Friday, August 6, 2010

Family Tree Maker 2011 Announced

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I received an email from Ancestry.com that Family Tree Maker 2011 is available for pre-orders - the link is here. The price is $39.95 with free shipping, with pre-orders ending 18 August.



Why should someone order and use Family Tree Maker 2011? The email listed a list of additions to the program, including:

o Smart Stories – a narrative tool. Ready to start on an ancestor's story? The Smart Story™ editor makes it easy to drag and drop text and photos from your tree into story pages that will update automatically when you make changes to your tree.

o New and improved charts. Enjoy four new fan chart styles. Enhance charts with backgrounds, borders and embellishments. And use fonts you can change based on fact type.

o Enhanced reports. We've enhanced ancestor and descendant reports, added a surname report and allowed you to sort custom reports, plus you can now save and reuse report settings.

o New media management tools. Drag and drop, cut and paste, and even categorize multiple items at the same time. You'll also find a new tool that will help you locate missing media files.

o More complete and relevant timelines. Find and add more events to your ancestors' lives. Add, edit and delete your own historical events. And apply historical events by time and geography.

o Improved integration with Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com has millions of members all over the world. And now you can find out if any of them are searching for your ancestors by viewing MemberConnect activity on your home page, plus links to related message boards and new messages in your inbox. You'll also enjoy faster uploading and downloading of your tree.

The order page has more information about "What's New," "features you've come to rely on," the interaction between FTM 2011 and Ancestry.com, etc.

The order page indicates that this is still a Windows only piece of software at this time. Minimum and recommended computer requirements are also listed. I'm not sure I have enough computer power now.

Ancestry.com has released a new version of Family Tree Maker every year since 2008, amid much fanfare and complaints from users, and each time users have been asked to pay for the yearly upgrade, which is usually followed by a Service Pack download with improvements for the specific software package.

The email doesn't say "since you're such a valued and repeat customer, we're offering you a deal to upgrade to FTM 2011." Not yet, anyway. Will they?

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

When is FTM going to release the MAC edition.
Yes you are correct they keep charging every year and the price goes up. Legacy and Roots Magic are much better programs/quality and free updates.

MrDolomite said...

Considering that the biggest advantage that FTM has is its connection to Ancestry.com (and that that is an incredibly expensive membership), I've always thought that if they included the yearly software update _for free_ then I'd consider rejoining.

Anonymous said...

Considering the fact that I just bought the last version 2 weeks ago- I was insulted at the offer I got to purchase the newest version at 1/2 price. So yes they are offering the newest at a lower price but I feel as if I was ripped off. I should have been notified that a new version was being released.

MrDolomite said...

I did receive an email to order FTM 2011 at a 40% discount from the $39.95 list price ($23.98) until 8-18-10.

mkdaught said...

I haven't seen where they say exactly when the 2011 version will be out...is there a date that it will be shipped out if we pre-order it? And do you get 3 months free subscription to ancestry.com with the 2011 version like the 2010 version says? I don't know which version I'd like to try? I have been using a really old version of another program and always liked it,(just basic - but worked) but now with upgrading my computer to windows7 I need a new one. What should I do? Any suggestions?

Anonymous said...

I am wondering if FTM 2011 will have a deluxe and/or a platinum version also available. The length of ancestory.com free subs varies with the initial version purchased in the past....right? I am waiting to see what you all know about this before ordering. This will be my first FTM since, geez, 1998?

Anonymous said...

Go to even though it says the pre sale special can only be made prior to 8/18 my order for the 2011edition cost me $26.05 total tonight!!!! Confirmed.
You get 40% off then an additional 20%, can't beat that!
Beth

Anonymous said...

It didn't show the web site I posted so will try again, familyhistory101.com/blog/?p=548Beth

Anonymous said...

Don't include Beth in the web address

Anonymous said...

