Family Tree Maker World Express logoI know you’ve just read that title, and can’t believe it. Neither did I when I first heard about it. So let me tell you a little about Family Tree Maker World Express (FTMWE).

The news just hitting the genie-waves (or the grapevine whichever you prefer to call it) seems that Ancestry.com have released a cut-down version of Family Tree Maker 2012, which they have called “Family Tree Maker World Express”, and they are offering it as a free download, yes F-R-E-E! Though you do need to register to be able to download it.

The system requirements for this program are: Windows XP SP2, Vista, Win 7, Win 8 (32-bit or 64-bit); 1GHz Intel Pentium III (or equivalent); 500MB hard disk space; 1GB RAM; screen resolution of 1024×768.

Sounding good so far right, well there is one little catch (well kind of) … and that is ideally you need to be able to read German or Swedish to be able to use the program, as currently Ancestry.com have only released FTMWE on Ancestry.se and Ancestry.de.

Family Tree Maker World Express

After using a website translator to translate the German and Swedish websites, you’d certainly be able to read enough to know what’s what, but you then have to know enough about the program and/or languages to be able to make sense of it once you’ve downloaded it.

But the release is still a good thing, as it is a step in the right direction. There is no doubt that many people have chosen an alternate program to Family Tree Maker simply because they simply could try it out for themselves. So I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed that they bring out an English version in the not too distant future.

Now for a bunch of useful links:
Firstly for very comprehensive review of Family Tree Maker World Express, you need to visit Tamura Jones’ site
Link to Family Tree Maker World Express FAQs (with English translation) >> click here.
Link to Ancestry.se >> click here
Link to Ancestry.de >> click here
I’ve use World Lingo to translate whole webpages >> click here