Get Family Tree Maker 2009 for 25% off for a limited time.

Thought I would pass along that you can, for a limited time, get Family Tree Maker 2009 for 25% off the normal, retail price, if you follow the link below...

Minor Family Tree Maker 2009 Update

I just got a message from The Generations Network that they have released a new, minor update for Family Tree Maker 2009. There are a few places where you can get more information and I will list them below. I have already done the update and it was fast and worked fine. Just remember, if you are using Vista, to right click on your mouse when opening FTM and select "Run as Administrator."

1. Ancestry Blog
2. Family Tree Maker (A)
3. Family Tree Maker (B)
   

RootsMagic 4 public beta

I am a little late in getting around to pointing this out but better late than never...

If you have ever wanted to try RootsMagic, now would be the time. They are offering the public a chance to beta test their latest version, RootsMagic 4. The offer is good until the end of March and is totally free. You just download the program, after filling out a brief form, and install it using a temporary registration code they provide to you in an e-mail. At the end of March, the program will stop working but you can use it until then. You can then provide feedback about any issues you find.

I downloaded the program and it was larger than I thought it would be. I think the program was +/- 33 MB and the optional maps were another +/- 68 MB. Compared to Family Tree Maker, 2008/2008 this is still tiny but I was under the impression that it was smaller than that. I would not recommend trying to download the program if you are using dial-up.

Yesterday I briefly played with RootsMagic 4 and, overall, I liked what I saw. I have never used any version of RootsMagic before so it was my first experience. It did look a lot like the Family Tree Maker 2008/2009 interface, which surprised me after all of the complaints. Maybe RootsMagic has looked like this for awhile and FTM copied them...someone will have to educate me on that point.

From what I saw, I was not overly impressed at first. It seems a little too stripped down visulally. I was however very interested with its website creation function. It is somewhat limited but very powerful at the same time. I am going to make a sample site and I will post a link to it, maybe later tonight if I can stay up late and get it done.

Anyway, download the program and let me know what you think. I really cannot give a review at this point because I just started to playing with it. I will weigh in on the subject once I give it more study.

Here is the link for the beta test: Click here for RootsMagic 4 beta

Family Tree Maker 2009 version 18.0.0.305 - Final release errors

So, now that Family Tree Maker 2009 is a final release, I installed the version that is going public...18.0.0.305. There are a lot of fixes in there but I still noticed a few problems, right off the bat. I sent them a little note, a copy of which I am including below. Let me know if you all are having the same problems.

"I am still seeing several errors in 18.0.0.305.

When I go into the "people" screen, "person" tab and add an event...let's say a birth. I start typing the location and the first letter or two will bring up choices from existing places. When I select the correct location of that event from the drop down, it will create a new "place" even though I am selecting an existing place. You end up with a duplicate place (that is exactly the same) over and over again. (See screen shot). It will do this over and over again, every time. You can end up with unlimited duplicates.

There are also lots of problems with in-program books. In one example, I am trying to add photo albums for various people but run into four main problems...

1. If you add enough albums, the names of the album in the left column and the person that the album is about will not match. It is like there is a lag in naming albums and creating them. I will have moved on, adding the fourth or fifth album and it is naming that fourth or fifth album after the person who my second or third album was about. Sometimes it will name album after album after the same person, despite the subject being different for each.
2. After awhile, albums just cease to generate a preview. They are there on the left side but you cannot look at the item in the main preview screen. The "generating" status bar runs its cycle but nothing is actually generated.
3. You cannot actually change the report title in the right column. It will always default back when the report is regenerated. You can save the report but that does not change anything in your book.
4. After creating several albums and trying to generate them various time, I will start to get memory errors. Its like the program is getting bogged down and not clearing out old memory. It never fully crashes but gives warning after warning. My computer is fairly new and does not have problems with memory except with FTM in the book section.
   

One other pet peeve with the program. In an Ahnentafel Report, it will make the statement that a couple had "X" amount of children. It should be stated like the Simple Ahnentafel Report, "children of ___ and ___ were..." The more general approach acknowledges there could be children that you missed, such as those who died in infancy that you do not know about for certain.

