Family Tree Maker, or FTM, is a software package from Ancestry.com that helps you create your own family tree. The latest version, 2010, has a number of updates so that you can create your family linage easier than ever -- whether you are a diehard genealogy researcher or just getting started.
Most in the field of genealogy consider FTM to be the best selling genealogy software in the history of this work. As with other genealogy software packages, researchers can keep information collected during research and use it to make books, charts and reports. As far as FTM's own origins, it was first developed by Banner Blue, a company, and later purchased by Broderbund. After, it found a home at Mattel and the Learning Company, before coming to rest, so to speak, at Ancestry.com.
Currently, it's only offered for PCs, and runs on Windows versions 98 through Vista. The software is not yet suitable for any other platform. The 2005 and 2006 software, as well as Family Tree Maker Version 16, will work on Windows Vista. (Incidentally, FTM 16 was nominated for Best Consumer Productivity Solution category, for a 2007 CODiE Award.) If you wish to export trees, views or books to PDF, you'll need an upgrade.
The 2010 version of Family Tree Maker will better integrate with Ancestry.com, so that you can import your family linage from there and include any attached photos, too. You can also organize photos and other types of media, and this version includes the capability to do slideshows. You can also make "family keepsake" books with the 2010 version, and you can look at relationships within the "family tree" context, from a so-called "new person view." You can download online family trees from the website Ancestry.com directly into Family Tree Maker, or you can merge the downloaded tree into another one, or start a new tree altogether. When you download family trees, they will contain everything, images and facts, associated with the tree that's online.
You can also add family linage photos directly from the scanner with this newest version, and you can look at interactive maps and timelines that show important events and places in your ancestors' lives. You can also take a look at your ancestors' migration paths, so that you can see them; finally, the new user interface lets you switch seamlessly between "most often used" features.
You can import data from genealogy programs like Legacy Family Tree, the Master Genealogist, and Personal Ancestral File. You can also add images and records from all those available on Ancestry.com and other sources on the web. This software lets you do reports and charts in a number of formats that are faster with the 2010 version of FTM, including those in FTW, an earlier file format in Family Tree Maker, and the so-called "standard" genealogical database format, GEDCOM.
If you want to "try before you buy," you can do that with Family Tree Maker software, too. Just go to: http://past.familytreemaker.com/download/starter.aspx and download Family Tree Maker software. The file itself will require 15.9 MB of space.
As of October 2009, an online archive of historical pictures and documents called Footnote.com will digitize and put online all US Federal Census data from 1790 to 1930. Footnote has interactive pages for individuals within the Census, so that relatives can notate, upload photos and of the documents, and otherwise personalize information. Ancestry.com also has Census data, but this gives someone who is researching genealogical information another way to view these types of records, and also lets them enter data that could be helpful to others who are going to do the same genealogical research.
If you're just starting out in genealogical research, the free starter version of Family Tree Maker is a good way to get off the ground. It also lets you try before you buy, before you actually make the financial commitment to buy the software. Online genealogy research and software have in effect "gathered around" F TM software and the record databases in Ancestry.com. Because of this, FTM has become the software of choice for those doing genealogy research. Its 2010 version and free trial download are only going to make FTM an even more important part of genealogy and research.
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