Monday, August 26, 2013

Family Tree Maker 2014 Software Announced - 30% Discount (or more)

Ancestry.com announced the arrival (soon!) of Family Tree Maker 2014 at the FGS Conference on Saturday.  I received an email today that described the new and enhanced features:

It’s that time again to announce all the greatest new features of Family Tree Maker. We listened to a large range of Family Tree Maker users to improve our features for 2014 including the roll out of the new Family View display, improved TreeSync, more extensive charts and reports, new organizational tools and more. Below is a list of the newly improved features.

  • New Family View — see your family tree in a new way. This additional view makes navigating easier, especially when you want to see extended family members.
  • Improved TreeSync — lets you easily synchronize your tree in Family Tree Maker with an online Ancestry.com tree.
    • A more robust TreeSync™ lets you sync even more of your family tree info.
    • Easily share your tree with your family and work on it together. Family and friends can view the online version of your tree without software or an Ancestry.com subscription.
    • Collaborate with the largest, most active family history community in the world. Keep your online tree private or make it public so that others researching your family can find you. You may connect with others who have insight on your ancestors, discover rare family photos, or even find relatives you didn’t know you had.
  • More organizational tools — stay organized with new tools that let you sort children automatically by birth order and view people by location, grouping them by country, state, county, and city.
  • New and improved charts and reports — more options and views let you display an individual’s ancestors, spouses, and children together. Also, the Index of Individuals Report has been expanded with options for anniversary, birthday, and contact lists and more.
  • New tree branch export — a new export option makes it much simpler to export a single branch of your tree. 
  • More editing options — save time with the ability to copy and paste facts including related source citations, media items, and notes.
  • Improved merging — easily and reliably merge more of the information you find on Ancestry.com.
 Family Tree Maker is a great program to help you organize your family history regardless of your level of expertise. With so many features and options, it’s perfect for the genealogist digging deeper into the past and the family historian fleshing out stories. Some of the additional features you may find helpful include:

1. Access interactive street and satellite maps
View important locations in your ancestors’ lives. Or create a migration map showing where events in ancestors’ lives took place.
2. Easily organize media
Add photos, documents, audio and video in one, easy-to-access location. Link media to multiple people in your tree and incorporate them into charts and reports.
3. Share your work with others
Use templates to create beautiful family trees or design your own with powerful charting tools. Enhance charts with backgrounds, embellishments and family photos.
4. Discover new family members — Follow hints from Ancestry.com, the world's largest family history resource.
5. Create Smart Stories — Transform facts from your tree into stories that update automatically as you change your tree.
6. Simplify source creation — Use templates to source everything from online databases to vital records.
7. Use standard location names — Use the locations database to enter place names consistently and in a standard format.
8. Explore data like never before — Use new and improved reports to gather information and export it in a variety of formats. Save settings in one report and apply them to others.
9. Navigate your tree with ease — View multiple generations, navigate to any individual in your tree with a click of the mouse and add or edit life events.
10. Import data from other genealogy programs — Open files created in Legacy™ Family Tree, The Master Genealogist™ and FamilySearch™ Personal Ancestral files.

Version 2014 is now available for pre-sale at 30% off for the early bird genealogist. You’ll have the option to have it shipped to you or download it the same day shipping begins. The pre-sale discount ends September 10th, so get yours now to take advantage of the 2014 launch.


There are no screen shots of many of the new features.  I captured an image of the "Family View" in the "People" workspace - it looks similar to the "Family View" in an Ancestry Member Tree:


The view above has several icons on the left margin for different views of the family (left to right, top to bottom, etc.).  The view shown has the key person in green, the spouse beside, children below, and three generations of ancestors above.  The "Home" icon takes you to the home person in the tree.  The green leaf Hints also are shown, which provides an easy link to search for records for the selected person.

I, and I'm sure others, will explore, review and evaluate many of the new features once we have our hands on the software and can work with it.

The price break for the pre-sale at at http://www.ancestry.com/cs/apps/P-5194 is attractive.  I believe that the $27.99 price (30% discount) is for a new user - one who is not upgrading.  You can order it by downloading it online or obtain it by mail on a CD.  Apparently, there is another 10% price reduction for an Upgrade to 2014 if you already have FTM 2012.  For my US delivery of an Upgrade it will be $23.99 to download, $23.99 plus $5 for shipping and $2.32 for California state tax (total of $31.31) if I order it on a CD.

What I don't know is this:  Do I need to get the CD in order to install it on my desktop computer and my laptop computer?  Is this possible with the Download selection?  Is there an added cost for a second (or third) installation?

  I will be following this release of FTM 2014 closely, and will test it with my own interests when I receive it.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/08/family-tree-maker-2014-software.html

copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver


10 comments:

Elizabeth G said...

I agree with what Tamura Jones wrote about FTM 2014 in his FTM 2013 update;
http://www.tamurajones.net/FamilyTreeMaker2013.xhtml
I do not have his gift for diplomatic understatement, so I'll be blunt.
FTM 2012 is still worst family software I ever used. Ancestry promised FTM 2012 users free upgrades for a year, but did not keep that promise. They let us down again. I'm going to switch to Legacy.

Sally Christie said...

Does anyone know when this will release? I have purchased the pre-release download and am curious about when Christmas, er, I mean release day is..

Sally

T said...

I liked the family view screen shot. I did not like the whopping $4 off an upgrade. This is the best they can do on 2 year old software that I've had for a year? I would love to have the upgrade. I need to think very seriously about paying $24 to improve something I've already paid $35 to have. Or maybe I'll just wait two years and get the New Improved version.

Dana said...

I would love to know when it's coming out too. I bought the FTM 2014 as well. I was under the impression for some reason that it would be coming out on Sept 1, but it's Sept 1. I hope it's not too terribly long, because I might not had bought it. Also, why didn't they tell us when it will be released? I've Googled it, and you see very very little about 2014, it's all 2013 or 2012.

Sharee said...

The email I received said pay about $27 for downloadable upgrade, pay more for the cd, and pay more for manual on how to use it. How is this a "special reduced price" for existing users? I like the family view, but not as an upgrade for what will probably be the price of a complete new version I can buy at the store when it comes out.

Randy Seaver said...

Sharee, there should be a link to the Upgrade price on the website - Upgrade is 40% off, plus tax and shipping if you want a CD.

Every new version of FTM costs money - either new or upgraded. If there are upgrades to FTM 2014 after initial release they will be free for those that purchased 2014, based on past performance.

Irene said...

This is gorgeous!

Scott D said...

I paid for FTM 2014 even though I have 2012. I prefer to not deal with doing an upgrade. My problem is the Download does not work, Nova knows it doesn't work but has not figured out how to fix it. I also bought a back-up copy of FTM 2014 but it has not arrived. I ordered everything sept 6th they charged my CC on sept 9th and it is now Sept 28th and I don't have the CD or a working program. When I call about either item all I am told is "I need to be Patient"

Anonymous said...

Like FTM2012, I am not able to run FTM2014 on my Windows 7 64 bits machine: it crashes! Last working version is 2011 for me.
No support.

budf said...

Is that true about 2014 not running on 64 bit. Here's my sad tale:
I had to send my Lenovo
ThinkPad back to be repaired under warranty. I made a copy to my external hard drive, just in case. Just in case came true, Nova wiped my hard drive. When I got the computer back I started reinstalling FTM, got to a certain point and was asked for a key. Called Nova. In a nutshell they refused to do anything because I hadn't purchased the extended download for $6.95 when I bought the program. I said I'll buy it now. Sorry, that is not an option. The only option is to start over with 2014. Now I learn it doesn't work with 64bit.