Sorry for the large list but these are a few things I have noticed as of late."

Family Tree Maker 2009 Service Pack 1 Available

You may have heard by now that Family Tree Maker 2009 is now as complete as it is going to be. They just released what is being called "Service Pack 1" or version 18.0.0.305. If you have the program, it should prompt you to update automatically when you open it up. However...if you use Vista...you might have to run the program as an administrator to get the update. To do this, right click on your desktop FTM2009 icon and select the "Run as Administrator" function (or something along those lines). That is the only way to give the program permission to install an update when running Vista.

Anyway, I have been working with Family Tree Maker as a beta tester but they made us sign confidentiality agreements this time so I could not share many details. Now the cat is officially out of the bag so I can tell you what I know.

They brought back the book function, at least a semi-functional version. It is better than nothing but needs work. They also added some features to help you standardize your source citations that is kinda nice. There are some extra chart options now, the calendar function is back plus a few other things here and there. Basically, FTM 2009 is almost back to where FTM was at version 16 or so! They have almost fixed all of the ways in which they went wrong.

According to their website, the new features that have been added to Family Tree Maker 2009 are as follows:

• Free Download. Get the guide to these new features written by Official Guide author Tana L. Pedersen. Download Now!
• Extended Family Chart. This chart is bound to become a favorite because of its ability to display every individual in your tree—or just the people you select. Each generation appears on its own horizontal row, making it easy to quickly tell where people fall within your tree. Note: This is not a replacement for the All-in-One chart; the All-in-One will be added in a future release.
• Calendar. The calendar is back! You can create a monthly calendar that displays birthdays and anniversaries included in your tree. Personalize the calendar by choosing which individuals are included and customizing colors.
• Enhancements to Data Entry. The pedigree view has always made it easy to navigate between family members as you’re adding and editing information. But with the new data entry keyboard shortcuts, you can quickly move between family members without even lifting your fingers from the keyboard.
• Source Templates. Take the guesswork out of citing sources with new source templates. Family Tree Maker has created source templates based on the QuickCheck models in Elizabeth Shown Mills’s book Evidence Explained. Can’t figure out how to document the tombstone photo you found at FindaGrave.com? Family Tree Maker has a source template for that—and more.
• Desktop Book-Building Functionality. By popular demand the book-building tool is back. You can create your own family history book complete with charts, reports, photos, personal stories, and an automated table of contents and index.

They are now taking suggestions for the 2010 version. If you have any good, productive suggestions please let me know and I will pass them along to the development team if I agree with you. We cannot ask for the moon at this point, just to keep making small improvements, to bring back old and valuable features and to make the program more stable.

Family Tree Maker 2009 Platinum, Deluxe & Essentials plus Ancestry.com

I finally remembered what I wanted to write about yesterday...Family Tree Maker 2009. I was in Staples the other day and noticed that they had Family Tree Maker 2009 for sale. As a matter of fact, it was on sale. I do not remember the specifics but I think it was like $30 off or something for the Platinum edition.

The thing that caught my eye was the free, 6-month membership to Ancestry.com. In my book, that makes it a pretty good deal, especially with the rebate/discount that the store offered. Again, do not quote me on the exact price, but I think it was about $60 for the program and the six-month membership...a pretty good value after the money off.

I started checking around online and found that there are at least three versions of FTM 2009. They are Platinum, Deluxe and Essentials. There are several difference between the three packages and I will go ahead and list them below. I am taking this part from the product descriptions at Amazon.com:

• Platinum - Includes a six-month subscription to Ancestry.com, interactive training tutorial, The Family Tree Maker Little Book of Answers, a 25% off coupon for Ancestry DNA and a 15% discount on a professionally printed family history book or poster
• Deluxe - Includes three-month subscription to Ancestry.com, interactive training tutorial, The Family Tree Maker Little Book of Answers, a 25% off coupon for Ancestry DNA and a 10% discount on a professionally printed family history book or poster
• Essentials - Includes one-month subscription to Ancestry.com, interactive training tutorial and The Family Tree Maker Little Book of Answers

That seems like a pretty sweet deal in the long run. Family Tree Maker 2009 is sorta pointless if you do not have a membership to Ancestry.com in my view. Maybe that is a bit of an overstatement. You can use FTM 2009 without an Ancestry membership but you would loose a lot of the bells and whistles. It would be like driving a convertible that you could not put the top down.

