Thursday, May 6, 2010

Family Tree Maker Support For New FamilySearch

FTM2FamilyInsight On the final day of the NGS Conference, Ohana Software’s newsletter announced they are beta testing a version of FamilyInsight that supports Family Tree Maker 2010. This will give Family Tree Maker users the ability to synchronize with the New FamilySearch Tree (NFS). However, this capability would not extend NFS access beyond those who already have NFS access. According to officials from FamilySearch, a controlled rollout of NFS to the general public will begin this fall and complete in 2011.

Presumably, FamilyInsight’s Family Tree Maker support also makes it possible for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to automatically search Church temple records for individuals in Family Tree Maker files. Many major desktop genealogy programs already offer this feature, pioneered by Ohana Software’s PAF Insight program years prior to NFS. While relations between Ancestry.com and FamilySearch remain publicly amicable, one cannot but notice that Family Tree Maker support comes from a third party.

Ohana Software also announced the beta version includes support for Ancestral Quest files and development is underway to support RootsMagic and Legacy Family Tree files.

The text of the Ohana Software announcement, in full, reads:

FamilyInsight: Adding New File Formats

We are also currently beta testing a version that will work with Family Tree Maker 2010 file and Ancestral Quest file formats. We are in development of versions that will work directly with RootsMagic and Legacy files. You will be able to use FamilyInsights Compare and Sync to compare your PAF file to your cousins RootsMagic file. You will be able to trim and save a file for your aunt that works with her program even if you use a different program.

What does this mean? Do I need to stop using PAF? This means that you can use the program that works best for your needs and still have access to FamilyInsight. If PAF is your favorite program then by all means keep using PAF 5. If you like one of the other programs then you can choose the program that is best for you. We are often asked which program is best. There is no one database manager that is the best for everyone. We do not recommend one program over another. In the future we will be offering other programs on our website, but it will still be up to you to make the choice of which program you want for your personal use. They all have their own strengths and the easiest to use for one person may not be the easiest for someone else.

We are actively searching for Mac programs to work directly with their files. Family Tree Maker has announced that they will be releasing a Mac Version and we will work with that program when it is released. We are also pursuing other Mac options to work with.

Now that Get My Ancestors is in the Tools menu of FamilyInsight, you will be able to save your Get My Ancestors file in any of the formats that FamilyInsight saves to. This is only applicable to the version that is in the tools menu of FamilyInsight. The Get My Ancestors stand alone program will only save to a PAF file.

We look forward to adding more formats in the future to FamilyInsight.

3 comments:

  1. Where is "support" for those of us who have earlier versions of FTM????

    I have not been able to contact anyone at FTM to find out why I cannot use my own FTM records (after instlling a new hard drive in the same computer with the same OS and FTM program). I definitely need to talk with someone, but neither the 800 phone nor the e-mail provided by FTM is operable. Help, please!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Where is "support" for those of us who have earlier versions of FTM????

    I have not been able to contact anyone at FTM to find out why I cannot use my own FTM records (after instlling a new hard drive in the same computer with the same OS and FTM program). I definitely need to talk with someone, but neither the 800 phone nor the e-mail provided by FTM is operable. Help, please!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am new to ancestry and genealogy, but I new I wanted Ancestry from the commercials, i was is a hurry and did not do much research just bought what was said to be the #1 ancestry non-web based service to go with it. Family Tree Maker! and got 3 months of Ancestry free. Well I love Ancestry, but I have cried been so dissapointed in FTM because I have had problems from day one and every time I call I get the same answer, "We will send you the instructions to fix your problem" It has never been fixed and every time I tried to sync, my data got more and more mixed up. I finally gave up and deleted it and am only using Ancestry until I can find out what is the best, or better choice in software. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

    Lisa Mings

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