Ancestry to stop selling Family Tree Maker

[johnb]

Ancestry is to stop selling Family Tree Maker from 31 December 2015
but will continue to provide support until 1 January 2017 or later.
Instead it will focus on online subscriptions.

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/12/08/ancestry-to-retire-family-tree-maker-software/

[J. Hugh Sullivan]

On Wed, 09 Dec 2015 10:05:27 -0500, Dennis Lee Bieber
<bieber.g...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> And so they kill off another program... (Ultimate Family Tree and FTM
>were both, at one time in the past, owned by the same parent company --

Do you go as far back as Banner Blue?

Hugh

[Doug Laidlaw]

Ea...@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) Wrote in message:

My email arrived today as well. IMO, FTMis the only part of the
Ancestry
suite that is still usable. The tablet app is very limited, and
the online
tree is unmanageable. The only app that will import partial trees
is FTM.

The responses to the blog expressed strong opposition.

Doug.
--

[Percival P. Cassidy]

On 12/09/2015 12:32 PM, Doug Laidlaw wrote:

>>> And so they kill off another program... (Ultimate Family Tree and FTM
>>> were both, at one time in the past, owned by the same parent company --
>>
>> Do you go as far back as Banner Blue?

> My email arrived today as well. IMO, FTMis the only part of the
> Ancestry
> suite that is still usable. The tablet app is very limited, and
> the online
> tree is unmanageable. The only app that will import partial trees
> is FTM.
>
> The responses to the blog expressed strong opposition.

In other online discussions I see Family Historian being recommended,
but I just exported my FTM file in GEDCOM format so it could be read by
Family Historian, but the latter complains about many things. People
tell me that FTM files and its export format do not completely conform
to the GEDCOM standard.

Perce

[Denis Beauregard]

On Wed, 9 Dec 2015 17:20:09 -0500, "Percival P. Cassidy"
<Nob...@NotMyISP.net> wrote in soc.genealogy.computing:

Is there any software that completely conforms to GEDCOM ?

As far as I know, the only ones are those using GEDCOM format for
their own storage of data.


Denis

--
Denis Beauregard - généalogiste émérite (FQSG)
Les Français d'Amérique du Nord - www.francogene.com/genealogie--quebec/
French in North America before 1722 - www.francogene.com/quebec--genealogy/
Sur cédérom à 1785 - On CD-ROM to 1785

[johnb]

As a result of the Ancestry decision, RootsMagic are offering a special
upgrade deal to FTM users. There is also trial version. From the
comments I have seen it is able to import FTM data.
http://blog.rootsmagic.com/?p=2546

[Ikke]

Denis Beauregard wrote:

> On Wed, 9 Dec 2015 17:20:09 -0500, "Percival P. Cassidy"
> <Nob...@NotMyISP.net> wrote in soc.genealogy.computing:
>
>>On 12/09/2015 12:32 PM, Doug Laidlaw wrote:
>>
>>>>> And so they kill off another program... (Ultimate Family Tree and FTM
>>>>> were both, at one time in the past, owned by the same parent company
>>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> Do you go as far back as Banner Blue?
>>
>>> My email arrived today as well. IMO, FTMis the only part of the
>>> Ancestry
>>> suite that is still usable. The tablet app is very limited, and
>>> the online
>>> tree is unmanageable. The only app that will import partial trees
>>> is FTM.
>>>
>>> The responses to the blog expressed strong opposition.
>>
>>In other online discussions I see Family Historian being recommended,
>>but I just exported my FTM file in GEDCOM format so it could be read by
>>Family Historian, but the latter complains about many things. People
>>tell me that FTM files and its export format do not completely conform
>>to the GEDCOM standard.
>
> Is there any software that completely conforms to GEDCOM ?
>
> As far as I know, the only ones are those using GEDCOM format for
> their own storage of data.
>
>
> Denis
>

Which GEDCOM????
GEDCOM standards have changed considerably over time. And to me, GEDCOM is
not a storage or data model to be used by any package, but a data
interchange format. That is a totally different game.

Herman Viaene

[Trevor Rix via]

Follow the links at the bottom of this page for assistance migrating
from Family Tree Maker to Family Historian.

http://www.family-historian.co.uk/ftm

Trevor Rix

[Keith Nuttle]

Yesterday I downloaded the free RootsMagic. With that version the only
way you can get FTM data into the program is to use a gedcom exported
from FTM.

While the windows can be resized the flexibility is less that in FTM
2012.

