Discover, Organize, and Share Your Family History

About Ben+

Father and husband. Family historian. Founder, Things to Teach, Inc. Creator, GenealogyTools.com, FreeObituariesFound.org, and Lineascope.com.

Posts by Ben

Merging Duplicate Facts in Family Tree Maker 2012

Context Menu Showing Merge Duplicate Facts OptionOccasionally in Family Tree Maker 2012 you’re going to end up with duplicate facts. Actually, it will happen with any genealogy software; it’s not a situation peculiar to FTM.

What You Need to Know

Duplicate facts can appear up in your file by mistake and perhaps even from problems with TreeSync. I don’t have any hard evidence of that, I simply know from my experience with computers and programming that it’s possible. It doesn’t really matter why the duplicates are in there anyway. If you want them gone Family Tree Maker can help you merge them.[1]

[Read more...]

Family Tree Maker 2012 Updated

Ancestry released an update to Family Tree Maker 2012 today. Here’s a rundown of what’s in it for you.

Of highest importance if you’re having problems synching your FTM file with your Ancestry member tree (AMT), is TreeSync stability improvements. Those come with performance improvements too according to the release notes.

The update include bug fixes and improvements in several areas:

  • Added support for media, notes, and sources during file merges
  • Improved handling of media during Web merges
  • Bug fixes for tasks, media items, and window resizing issues (on computers running Windows 7)

[Read more...]

Reunion 10 for Mac Hits Amazon.com

You can order Reunion 10on Amazon.com now. Right now there are three sellers. Well, two really. The third has the ridiculous price of $184.50 plus $3.50 shipping!

As with version 9, Leister Productions sells through Amazon at the full retail price, plus $5.00 shipping, for a total of $104.00. Small Dog Electronics[1] is currently offering it at a discount: $89.99, plus $6.99 shipping for a total of $96.98.

Notes

[1] For what it’s worth, Small Dog Electronics is a company I’ve purchased Mac gear through in the past.

Displaying Memo Fields in Family Views

I saw this neat tip on ReunionTalk.com this afternoon and I wanted to share with you.

You can add memo fields to a family view to make them easier to review. Memo fields can be displayed for events and facts. If you use memos extensively like I do, this is going to come in handy.
[Read more...]

Reunion 10.0.1 Update Available

I went looking for an update to Reunion 10 after experiencing repeated crashes when editing source detail fields in notes this morning. Fortunately, there’s a fix in for that problem and many others.

It would be an improvement if there were a visual clue that an update is available. It wouldn’t have to be a dialog that pops up upon launching the application. It could easily be an icon in the status bar.

There are many bug fixes and issues corrected in this maintenance release so it’s a must have. To do so, click Help -> Check for Updates… in the menu bar and click the link in the resulting dialog box if it finds an update.

Reunion 10 Released

Leister Productions today, released Reunion 10 for Mac. To help you evaluate, upgrade or buy, and make the transition I created a Reunion 10 Review and Guide resource page.

The review and guide tells you what you need to know before you buy or upgrade and what you need to know after you get it. The latter section contains videos that show you how to use some new features and how to do some tasks that have changed in the new version. There are separate articles for those topics as well and they’re linked in the review and guide, near the videos.

There are a ton of new features and changes. The review tells you what version 10 does that version 9 won’t, what version 10 won’t do, how to upgrade your family files, and my recommendation on whether or not to buy or upgrade among many other topics. Here’s the table of contents:

  1. What to Know Before You Buy-A Reunion 10 Review
    • What Reunion 10 Will Do That 9 Won’t
    • Why Not Stay with Version 9?
    • Will It Mess up My Family Files?
    • 5 Things Reunion 10 Won’t Do for You
    • Can I Keep Reunion 9 on My Mac?
    • How Much Does It Cost?
    • Are There Any Discount Codes or Coupons?
    • To Buy or Not to Buy
  2. What to Know After You Buy
    • How to Get the Most Out of Reunion 10
    • How to Upgrade without Messing up Your Family Files
    • When to Delete Reunion 9
    • How to Do What You Used to Do
    • How to Use the New Features

If I’ve missed anything or didn’t answer a question you have please leave me a comment on this article. I created this resource page for you. I want you to find it indispensable. Likewise, if I made any errors or anything is unclear to you, let me know.

I’ll be adding more instructional articles and videos to the site and inserting the videos in the review and guide page, so you may want to bookmark it and definitely share it with colleagues. Sign up for my email list so you won’t miss out. The form is in the sidebar to the right.

There’s a new Reunion 10 tutorial index page so you can find articles about Reunion 10 without sorting through the version 9 articles. That’s important because with the new user interface in version 10, the initial steps to many tasks have changed. The guide tells you how to find features you use in version 9, like listing sources. You can combine that knowledge with the version 9 videos to figure out to get the job done until I update the videos. The Reunion 9 tutorial index page will remain in place so you can quickly find help when you need it.

Please share your thoughts and questions about Reunion 10 in the comments below this article. I appreciate your feedback and will use it to choose and prioritize what topics to cover for you.

Finding the Relationship Between Two People with Reunion 10

Have you ever wanted to see just what the relationship is between two people in your Reunion family file? Better yet, how about seeing the connections in a chart?

Reunion 10 let’s you do both with people who are related by blood and those related by marriage. Here’s how to do it: [Read more...]

Correcting Last Name Auto-Completion in Reunion 10

Last name auto-completion in Reunion 10 makes it quick and easy to enter surnames consistently. It’s also common for incorrect names to make their way into the list of last names Reunion 10 uses. You may mistype the name or change a name resulting in a name being in the list, but not in your family file anymore. Either way, you’ll want Reunion to stop suggesting the name.
[Read more...]

Hiding & Revealing the Sidebar in Reunion 10

The sidebar is an important new feature of Reunion 10. It makes lists of information readily available and it can sometimes take up valuable screen space. One of the first things to learn about it is how to hide and display it as desired.

It’s handy because it automatically appears when it’s required, and not displayed.[1] That makes it tricky, since it doesn’t necessarily stay the way you put it.

It’s tricky too because by default, it changes the size of your Reunion 10 window when you hide or reveal it.

[Read more...]

Tree View in Reunion 10

The tree view in Mac genealogy software Reunion 10 replaces the overview window from previous versions. The purpose remains the same. It’s a graphical way to navigate your family tree. It looks sharp and feels natural!