I purchased this software with my own money. My opinions are my own, and they are not influenced at all by them. Other than that, you’re better off with the freemium family tree webapps like and .ĭisclosure: I have a working relationship with. For the time being, proceed only if you’re interested in syncing your offline content with. I’d be less hesitant if they offered a free trial, but unfortunately they don’t. With a couple of revisions, this is a product I might recommend highly. We’re not on par with the Windows users yet, and that grinds my gears a little bit. We’ll see this cleaned up in the next edition for sure. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it is very clumsy. I’m constantly going back and forth between the display window and the navigation bar. Adding family members other than direct descendants or ancestors is a bit clunky. My biggest complaint is with the user interface of the tree. If you’re familiar with ordering stuff through iPhoto, this will be a no-brainer. Also, you can order a printed copy of your family tree in a book. The “Publish” tab allows you to customize a layout that allows you to print your family tree. If nobody can experience the work you do, what’s the point? This is where publishing comes in. Preservation and dissemination are also incredibly important. Gathering information shouldn’t be your only goal with genealogy either. FTM accomplishes this well with its media management, but iPhoto or Picasa integration would have been a nice touch. When I see a picture of my third-great grandfather next to his name, he suddenly becomes real to me. Pictures, sound, and stories are very important for keeping the human element of genealogy alive. We’re not just grinding through data here. However, we need to remember that we’re dealing with real people that actually lived and breathed. I’m sure that is the case with any genealogist who researches on any sort of large scale. As a genealogist, I often get caught up in the names, dates, pedigrees, and records. This is the section where I need to soap box for a moment. The content of the source isn’t always as important as the context, and I think the developers really understand that. The sourcing tab of FTM is very robust, and it allows a variety of ways to annotate your sources any way you’d like. Being able to show where you found your data is important when you need to go back to find more information. It goes beyond just a database interface.Ĭitations are very important to genealogists. It really shows that this is intended to be an all-in-one app for Genealogy. This is a way to make a prioritized to-do list for your family tree. At any one time, I have thousands of names, dates, and citations I could be entering. One of the biggest problems for me with Genealogy is the feeling of being overwhelmed by the data. It’s not perfectly implemented (No tab support, for example), but it is a nice that I don’t have to Cmd+Tab back and forth between FTM and a web browser. In the “Web Search” tab, you’ll get an inline browser with a side bar to keep track of the search results you want to remember. It now has built-in integration with their services including, , and. Integrationįamily Tree Maker was purchased by a while back. If it isn’t planned for a later update, then why taunt us? So strange. When you click the 3D toggle, you get this error:įor all I know, this is Bing’s fault, but why have a toggle that DOESN’T WORK? If it’s planned for a later update, just put it in then. The strange thing, to me at least, is that the map has a toggle switch between 2D and 3D that doesn’t work for the Mac edition. On the navigation bar is a button labeled “Places.” When clicked, it takes you to a live map, powered by Bing, with the graphical representation of every location entered into your family tree. There’s no need for you to re-enter any of the information you’ve already completed in another app. Also, you can import your data from your Windows version of Family Tree Maker just as easily. Family Tree Maker will work with the data from damn near every modern genealogy application or website. Let’s get into some nitty gritty before I tell you my thoughts on the software. After much waiting, Family Tree Maker is finally available for Mac OS X.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |