Family Tree Maker to be pensioned off. NOT!

Nicola - what are custom facts? I have notes in my tree which I am desperate not to lose as they include all the census details, laboriously typed in by hand.

 

I think I will have to purchase a new computer in order to get my money's worth out of FTM which has ceased to work on Vista following the last update. Apparently the latest update can't be reversed. Alternatively, or in addition, I will transfer initially to Rootsmagic free version 7 which will accept my basic Reunion gedcom file which is still up to date (FTM will no longer sync or update) unless I like the look of FH following the 30 day trial, but a cousin has recently transferred from FH to RootsMagic as he disliked the intense marketing and pressure from FH re online activity......

 

chrissy, notes aren't Custom Facts. You will no doubt have Standard Facts in your tree. They are Facts/Events such as Birth, Baptism, Marriage, Burial, Will, Probate, etc. These are all Gedcom Standard Facts. Custom Facts are either Facts/Events you have created yourself (I have some, among others, such as School Admission).

That said, there have been posts on FHUG recently about problems with Facts, such as Military, being imported because the "Tag" used by FTM isn't Gedcom compliant. From memory, one of the FHUG volunteers produced a Plugin which works in FH and sorts out the problem.

 

Thanks Peter, but I need to revise the part of the post relating to exporting links to media attached to Sources and I don't at this minute have time to do this. If you are intending using those details in a future Newsletter, it would be better if you see my subsequent reply as otherwise you'll need to change the Newsletter.

 

I use FTM 2010 which I bought as a CD rather than a download. It works perfectly with Vista, and I'm not aware of it having ever been updated. It does not synchronise with Ancestry - any new data has to be entered in my tree on Ancestry and FTM separately. I don't have any images or notes attached to my Ancestry tree - they are all stored on my laptop, two flash drives, an external hard drive and paper.

Most of the complaints I have read on various sites seem to be about loss of TreeSynch. Since I don't have this with my version of FTM, what will be the impact on my version of FTM and my tree be?



I am not very computer literate; could someone explain what Ancestry's actions mean in very simple terms please!

 

Something we have in commonBut I would say that probably no impact whatsoever. Do you use the 'shaky leafs' feature? That will cease in 2017.

 

I don't use the shaky leaves on FTM but I do look at them on Ancestry then promptly 'ignore' most of them as irrelevant.

 

I agree that many of the hints are irrelevant but occasionally there is a good one!
I shall make use of them this year, but I think FTM 2012 is a good programme and shall continue to use it.
I downloaded Family Historian and aside from the fact that some media was lost on the way,( although I was surprised how much transferred by gedcom as I thought images wouldn't), I don't like FH at all.
If I bought another one it would be Rootsmagic or Legacy...just my opinion.

 

Just a note - received an email today for those interested - Heredis is offering 50% off their program until Jan 3 - and it has both Windows and Mac programs. I don't know much about the program beyond that (I got the email because I briefly tried the trial a long time ago).

 

Hi All,
Have not been on here for a while but can add a little to the discussion about FTM. I bought it less than a year ago and have used it for probably different reasons from most others here. I have an online Ancestry tree which is both private and off the search index and is used purely for ease of saving records but, as I don't particularly trust Ancestry, I decided I needed to have my tree on other personal software on my computer for insurance sake.

In addition, after uploading my tree from Ancestry to FTM, I always cut the sync link between the two as I'm trying to reduce any chance of problems occurring as a result of the sync operation. Every 3 or 4 months, or when I have done a reasonable amount of new work on my tree, I re-upload the latest version to FTM, check it for mistakes and then delete the previous tree. A bit longwinded I know, but I really don't want Ancestry accessing my FTM tree for any longer than necessary. So far this has worked well for me.

The problem was though that I could not upload my tree via the Ancestry gedcom to other software I was trialling (RootsMagic, Legacy, Ancestral Quest) and have the source media transfer in the upload. The only way was to use FTM, which will import one's online tree with all source media, and try and export a gedcom from FTM (including source media) which I could then import to the other programmes.

I have puddled around with my trials of the other software programmes mentioned and yesterday had a good look at importing my FTM gedcom to the three programmes mentioned. What I found was good on the whole. In each case, the media, including source media did transfer, but initially I did not realise that the source images had done so. Each of the three programmes needs a little tweak in order to show the media, but they do all have it.

For example, in RootsMagic, if you go to the Lists tab in the top menu and select Media, a window will open up and will populate the screen with all your media, including source images. This is the easiest of the three for finding the media.

However, each programme has advantages and disadvantages compared to the others in general terms, so I have opted to retain all three and use each as I require something specific. A bit mad possibly but I certainly have multiple copies of my tree.

