ONLINE - Making the most of your computer

Family Tree Maker 2009

James Taylor looks at the new version of Ancestry's family history software

Published under licence by Avanquest and released in October to less than a fanfare, Family Tree Maker (FTM) 2009 is Ancestry's latest offering in its family tree software line. Its predecessor, FTM 2008, was promoted as a complete code rewrite. The principal benefit of this was a new interface, bringing information previously buried beneath tabs and menus onto one screen.

FTM benefits from its new, tabbed interface, which puts most-used information handily on one screen. There are seperate screens, data entry and displays for people, places, media, sources, publish (reports and charts) and web search.

You can attach free-form notes to a person, plus seperate research notes. The new media view can show all your media (graphics, video, audio, text) as well as those for selected persons only. You can add source references and citations to most facts and copy and paste source citations.

Some of the exciting new charts, reports, and functionality advertised in this version actually appeared in its predecessor or earlier. Genuinely new features include its horizontal hourglass chart, bow tie chart, and 180-degree fan chart. You can also now show siblings in charts, add your name as preparer to the chart footer, and modify box setting s for selected boxes. The useful paginated Book Layout Trees, which spread large family trees over numbered and referenced standard-size pages, are back.

As well as the usual Ahnentafel and Register reports, you can generate a list of places and associated people, a media report, various source reports, and relationship reports.

The withdrawn Family Book feature, pioneered by FTM in version 4, would automatically assemble your choice of trees, reports, and other printouts into one continuous document with table of contents and index. However this hasn't been included in the new version and you would still have to go online to 'publish' your book. This can be expensive, isn't helpful to dial-up users, and doesn't allow the incorportaion of any existing external material.

You also get space on Ancestry's server to upload your trees and reports to help your long-lost relatives to locate you and collaborate on your research. Note however, that Ancestry may reproduce, compile and distribute all your information, including your books, and let others search your tree, with no compensation to you.

FTM's excellent maps can show you the location of places where births, marriages and deaths took place in your file, although it doesn't always find them, having a tendency to default to US locations. When successful, you can look at the area where your forebears came from and follow their migrations as they left for a better life elsewhere.

You do have to resolve your place names to fit FTM's lists. It can show locations of churches, cemetaries, courts, libraries and hospitals. However, it can miss a few. You can choose between a road map, aerial view, and, sometimes, a 3D view. The program still seems to be a memory hog as it takes a very long time to initialise and, on testing, did freeze fairly frequently.

FTM 2009 comes in three editions: Platinum, Deluxe, and Upgrade. Upgrade is intended for existing users of FTM, although you don't need the old version installed in order to load it. Costing around £20, it includes the full FTM 2009 program and one month's 'Essentials' access to Ancestry.co.uk.

The Platinum and Deluxe editions are boxed and offer a 97-page getting started guide, a training tutorial (now on disc), UK-customised timeline and maps, and an 'Essentials' subscription to Ancestry.co.uk: six months for Platinum and three months for Deluxe.

There's no credit card requirement for any of these subscriptions and if you already have a subscription you can tack the free period on. Platinum adds The Family Tree Maker 2009 Little Book of Answers to its package but the 300-page Official Guide that came with 2008 now costs extra. All three editions sold here are suitably tailored for the UK. The program is the same in each case.

Reproduced from a review by James Taylor in Family History Monthly