If you were thinking about buying FTM 2009, now seems to be a good time. I would try going to Staples first and checking to see if the still have the rebate. If not, click the link below and buy it from the Ancestry Store.

Getting rid of all of my paper copies

I have been a little slow in posting over the past week or two. I have been working on a personal genealogy project for the past few months and I have been rolling with it lately. I was looking around my office one day and noticed how many files I had. I literally have hundreds of file folders, filled with copies from deed books or census records. I am extremely neat and organized, everything has its place, but I started thinking about what happens to all of this stuffwhen I die?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized all of these files have a 99% chance of ending up in the trash. My kids might care less about them so I am running a huge risk of wasting all of my efforts...in the long run. I made a bold decision, one that I might regret later, but I am going through with it for better or worse. I am throwing everything away myself and not waiting for them to do it!

I decided to go through each file and scan everything into my computer, either as a JPEG or PDF. I am then sending copies to anybody I know researching that family. There is no sense in being stingy with what I have if it might advance research on that line. I am also making sure that I have entered everything into FTM2008 and that all of my entries are neat and uniform. My goal for years has been to put together a book of all my research and I am finally doing it!

I made the decision to stick with Family Tree Maker 2008 and/or 2009 because it does a great job handling media files and I am adding all of my scans into the program. It is actually quite neat to be able to pull up any document at any time, no matter where I am located. It is really getting me interested in genealogy all over again!

I also made another huge decision...I am dropping everyone except for direct ancestors from my family file. I did the math on it and I have about 350 direct ancestors in my family file. Compare that the around 2,500 people, including all aunts, uncles and cousins. There is no way to really focus on quality with that many people (and I could care less about quantity). I am focusing on the direct ancestors and moving information about their children to the notes section of each ancestor.

I want to focus on preserving the history of my ancestors as opposed to my relatives. This is counter to what most genealogists try to do but I want to actually finish the book project and cannot do it while trying to fit in 2,500 people. I want to go back and look for deeds and stuff from my ancestors that I have neglected to look for in the past. I want to fill in the blanks that I have been too preoccupied with aunts and cousins to do. I also only want to go back about six, maybe seven generations. Anything beyond that tends to get too sketchy for me. I do not operator on theory.

Now do not get me wrong, I am still looking for marriage, death and SS-5 info for aunts and uncles that may give me info on their parents, my ancestors. I just cannot focus on them any more. I am going to get out a first revision of my family history book, with my ancestors only, and then I might go back and do more detailed books on each family surname. I have enough info in my files to write ten books, easily. I just need to shrink my focus to make sure it gets done.

The last big decision I have made is to keep only original documents and photographs. I am then going to donate all of those to a local library or society. I have a lot of old, original documents that would make a great public collection. I would like to work a deal with William and Mary or the Library of Virginia to one day start the "Lett Collection." I have been a collector of old Virginia documents for some time and will have a rather nice collection by the time I retire from the game. I would like to see it go somewhere safe and enduring.

I know I am rambling a little it but I wanted to let you know what is going on in my genealogical world. The genealogy industry has been kinda slow in general this week so I have not had much to pass along either. Have a good weekend!

Family Tree Maker 2009 Ready for Purchase

Family Tree Maker 2009 is apparently ready and available for purchase. I got word from them today that it can now be bought through their store and not only on pre-order from Amazon. I went through the ordering process but I did not actually buy it since I registered 2008 and should get a free upgrade.

I was looking to see if there were any warnings about a delivery delay but I did not see any. I would assume that if you order it today, it would go out within the next few days. I have not heard from anyone who has it yet so let me know if any of you buy it and when it arrives.

