Family Tree Maker 2008 Essentials | 
 enlarge | From: Encore Software
Category: Software
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $25.23
You Save: $4.72 (16%)
New (5) Used (2) from $24.99
Rating:  51 reviews
Sales Rank: 121
Format: Cd
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows Xp
Media: CD-ROM
Batteries Included: No
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 1.3
MPN: 14840
Model: 14840
UPC: 705381148401
EAN: 0705381148401
ASIN: B000SQNBNE
Release Date: August 28, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days
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| Features:
| • | Software for exploring, preserving, and sharing family history | | • | Build a family tree starting with names, dates, and events | | • | Attach photos, documents, and audio and video files | | • | Design and print charts to display at home and share with family | | • | Includes 1 month of premium access to ancestry.com |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Discover how easy it is to explore, preserve, and share your family history. Whether you're new to family history or a seasoned genealogist, the Family Tree Maker 2008 Essentials Edition is designed to help beginners find results fast. One month of premium access to ancestry.com is included.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 46 more reviews...
 Family tree maker August 25, 2008
Elizabeth Rollins (Portland, OR. USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Got the Family tree maker, put it on my computer, and it freezes up alot. Is very frustrating. Legacy software is better and easier to navigate around in. Had more success with Legacy. Would reccomend Legacy instead.
 The version that made me quit Family Tree Maker July 31, 2008
Barbara C. French (Rochester, NY United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've been doing genealogy for over 15 years and for most of that time, I used Family Tree Maker. I've never been happy with the way it handled sources, which I've never felt was a particularly dynamic system, but I've always stuck with it. I used Heritage Family Tree Deluxe for awhile and liked it, but it is no longer being supported and, when it wouldn't even launch in Vista, I decided to go back to FTM. By this time, FTM 2008 had come out, and I managed to get my old HFTM tree imported into FTM.
What a horrible disappointment.
First, the interface is so nonstandard for a genealogy program that I can remember opening it up and just staring at the screen in disbelief. It took me a long time even to figure out how to enter a fact (birth, death, census, etc ... pretty standard stuff). I managed to figure out how to open an individual, then clicked Fact, and nothing happened. It took me awhile that I also needed to click the + button, three buttons over, to actually ADD a fact. If you mouse over the + and X buttons, it will say "Add fact" or "Delete fact", but there are "Timeline" and "Relationship" buttons between the nigh onto useless "Fact" button and the buttons you actually need to push to add or delete them.
When I imported my tree, it dropped half my source information straight out of the middle. For example, when I imported census information, it would say "Smith, William household, 1850 census, Essex County, Massachusetts, population schedule" and then whatever I had put on as a note, such as "age listed as 51, birthplace Vermont" but it had dropped all the information about city/village, enumeration district, page, lines, family or residence number, etc. So, now since I can't open my old family tree software anymore, I am in the unenviable position of having to re-enter everything, or the locations and publication information on all my source material will be absent from my trees.
I also hate programs that think they are smarter than you are. I'm not sure when it happened, but it replaced every empty place in birth, death, and marriage information with "Scipio, Cayuga, New York". So now I either need to remove over 800 instances of Scipio in my tree, including ones that might actually really BE Scipio, or, I do what I am doing: redoing my whole tree in a different program.
I hate that you can't turn off the linking to Ancestry, short of removing your Internet connection. Now, I like Ancestry, and have a subscription, but I don't always want to go look at it. If you are in Pedigree view and you see a green leaf, it means that there is some link in Ancesty it's found and thinks you might want to see. That's fine, but I click them by accident sometimes and the whole program slows to a crawl while it's bringing up information I didn't want to see. Also, I only use other people's trees as clues. I am a stickler for doing my own research whenever possible, and unless I see source material I can check myself, I don't generally trust everything I find on the Internet. I only want to start looking at other people's trees if I get hopelessly stuck. When that happens, I'm quite capable of logging onto one of many genealogy resource sites to poke around for more ideas. While I love Ancestry.com, I don't like to limit myself to just one online resource.
It also has flagged about 250 locations it seems to think are "wrong". My crime? I didn't stick "USA" on the back. It doesn't like Salem, Essex, Massachusetts; it wants Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, USA. So they are flagged "unresolved". I'm scared to push the "resolve all" button, which seems to be my only choice.
So I bought RootsMagic instead, a program that's a lot less bloated, perhaps less "slick", but it has great source handling, good research tools, and a simple interface. And I'm inputting my entire tree all over again to get back the source material that FTM 2008 ate out of my old tree. Not looking forward to redoing over 2000 entries, but it's a good chance to review and revisit all my data and assumptions.
 Superb Genealogy Software July 31, 2008
Rowen (Raritan, NJ USA)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've been a user of genealogy software for many years, and the 2008 version of Family Tree Maker is the easiest version yet, as well as the most powerful. In fact, I have made the transition from a much more complex package over to Family Tree Maker 2008 as my primary genealogical database tool.
Family Tree Maker 2008 Features Disappointing July 6, 2008
J. Chapman
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've been a faithful FTM user since 1992 and have had no problems or complaints with the product until now. In the years I've been using FTM I was able to create a book of my family history and either convert it to a PDF or text file for publishing. Now, FTM 2008 has done away with the book feature from previous versions and you are now limited to producing a book of a maximum of 250 pages through the Ancestry Press site. The book I created in FTM 16 was 1,300 pages and counting. I'm very disappointed that the book feature has been dropped in 2008 and I'm even sorrier that I wasted my money on this version. Going forward, I'll continue to use FTM 16 even though Ancestry will eventually stop supporting it. Before purchasing FTM 2008, and I wish I had followed my own advice, make sure that the features you used in a previous version are supported in FTM 2008 or you'll be disappointed as I've been.
Family Tree Maker old data will not upload into Vista May 21, 2008
Robert Skoglund (Saint George, Maine)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Buyer beware. Research this product before buying. Be sure that your old data can be uploaded into the new program in your new computer running on Vista.
We've run the Family Tree Maker through several generations of computers and programs. But now our data in our old Family Tree Maker will not upload into into the new Family Tree Maker Program which we just installed in a new computer running Vista.
I am not a computer guru so don't know if Vista or the Family Tree Maker is at fault. The person who continually updates the data in our Family Tree Maker program was the person who tried and failed to update the old data in the Family Tree Program running on Vista.
Everyone knows that computers and programs are continually changed so people have to buy new programs when they get a new computer. Planned Obsolescence is a fact of life and it could be a factor here.
So we bought a new computer and a new Vista program and a new Family Tree Maker program. We're trying to play your game with you. But when we pay you for all these new programs don't you think we should at least be able to take our old data with us?
I welcome your advice and would also be glad go over what I have said above if it is not clear. I'm humble at humblefarmer dot com and I will come up in hundreds of places if you google The humble Farmer.
I'd be glad to give the new Family Tree Maker program five stars if you can tell me how to upload my old data into it.
The humble Farmer in Maine
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