One of the things that I did not see, that I use a lot was an equivalent
of an FTM Book. I uses the FTM Books to completely preserve my working
in a universally readable PDF format. My books include multiple
genealogy reports, charts, and text document that review my conclusions
for points supported with a lot of circumstantial data, family
summaries, and conjecture on the family origins.

I did not see any thing like this available in the free RootsMagic, or
indications that it was available.

Has anyone tried to import FTM data into an MS Access type of database?
All of the data in the FTM can be outputted in reports. It seems
these reports could be imported into MS Access tables with the name as
the key field to the table.

[Charlie Hoffpauir]

RM does do a direct import of a FTM data file, but only for versions
of FTM from 2006 or earlier. This is likely because FTM has always
used a proprietary data structure. It used to be possible to save FTM
data in teh format of earlier versions. If that is still available,
try saving as a 2006 version.

>While the windows can be resized the flexibility is less that in FTM
>2012.
>

That comment is just wrong. You need to spend a bit of time with RM,
and if you have a difficult time learing it because of all the
features, buy the book.... it's packed with information that is
difficult to discover by simply playing with the program.

>One of the things that I did not see, that I use a lot was an equivalent
>of an FTM Book. I uses the FTM Books to completely preserve my working
>in a universally readable PDF format. My books include multiple
>genealogy reports, charts, and text document that review my conclusions
>for points supported with a lot of circumstantial data, family
>summaries, and conjecture on the family origins.
>

RM does have a very good book feature. Look under
Reports/Publisher/Create a new book.

Once there you can include charts, narratives, etc all as chapters
with bibliography and index. Once completed you can save it as either
a PDF that will maintain all the links (ie, click on names in the
index to go directly to that location in the book), or save it as an
RTF file whtich can then be edited in Word.

>I did not see any thing like this available in the free RootsMagic, or
>indications that it was available.
>
>Has anyone tried to import FTM data into an MS Access type of database?
> All of the data in the FTM can be outputted in reports. It seems
>these reports could be imported into MS Access tables with the name as
>the key field to the table.

When I used FTM (many years ago) it was possible to generate a custom
report with the data you wanted to include in the Access file, then
save that and import it into Access. I don't recall the details, but I
remember that it was pretty easy to do, because I did it very often.It
may be taht I copy/pasted it into Excel before importing the Excel
file into Access.

[Ian Goddard]

On 10/12/15 15:49, Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
> When I used FTM (many years ago) it was possible to generate a custom
> report with the data you wanted to include in the Access file, then
> save that and import it into Access. I don't recall the details, but I
> remember that it was pretty easy to do, because I did it very often.It
> may be taht I copy/pasted it into Excel before importing the Excel
> file into Access.
>

If saving as CSV is permitted that's often a good route into other programs.

--
Hotmail is my spam bin. Real address is ianng
at austonley org uk

[Terry Wells]

On Thu, 10 Dec 2015 09:35:25 -0500, Keith Nuttle wrote:


> Yesterday I downloaded the free RootsMagic. With that version the only
> way you can get FTM data into the program is to use a gedcom exported
> from FTM.
>

Depends upon the version of FTM. RootsMagic will directly import (inter
alia) Family Tree Maker 2006 and earlier. Later versions of FTM would
require going via Gedcom as Keith says.

--

Terry Wells

[Tim Powys-Lybbe]

On 09/12/2015 10:20 pm, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
> On 12/09/2015 12:32 PM, Doug Laidlaw wrote:
>

<snip for brevity>

>
> In other online discussions I see Family Historian being recommended,
> but I just exported my FTM file in GEDCOM format so it could be read by
> Family Historian, but the latter complains about many things. People
> tell me that FTM files and its export format do not completely conform
> to the GEDCOM standard.
>
> Perce

How would we know if any program conformed to the GEDCPM standard?

Possibly only if some charitable organisation actually read the standard
and then devised a series of tests for every point on it.

Then took the GEDCOM from any program or update of any program and ran
it through the tests and measured the number of errors.

Yes, you're right, no-pne has done this, nor are they likely to. That
is why GEDCOM had problems.

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe t...@powys.org
for a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/

[John Hill]

Well, in fact someone has. There is a Mac application, GEDitCOM II, that
goes through a GEDCOM file and picks out everything that does not
conform to a rigorous interpretation of the standard.

I have never yet found a GEDCOM file that passed the tests unscathed.

So much so, in fact that I no longer use it …

John.
--
Please reply to john at yclept dot wanadoo dot co dot uk.