New Features Added to Map My Family Tree Software

The following announcement was written by Progeny Software:

Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, December 1, 2006 - Progeny Software has announced even more enhancements to its newest software product - Map My Family Tree™.

"After launching Map My Family Tree in August we carefully listened to our customers’ suggestions on how to improve our product," explains Pierre Cloutier, Progeny's Chief Technology Officer. "As a result we’ve added many new features to help users better pinpoint their ancestors’ home towns, trace family migrations and see satellite images and aerial photographs of ancestral homelands. Map My Family Tree is still easy to use but now with these new features it’s even better!”

Map My Family Tree reads a user’s genealogy file and automatically plots ancestral life events on customizable color maps. So users can see where their ancestors were born, married and died. This software is very useful to track family migrations using the world and country maps. Then zoom into any part of the world to see detailed events in that particular location.

And now with the most recent version 1.3, users can instantly link to Google Earth, Google Maps, TerraServer USA as well as MapQuest.com to see ancestors’ home towns on online maps, satellite images and aerial photographs.

Maps created with Map My Family Tree are fully customizable with over 16-million colors and a wide range of font styles and sizes.

Recent enhancements include both filters and place markers to help users select and display specific people and events. Users can filter data by name, ancestor line, descendant line, date, event type and gender. This is especially helpful for creating maps with single family lines, births only, events from a specific time period, etc. Users may select from a list of place markers of varying shapes and colors or import one or more images to use as custom place markers.

Another exciting new feature is the time scrolling bar so users can dynamically select which time period to display. As users slide the thumbtrack along the scroll bar, they will see towns “twinkling” to show movements, voyages and migrations of their ancestors.

Users can print maps on a wide variety of paper sizes and/or publish electronically to display on websites or email to family, friends and colleagues. Electronic file formats that Map My Family Tree will export to include: PDF (available with the most recent version), JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG and TIFF.

Map My Family Tree requires no data entry nor GEDCOM import as the program reads the following popular genealogy file formats directly:

    * Family Tree Maker®
    * Personal Ancestral File
    * Legacy Family Tree
    * RootsMagic™
    * Heritage Family Tree Deluxe
    * The Master Genealogist
    * Ancestry Family Tree™
    * Ancestral Quest™
    * Family Historian

Map My Family Tree will also read GEDCOM 5.5 files (including data with Western European diacritics).

In addition to creating family tree maps, Map My Family Tree will also automatically check the user’s genealogy file for place name inaccuracies and offer corrections that can be copied and pasted to the original genealogy file.

As well, users can look up over 3.3-million place names from around the world, plus over 100,000 US churches and cemeteries. This is especially helpful to ensure place names are correctly spelled and complete with county names.

To read more about Map My Family Tree, go to http://www.progenygenealogy.com/map-my-family-tree.html. Sample screen shots showing how the program works are available at http://www.progenygenealogy.com/map-my-family-tree-details.html.

Priced at $39.95US, Map My Family Tree is available on CD-ROM only due to the extremely large place name database.

An Upgrade from World Place Advisor and Value Packs is available for $19.95US - for details on this offer see http://www.progenygenealogy.com/map-my-family-tree-wpaupgrade.html.

If you already own Progeny’s Map My Family Tree, simply download the free update to use these new features. For instructions on downloading the update go to http://www.progenygenealogy.com/map-my-family-tree-whatsnew.html.

Comments

[Nancy Noel]

This doesn't seem to be compatible with "Reunion" one of the biggest genealogy software programs created specifically for MacIntosh computers. Myfamily.com seems to have a blind spot when it comes to their Mac users as none of their softwareprograms or CDs are compatible. What a disappointment.

[Dick Eastman]

---> Myfamily.com seems to have a blind spot when it comes to their Mac users as none of their software programs or CDs are compatible. What a disappointment.

Uh, the program described in this article, Map My Family Tree, is not produced by Myfamily.com. It is a product of Progeny Software. It is a Windows program so I wouldn't expect it to work with Macintosh programs, such as Reunion.

- Dick Eastman

[Gary Hodges]

Mr. Eastman, have you tested "Map My Family Tree"? If so, how about sharing it with us? Other blogs and comments I have come accross say it doesn't work. I refuse to comment on it, first hand, as I won't buy it to try it. If they had a trial version than I might. I don't trust any software that won't let you test it first, or doesn't have a prior reputation for professed true functionality. Just food for thought. I certainly hope your blog/newsletter isn't turning into an advertisement and maketing commentary site based upon what someone from any respective company tells you.

[John Carlson]

I installed Map My Family Tree a month ago and it is still sitting there. I found nothing and there were no installation instructions so, for me, it has been a waste of money. At least I should have received some in struction as to the correct method of its use.

A disgruntled buyer of a useless CD.

[Judith Arnn-Knight]

I too bought the software and am a little confused about it plus they still do not have a manual to download. I have had no trouble with installation but the information they are pulling into their "place" field seems to come from the wrong field in Family Tree Maker. I have the 2006 version and would have expected the place names to be derived from either the birth place, death place or marriage place. In looking at the info when I downloaded the new version [an upgrade] it looks like the info is coming from the facts field under the "drop down" edit section. I have all sorts of numeric info in the facts field and it is showing up under place.

I posted a question at their user forum but no answer yet.

[Peggy LeBlanc]

To help, our support forum posted a reply yesterday recommending our user create a filter for just birth, marriage and death events.

In Map My Family Tree, Facts are treated as regular events, just like birth and census events are, because that is how they are in the Family Tree Maker file itself. Therefore, information in the Fact field is also retrieved and treated like the rest, as places.

We thought your readers might be interested in the results. Please remove this reply if it is not appropriate to your blog. Thanks, Peggy from Progeny

I also noted some have requested a manual. Here's a link to a PDF manual as some people have been requesting. Your readers might also want to know the help file prints out pretty well too.

www.progenygenealogy.com/supportftp/genemap.pdf

[Kim Curlin Wettroth]

I have Generations 4.2 (Sierra Home) for Windows - this was originally Reunion for Windows. Has anyone had luck with Map My Family Tree on this system?

[Dick Eastman]

Hi Peggy,

That is VERY appropriate. Thank you for posting that information.

- Dick Eastman

[HELEN]

I purchased the program & then learned it will not work with UFT so I have not installed it - the way I saw it advertised, I thought it worked with ALL genealogy programs.

[Dick Eastman]

The program should work well with UFT. As mentioned in the announcement: "Map My Family Tree will also read GEDCOM 5.5 files."

UFT can create GEDCOM files.

- Dick Eastman

[Linda Baker]

This sounded like just the program I was looking for, but I also am a MAC person. How about a version for us MAC/Reunion users?