I do not remember the last time a genealogy software producer released a free public beta test of a new version to the general public. Most betas are run behind closed doors by a closely-kit group of "friends of the company." This one is different: it is open to everyone. I haven't had a chance to download this yet as I just received this news. However, I believe it is supposed to be an all-new program, a total rewrite.
This beta test is free but please note the warning, "The beta will stop functioning on August 24th." I assume that you will need to purchase the released version by then if you wish to continue with the program. Also please note that Windows either XP or Vista is required. The program will not work on older operating systems, such as Windows 98 or ME.
The beta test version is a 164-megabyte download. You can download it on a 56k dial-up connection but that will take a long time. Broadband users should be able to download it in a few minutes.
The following is the announcement:
Announcing Family Tree Maker 2008, the next generation of the world's best-selling genealogy program. Family Tree Maker 2008 is coming this August, but you can give it a try now by downloading and installing a beta of the program. Simply click the link [at http://beta.familytreemaker.com] to download the beta.
Before you continue please note the following:
- This is a beta program; therefore there are no guarantees that the program will perform correctly, nor are there any warranties of any kind.
- Since this beta version is still in development it may crash or fail to function correctly. Though unlikely, installing the program may also negatively affect the operation of your computer.
- Files created in this beta may not open in the release version of the product. Always keep a backup of your data in another genealogy program (such as Family Tree Maker 16).
- The beta will stop functioning on August 24th. If you have entered information into the program that you would like to preserve please be sure to create a GEDCOM export before the 24th of August.
- The minimum system requirements for running the program are:
Operating System: Windows XP/Vista
Processor: 500 MHz Intel Pentium II or equivalent (1 GHz or faster processor recommended)
Hard Disk: 400 MB for installation. Additional space required for data files.
Memory: 256 MB of RAM (512 MB of RAM recommended)
Monitor: 800x600 resolution (1024x768 resolution recommended)
Internet: All online features require internet access
You can learn more at http://beta.familytreemaker.com.
The following is a must read:
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 04:53:00 -0400
From: "Fred"
Subject: [FTM-TECH] Major issues with 2008
To:
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I don't recommend FTM 2008 to anyone and the more I use 2008 the more issues
I find wrong with it. I could be wrong but you are just dreaming if you
think FTM is going to add most of the things back in the program. I don't
see any of the reports being added with them wanting everyone to use online
Ancestry Press to generate reports. They are moving to a pay to print
operation and you can believe it is going to cost more than if you took it
to Kinko's. People need to read the Content Submission Agreement before
using Ancestry Press at http://www.ancestrypress.com I did not find any
agreement in FTM 2008 software pertaining to uploaded data. It says sharing
so I assume the FTM will use the data as they please. Although it has a
nice looking screen layout, all the reduced or lacking capabilities vastly
over shadow it this new layout.
I installed 2008 and then did the update to ver 17.0.0.438 and it installed
fine. Then I imported my file and everything came in clean with no errors
on 104,000 people. I only had one picture in the database. I did noticed
after the import that ver 2006 database file now imported into 2008 has
increased in size to almost 50% more than it was in 2006. I got no option
on what items I wanted imported into FTM 2008 as prior versions did. I
don't like that I had to import ever fact even those I did not want.
FTM 2008 has crashed and closed or locked up continuously over the past two
days.
Every time FMT starts I get a nag screen popup window auto-search window
asking if it is ok to search the web. This is totally unnecessary. Also,
you do not need to register ver 2008 to search the web and get updates or
genealogy data on the people as it does this just fine here without
registering.
FTM 2008 is a step back in capabilities and what you can do with the program
by over 10 years with everything that you can no longer do.
It appears to me that FTM hired some programmers that had no knowledge of
genealogy to develop a pretty interface and they felt the features and
sophistication we were all use to, they felt were not needed so they removed
them from ver 2008. This has got to be the slowest version of FTM I have
seen to do anything. I could not use the error report in 2006 because it
took so long on everything I did. In the new 2008 almost everything is so
slow I don't know I can live with this. It takes over 10 seconds just to
move from one person to another.
On myself I noticed it changed the sex to female then it went back to male
as I moved to another person and came back to myself.
You can no longer click on a person in a tree and go to that person.
Trees contain fields such as B and D when you have no data for them. In
prior versions the trees were not cluttered with missing data fields. I
have not found a way to remove them.
No error report that I can find.
Authenticate with the server needs to be removed.
It does have a spell checker netspell http://www.loresoft.com that is
freeware and has not been improved on or updated since 2003. I would expect
more from FTM.
Spell check does not move through the people like it did in 2006. In 2008
you must go to each person then open the notes to that person and can only
spell check that person. When finished a popup window and if you click
continue the program crashes and closes.
No spell check on facts that I can find.
To edit facts you have to click on the fact the fact also shows on the right
of the screen. You must then move to the right side of the screen to edit
it, rather than allowing you to just click on the field and edit it there.
The reason some may have had problems with facts being renamed is due to the
fact the some prior ver of FTM has switched from the usual GEDCOM import
program that was being used to import the file. They are now using
GenBridge and FTM says GenBridge far more accurate data import than the
usual GEDCOM method. I don't buy this either. http://www.whollygenes.com
No longer remembers the last database you used and now requires you to open
the program and then open the database you use. So if you work with one
database almost all the time more work here. At least you can still have
more than one database open at the same time.
Changes to the pedigree report design do not hold when saved. I had made
changes several times and saved them only to come back to the same report
and it is set back to the defaults.
Custom report does not allow you to remove items such as dates and the word
"in", even though it has a tab under item to include doing this. It even
shows you a sample of how it will look without the data or the word "in" but
it does not show up that way on the report. The custom report no longer
lists the name to the left and then the items you select directly across
from the name so you can readily run through the report and find errors in
the names of locations, such as birth, death and marriage. Now it lists
these under the name so it makes it harder to find irregularities in
spelling and abbreviations. Also, you can no longer click on any person in
I believe any report and to then go to that person to fix something. Very
much more time consuming now. A custom report with only 14 people and when
I removed or added something to the report took 55 seconds to regenerate the
report.
