migrate the more recent site instead, or do I have to pay another $69? 🙁

  41. Ron Reynolds says:

    We have discovered several photos (jpg) have failed to migrate from the MF File Cabinet. The postings made it but the jpg display the big black disclaimer. What should we do at this point, download the jpgs from MF, upload thme to spokt, copy and paste the old postings with them? … Or, sit back and wait for your developers to repair the problem? We are concerned the problems will not get fixed before MF pulls the plug. We no longer have these jpg masters.

    Your help is appreciated…
    RR

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Ron,

      Does the graphic say “downloading image” or “image missing”? Please contact support with links to the posts and they’ll be able to help you. http://spokt.com/contact – it may take a few days but we’ll get your images!

  42. Mark Scott says:

    Does the Mayflower tool transfer user / member information as well?
    That is, does it copy user names, addresses, etc. etc. from the MyFamily Member directory?

    Also, I’ve just found your site & the Mayflower transfer service. We have a MyFamily 1.0 site, is there still time to do the transfer before MyFamily goes away?
    Thanks,
    Mark

    1. Dan says:

      Hi Mark,

      Glad you found us: Yes and Yes! We do transfer the user information in addition to the site content. There is still time to transfer. We’ve gotten the 1.0 process streamlined quite well, expect to wait just a few days while we transfer your data.

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