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Family Tree Maker for Mac 3 Released, Brings Feature & Price Parity

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It’s been over two years (24 Oct 2011 on Amazon) since Ancestry.com released version 2 of Family Tree Maker (FTM) for Mac. Ancestry.com, and the developer of FTM for both Mac and Windows, Nova Development, spent most of 2013 improving the then-current versions rather than releasing a paid upgrade. I applaud them for their decision, given the many problems with version 2012, especially its TreeSync™ feature, which enabled changes made in FTM trees to be synced with their Ancestry.com counterparts and vice versa. Ancestry.com released the 2014 version of FTM on 10 Sep 2013, but Mac users had to wait a little longer. Like the new Windows version, version 3 for Mac includes enhancements and new features, including an improved TreeSync™, a new Family View, user interface updates, task simplification, and new and enhanced reports. In fact, with a few notable exceptions, the Mac and Windows versions have moved more closely together in terms of feature parity and even price. These improvements address most of the complaints I had in my review of version 2. This review updates my previous review, and I now can recommend FTM for Mac.

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2012 Holiday Sale on Family Tree Maker Including Upgrades

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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

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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

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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.

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Reunion for Mac 10.0.3 Update Available

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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.