In moving from report to report you must reselect the individuals you want
in the report.
The main reports are all missing from 2008, at least from what I can see.
no Descendent report
no Ancestor report
no Alternate Facts report
no Birthday report
no Medical report
no Data error report
Parentage report with 100,000 people took over 30 minutes to generate, where
it took less than 1 minute in ver 2006. And like all the other report I
tried you cannot click on any individual and go to that person to fix
something like you could in 2006.
Reports with data fields cannot be sorted on the different fields, which
could be done in ver 2006.
Kinship report does not show if you are related more than once to a person,
making it useless to me.
Most reports will not allow you to set or save defaults. You have to make
the changes every time you use the report. If you select certain individuals
in one report and the want another report you must reselect them all again.
Where as in 2006 you could move from report to report and not have to
reselect them again.
No books.
No undue.
No fast fill fields anymore so more work on the data entry.
No history tab.
No view data CD.
The date format does not hold. No reopening FTM the date format has
reverted back to the default.
Nag screen popup window auto-search asking if it is ok to search the web
needs to be removed and allow you to set this in the settings.
No find and replace. I used this on ever database I imported to correct
things and change all abbreviation of states to full spelling.
You can no longer change the capitalization of a name form CAPS to lower
case by changing one letter in the name. You must type everything again, as
there is also no find and replace to mast change the capitalization.
You can't copy anything on any of the reports.
You can no longer copy data from one tree to another.
You can no longer generate a tree of a family and then select to delete them
form the database.
Existing reports in the publish feature need to be made as good as they were
in prior versions.
Moving from one person to another now takes between 15-60 seconds on ever
person I move to.
I see no need for duplication of the person you are looking at on the
screen. The show everything twice once on the right side and then again at
the bottom.
Clicking the Ancestry Press link in the software to find out more
information did nothing. So I did a search and found the site. It looks
like they are intending to put all the report and books only here. This
will be very time consuming for anyone on dial up connection. I look at
this as a way to force you to give them all you data. At times I generate
books that are over 800 pages. This will now take much more time as you
must upload the data design what you want then download it again to print.
I do not like this approach at all. When I want a report I want it then no
having to upload and then download again and then print it. Most of the
time I generate reports but never print them as they are hundreds of pages.
But I do email report to people all the time and this is going to be much
more work and time consuming not being able to just generate a report as you
want to. So if you out somewhere say and a friend's house you will no
longer be able to generate a report for them, unless you can get on the
internet.
It also appears that you may no longer be allowed to use ver 2008 after they
come out with newer versions on the software with the web tie-in if you want
to generate reports. All they would need to do is not allow say ver 2008 to
access the reports site after then came out with ver 2010.
The publish feature to generate an ancestor tree now called a pedigree is
just off the wall and works like crap. In 2006 the tree came up almost
instantly but in 2008 it took minutes and then took minutes more going to
another page. Trying to change the # of generation to show or the # per page
in the tree took over 10 minutes using the little arrows up and down to
change the number of individuals on a page brings up a popup that says chart
loading and it does this every time you click the up or down arrows. Keying
in the number does no better, still over 10 minutes. Changing what you want
to show in the tree takes the same amount of time to redraw the tree. All
of the publish features work almost the same as the pedigree tree does and
takes about the same amount of time to do things. So I change the view from
book to poster view which was almost instant in 2006 now takes over an hour
or either gives a message not responding and appears to be locked up to
generate the tree of 16 generations. I have not yet been able to generate a
pedigree with 16 generations as it locks up and I have to use the windows
task bar to close FTM 2008 and then restart it as the cancel does nothing.
The trees look like something a child would draw when compared to ver 2006.
The only way I can describe it is primitive to ver 2006s features. In
checking FTM in windows task manager FTM take more memory than any other
program running, over 800,000k. I checked 4 other PCs on a network running
all kinds of software and nothing come close to using this much memory. The
closest was Microsoft Outlook ver 2007 which used just at 200,000k. FTM
2008 is a memory hog at least when trying to generate the pedigree tree and
this appears what takes so long to do anything in this version. Without
just loading FTM 2008 and opening the database of 104,000 it takes over 90%
of the PC s resources and just at 400,000k memory. Ver 2006 is using less
than 20,000k. Everything under the Publish tap took forever to produce a
report. I can't do anything else on the PC when FTM is running because FTM
is taking all the resources and memory.
I was an IT manager of a large agency prior to my retirement and some things
FTM has done with the database software are incorrect from everything I have
seen. Now they are trying to change the terminology that has been
considered as standard that we have all used for many years to something
they feel they want everyone to use.
All of these problems with FTM are FTM fault not the customers and they
don't seem to listen to what the customer wants. I have been absorbing this
ever since Ancestry purchased FTM and am getting really tired of the changes
they are forcing on us. Who are they consulting when they make these
changes, not the users as I have never seen anything pertaining to some of
the issues that have come up in discussions in this list until after ver
2006, 16 and 2008 were released. Just like the newest discussion of an
Uncle now being an Uncle-in-law and if I understand it correctly 2008 no
longer shows all the relationships of a person to you, like a wife could
also be you 4th cousin.
This thing of compacting the database is another programming fault with
FTM's code design. I can't think of any other windows program that requires
compacting the database to use it to export data and I must have some 300
different programs running on a network doing testing all the time. If
compacting is so important it should have been built in to the program to do
this automatically every time you closed the program.
