TreeSync Improvements

• Private media items. If you have personal media items like birth certificates and photos of living family members that you don’t want to include in your online tree, you can keep them private on an item-by-item basis when you sync (or export) your tree.
• Improved backup and restore. It’s easier to keep your online and desktop trees synced if you encounter an issue; previously, if you had to use a backup file, your tree wouldn’t sync anymore and you’d have to upload a new version. With this update, you can back up a synced tree and restore it if you have any problems.
• Synced Web links. If you’ve added Web links for individuals or URLs in source citations, these will now be included when you sync your tree.
• Printable sync log. Now you can print a list of all the changes that will be made to your online tree.

New Features

• More reports. This update includes a number of new reports: an index of individuals that lists every individual in your tree and their birth, marriage, and death dates; a notes reports that lets you display person, research, relationship, or facts notes for an individual; and a surname report that lists the surnames in your tree, including the total number of individuals with that surname.

• New report options. The descendant and Ahnentafel reports have been updated and the descendant report includes additional numbering systems. New sorting options have also been added to the custom report.

• Organizational tool for places. The larger your tree gets, the more locations you have to keep track of. On the Places workspace, locations are now grouped together by country, state, county, and city to make them easier to look at and sort through.

Here are a few of the new features you’ll find:

• More improvements to TreeSync. Family Tree Maker continues to make TreeSync faster, more reliable, and more customizable. If you’re like me, you have personal media items like birth certificates and photos of living family members that you don’t always want to include in your online tree. Now you can keep media items private on an item-by-item basis when you sync (or export) your tree. It’s also easier to keep your online and desktop trees synced if you encounter an issue; previously, if you had to use a backup file, your tree wouldn’t sync anymore and you’d have to upload a new version. With this update, you can back up a synced tree and restore it if you have any problems. Other TreeSync enhancements let you print a list of your sync changes and include Web links for people and URLs in source citations.
• Organizational tool for places. The larger your tree gets, the more locations you have to keep track of. On the Places workspace, locations are now grouped together by country, state, county, and city to make them easier to look at and sort through.

• Better backups. You now have more control when you back up your tree. If you’ve spent a lot of time setting up your websites favorites or creating and editing historical events for timelines, you lost this info if you had to delete your current tree and use a backup; now you can include this information in your backup file. And, media files can also be included in a backup regardless of where they’re located on your hard drive.

• Ability to copy and paste facts. Adding facts for a family just got easier. For example, if you have a residence fact for an entire family, instead of manually adding it to each person, you can add it to one person, then right-click to copy the fact and right-click again to paste the fact (on his or her Person tab). You’ll be prompted to select all the family members you want to add the fact to. (Make sure you don’t include the person whose fact you’re copying or you’ll have a duplicate.) Best of all, the copied fact will include any associated source citations, media items, and notes.

I hope you all enjoy the latest features as much as I do. And if you haven’t purchased or upgraded to Family Tree Maker 2012 yet, there’s never been a better time.

For those of you interested in our Mac product, be aware that Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 has been receiving similar bonus updates throughout the year and another will be coming soon.

Setting goals provides focus.  And, if anything needs focus, it’s genealogy.  It is so easy – and sometimes fun – to get distracted as we chase down various branches of the family tree.  Reporting on goals you have set provides accountability and keeps you moving forward.  So here is my report:

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1. Backup, Backup, Backup

I now use Family Tree Maker 2012 for all my genealogy files.  My main family tree is now synced with my online tree at Ancestry.com.  This provides one backup.  At the beginning of the year I set a reminder on my calendar to back up my tree to “the cloud” twice a month.  I have done this faithfully.

What haven’t I done yet?  I haven’t given my parents a copy of my files at all this year.  I think I will send them a link right now so they have access to my cloud backup.

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2. Get More Family Members Involved

In June I did a Barefoot Genealogist episode and wrote a blog post about sharing your family history.  I have two specific projects (with deadlines) in the works.  I am creating a slideshow of digitized family pictures for my grandmother’s 90th birthday later this month.  And, I have created a maternal only family tree for my cousin who is having a little girl in a few weeks.