The other thing I use FTM for is to save a copy of the entire media file externally, including all the source images, as it's cost me quite a bit of money over the past five years to obtain all those images and I don't fancy losing them should I decide in the future to cancel my Ancestry subscription. Of course, I can always see any images I have attached myself to my online tree, but without a subscription, I would no longer be able to view the source images without exporting it all to FTM. So, each time I re-upload my tree from Ancestry to FTM, I copy the entire media file to external hard drive (Ctrl A then Copy) and a USB.

I'm rather ticked off that Ancestry are cancelling FTM but at this stage I can still use it for what I bought it for, getting my info and images out of Ancestry online and into other software, so it's not a complete disaster for me. I hope this helps others facing this dilemma. In some ways, I think the most difficult thing to get used to with regard to other software is the appearance, not the lack of functionality (which is quite good). I became accustomed to the 'top down, family view' style of navigation on both the online tree and FTM and found the pedigree view navigation took a bit of getting used to. I have emailed two of the software companies mentioned above and suggested they look at offering the top-down option for navigation but whether that will happen, I don't know.

 

That's a good question, but I think so. I've just had a look at the pathway for the media in the RootsMagic file which I created from the FTM gedcom and it points to FamilyTreeMaker in My Documents as the location for the media on my harddrive (C://Users/ username/Documents/FamilyTreeMaker/family tree name Media/photo file name)

If FTM stopped working, I think that RM would probably still access the media through the same pathway, as the media is just really sitting in a folder marked FTM on my computer. However, if for some reason it could not, it looks as if it would not be difficult to put my backup copy of the media file into a folder with a different name and re-name the pathway. In theory, the only bit that I might have to change is the folder name of Family Tree Maker.

I can't be sure of course, but it does look as if one could get around that. Ancestral Quest is much the same from what I can see. I haven't had too close a look at Legacy, although the media definitely did import into it, but it's probably the same.

I have Windows 7 and haven't got around to upgrading to Windows 10 yet. I'll probably wait till my son is home from Uni at Xmas in case anything goes wrong with it, as I'm no tech whizz at all.

 

The blog on Ancestry has, to date, about 94 users who have expressed anger at the announcement including myself.

I use FTM 2014 and sync it to Ancestry. I find it easier to use Ancestry to build my trees then sync the changes with FTM. I keep my on-line trees ‘Private’ because of the numerous attachments that I don’t want people to see, even those attached to deceased persons.

I use FTM reports to identify errors, to create lists and for various other things.

I use FTM reports together with charts from Charting Companion to create my family history books in a format that is unique.

I cannot do any of that in Ancestry and it is highly unlikely that Ancestry will replicate the reports available in FTM, in spite of any vague promises to do so.

I find FTM to be fairly robust so I believe I can continue to use it with or without the sync function. But the way I feel right now I want to remove my 5 trees from Ancestry and cancel my sub the minute the sync function is withdrawn.

I honestly cannot see Ancestry backing down, since when have they ever listened to their users?? Since when have they ever consulted their users about any of the myriad of changes they have made which often appear to be change for change’s sake?

They wouldn’t get away with that in the world of commerce.

None of this is helping to find an alternative but has got things off my chest to a certain extent.
Reading through some of the posts in this forum it seems Roots Magic might be a viable alternative. When I have time, which may not be until the new year I might investigate it.

 

Regarding FTM refusing to work with Vista following the last update, I have unlinked FTM from Ancestry and so far my tree hasn't disappeared again, but as yet I haven't tried closing the program down and reopening it, making any additions or saving my tree whilst awaiting delivery of a new external hard drive. However, the tree became inaccessible previously after trying to save it........so I will have to wait and see what happens.

Jinny, I am pleased to see that media will transfer to Rootsmagic. I already have a non-media version of my tree stored on RM. However, I will try reinstalling the trial version of RM when I get my new computer (on order) and try to transfer my FTM tree with media, but I am not confident I can get it to work.

However, after reading Jinny's post, I assume it will only work if I also transfer my FTM program and files over to the new computer.......??
I found both Legacy and Rootsmagic easy to use and my gedcom (WITHOUT media) transferred with no problems, but I had problems using Legacy as it crashed regularly.

I think it is going to be well into the New Year before I get a working family tree on either FTM or Rootsmagic, as my computer skills are zero!

 

I see that I am not the only one upset over Ancestry's decision to stop selling Family Tree Maker, and to discontinue support for it at the end of 2016.
I have used FTM for about 20 years, and although I also have the same data on my Ancestry.uk Tree, I don't want to have to rely solely on an online tree. To vent my anger, and show my disapproval, I cancelled my Ancestry membership a few days ago, although I doubt it will really have much of an impact with them. Since my yearly membership expired in March 2016 anyway, I can still access all of their features up until this time, and if I so choose, renew it anytime afterwards and my online data will have remained unchanged.