Just as most of all the other issues discussed here such as field labels
being wrong on import to 2008 is another programming problem. Same goes for
this authentication issue and your PC clock set to sometime more than one
hour and 15 seconds off from Provo. I did change the date on my PC back 3
days and FTM still loaded and ran just fine for me then corrected the date
and still loaded and runs fine. I did get a popup window the FTM could not
authenticate with the server, but all I did was close the popup and continue
working.
I guess my biggest issue is that FTM provides no avenue of if or what they
are going to do to address the issues people have that purchased FTM 2008.
I expect newer version of software to offer new and more features not less
and certainly not reduced quality and functionality. It appears that I am
very negative about FTM and that is correct, because when I pay for a piece
of software I expect it to work and not have things removed that almost
everyone uses. We should not have to pay for software then wait for FTM to
decide if they are going to do anything to fix issues. Any of you know why
FTM does not provide a list of issues fixed with each upgrade like other
companies do?
Also, is there anyone that knows of contacts FTM that will address any of
these issues other than http://past.familytreemaker.com/help/default.aspx
Please let me know.
Needless to say I am looking for a replacement to FTM. So if you have
suggestions, please let me know.
Fred
Posted by: Larry Chesebro' | September 07, 2007 at 10:30 AM
Fred, I couldn't have stated it better. Unlike you, I did not spent such quality time finding all the faults with the software. It took me about two hours to determine it wasn't worth my time. It was two days later that I found the data import problem. (Only because I exported my data back from the new version and re-imported it back into the older version. Big mistake.)I should have checked that first. I had total faith in the software being reliable. After the number of years of dependable service I had no reason to believe otherwise. As I had stated further up in this page, the programmers are not users; same as you believe. There will come a day, very soon in terms of the internet, when pay sites such as Ancestry will have to scramble to keep business. LDS will have their records online, completely, in less than ten years. They did not even envision this initially. I think maybe trying to lock their program more securely to their site has many purposes; one of them is staying alive. Already most census images are online for free.
I downloaded Legacy and liked it. I also listened to an interview on Dear Myrtle with one of the key people at Legacy and I really liked their concern for creating a product that was completely built around what we want as a genealogy community. The new features that are being added this fall will completely change the way we source our information. Go here to hear the interview:
http://media.podcastingmanager.com/31625-80809/Media/DearMYRTLE2007Aug21_24.mp3
I purchased Legacy and I am still learning the ins and outs so to speak. I have not entered any data but am checking the integrity of what was brought over. It is highly ranked and fully loaded with what you will need. One of the new features coming out in the next release is the ability to do wall charts.
Posted by: Beeman | September 07, 2007 at 11:21 AM
i tried Family Tree Maker version 11.2. let's just say it performed far below expectations. i could read all the positive stuff the company puts out about its product but it dont mean i am going to entertain the idea of purchasing their product for use. the product will need to be improved a whole lot before i will ... and even then they may have to pay me.
i currently use another program that has most times exceeded my expectations, is flexible and is developed with an eye toward the future in this field. i wont mention the product but if anyone is interested they can e-mail and i'll let em know.
Posted by: r lee | September 08, 2007 at 01:03 PM
Is there going to be an UPGRADE price lower than $40 with FTM?
As a loyal customer for over 10 years, why does everyone start out paying full price, again. Adobe Photoshop upgrades are lower than the full version. I have been their user since version 2.5.
Posted by: SR Kay | September 08, 2007 at 04:39 PM
Place Authority is inaccurate
Thanks for the many email I received off list asking me to review certain issues in the new FTM 2008. I do not mind doing this in an effort to address many of the downfalls and inadequacies in this version. But, I can only do this as time permits.
I no longer recommend FTM software to anyone I work with and to definitely not to purchase 2008. The reason I stopped recommending all FTM is because shortly FTM will at some point in time, unknown today will stop allowing you to use prior versions to access data on their databases. FTM has already commented on the fact of publishing books from older versions using Ancestry Press and not being able to use them in 2008 or future versions. "If you have produced a book in Family Tree Maker 2005, 2006 or 16, you will eventually be able to export a PDF version of your book to Ancestry Press to have it professionally printed; however, you will not be able to edit your book in Ancestry Press, Family Tree Maker 2008 or future versions." I recommend you take the book to Kinko's to have it professionally printed instead of FTM. Kinko's does a very good job and will most likely cost much less than using FTM Ancestry Press.
This Place Authority is another example of inaccurate programming code and is useless to me. FTM 2008 has a Place Authority file of more than 3 million location names worldwide. The general format is City name, County name, State name and Country name (or the equivalent in other countries). Regardless of whether you like to include "County" after the county name or not or whether you want USA. FTM Place Authority titles an Independent City as Independent Cities. How does City now become plural? I have never as a retired State Official ever seen Richmond called Cities in any state records. It is not even called Independent City; it is called Richmond, Virginia. This is just another example of FTM trying to force their definitions on the genealogy community.
FTM Place Authority appears to be using 8 bytes for each flag tied to a location. Good programming would have done the same using you own spelling of a location and it appears that it does this. Only problem is when I start typing a location it does a dropdown window for me to select from the list of some 26 various entries I have starting with the word Richmond.
EXAMPLE:
Richmond Co., Georgia
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Richmond, Virginia
Richnond, Virginia age 4
Richnond, Virginia age 54
Richnond, Virginia age 58
This is good as it allows you to select from entries you already have, but the rub comes in that it takes over a minute in a database of 100,000 to allow bring this up and allow you to select an item from your list. Slow is not the word, misery is more correct. The same thing happens if I type in the word Suffolk and try to bring up the FTM Place Authority locations to pick one of them slower then molasses. And if I have already entered a location in the place and say it was Richmond, VA and I type Suffolk and click the little icon to select from FTM Place Authority list it pops up a window wanting to know if you want to change the Place Authority and then brings up all the Place Authorities for Suffolk. This is an unnecessary waste of time having to wait for this popup and then selecting yes just to change the location every time you do it. It takes between 1-3 minutes to do this in my database. The BIG thing is there is no entry for Suffolk County, or the town of Suffolk, Virginia only listing in FTM Place Authority is Suffolk Independent Cities, Virginia USA for which it is today. It gets even more complicated if you want to use Nansemond County. Nansemond was a County prior to 1972 and in 1972 the City of Suffolk annexed the entire county and it from 1972-1974 it was the City of Nansemond. Then in 1974 it became the City of Suffolk, which included what was all of the original Nansemond County, Town of Suffolk, and the original City of Suffolk. FTM Place Authority only has Nansemond, Virginia USA even though there is no Nansemond, Virginia USA today. So FTM has left out Nansemond, Independent Cities, Virginia USA which it was officially called prior to its name change to Suffolk, Independent Cities, Virginia USA.