I have also created a few more ancestor pages on Facebook, connected with some (previously unknown to me) cousins, and tried to share family stories more often.  I have a lot more ideas brewing but maybe they will make good 2013 goals.

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3. Digitize, Digitize, Digitize

After much sorting, my mom took over 1500 slides (from both sets of grandparents) to be digitized.  She has the original DVDs that were created.  We copied them to my computer and also backed them up to the cloud.  I’ve spent the last few months meeting with family members – dad, grandma, great-aunt – to make sure I know who everyone is in each of these old pictures.  Now, we just have to share them with the rest of the family.

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4. Make Sure Everything Has A Source

This is probably the goal I have spent the most time working on this year.  I knew it was a huge task.  Sometimes I feel like it will never be done.  However, because I have been working on this, I have pruned over 1200 people out of the family tree over the last few months. I discovered two different branches were there was no documentation to prove a connection and a third where documenting what I had, proved that the connection was wrong.  I think this goal may stay on the list for many years to come.

For those who will ask, I use the notes feature in Family Tree Maker pretty heavily as I work on proving connections in my family tree.  Ancestry Anne has created a couple of videos on sourcing that have helped as well.  You can find them here and here.

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5. Respond to Messages

I set a goal at the beginning of the year to spend a little time every Friday going through message I receive from other Ancestry.com members. I haven’t done that as consistently as I expected.  I have managed to get through most of the backlog of messages.  The problem? I find that when I start to reply to one message I dig into the family they’ve asked about and I’m off doing more research for hours on end.  I need to learn to reply with what I know and not worry about what I don’t know yet.  Any advice on how to do that?

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So, there you have it – my update on my 2012 genealogy goals.  I have a few more things to work on and a few more months left in the year.  That works out well.

For those of you who set goals with me at the beginning of the year, how are you doing?

For those of you who didn’t, it’s not too late.  What would you like to accomplish – genealogically speaking – in the next four months?

If you haven’t purchased or upgraded to Family Tree Maker 2012 yet, there’s never been a better time.

Since Family Tree Maker 2012 was released last fall, a number of updates have been sent out that include improvements and new features. Here’s a list of just some of these great changes:

• 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 there are more enhancements to come in the next bonus update—so stayed tuned.

The Family Tree Maker Team

UPDATE AS OF MONDAY, 16 JULY 2012 AT 1:30 PM MT

Again, we want to thank you for your patience. We also want to let you know that the Internet connection issue has been isolated, and we are working on a solution. We’ll keep you updated on our progress through this blog. We apologize for any inconvenience.

UPDATE AS OF WEDNESDAY, 18 JULY 2012 AT 11:00 AM MT

We know all of you are interested in hearing what progress we’ve made with the connection issues in Family Tree Maker for Mac. We are actively working on an update and feel we will be able to release a fix very soon. When the update is available, a notification will appear when you open your software; you can also check back here—we’ll keep you informed about when the update is ready.

We appreciate the patience of all our users, and again, apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

The Family Tree Maker Team

UPDATE AS OF THURSDAY, 19 JULY 2012 AT 2:00 PM MT

We are pleased to announce that the Internet connection issues people have been experiencing with Family Tree Maker for Mac have been resolved. To get the update, close out of Family Tree Maker; then reopen the application. You’ll be notified that an update is available. Click Install Update. When the installation is complete, you may need to log in to your Ancestry account again. You can do this in the Web Dashboard on the Plan workspace. If your connection still doesn’t seem to be working, make sure the software is set to go online. You can do this by selecting Go Online from the File menu.

If you aren’t prompted to install an update, please go to the Family Tree Maker menu and select Check for Updates.

We thank you for your patience during this situation.

The Family Tree Maker Team

• Improvements to TreeSync performance and stability
• 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)

When you open Family Tree Maker, you should be notified that an update is available. If this doesn’t happen, please visit the KnowledgeBase for instructions on manually downloading and installing the update.

