Customer Reviews

Family Tree Maker 2006 Deluxe [Old Version]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've used Family Tree Maker for over 7 years - I've been through about 4 upgrades and just ordered 2006. It's reliable and very easy to use; however, I hate the way that it's incorporated into the web. I give FTM 5-stars for use "off line use" only. I do like the way that FTM interacts with my ancestry.com primary resource information - but, I would hesitate to recommend using this function for non-expert users of FTM. Make sure you do backups of data on a regular basis to be able to revert to an earlier restoration if your data becomes inaccurate/unstable.

I like the way that FTM handles GEDCOM imports & exports and the fact that many of my fellow serious genealogy researchers use FTM. Beware of using FTM published disks and any online information. Data is only as good as the person that originated the data.

One cavaet - don't EVER upload information from your FTM files onto any FTM related site. They will use the information to publish their "world tree" cd's.

I do like having the scrapbook, notes, address feature on FTM. I can keep jpgs of my ancestors in the file with their individual records.

FTM is a workhorse genealogy program. I have over 5000 names in my database and FTM accesses my data file with no hesitation.

Cons: Newer FTM files can never be used on an outdated version of FTM (which continuously is upgraded). There's a viewer available for any FTM files, but it severely restricts what you can do with the information. E.g., if a relative sends you a FTM file produced by a newer version of FTM (than you have on your computer) you won't be able to import the info into your data file. You'll end up inputting all the information by hand and will need to use the free viewer.

These days, I do not publish my family tree to the Internet and rely on genealogy forums to connect with individuals with similar research interests.

Always privatize information before sharing it. It can easily be used by identity thieves. The rule of thumb is don't ever send out any information that's less than 70 years old. That's why the 1930 census was not released until after 2000.

This is a great improvement over previous editions; much easier to use and amend. The only reason for a 4 instead of a 5 is that they don't appear to honor special advertised offers of free 1 year memberships in other genealogy data bases when program not purchased directly from Encore. Very frustrating when expecting access and being told to join each one.

I have been very happy with the program itself, but the internet and customer service components have been a great dissapointment. The product of 1 free year is very misleading. Any advanced searching you need to do cannot be accessed (such as image viewing) after one month and the yearly subscription is around $200.

A note to new geneologists, the One World Family Tree is nearly useless. It is a good place to get leads, but I have found so much incorrect information, and it is prepetuated by others who just download the information unchecked into their own online trees, that it has acutally taken me longer to research when I have used it. If you do use it, make sure you get a second, first hand source (if you can still view the images that is).

Lastly, I have had noting but problems with customer service. On the three ocassions I have contacted them, it took them much longer than the said 24 hours to reply. Everytime they told me I had to contact someone else and had me going in circles. The free FTM Users Guide was one of the reasons I contacted them, as it took nearly 4 months to arrive--I don't really need it at this point as I have struggled through on my own trial and error.

The program is great if you have information you want to organize, just don't rely on the promised services or the internet component to get you much futher than a starting point.

I have used Family Tree Maker for about 16 years. I am always amazed at the things FTM develops to better help us. I would recommend this item to anyone who just getting started in Genealogy or to anyone who has been into charting their past for a long time.

I really like this version of Family Tree Maker. It is user friendly, and really helps to organize your genealogy files. I also very much appreciate the free one year subscription to Ancestry.com. This has made it much more convenient to review census records and other records available through Ancestry.com

I have used three different family tree programs and this one is by far my favorite. It has a lot of 'extras' that make it better to use. It was very easy to download the gedcom file from my previous program and I loved that I received the ancestry.com membership with it. My only complaint is that I haven't yet found where my picture files went to. It may be that I am still learning this program and just need to go back and go through the tutorial that came with it. Overall I am very pleased with my purchase. I highly recommend this version of Family Tree Maker Deluxe.

I purchased the Family Tree Maker 2006 software because it was supposed to come with some Charting Companion software. The Charting Companion software contains support for additional chart formats that are not supported in the base FTM product. One of those charts is especially useful since it greatly minimizes the amount of paper used for descendant charts. Sadly, this chart was not integrated into the base FTM product.

When I took delivery of the FTM software, the Charting Companion software was not included in the installation materials. After much cajoling of the vendor's support staff, I was finally allowed to download the Charting Companion software from their website. During the installation of the downloaded software, a fatal error occurred which required the restoration of my XP system. On the off chance that the error was spurious, I ran the installation again and got the same results. To their credit, the support staff offered a workaround for the installation problem, and the workaround was successful. However, none of the software's publishing mechanisms worked. Every one got a fatal error when a chart was to be published to the PDF format.

The FTM software appears to get good reviews, but it did not meet my expectations. It's unclear to me why the product needs companion software to construct and publish useful charts. Why aren't these chart formats integrated into the base product? Based on my experiences, I cannot give the product a good review.

They will automatically bill you for $179 after three months, with no warning and no easy way to cancel it. Especially kids and teens who sign up with parent's credit card (required)--beware!!

The product arrived yesterday, earlier than expected. This new 2006 version has a lot of great features. I like the way it will search automatically [...] It will also search out how many people with that surname served in the Civil War (USA) and for which "side".

The software developers planned very poorly when designing the LDS Ordinance facts. It does not have the SEAL TO SPOUSE ordinance built in to the program. That means, all the marriage sealings you have already completed must be inputted manually, one by one. That is a needless, extremely time-consuming process for those who have completed a lot of ordinance work and have already entered it into their previous databases.

I had no problems at all installing the software and importing the GedCom disk from my previous genealogy software. When I discovered the marriage sealings did not transfer over to the FTM 2006 product, I was certainly not a "happy camper".

This is the ultimate program for keeping family records and building your family tree. It works in conjunction with an excellent website, [...], which enables even beginners to accomplish the task of keeping all family records in one place while building a family tree at the same time. I had a very old version of the program, which was good, but the updated 2006 Family TreeMaker program is the best.