FTMs Place Authority does not show County or Town after the names. So if you have a location that is just for example: Place, Place, State is it in a Town or City? I see no way to tell this in FTMs Place Authority. So whoever reads any reports generated from FTM 2008 they will most likely have no clue if Place, Virginia, USA is the say Place, County, State or Place, City, State. As FTM 2008 have four entries in the Place Authority for Richmond, Independent Cities, Virginia USA Richmond, Virginia, USA Richmond, Chesterfield, Virginia USA >>> does not exist Richmond, Henrico, Virginia USA >>> does not exist
First off The City of Richmond is not Cities and no one refers to it as Richmond, Independent City, Virginia. It is called Richmond, Virginia and Richmond County is called Richmond County, Virginia.
I use
Richmond, VA
and Richmond Co., VA
FTM Place Authority list. The thing is there is no and never was a County, or City government location place Richmond, Chesterfield, Virginia USA and Richmond, Henrico, Virginia USA. Richmond is an independent City and they annexed parts of Chesterfield and Henrico Counties.
I would not want to use any of FTMs Place Authorities as I have a standard format as they are wrong base on examples in the email.
I use
City, State
Co., State
Twn, Co., State
City, Co., State
I totally despise using the USA after ever name of a location in the USA. Another example of FTM trying to force their definitions on the genealogy community.
The real rub comes on places that changed from being a county, town or city and you have more than one location in a state where there are more than one location and they are either a county at the time of the fact you use or it was a Town or City and now it has reverted back from being a County or City to just being a County. In Virginia we have several Counties that changed from being a County to a Town or City and are now they gave up being a Town or City and are now just a County again.
I see no way for you to change any of the FTM Place Authorities.
I do not know what the file limits for the number of people you have in the FTM, but with 100,000 people the issues of speed and doing anything for all practical purposes makes FTM 2008 unusable.
On entering the date 6 3 1944 in any date field takes over 2 minutes for FTM to accept it and I attribute this to the fact that FTM has maxed out the CPU to almost 100% on a 2.21 GH with 1GB of memory. This is not an entry level PC, So all the mature ladies that I work with and have purchased what I would call an entry level PC's that worked fine with prior versions of FTM with only 512MB memory and a slower CPU will be in the same boat when using smaller databases that mine. FTM 2008 program coding has been drastically bloated (increased in size) as well as increasing the size of my database by almost 50% over the size it was in 2006 which I am attributing as casing this version to be so slow. I hate to see what we get as they add more things to the program.
FTM would have been able to dramatically speed up this program if they chose to use several different files to store tables' and data in and if they allowed you to edit the tables so that things were not duplicated. Most large databases have several tables and data files to speed things up. FTM is storing all the tables in one file. The data you enter is stored in another file and from what I can tell the only other files are for picture files that are stored in separate files.
Do any of you know what language or program FTM is written in?
Fred
Posted by: Fred | September 08, 2007 at 04:42 PM
Merging two files in FTM 2008
Yesterday on merging/appending a FTM file with 21 people to a database of 104,215 it took 10 hours 5 minutes.
This is broken down to 7 hours 15 minutes to load the 21 people, 2 hours to do matching people and then another window opened for you to select items to do the merge and click continue and it beginnings merging, another 50 minutes to complete the total merge process. Both files had already been imported into 2008 prior to doing the merge. Windows task manager showed the CPU maxed out at almost 100% the entire time and used over 800,000k memory.
I saw no undelete option after the merge. I can’t live with this software taking this amount of time to do something. Although this morning when I started 2008 there was an undo on the menu under edit. It was not there before so I checked the version # of FTM and it had not changed. So I have no idea as to where undo feature was before when using the program.
Fred
Posted by: Fred | September 11, 2007 at 12:41 AM
Items REMOVED and NEW PROBLEM in FTM 2008 software
Items REMOVED, NEW PROBLEM and what FTM says is “NEW IN 2008” with my comments as to what FTM says is “NEW IN 2008”. This is not an all inclusive list of these items as NEW issues are being found daily. If you see something to correct or add to this list please let me know. The issues below were found using a database with over 104,000 people. If I am incorrect on any of these please let me know.
I attribute all of the issues with FTM 2008 to improper design, programming and beta testing.
Thanks to those that sent email to let me know of some of these issues. I checked to see if I could duplicate your issue and if I was not able to duplicate it, it is not listed here.
I cannot recommend anyone purchase FTM 2008 or if you already have purchased it you might want to consider returning it.
Fred
REMOVED ITEMS:
===============
REMOVED: Double click on GEDCOM file to open.
REMOVED: Option to select what items to include on a FTM and GEDCOM file merge/append.
REMOVED: Capability to save a file back to an older version of FTM.
REMOVED: All Nicknames or AKA were lost on import of file into 2008. AKA that existed in 2006 in the full name edit screen was removed in 2008. You can add them manually back in by using a fact field. So my grandson’s 1st cousin 11 times removed whose name is Wahunsenacawh and had an AKA of Chief Powhatan the father of Pocahontas is lost. It will be next to impossible to fix this manually in a large database as I was not able to generate any report in 2006 to list everyone with an AKA. The custom report in 2006 had a field AKA but when generating the report noting shows in the AKA field on the report.
