ANNOUNCE: Family Tree Maker version 4.0 for Windows
Paul Burchfield
At last week's NGS conference in Valley Forge, PA we announced and demoed the
newest version of Family Tree Maker. Family Tree Maker version 4.0 for Windows
is scheduled to begin shipping in the middle of June.
I thought that you would enjoy a sneak preview of some of the new features.
We'll be posting more complete information soon to our World Wide Web site and
will also be sending out an upgrade notice to all registered users.
We are now training the Customer Service department on the new version and are
not currently accepting orders for this new version. As more information
becomes available (including pricing), I'll let you know.
I've added some of my own comments to this list of features (look for PAUL
SAYS). I hope you enjoy.
Sincerely,
Paul Burchfield
Broderbund Software,
Banner Blue division
Overview of New Family Tree Maker 4.0 Features
ORGANINIZING INFORMATION
--Notecard-style "Source" Pages help you efficiently track and
reference the bibliographic sources of your family information.
Your descendants will thank you for keeping such good records!
PAUL SAYS: Improved sources is something that many Family Tree Maker users
have asked for any many non-Family Tree Maker users have knocked Family Tree
Maker for. This is a very important addition. Here are the highlights of this
feature. A source you use is composed of two parts. The first is the Source
itself. This would be a Book or Document you use. The next part is the
citation. This is the page number from the book or specific line of the
document you are using as the source of information. Version 4 of Family Tree
Maker for Windows allows you to create a Master Source list so you only have
to enter a Source one time. If you want to use it over and over again, you
pick it form the list of Sources and add the specific citation for the person
and event you are dealing with. Also, you can have multiple sources for each
event.
--Improved Merge features, such as Merge Specific Individuals, make
it easier for you to share family information with your fellow
researchers who use Family Tree Maker and other GEDCOM-compatible
programs.
PAUL SAYS: This is a feature that was added as a direct result of your
requests and those of the Technical Support department. You start out on a
Family Page of the first person you want to merge, invoke the Merge Specific
Individuals command, and pick the second person you want to merge from the
list of everyone in your file.
PRINTING
--Family Books create one comprehensive chronicle of your family
history, combining ancestor and descendant trees, genealogy reports,
family stories, reports, an automatically-generated index and table
of contents, and more.
PAUL SAYS: Here's another very popular request with customers. As a part of
this feature you can save a specific setup of a tree or report to use again
and again. So, once you have created the perfect Descendant tree from Uncle
Bob including customizing the Items to Include as well as the formatting of
the tree, you can save it and use it later.
--Paginated Trees split large Ancestor and Descendant tree neatly
across multiple pages, saving you the hassle of having to tape all
the sheets of a giant printout together. When a branch of your tree
is continued on a subsequent page, Family Tree Maker inserts a label
indicating the number of the page where the branch continues.
PAUL SAYS: This would be the popular "cascading" style tree.
ONLINE SHARING
--InterneTree (TM) uses state-of-the-art Java(TM) technology to
display your family tree graphically on your home page at Family
Tree Maker Online. Visitors to your home page can click any person
in the tree and watch as the InterneTree instantly updates the
screen to show both ancestors and descendants of that individual.
ONLINE RESEARCH
--Internet FamilyFinder (TM) radically reduces the time it takes to
find valuable genealogy information on the Internet. This
cutting-edge search engine is fine-tuned especially for genealogy
name searches. It indexes over 15 thousand sites worldwide,
encompasses approximately 20 million names, and is growing quickly.
--Internet FamilyFinder Agents (TM) are sophisticated software
programs that automatically roam the Internet looking for genealogy
information. Instead of using the Internet FamilyFinder yourself
and doing name searches one by one, you can charter a free
FamilyFinder Agent to do the work for you.
--Genealogy Research Associates (GRA), one of the nation’s leading
professional genealogy research firms, has an alliance with Family
Tree Maker Online. GRA offers services including record lookups,
research advice, and complete personalized genealogies. Special VIP
discounts are available to owners of Family Tree Maker.
CD-BASED RESEARCH
--Bigger FamilyFinder Index includes more than 15 million new
individuals, bringing the total to more than 130 million names.
These latest additions come from several new World Family Tree CDs
and many other Family Archive CDs released in the past year. The
FamilyFinder Index has grown so big, we needed to put it on 2 CDs!
--FamilyFinder Report automatically compares all (or part) of a user’s
Family File against the entire FamilyFinder Index, and prints the
resulting matches in an easy-to-use report. This report indicates
which FACDs can offer you the most value by prioritizing potential
matches using a 5-star rating system. You’ll complete weeks of
meticulous research in minutes.
PAUL SAYS: This is another time-saving feature. Instead of having to search
one person at a time in the Family Finder Index, we'll compare your entire
database against the Family Finder Index and create a Report of potential
matches for you.
--More data in the box -- Family Tree Maker Deluxe Edition III now
includes 3 more volumes of the World Family Tree, bringing you the
Social Security Death Index and World Family Tree Volumes 1-5
(7 CDs). Family Tree Maker Standard Edition III now includes the
Social Security Death Index (2 CDs). Combined with the
2 FamilyFinder Index CDs, you get 9 CDs with Deluxe Edition III and
4 CDs with Standard Edition III.
PAUL SAYS: That's a whole lot of data. The Family Finder Index now includes
over 130 million people while the data CDs shipped in the Deluxe Edition III
has information on about 70 million people (3 million per World Family Tree CD
and about 55 million in the Social Security Death Index).
