I realize that Ancestry allows you to add files to a Gallery for a person on your Ancestry tree.  You can store those files there.  But, the Gallery isn’t a reliable place for storage.  If something happens to your Ancestry tree, then what you have in the Gallery may be lost.

You know I’ve mentioned ForeverⓇ as part of my system to manage my genealogy research.  You may wonder if ForeverⓇ can be used to store a family tree.  First of all I want to make it clear that ForeverⓇ is not a family tree builder.  

For example, you can’t store your GEDCOM there.  But, you can convert it to a PDF format that can be uploaded and stored in a ForeverⓇ digital storage account.  Forever is all about preserving your genealogy- or family history-related digital images and documents, not building your family tree. 

Another thing about Ancestry is that access to your Ancestry account is not forever.  It’s one of those “until death do us part” situations.  As long as you pay for the account subscription, you have access to it.  

Also, video isn’t allowed for storage in your Ancestry account.  Plus, storage is limited.  Photos are compressed.  This means when they’re downloaded from Ancestry, you shouldn’t expect them to be as large in size as you anticipate.

Ancestry access dies when you do.  Access stops when payment stops.  They don’t allow video.  They have limited storage.  They compress photos to take up less space.  As a result, when you download them, photo quality and size are altered.

As for ForeverⓇ, your account is literally forever.  You can store videos in your account and download them to play later.  If you go the premium video storage route, you can play them from your account directly.  You can even share videos with anybody by giving them a link which they don’t have to download. 

As for photo storage, photos aren’t compressed.  When you download photos from your ForeverⓇ account, you can expect full resolution quality.  They’re not compressed.  The size is what you expect. 

One last important fact about ForeverⓇ is you can get 2 gigabytes of free photo storage to start out.  Depending on your photo or image file size, that’s about 400 to 800 photos. 

You can get free ForeverⓇ storage along with a $20 coupon when you open up a new ForeverⓇ account at Forever.com.