REMOVED: Capability to change menu bar.
REMOVED: Index of individuals options.
REMOVED: Index of individuals search by given name.
REMOVED: Index of names no longer shows comma in front of name suffix.
REMOVED: Automatic selection of female when entering a NEW person in the database. It now defaults to unknown requiring extra work as you have to change this almost 100% of the time. In 2006 it was set to female and it only required you change the field to male about 50% of the time.
REMOVED: When you have a drawing of a tree on the screen you can’t click on a person in a tree and go to that person. It is this way on all report I tried.
REMOVED: Automatic backup of file on exit. You must now manually go to the menu and select backup every time you want to back up the database.
REMOVED: Reference numbers.
REMOVED: Address labels.
REMOVED: Meciclal labels.
REMOVED: Spell check for facts or anything else except notes.
REMOVED: Spell check does not move through all the notes like it did in 2006. You must go to each person then open the notes to that person and can only spell check that person. When finished a popup window and if you click continue the program crashes and closes.
REMOVED: Edit facts by double click it. Now you have to click on the fact then the fact also shows on the right of the screen. You must then move to the right side of the screen to edit it, rather than allowing you to just click on the field and edit it there.
REMOVED: All-in-one tree chart.
REMOVED: Address report.
REMOVED: Basic register and ahnentafel reports.
REMOVED: All Ancestor tree charts. Now only has a standard pedigree tree chart.
REMOVED: Alternate facts report.
REMOVED: Bibliography report.
REMOVED: Birthday report.
REMOVED: Data error report.
REMOVED: Documented events report.
REMOVED: Genealogy report. This was the major report used by most people.
REMOVED: Hourglass tree charts.
REMOVED: Medical report.
REMOVED: What robust features that did exist on all charts and reports. NEW charts and reports are primitive in design and features. The ancestor tree report looks like something a child would draw.
REMOVED: Books. They now want you to upload your data and design report on-line and then either print at Ancestry Press or download and print on your printer.
REMOVED: Scrapbook.
REMOVED: Research Journal.
REMOVED: View data CD. So none of the CDs you purchased will not work in FTM 2008.
REMOVED: Option to sort reports with data fields on the different fields.
REMOVED: More than one relation to a person in the Kinship report. Now only shows closest relation, so if a person is related more than once to a person, there is no way to see or show the duplicate relationship. No search on a kinship report and in 2006 report on the person Wahunsenacawh was 55 pages now because of the new spacing it takes 86 pages to produce the same number of kin on the 2008 report. It appears that all the reports and charts in 2008 now require more pages to produce the same report information as in 2006.
REMOVED: Fast fill fields do not work as in 2006. Original fast fill type as you go in 2006 which remembered about the last 30 items was removed and replaced with a drop down menu that is slower. When you import a file into 2008 it puts every item you had in any location in the new fast fill database. I don’t know if the slowness of the new fast fill is due to the fact that the drop down menu holds every item you ever used beginning with the letter of each word of the fact that the CPU is maxed out at 100%. Also, I see no option to delete something form the fast field database. If you make any change to the data in the location field it drops down the fast fill box again for you to select from.
REMOVED: Find and replace.
REMOVED: Capability to change the capitalization of a name from CAPS to lower case by changing one letter in the name. You must type everything again, as there is also no find and replace to mast change the capitalization.
REMOVED: Capability to copy selected items on any of the reports.
REMOVED: Capability to copy selected individuals from one database to another.
REMOVED: Capability to generate a tree of a family and then select to delete them from the database.
NEW PROBLEM:
=============
NEW PROBLEM: Requires a PC with more memory, faster CPU and more hard drive space.
NEW PROBLEM: Program uses large amounts of page memory. More than any program I have seen. High end programs such as Photoshop and Microsoft Office do not use anywhere near the amount of memory to run FTM 2008. Which most likely is responsible for the slowness of the program.
NEW PROBLEM: Some names of people are incorrect in 2008 after importing from 2006.
NEW PROBLEM: Pretty interface that is slow and unresponsive. The slower response dramatically increases the time to enter data and generate reports.
NEW PROBLEM: Authenticate with the server. An unnecessary feature.
NEW PROBLEM: Registration fails for some people.
NEW PROBLEM: Nag screen popup window to register program. I did not have to register the program to download the update or to use the program. After 4 days the nag screen stopped.
NEW PROBLEM: Nag screen popup window auto-search on starting program asking if it is ok to search the web. I have not found a way to turn this off, but it also stopped after 4 days.
NEW PROBLEM: Maxes out the CPU when checking in task manager to almost 100% making the PC and program extremely slow and unresponsive. I cannot do anything else on the PC until I FTM is shut down because of this.
NEW PROBLEM: Undo of merged/append file. I merged two files and did not find where you can undo it on the menu anywhere. Although this morning when I started 2008 there was an undo on the menu under edit. It was not there before so I checked the version # of FTM and it had not changed. So I have no idea as to where undo feature was before when using the program.
NEW PROBLEM: Imported a FTW file from ver 2006 into 2008 and all went ok. On checking the data, several names were incorrect.
NEW PROBLEM: Bloated program increased in size from 55MB in 2006 to 379MB in 2008.
NEW PROBLEM: Bloated database increase in size from 95MB in 2006 to 174MB in 2008.
NEW PROBLEM: Exported data back to an older version of FTM using a GEDCOM file from 2008 and re-imported back into an older version of FTM and then exporting it from the older version and re-importing it back to 2008 caused data errors with the data.
NEW PROBLEM: Moving from one person to another now takes between 15-60 seconds on ever person I move to.
NEW PROBLEM: Trees contain fields such as B and D when you have no data for them. In prior versions the trees were not cluttered with missing data fields. I have not found a way to remove them.
