Discover, Organize, and Share Your Family History

2012 Holiday Sale on Family Tree Maker Including Upgrades

9 Nov 2012 by 1 Comment

Family Tree Maker 2012 and Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 are once again available at a holiday discount. The sale is scheduled to go through December 12th, 2012. New copies are 25% off and upgrades are discounted 30%.

If you’re interested, but unsure if Family Tree Maker (FTM) is for you check out the buyers guides:

FTM 2012 Buyer’s Guide

FTMM2 Buyer’s Guide

As previously announced, Ancestry is focused on enhancing and fixing the current versions so there will be no new major version this year.

Click here to learn more and buy Family Tree Maker 2012.

Click here to learn more and buy Family Tree Maker for Mac 2.

Ancestry iOS App Version 4.0

17 Aug 2012 by Leave a Comment

Dynamic Family TreeVersion 4.0 of the Ancestry.com companion genealogy app for iOS is available as a free update in the App Store.

The change log states the following:

  • Dynamic family tree that shows more family members.
  • See grandchildren, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews & cousins in your family tree.
  • Ability to change your tree to display direct ancestors only.
  • Purchase monthly memberships via In App Purchase.
  • An updated look and feel that’s both beautiful and functional.

That seems like a good list for a 4.0 version! The dynamic family tree is pictured to the left. Handy buttons at the top enable you to switch on or off the direct ancestors only feature.

Family Tree Maker 2013 Availability

17 Aug 2012 by Leave a Comment

News came from Ancestry.com today that there won’t be a Family Tree Maker 2013. The firm is focused on enhancing the existing version. They’ve already released updates with the following enhancements (listed in their blog announcing the direction):

  • Numerous enhancements to TreeSync so syncing your tree to Ancestry.com is faster and more reliable
  • A new Family View Report that displays a person’s ancestors, spouse, and children together (similar to the Family View in the People workspace)
  • A new Undocumented Facts Report that lists people’s facts that have no source documentation
  • The ability to merge info from multiple versions of the same fact
  • New source templates for the 1940 U.S. census and improved support for city directories
  • Dozens of report enhancements including performance improvements and new options in the relationship chart, family group sheet, Individual Report, Notes Report, Data Errors Report, Outline Descendant Report, Media Item Report, photo albums, Media Usage Report, Documented Facts Report, and calendar

And more enhancements are promised.

[Read more...]

Reunion for Mac 10.0.3 Update Available

10 Jul 2012 by 2 Comments

A new maintenance release is available for Reunion 10. Besides a slew of fixes, this version includes an overhaul of the web search feature.

The choices on the context menu that appears when you select Search the Web on a person button has been rearranged for efficiency. Search Favorites now appears at the top. You can also search custom groups of sites–a feature introduced in this release.

The preference pane for web search received an overhaul to support creation of custom groups as well as editing the same and the favorites group.

Finally, there’s a button on the Web Preferences pane that you can use to update search sites similarly to the way you can check for updates to the whole application.

I updated the original article on this topic, Using Reunion to Search the Web, and re-recorded the video.

Your Source and Citation Information Is In Danger

29 May 2012 by 47 Comments

Today I finished methodically testing which source and citation information reliably survives GEDCOM import and export. It’s not a pretty picture! A mere five of fourteen key GEDCOM tags are safe across the nine leading genealogy software packages I tested.[1] Fortunately, the ones I previously identified as essential to source citations are among them.

Why You Should Care

The ability to move your family history data from one application to another is important. Even if you have no intention of changing software or sharing your research you ought to be concerned. It’s entirely possible that the person or people that inherit your research will choose a different package. They may load your data and probably won’t even know they lost anything in the transfer. Well, that fate needn’t be yours if you know where you can safely store information.

What You Can Do

This research is part of the work I’ve been doing to create the very first GenealogyTools ebook and video course: Practical Citation. After completing the course, you will be able to safely and confidently record sources, citations, and quality in your genealogy software without having to consult a book or quick sheet. Say “goodbye” to uncertainty about citation templates and formats.

Notes

[1] I tested Family Historian 5, Family Tree Maker 2012, Family Tree Maker for Mac 2, GEDitCOM II, Legacy 7.5, MacFamilyTree 6, Reunion 10, RootsMagic 5, and The Master Genealogist 7.

Reunion 10.0.2 Update Available

29 May 2012 by Leave a Comment

The second maintenance update for the new Mac genealogy software Reunion 10, was released today. There are many fixes included. See the release notes for details. Here are the highlights:

  • Get precise coordinates in the geo code place window by moving the pin
  • Find relationships between two people feature now shows multiple blood relationships if they exist
  • Search favorites selection is now at the top of the list of resources when searching the web
  • Additions to the web search resources: Ancestry.com.au, Ancestry.ca, FindMyPast.co.uk, GuildOfOneNameStudies
  • Pressing the left or right arrow key in family view moves to the previous or next marked person
  • Crash fixes
  • Performance improvements
  • Updates to the manual

Family Tree Maker 2012 Updated

18 May 2012 by Leave a Comment

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

17 May 2012 by Leave a Comment

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.

Reunion 10.0.1 Update Available

15 May 2012 by 4 Comments

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

7 May 2012 by 16 Comments

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.

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