New Features

This update includes a variety of new features and even a new report.

Merge for Duplicate Facts

If you have multiple versions of the same fact, you can merge them together.

New Source Templates

Source templates for the 1940 U.S. census have been added and there is improved support for city directories.

More Support for Blended Families

When you add a spouse for an individual, now you can indicate whether he or she is also the parent of the individual’s children.

Charts

In a relationship chart, an individual’s father and mother will both be included at the top of the page; shortened place names can be used; and, fonts are resized automatically so text won’t be cut off.

Reports

• Family View Report – This new report lets you display an individual’s ancestors, spouse, and children together (similar to the Family View in the People workspace).

• Calendars – You can change the font size for events.

• Data Errors Report – A new option lets you include only preferred facts.

• Documented Facts Report – New options let you include or exclude source citation notes and include only preferred facts.

• Family Group Sheet – An image that is linked to an individual can be displayed at the top of the report. Also, spacing and labels have been improved.

• Individual Report – A new note indicates when a couple has no children together. Also, there are new options that let you include an individual’s life span in the summary and add the summary to all pages.

• Media Item Report – A new option lets you include or exclude notes and links.

• Media Usage Report – A new option lets you include captions, dates, descriptions, categories, and notes. Also, media images are resized based on amount of descriptive info that is included.

• Notes Report – Notes can flow across page breaks.

• Photo Album – Improved spacing when including dates and descriptions.

• Undocumented Facts Report – A new option lets you include only preferred facts.

• Improved speed when generating reports that include notes and/or sources.

• Saved charts and reports are listed alphabetically.

• The person you’re currently viewing will be selected now when you open the Filter Individuals list.

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Women Should Be Recorded With Their Maiden Names

I use Family Tree Maker (synced with my Ancestry Tree). In FTM there is a report called Data Errors. One of the options for that report is “wife’s surname same as husband’s surname.” This month I will run this report and check each of those to determine if the wife’s maiden name really is the same as her husband’s surname (which in some cases it should be). If it is not really the same I will remove the surname. For me, blank is better than wrong.

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Find Women in My Tree Without Last Names

Using the index panel in Family Tree Maker I can quickly skim the list to find women without maiden names. These are the women I want to focus on this month – give them back their names!

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Find Last Names of Women in My Tree

There are a lot of strategies for finding the maiden names of women.  First, a couple of quick tips from me about how I’ve done this in the past.

Finding the Maiden Names of Women

Second, I plan on watching Mary Penner’s webinar to refresh my memory about some research strategies and then applying them to some of the tougher challenges in my tree. You can access it by going to the Learning Center on Ancestry.com and clicking on Webinars.  Scroll down to “Finding Females in Your Family Tree” from May 2010.

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That’s my plan for Women’s History Month. Are you going to join me?

I’ll check back with you at the end of the month. I can’t wait to hear your success stories!

Until next time…

1. Some important improvements for syncing source citations, relationships, and accepted & rejected hints.
2. Resolution of some data issues that were causing sync to fail in some cases
3. Sync stability and performance improvements.

How to get this free update? As a Family Tree Maker 2012 for Windows owner simply open your software program and the update will be ready for download. If you need help with the upgrade (version 21.0.0.506), technical help is available by email or by phone: 1-800-ANCESTRY.

While this update provides some helpful improvements, there is one issue it can’t resolve: TreeSync has been so popular that on occasion it has temporarily overwhelmed our online system! During these times, your tree data has been safe, but syncing has been unavailable for a short time. It is very important to us that this popular feature is working for you at all times and we are working very hard towards improving the system to accommodate the huge and growing interest in this feature. But, if you should run into a problem with syncing, please wait a few hours and try again. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

We’re excited to see so much interest in TreeSync, and we’re working hard to keep it available at all times of the day and night (whenever you want to use it). We hope you enjoy this free update.

Thank you for using Family Tree Maker 2012.