NEW PROBLEM: For people that are married more than one, you lose your preferred spouse setting when importing a file from prior versions of FTM. All my preferred spouses are gone and if I continued using 2008 I would have to go to every marriage and reselect a preferred spouse.
NEW PROBLEM: Changes to the pedigree report design do not hold when saved. I had made changes several times and saved them only to come back to the same report and it is set back to the defaults.
NEW PROBLEM: Custom report does not allow you to remove items such as dates and the word "in", even though it has a tab under item to include doing this. It even shows you a sample of how it will look without the data or the word "in" but it does not show up that way on the report. The custom report no longer lists the name to the left and then the items you select directly across from the name so you can readily run through the report and find errors in the names of locations, such as birth, death and marriage. Now it lists these under the name so it makes it much harder to find irregularities in spelling and abbreviations.
NEW PROBLEM: When moving from one report to another you must reselect the individuals you want in the report.
NEW PROBLEM: On merging/appending a FTM file with 21 people to a database of 104,215 it took 10 hours 5 minutes. This is broken down to 7 hours 15 minutes to load the 21 people, 2 hours to do matching people and then another window opened for you to select items to do the merge and click continue and it beginnings merging, another 50 minutes to complete the total merge process. Both files had already been imported into 2008 prior to doing the merge. Windows task manager showed the CPU maxed out at almost 100% the entire time and used over 800,000k memory. I saw no undelete option after the merge. I can’t live with this software taking this amount of time to do something. Although this morning when I started 2008 there was an undo on the menu under edit. It was not there before so I checked the version # of FTM and it had not changed. So I have no idea as to where undo feature was before when using the program.
NEW PROBLEM: There is an Undo feature. This morning when I started 2008 there was an undo on the menu under edit. It was not there before so I checked the version # of FTM and it had not changed. So I have no idea as to where undo feature was before when using the program. It appears to me that certain items do not show up at all times on the screen. Example is the calculator on the side of the date field and the ? on the side of the place field. Do not show up at all times.
NEW PROBLEM: Parentage report with 100,000 people took over 30 minutes to generate, where it took less than 1 minute in ver 2006.
NEW PROBLEM: Most reports will not allow you to set or save defaults. You have to make the changes every time you use the report. If you select certain individuals in one report and the want another report you must reselect them all again. Where as in 2006 you could move from report to report and not have to reselect them again.
NEW PROBLEM: 2008 has database of 3 million place names connected to FastFields that are inaccurate and leave out locations where names changed. I see no way to turn off FTM place names or change these place names or to only use your place names. I have a detailed email outlining the problem with FTM place names if you have not seen it already. There is a setting in the options to not use FastFields for place names, but then your FastField items will also not work. I don’t need FTM telling me how to name a location.
NEW PROBLEM: Program unresponsive and locks up. It appears that unlike 2006 if the program locked up and did not close 2008 properly the data or changed setting are not saved. So in 2008 on a lock up and you have to force the program to shut down or the program crashes on you and closes the data or setting change is lost. I noticed this on the date files as I set the date to show month, day year with full spelling of month. On crash and starting 2008 the date settings were set back to the default.
NEW PROBLEM: Reduced design of reports that still exist.
NEW PROBLEM: Duplication of data on the screen in more than one place at the same time.
NEW PROBLEM: When you close the program, even though it is gone on the screen in task manager it still runs for about 5 minutes.
NOW THIS IS WHAT FTM SAYS IS NEW IN 2008
I do not see where hardly any of these items are really NEW items. My comments are after >> on each item.
=====================================
What's NEW in Family Tree Maker
Family Tree Maker opens with a whole new look. Every effort has been made to make family history welcoming and fun. The program is now divided into seven distinct areas (workspaces) that focus on the key tasks of research and data management. The following list explains the new features available in each of the workspaces.
Plan
Improved file merge. >>Not the case it took 10 hours 5 minutes to merge a 21 person database with an existing 104,215 person database.
Global task management.
Ability to import PAF, Legacy, The Master Genealogist and various other file formats. >>You could already do this in prior version using a GEDCOM file.
People
Family view that combines the family tree and family group. >>Looks good but is slow.
Person view that displays facts, sources, notes, and tasks in one view. >>Slow and unresponsive and duplicate information shown twice for some item on the screen.
Timeline view that lists personal, family, and historic events. >>Timeline report already existed in prior versions.
Relationship view that lists family relationships. >>Slow and prints a head in the box to the left of the persons information. I see no way to remove the heads. You could produce a similar type report in prior versions. I don’t see much use for this report the way it works. You can select the person relation from a drop down box but to change the person relation to you have to fumble through the tabs of the few people listed at the top of the screen. You cannot pick someone from a drop down box to pick the relation to person.
Index groupings that allow searching by family name, given name, birth date, marriage date, and death date.
History list that displays the changes made to records in the tree. >> History tab existed in 2006.
Places
A database of 3 million complete place names connected to FastFields name completion. >> Slow and these so called Place FastFields cannot be changed. They are inaccurate as to name of locations and leave out locations where the name changed. I see no way to turn off FTM place names and only use your place names.
A map to find each location in the tree. >> Slow and a similar map existed in prior versions.
A view to see all of the people associated with a location. >> Slow and a similar view existed in prior versions.
Media
View all of the images and media in your tree from one location. >> Nice.
Link one media file to multiple people and view all of the people a media file is linked to. >> This might be of use to people.
Sources
View all of the sources in your tree from one location. >>Available in 2006 under edit master sources.
Rate sources using standardized rating criteria.
Full reference notes. >>Notes existed in 2006.
Flexible citation/source/repository model.
Publish >> Existed in 2006.
New charts and reports >> These so called new charts could for the most part be produced in 2006.
