Ancestry.com Previews MAC Version of Family Tree Maker

This was posted on the Ancestry.com Blog:

ANCESTRY.COM PREVIEWS MAC VERSION OF FAMILY TREE MAKER SOFTWARE

No. 1 Selling Family Tree Software Planned for Mac Users By The End of the Year

PROVO, Utah, April 28, 2010 – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family resource, today revealed a Mac^® version of Family Tree Maker^® at the 2010 National Genealogical Society Family History Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. The new version of the world’s No. 1 selling family history software is planned for release later this year.

 “Every innovation or update we make is driven by what customers tell us they need to further their family history research,” said Eric Shoup, Senior Vice President of Product. “The Mac version of Family Tree Maker was the obvious next step forward to add to our family of Ancestry.com products and is a much anticipated product for our Mac-based customers.”

Family Tree Maker has helped users organize their family history research for more than 20 years. The software provides users the tools they need to build a family tree, record memories and organize photos, stories, videos and audio clips in a way that will help easily capture and share the story of their ancestors.

Family Tree Maker accesses the robust collection of family history records and powerful search features from Ancestry.com - without leaving the software. When connected to the Internet, Family Tree Maker automatically searches Ancestry.com for historical documents about the individuals in the user's family tree. Ancestry.com subscribers can easily view and import these historical records into their family tree with just a few mouse clicks.

Family Tree Maker 2010 is the current PC version of the software. The Mac version of Family Tree Maker will be built on the functionality of Family Tree Maker 2010 and constructed from the bottom up to take full advantage of the Mac platform in terms of technology and user experience. 

Early this year, Ancestry.com expanded to another Apple^® platform: the iPhone^®. With the launch of its  Tree To Go iPhone application in January 2010, Ancestry.com now gives users access to generations of family history at every turn. From their iPhone, users can easily upload photos, update sources and edit trees. The Tree To Go iPhone application is available for iPhone and iPod touch^® for free through the iPhone App Store or iTunes^®.

Ancestry.com also announced today the launch of its new Ancestry.com Wiki. This wiki will feature a living version of the company’s two largest reference books, The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy and Red Book: American State, County and Town Sources. These books, which are exhaustive guides to American genealogy, will now be made available for the family history community to update, expand on and even add to, making it a go-to resource for guidance and information. The beta version of the Ancestry.com Wiki is available to the public for free at www.ancestry.com/wiki.

About Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ACOM) is the world's largest online family history resource, with more than one million paying subscribers. The company has digitized and put online more than 4 billion records over the past 13 years. Ancestry users have created over 14 million family trees containing nearly 1.5 billion profiles. Ancestry.com has local Web sites directed at nine countries, including its flagship Web site at www.ancestry.com.

© 2010, copyright H R Worthington

How To: Source a Book - Copy / Paste Source-Citation - A Short Cut

In How To: Source a Book a family book was found and it showed how to create a Source and Source-Citations from information from that book. As you might expect, there may be many Source-Citation entries to be done.

This post how to use a built in short cut to speed up this process.

In the notes, from the book, the wife, Rachel Pearl Johnston's father's name was mentioned. So, we want to add him to the file. For this example, the Add Father button, in the Mini-Pedigree navigation part of the People Workspace, Person Tab is used. With the pull down menu, to the Right of Add Father, the Add Father item is selected.

This will open an Add Father window, where the Name is added. Filling in that field, checking the Sex, Clicking OK will add the father's name to the file.

In the earlier Blog:How To: Source a Book a Source-Citation was created. Clicking on the Pull Down menu, to the Right of New, in the Sources tab, Use Existing Source Citation (CTRL+SHFT+S) will be used.

As before, a list of Source-Citations will be listed, letting the mouse hover over the Source-Citation, more information is provided. The high-lighted one, is the one from the previous Blog that referred to #338 Ellwood Palmer Strode.

The Link to Citation was selected for this Source-Citation. This Source-Citation has been added. Now another Fact, from that same Source-Citation is going to be added, and we want to Copy that Source-Citation to the 'next' Fact.

Right Clicking on that listed Source-Citation will bring up another piece of that Menu. Selection Copy, will be used to Copy that Source-Citation to the Next Fact.

The next Fact was added, in this case a Residence Fact, then using the pull down menu to the Right of New, will provide  the Paste Duplicate Source Citation option.

Completing that Paste, the Source-Citation is added to that Fact.