If you want to buy the new version, you can find it at Ancestry's site via the link below. If you order now you will get free shipping, at least until that offer runs out.

Family Tree Maker 2009

The Generations Network has released the following statement about their impending release of Family Tree Maker 2009:

"The Family Tree Maker team is pleased to announce the release of Family Tree Maker 2009. We are excited about the new features and user requested tools included in this version.

Over the past year, we have been making patches available that include additional functionality and features that our customers have asked for. In addition, the features included in the 2009 version come primarily from our Family Tree Maker 2008 users, showing us what features should be released next and testing the product to make sure it is working at top efficiency. We had more than 300 beta testers for Family Tree Maker 2009. We appreciate this active and ongoing participation.

Take a look at what’s new since the original release of Family Tree Maker 2008. Features available for the first time in Version 2009 are marked with an asterisk (*).
Genealogy Reports

• Register and Ahnentafel full reports
• Register and Ahnentafel simplified reports*
• Data Errors report*

Charts

• Vertical Pedigree Chart
• Hourglass Chart*
• Horizontal Hourglass Chart*
• Bow Tie Chart*
• 180-Degree Fan Chart*
• Family Tree Chart*

Publishing Functionality

• Book layouts for main charts
• Saved settings in charts/reports
• Saved templates in charts
• Preparer information included in chart footers
• Enhancements to the RTF export
• Ability to show siblings within charts*
• Single-page PDF export from charts*
• Ability to add boxes in charts to a “Marked Box” category and modify box settings for these boxes*

Improved Data Manipulation Tools

• Change Place Name tool
• Find and Replace tool
• Streamlined data entry from any workspace using a full-featured edit person window*
• Ability to set spouse order (Person menu)*
• Ability to order media items for an individual*
• Find Individual tool (Edit menu)*
• Find Duplicate Individuals tool (Edit menu)*
• Ability to update multiple facts at one time (From Manage Facts or Fact options): change fact types, move description to place or place to description, mark as private*
• Insert foreign language characters into text fields*

Improvements within Research Tools

• Automatic simple backup at shutdown
• Ability to ignore hints*
• Option to delete existing facts in individual and Web merge*
• Inclusion of married names, AKAs, and titles in index*

Improvements to Import

• Improved name parsing
• OLE objects (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, RTF) from previous FTM versions*
• Import previously ignored hints lists*

Improvements to Places

• Track and print your ancestors’ migration paths on interactive maps*
• Places toolbar that allows for researching place names not currently in the file and pinpointing places such as libraries, churches, and courthouses*

Improvements to Sources

• Copy and paste source citations

* New in Family Tree Maker 2009

Here’s what’s coming:
In addition, we are currently working on new features that will be available as part of Family Tree Maker 2009—as soon as they become available:

• Book Building
• Better Ancestry Member Tree Integration
• Improved Relationship Calculator
• Source templates based on Evidence Explained by source expert, Elizabeth Shown Mills
• And many others…

Thank you to all of the Family Tree Maker community for their loyalty through the years. We are committed to making Family Tree Maker the best desktop software for doing your family history.

Thank you,

The Family Tree Maker Team"

Family Tree Maker 2009 - Free Upgrade!

If you have a copy of Family Tree Maker 2008 and have not registered it...do so now. According to the Generations Network:

"...we’re giving our loyal Family Tree Maker 2008 customers a free upgrade to 2009. Last year around this time we released Family Tree Maker 2008. There was some initial customer dissatisfaction with the functionality in that release. We heard from customers who felt they didn’t receive what they were expecting. Over the past year, we’ve listened carefully to their feedback and have added many new features in the form of free patches which have been enthusiastically received. Family Tree Maker 2009 has even more features and functions that were not in previous patches...In the next few weeks, Family Tree Maker 2008 registrants will receive an email with a one-time-use coupon that can be redeemed for a free version of Family Tree Maker 2009..."

At least they are trying!

If you did not buy 2009, you can order it here...