Improved chart and report customization. >> Not the case, they appear to be of lower quality and features removed that existed in 2006. The tree chart looks like something a child would draw when compared to the features it could do in 2006.
Output charts and reports to PDF, CSV, RTF, HTML, JPG, PNG and other formats >> Most of this was available in 2006.
Web Search >> Available in 2006.
Search Ancestry.com, Rootsweb.com, and Genealogy.com and merge the results into your tree. >>Available in 2006.
Search anywhere on the Internet from within Family Tree Maker and merge the results into your tree. >> Can do the same thing in Internet Explorer. I don’t need to search the web form inside a genealogy program, although others might want this feature.
Add your own bookmarks to web sites. >> Can be done in Internet Explorer.
Capture text, images, and entire web pages and merge them into the tree. >> Nice but was able to copy and paste into 2006.
Posted by: Fred | September 11, 2007 at 12:44 AM
I've now been a new Legacy user for 1 whole month using it almost daily. I have no plans on going back to FTM and after reading these posts, glad I didn't waste any money on the new 08 version.
Posted by: Theresa | September 12, 2007 at 04:27 AM
Has the new 08 version of FTM addressed the inability of the last several versions to use the FIND feature within Notes. In a much earlier verison you could open an individual note and use the Edit FIND feature to find a particular word within the individual's note.. Somewhere that feature was lost. It is, in my opinion, a very critical feature; especially when some of my individual notes are more than 25 pages long.. One should be able to search for a particular word or date within their notes without reading the entire notes section for an individual. I have written more than once to the FTM folks in this regard but as yet have received no answers from them; and from what I am reading, it doesn't sound as though they have addressed it yet. Its a MAJOR issue for me.. I could care less about some of the little "cutesy features" when I cannot even do a basic search or highlight a word in notes.
And it seems that FTM isn't listening... at least not to me. Can someone tell me if it has been fixed.
Vivian Eakes Hull
Posted by: Vivian Hull | September 12, 2007 at 06:09 PM
Well, I think you all need a lesson on courtesy as Mr. Eastman shouldn't take the hits for FTM 2008 as he didn't build it.
While there are some things that need to be fixed, all in all if you actually spend time with the program, it is user friendly and much more sophisticated then prior versions. I believe FTM has already admitted they made some errors and thus the patch that is already available and they one coming next month.
I am glad everyone of you is perfect and never made an error. I'm sticking with FTM as I know they will make it right and all it is is accepting CHANGE!
Posted by: Vicki | September 16, 2007 at 05:39 PM
No, it is much more than CHANGE. They trashed this software. I am glad they did. It opened up my eyes to what I was missing. Family Tree Maker was only the best selling genealogy software because they were lucky enough to jump on board early, plus they pushed the software harder than other companies did. After seeing what Legacy does and the fantastic features it has to offer, FTM pales in comparison. Also, no one is trashing Mr. Eastman. This site provides an outlet so people can voice their concerns and hopefully warn others before they fall prey to software such as FTM. I have been doing research long enough to know what is good and what is bad. Also, my opinions have been reinforced with the opinion of others that have been doing research for many years and know good from bad. FTM is BAD.
Posted by: Beeman | September 17, 2007 at 02:38 PM
I tried opening your site for the beta version of family tree maker 2008 and it doesn't work.I bought the program and it won't install on my computer.What's going on with this program? I have the 2006 version and it installed just fine. All I get is an error saying that family tree maker has to close.Why won't this progran work? I hate to think i'm out the money I payed for it and it's not a working program.shelea
Posted by: Shelea Mclaughlin | September 18, 2007 at 02:12 PM
I've been using FTM since version 3 and was currently using FTM 16. Knowing full well that FTM 2008 would be very different from earlier versions, I recently purchased it through Ancestry.com. Tonight, I've finally decided to return this program. I had a look-up query from a man in Switzerland and when I went to make a Registry format report, I found that it is evidently not possible in FTM 2008. The slowness also bugs me more each time I use it. I talked to Support again today, particularly about the Registry report and the very nice lady could only tell me that it might come in future updates. That's not good enough. When I couldn't create a registry report, I tried to create a book since it is essentially the same format. When I tried to do that, all of a sudden I was linked to the Internet and my book was being uploaded. I promptly stopped it but that is definitely not acceptable. While some of the features are nice to have, the minuses outweigh the pluses. Since I will not receive a refund on the cost of shipping, plus I will have to pay to mail it back, I wish I had never ordered it and I would not recommend it.
Posted by: Mariana | September 21, 2007 at 11:36 PM
I've been using FTM since version 3 and was currently using FTM 16. Knowing full well that FTM 2008 would be very different from earlier versions, I recently purchased it through Ancestry.com. Tonight, I've finally decided to return this program. I had a look-up query from a man in Switzerland and when I went to make a Registry format report, I found that it is evidently not possible in FTM 2008. The slowness also bugs me more each time I use it. I talked to Support again today, particularly about the Registry report and the very nice lady could only tell me that it might come in future updates. That's not good enough. When I couldn't create a registry report, I tried to create a book since it is essentially the same format. When I tried to do that, all of a sudden I was linked to the Internet and my book was being uploaded. I promptly stopped it but that is definitely not acceptable. While some of the features are nice to have, the minuses outweigh the pluses. Since I will not receive a refund on the cost of shipping, plus I will have to pay to mail it back, I wish I had never ordered it and I would not recommend it.