Family Tree maker 2010/2011 Sucks. I have lost all faith in Ancestry.
I am very serious about my family tree and do not have time for their stupid games when they tell me my file is to big (only 70, 000 names) I challange anyone to try http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/download.asp If you are serious you will not be disapointed.

Amy K said...

Am I the only one having trouble getting their order from Ancestry? I ordered 2011 on 8/31, expecting it to ship out about 9/2 or 9/3 at the latest. But yesterday I received an email from them saying it shipped out on Friday, September 10th. Am I the only one who had a ten day delay in getting their package shipped. I have never had this type of problem with Ancestry before and I am rather disappointed in their customer service. I sure hope the program really is worth the frustration I have had so far.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I ordered an FTM upgrade to my FTM 16 version. The upgrade shipped tw weeks aftwr I ordered and I have to say the new version sucks. Can't even create or export the all-in-one tree chart that was available in FTM 16

Anonymous said...

I have used every version of FTM since their very first version (on 5 & 1/4 disks)for DOS operating systems. Some have been quite good, others have had problems. However, FTM 2011 is by far the worst software package I have ever used. In addition to problems like eliminated reports and charts that I have used in the past, this software drops data in unrepeatable ways, it looses photos, changes the sizes of boxes in various charts and will not let you fix them, it crashes when generating large desecendant tree, it crashes, or changes information, or drops information when you try to export or print document. It forces you to uses books when you do not want or need to. It has been and remains a big dissapointment.

Anonymous said...

I placed an order during their special buy 1 at regular price get the 2nd one 1/2 price with free shipping. When my order came 7 days later I only received one and just my credit card bill and was charged full price for the one. I have emailed them asking why I only received one. If it cannot be resolved quickly I will file complaint w/credit card and refuse payment - it was for a Christmas gift.

Anonymous said...

I've used FTM since the beginning and FTM 2011 is awful. It constantly crashes and information that I type in disappears from the data fields. Customer Support insists that my database is corrupted, yet it was fine before upgrading to the new version. The file was too large for FTM 16. Now I have a file of 300K names that I've worked on for 25 years that is pratically unuseable and they are not accepting that it is their software which is to blame.

tresho said...

I agree FTM 2011 is awful. I have a tree with 11,000 individuals, 450 MB in size, lots of media & pictures included. FTM v. 10 doesn't complain about opening it. I use a Win 7 Pro 64 bit machine with 4 GB of memory. The first problem I encountered was attempting to import my v. 10 file into 2011. The import attempt crashed, said I should use the "low memory import" option, which can't be found except deep in the support section of the web site. After I imported using the "low memory import" method I found FTM 2011 had created a new directory containing all the media files stripped out of the main database (300MB worth). Would have been nice to have been told this by the program. The interface is way more more complicated than the v.10 interface. Many links between children and parents were broken after the import. Restoring these is rather difficult compared to the v. 10 way of "Attach parent".
Fortunately I bought this from Costco, so the software will go back for a refund. It's unusable IMO.

littlechristophersly said...

I bought it - I wish I hadn't! It's slow, cumbersome, and thinks it's clever. It's utterly useless without an Ancestry subscription (which I have), and not a lot better with one. I wasn't impressed with the integration, or anything else about it. Not a patch on Legacy, too expensive at £61, and a grave disappointment.

Joan H said...

MY FTM 2011 upgrade arrived yesterday and got put back in the mail today. The screen is confusing and if you are older or have eye problems like me,the letters are too small. All the bells and whistles in the world can't help you if you can't read the screen. I want to note that I have a 22 inch monitor. I am back to my 2006 and happy with it.

Anonymous said...

I originally had the 2005 version and loved it. The 2011 version sucks it is unbelievable confusing. I have no idea when I am on my computer and when it has jumped me to the web. I am well educated and this is the most nonintuitive and poorly laid out software I have seen. It is just tooooooo complicated and non intuitive with pathetic help. If you want to take classes and spend a few weeks figuring it out, fine.