--Advanced Search allows you to conduct more efficient searches on
common surnames in the FamilyFinder Index and the Family Archive CDs
by allowing you to search on a broad range of fields, such as state,
birth date and death date.
PAUL SAYS: I know that many of you were sick of hearing me say that adding
advanced searching to the Family Finder is a priority for us. Well, I hope
that you know now that it really was something important to us. As an example
of this, on the Social Security Death Index CD you can search on Name, Social
Security Number, Birth date, Death date, and the State of Issue. On a Census
Index you can search on the Name, County, Location (Precinct), Age, and Birth
date of an individual.
Sincerely, Family Tree Maker Deluxe Edition II:
Paul Burchfield Winner of the Software Publishers Association's
Broderbund Software, 1997 Excellence in Software Award for
Banner Blue division Best Home Productivity Software Program
Mary E. Leek
On Tue, 13 May 1997 20:44:36 GMT, paul_bu...@broder.com (Paul Burchfield)
wrote:
---------------BIG SNIP-------------
::
:: PRINTING
:: --Family Books create one comprehensive chronicle of your family
:: history, combining ancestor and descendant trees, genealogy reports,
:: family stories, reports, an automatically-generated index and table
:: of contents, and more.
::
:: PAUL SAYS: Here's another very popular request with customers. As a part of
:: this feature you can save a specific setup of a tree or report to use again
:: and again. So, once you have created the perfect Descendant tree from Uncle
:: Bob including customizing the Items to Include as well as the formatting of
:: the tree, you can save it and use it later.
::
:: Sincerely, Family Tree Maker Deluxe Edition II:
:: Paul Burchfield Winner of the Software Publishers Association's
:: Broderbund Software, 1997 Excellence in Software Award for
:: Banner Blue division Best Home Productivity Software Program
Hi Paul,
Does the above mean there is a Book feature in version 4? (how I hope this is
so).
Your following notation addresses the saving of formatted reports (which is
great, too) but I'm confused by the first paragraph discussing family books
and the following notation regarding the "save report format" feature. Maybe
this means we can set up a book and save all the settings for future
printings?
Great to hear about the Source List. Everything sounds fantastic.
Thanks again for sharing this information with everyone.
Mary
ChersFmly
In article <5lak16$3j6$1...@ha2.rdc1.sfba.home.com>,
paul_bu...@broder.com (Paul Burchfield) writes:
>ORGANINIZING INFORMATION
>--Notecard-style "Source" Pages help you efficiently track and
> reference the bibliographic sources of your family information.
> Your descendants will thank you for keeping such good records!
>
>--Improved Merge features, such as Merge Specific Individuals, make
> it easier for you to share family information with your fellow
> researchers who use Family Tree Maker and other GEDCOM-compatible
> programs.
This sounds great...those are the only two things I've found...so far ;)
about FTM to complain about, these changes should be a big improvement!
I did have one question. Can you tell me how an upgrade will handle my
existing sources? Will it be able to convert them to the new format, or
will have to change each one individually? Thanks,
Cherie Clark
cher...@aol.com
http://members.aol.com/chersfmly
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There's only one thing worse than being talked about...that's not being talked about ~~~Oscar Wilde~~~
CM Research Services
Once upon a time, Paul Burchfield <paul_bu...@broder.com> wrote
>
>--More data in the box -- Family Tree Maker Deluxe Edition III now
> includes 3 more volumes of the World Family Tree, bringing you the
> Social Security Death Index and World Family Tree Volumes 1-5
> (7 CDs). Family Tree Maker Standard Edition III now includes the
> Social Security Death Index (2 CDs). Combined with the
> 2 FamilyFinder Index CDs, you get 9 CDs with Deluxe Edition III and
> 4 CDs with Standard Edition III.
>
>PAUL SAYS: That's a whole lot of data. The Family Finder Index now includes
>over 130 million people while the data CDs shipped in the Deluxe Edition III
>has information on about 70 million people (3 million per World Family Tree CD
>and about 55 million in the Social Security Death Index).
>
For all us non-USA users, will FTM be shipped with CDs appropriate to
*our* primary search area??
Anyway, FTM3.4 is a great product, well designed and layed out. Hope
that this is continued in 4.0. Keep up the good work.
--
Andrew Brydon
CM Research Services
Opinions expressed ARE those of this facility... 'till I'm fired!
Paul Burchfield
In article <noQt9FAY...@isbjorn.demon.co.uk>, CM Research Services
<rese...@isbjorn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
<snip>
>
>For all us non-USA users, will FTM be shipped with CDs appropriate to
>*our* primary search area??
>
>Anyway, FTM3.4 is a great product, well designed and layed out. Hope
>that this is continued in 4.0. Keep up the good work.
The upgrade for existing Family Tree Maker users comes with the program and
Family Finder Index. The size of the Family Finder Index now means that the
program and part of the Family Finder Index will come one one CD and the rest
of the Family Finder Index will come on a second CD.
At a retail level we will have the Standard Edition III which'll include the
program as well as the Social Security Death Index and the Deluxe Edition III
which comes with the program, Social Security Death Index and first 5 World
Family Tree CDs.
Like we have the Canadian edition now perhaps we'll see these other
configurations as well. I don't know.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.
BAllen9614
hi - can I get the new FTW 4 on 3-1/2" disks. I have the CD of the
previous version which I installed on my desktop comp., but I do not have
a CD player on my laptop. Please reply. Thanks.