Posted by: Mariana | September 21, 2007 at 11:37 PM
Like many of the other people here I have used FTM for a long time - since 1998 at least. I upgraded with each version and bought v16 when it came out so I could get the free Ancestry one year subscription. I also bought RootsMagic at the same time after hearing good things about it. I was entering data into both programs side by side to see how they compared. I dont think I have entered anything into FTM for the several months. I greatly prefer RootsMagic to FTM. I have never experienced any problems with it. There have been a couple of updates but these were free and downloaded without any problems. The person who started the program posts on the RootsWeb mailing list from time to time answering questions. He is much more in tune with what users want and need from their genealogy program. I agree with what Happy Dae posted - "Family Tree Maker is an excellent software for genealogy beginners." I will not be "upgrading/buying FTM 2008. I'm glad I won't be going through the pains so many are with FTM 2008
Posted by: John | September 23, 2007 at 02:28 PM
Family Tree Maker has just recently put up a blog! by Benjamin Nettesheim who say’s he is the Family Tree Maker Brand Manager
http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2007/09/28/welcome-to-the-new-family-tree-maker-blog/#comment-13
Posted by: Fred | September 30, 2007 at 10:16 PM
I must echo the comments of all who are disappointed in this product. I too made the mistake of ordering it. It took less than an hour to see just what a pile of garbage it is, and I would not recommend anyone buy it under any circumstances. Stick to version 16 if you use this product. Unfortunately, rather than designing, coding, and testing a program to meet the needs of users, they seem to have done a "re-write" largely to support "new features" that will lead only to us spening more money with them. All in all version 2008 and the (apparently new) team/company behind it are a huge disappointment at this point.
Posted by: Jack Saunders | October 03, 2007 at 12:09 AM
I wish I'd seen this blog before I upgraded to 2008.
This is more than a disappointment. It's a rip-off, nothing more than a front end for having them publish (at a cost) any useful output.
My version crashes at least three times a session. It vanishes from screen and some 15 seconds later a box comes up to apologize for having to close.
Unfortunately I stuck it out for about a month, but even so, I'm switching to something else.
Posted by: Paul R | October 15, 2007 at 04:04 PM
I too purchased the 2008 FTM as an update. my old one was probably from 10 years+ old. I am very disappointed in the product. I am not a computer whiz and I find that a person must need a college degree in computers to be able to do what I could do with the old FTM. instructions in the "help" are not easy and do not cover many questions. Esp. in the Publish. asked 6 different people if they knew "how to include more than 3 generations" and NONE could figure it out. I WANT MY MONEY BACK. Family Tree sold us out when they "struck a deal" to let ANCESTRY come within 10 feet of them
Posted by: Ruth | October 29, 2007 at 09:54 AM
Frankly, I'm shocked at the trash that FTM 2008 is. After having used FTM for over 10 years it's almost surreal that what came to me on CD the other day bore the same name as past versions. I regularly post my family tree on Ancestry.com, but while trying to upload the new 2008 file version; Ancestry.com said it could not read my file. Does the right hand know what the left is doing over there?
I've read all the posts about the bugs and missing items so there is no need to pile on here. FTM 2008 is not ready and like it's name suggests; won't be ready until 2008. That's being nice. The skeptical me thinks that we have seen the last of a good FTM product that addresses a Genealogist needs - not the need for upselling other products and services they have in mind.
Good luck Ancestry in keeping your customers - you're gonna need it.
Posted by: Andy | November 02, 2007 at 11:30 AM
I having been using Family Tree Maker since the DOS version and I have never been so unhappy. I purchased the new version 2008 and so much of the stuff has been removed and most of the things that weren't removed when you run them the program crashes. I own a computer store and if I had employees that put out products like 2008 I would have them fired. I dont think the people who put this program together do genealogy or they would not have removed some of the really good parts of the program - report features, book feature, auto backup on exit, etc. It has managed to corrupt my file and I am having to restore from a backup and I dont think I will be using Family Tree Maker 2008 for my genealogy. I so hope with all of the problems this program has that the your software crew is working overtime to fix the issue. Family Tree Maker 2008 is a big waste of money and time in even running and very disappointing.
Posted by: Peggy Uchtman | November 05, 2007 at 11:57 PM
I am so upset with the performance of the Family Tree Maker 2008. I have been using FTM for 10 years and have about 30,000 individuals in my file. My research has basically came to a stand still since I upgraded to the 2008 version last fall. It takes forever for the program to open and then at least 20 seconds for the program to change screens (which seems like an eternity compared to the prior version). It freezes, it crashes. I have tried all the online help suggestions, ie; deleting temp files. And, forget contacting them by email, it takes weeks to get a response. I wish I could bill them for all the time I've wasted on this product.
Posted by: Deanna Brott | February 06, 2008 at 10:52 PM
I feel the same way Deanna does. I have all the same problems plus I have tried to register the program and all it does is freeze up when I try to register. I have contacted Family Tree at least twice and there suggestions do not fix the problem. I personally think this 2008 Family Tree Maker 2008 is a piece of junk. Not worth the money.
Posted by: Robert Rice | February 07, 2008 at 04:47 PM
I just bought the upgrade and last week and installed it and I think it is still in beta. :-) This progam has been trouble since I upgrabeed from FTM 16 I can't wait until roots magic release their upgrade because I think I am going be home....
Posted by: Craig Stevens | February 10, 2008 at 07:47 PM
I am very disappointed in FTW 2008, I have used FTW from version 3 and still to this day use version 11, then thye changed the User Interface when they switched to version 2005. This was and still is a big disappointment. The older version User Interface was much easier to navigate. I will not be upgrading again and still look for the same User Interface I got in FTW 11 in another program.
Posted by: Bryan Ashenfelter | March 08, 2008 at 07:38 PM
i would like to know when the next version of the family tree maker beta version download would be up and running ty
sandy lovejoy
Posted by: sandy | May 14, 2008 at 03:23 PM
Nobody has yet mentioned the most important features of FTM2008;
a/ you can't save as an older version to send to anybody any more!
b/ you need a BIG, FAST machine to run it,
but I do like the fact that you can now standardise your location feild discriptions, just like Brothers keeper did 10 years ago.
I brought it and trialed it and went back to FTM13.
Posted by: Graeme O'Neill | July 02, 2008 at 12:55 AM