It's become a bit of a genealogy tradition for Family Tree Maker to offer a new edition in the latter part of the summer. This year is no exception.
What's being offered? Would you believe "whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting on your family tree, Family Tree Maker 2011 can help you create a family tree faster, easier, and better than ever before."
That sounds like Puffery "a legal term refers to promotional statements and claims that express subjective rather than objective views, such that no reasonable person would take them literally."
So what do you actually get that's new in this release? Family Tree Maker 2011 claims more than 100 enhancements including:
Smart Stories™— Just drag and drop facts from your tree to the new Smart Stories page. Each time you edit your tree, stories update automatically.
New and improved charts—Enhance your charts with new backgrounds, borders, and embellishments. Create four new designs, including a 360 degree fan chart.
Refined reports—Save and reuse report settings and use 5 new report styles.
Media management tools—Locate missing media items with the click of the mouse.
More Ancestry integration—Find out which Ancestry members are searching for your ancestors in the expanded Web Dashboard.
Better performance—Upload and download trees from the Internet with increased speed.
Numbering—Automatically number every person in your tree for quick reference.
Timelines—View more events that occurred during your ancestors’ lives. Even edit, delete or add your own historical events.
That's all the information available at present. It's a stretch to see how the additional capabilities are worth $39.95 to someone already using Family Tree Maker 2010. There is no discount upgrade being offered as has often been the case.
Global Genealogy is already advertising the availability of FTM 2011, and with free shipping. If like me you're unconvinced about the improvements and their value for money Rick Roberts will undoubtedly be available to explain, and sell, the new version at the BIFHSGO conference 10-12 September. He's even offering a pre-conference seminar "Creating A Book Using the Family Tree Maker Software."
I've attended two or three of Rick Roberts' workshops and eventually purchased a Family Tree Maker 2008. Try as I might, I've never been fond of it. I know the ins and outs of my FTM 2001 and keep returning to it, although I make the occasional half-hearted attempt to transfer my more recent research to the 2008 edition. I much prefer the report formats on the 2001 version and find them easier to share. I'm now concentrating my efforts to transferring my data to two online trees in case of computer kaput.
ReplyDeleteI use the 2009 Family Tree Maker because it interacts with Ancestry.com. But as a volunteer at a Family History Center I read that there are 23 genealogy programs that "sync" with Newfamilysearch for LDS church members, and another 6 that are useful, so now am interested in looking at all of them, especially the ones that can be carried around on a flash drive. Ellen
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to trying their Family Tree Maker for mac, hope it comes out soon!
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