© 2010, copyright H R Worthington

How To: Source a Book

So, you found and purchased a book that has genealogical information about your Family. How do you Cite your Sources from this book.

When I pick up a book, for the first time, I start at the Sources Workspace. This same process can be done from the People Workspace, Person Tab, and selecting a Fact. But I will start in the Sources Workspace to enter the information about this book. Will add Source-Citation information later.

Going to the Sources Workspace, selecting Add, on the Right side of that screen, an Add Source window will open. For this example, a Keyword will be used to locate the correct Template. "Book" is entered:

Below is the types of Books that have specific Templates.

The Book is a Print Publication. So that entry is selected:

Selecting that will bring up the Add Source Screen to be filled in. All of this information is in the front cover of the book. There is no call number or an ISBN number.

Clicking OK will bring up a completed Source Citation screen.

As it appears that there is a lot of information in this book, the other fields will be left blank, at this point.

Since some of the following steps have been covered in other blog posts, screen prints won't be here.

Going to the People Workspace, Person Tab, the information about the individual is entered. In this case, the Name is Ellwood Palmer Strode. The Name Fact is selected, at the top of the list of Facts, the Right Hand (RH) Panel will present his name and under the name is the Fact, Sources, Media, Notes line. Selecting New and select Use Existing Source-Citation selection, which will bring up a screen, where you select a New Copy. Keep in mind that earlier, the Source-Citation was left blank, but want to use that same Source-Citation for specific information about this person and fact.

The new (copy) of the Source-Citation screen is presented and is filled in. In this specific book, each individual has a Number followed by the name. In addition to the number and name, the page number is entered. Since there is more information on this page, the details of that information will be put into the Notes section for this individual. That is noted in the Citation text, for clarity in End Notes.

Going to the notes section for this individual, specific information is recorded. Because there are written notes in the book, they are also noted. Also, there is some missing information in the book. For clarity, the Text in this paragraph are marked in Bold, as a reminder to pick them up as Facts for this person and other people in this family.

Since this has his Birth Date, that Fact is entered, with birth date and location.

This time, since the same source-citation is going to be used, the New pull down menu, and the Use Existing Source Citation and the Link to Citation option is used. Since there may be multiple 'existing' Source-Citations, placing the mouse cursor over the specific Source-Citation will bring up more details on that Source-Citation. The screen capture would not show in the following screen. The right Source-Citation entry is selected AND the Link to Citation button is used this time.

Let's see what we have so far. Going to the Publish Workspace, Individual, Individual Report, the following Report is generated. The Items to include ICON, in the RH Panel, is verified to Include Sources in the Report. The Birth and Death Facts were entered and Cited. There are subscript number at the end of the Facts with Source-Citations and the Source is shown at the end. The text from the Notes section is also included.

After entering more information from what is indicated in the Notes, return to the Publish Workspace, Relationship Collection and the Family Group Sheet to see the current statue of this Family. As above, each fact indicates that a Source-Citation is associated with it, and is presented at the end of Family Group Sheet.

Going back to the Source Workspace, each Source can be Rated. In the Center panel, at the bottom, is a list of people using that Source-Citation. on the tool bar between the top and bottom of the center panel is a Start. Clicking on that Star will allow the user to Rate the Source. Selecting the "Use standardized ratings" check mark, there are four questions that you select and the details are on the Right. In this case, there are primary sources needed and needs some follow up. As noted above, some of the information on the page about this person are hand written. You can note your justification at the bottom of that screen.

Closing that window, with the OK button, the Source-Citation screen appears. So see details about that specific Source-Citation, hi-lighting it will provide the details on the Right and who is using that Source-Citation on which Facts.

Selecting the "[no source-citation information]"  link shows blanks on the right and the indication that no one is using it. This is there so that it can be selected for the next person listed in the text from the book. It is basically a blank Source-Citation and not being used. Because there is much more information, that [no source-citation information] line will remain.

Returning to the next person mentioned, selecting the name, or other Facts, the New Source, Link to Existing Source-Citation menu is uses, and Create New Copy

Returning to the updated Family Group Sheet, in the Publish workspace, Relationship Collection, the second Source-Citation appears. What was added, based on the text in the notes, the Birth Date and location was added, with it's source-citation.

These steps are repeated until the information in this book are entered and cited. 



© 2010, copyright H R Worthington