The Family Tree Maker Team

Fixes include:

•        Performance and stability improvements

•        Improvements to resolve sync errors

•        Improvements for handling downloaded media in synced trees

•        Syncing of accepted and rejected hints

•        Option to include/exclude Ancestry media in synced trees

This free update will be available the next time you open Family Tree Maker for Mac 2.

Now life is now back to a more regular routine so I’ve spent the day focusing on the upcoming year a little more clearly. I’m not much for New Years Resolutions but I am a big fan of goals. So, in the spirit of the New Year I would like to share my 2012 genealogy goals with you. I hope you will do the same.

1. Backup, Backup, Backup

If you are using Family Tree Maker (or some other desktop software program) you probably notice each time you shut down that it takes a moment to create a backup file. This is great but what happens if your computer crashes or (heaven forbid) there is some kind of disaster that affects you or your home. Today I took the time to set a reminder on my calendar for the 1st and the 15th of every month to backup my genealogy files to a remote location. I also made a note to send a copy of the file to my parents every three months. AND, I have put my passwords for both my online backup service and my Ancestry.com account into my “Final Papers” notebook. That way if anything happens to me my family has access to all my hard work.

2. Get More Family Members Involved

That brings me to my second goal. If something ever did happen to me I hope my family would appreciate all of the hard work and the time and money (and love) that went into building our family tree. But, how can they appreciate it if I don’t ever give them an opportunity to participate? How can they recognize what went into this or even care if I haven’t allowed them to be part of the process? Over the holidays my mother and sister and I spent ten hours or so sorting through old family slides. Stories were told. Memories were made and relived. And, a plan was crafted to share these memories at my grandmother’s 90th birthday later this year. My goal this month is to create a list of other ways to help more family members be more involved in OUR family history. (Maybe I’ll share it with you in another blog post once it’s finished.)

3. Digitize, Digitize, Digitize

Those slides I was just talking about, there were over 2000 of them. They date from the early 1950s through the mid-1980s. We pulled out about 1500 of them that we are going to have digitized.  We then sorted them into clean, new boxes that we got from the company that is going to do that for us. They’re still sitting on my dining room table. The goal is to get them digitized as soon as possible. Then I need to make sure they are all tagged and labeled with the right dates and the names of all the people. Then I need to make sure copies of these pictures are shared with as many family members as possible. This is not a small job in terms of time or money. But, I have help (see #2 above) and I have some time. It’s a 2012 goal not a January goal.

4. Make Sure Everything Has A Source

I got started in family history much the same way many of you did. I was interested in learning more about who I am and where I come from. I didn’t have a lot of skill or education as to how to do it “right.” I eagerly went about collecting as much information as I could from whatever source I could to grow my family tree as big as I could as quickly as I could. What that means is that I have a whole lot of unsourced, and potentially inaccurate, information in my tree. My goal this year is to make sure that everything in my tree is sourced with all the appropriate records I can find. If I can’t find a source for the information it’s getting pruned – or at least set aside until I can prove it or disprove it.  I want to know that what I am putting out there for the world to see is as close to the truth as I can get it. This isn’t a small job. But, I am certain that if I pace myself and do a little each month, I will have a stellar tree by the end of the year.

5. Respond to Messages

Hopefully, you are all aware of the ability you have to contact other Ancestry.com members who are researching the same family lines as you. Over the years I have contacted lots of members. Sometimes those efforts yield genealogy gold and long-term relationships with cousins I didn’t know I had. Other times I get very frustrated when I send out query after query and no one responds. Well, late last year I realized that I had a dozen or more messages from other members sitting in my Ancestry inbox that I hadn’t responded to. I was appropriately chastened. So, I have set a goal (and a reminder on my calendar) to spend some time every Friday going through my inbox and responding to other members who have emailed me. Even if it turns out they aren’t really related to me, I owe them the courtesy of a response.

There you have it – my top five genealogy goals for 2012. I have a feeling it’s going to be a great year!  And, I want to know.  What are YOUR genealogy goals for this year?

Until next time – Have fun climbing your family tree…