It seems to be the week for genealogy software program updates, and RootsMagic have joined in.

They have just released an update to RootsMagic version 4 (4.0.9.2), which is a minor update but does fix some bugs.

If you have the RootsMagic News screen come up when you start RootsMagic, it may have already notified you of this update.  If not, you can do “Help > Check for Updates” from the RootsMagic menu to download and install this update.

You can also download the update from the RootsMagic website

The RootsMagic blog has a full list of what was added and fixed.

Ancestry has just released a Patch Update for Family Tree Maker Version 2010 for computers using Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Clicking here will take you to Family Tree Maker’s Knowledge Base website with instructions and the patch. This update is free, and it will bring the Product Version to 19.0.0.207.

With the relatively recent release of Legacy 7.4 behind them, the makers of Legacy Family Tree have are in no way just sitting back with their feet up.

They have just released a new update to 7.4 (version 7.4.0.45), which includes some new features, a few changes and some fixes. This is a free update for all Legacy 7 Users.

NEW
Relationship Report – Added option to include lifespan years after the names.
Search and replace – When performing a Search and Replace you can now enter a TAB character or a CRLF by using these special representations «tab» and «crlf».

CHANGED
Help File – Includes an updated help file.

For the full listing of what is included in this update you can find it here.

To download the version very latest version, you can do so from the download update page on the publishers website.

Family Historian is England’s most popular genealogy software program, and does have a growing number of users in Australia, and even more after the recent Choice magazine survey of genealogy software, in which this program scored highly (note: you do need to be a member to read the full article).

The latest advice from Calico Pie Software (the publishers of Family Historian) is that …

“Version 4.1 was released yesterday. Version 4.x users can now download a free upgrade to 4.1. The new version has numerous new features and enhancements, including support for copying, deleting and renaming projects. There have been improvements in support for PDFs, pictures & thumbnails, charts & diagrams, the property box, reports, website generation, and much more. All 4.x users are recommended to upgrade. See What’s New in 4.1 for more details.”

For Aussie users of the program, I’m not yet aware of any Family Historian User Groups in Australia (although if anyone happens to know of any, please don’t hesitate to advise, so I can let others know about it), but there is a very active Family Historian User Group website, so if you do have queries or issues, I’m sure someone there would be able to help out.

If you’re reading this, but are not a Family Historian user, why not give it a try with the 30-day demo program.

Related Products:
Family Historian 4
Family Historian 4 Australia/New Zealand Edition
Family Historian 4 Upgrade from V3
Getting the Most out of Family Historian 4

As of March 26th RootsMagic 4 and RootsMagic Essentials genealogy software now includes a new ”AutoMatch” feature for FamilySearch. They become the first – and currently the only - genealogy software to offer this feature.

As FamilySearch certified software, RootsMagic and RootsMagic Essentials both allow you to share information to and from the new FamilySearch. In order to do any of this for a person, you must first match the person in your own file with the same person in the new FamilySearch system. In the past, a user was required to find a match for each person one-at-a-time, person-by-person.

The latest news from the makers of RootsMagic is …

We have just released a minor update to RootsMagic 4 (version 4.0.8.0).

We’ve been busy adapting a lot of internal code preparing RootsMagic 4 for translation into other languages, but we decided to go ahead and release this update with some bug fixes in the meantime.  We realize it has been longer than usual between updates, but we had major parts of the program torn out during the language reconstruction.   But with that out of the way we will be getting back to a more normal update release schedule.

If you have been using RootsMagic’s New FamilySearch features, then this is a required update, because changes to New FamilySearch effective Monday morning, March 29th (at midnight) will cause older versions of RootsMagic to be unable to connect to New FamilySearch.  This update is required to continue using RM’s New FamilySearch features after that date.  (NOTE: New FamilySearch is still in a phased rollout, and will become available to the general public later this year).

If you have the RootsMagic News screen come up when you start RootsMagic, it may have already notified you of this update.  If not, you can do “Help > Check for Updates” from the RootsMagic menu to download and install this update.

You can also download the update from here.

To see what was added and fixed you can see them here.

How do I activate my free Ancestry subscription that came with my Family Tree Maker program?
We do get asked this question reasonably regularly, so feel that it is useful to put it as a blog post. The answer can be found on the Family Tree Maker website, but you do have to know where to look for it, as it’s not that that easy to find. The answer below applies to activating the Ancestry subscription in Family Tree Maker 2009 and Family Tree Maker 2010 versions.

The steps to follow are:
1. Open your Family Tree Maker program.
2. Click Help > Activate Ancestry Subscription. The Welcome window opens.
3. Click Activate Subscription.
4. Enter the name and email address you use for your Ancestry membership and click Continue.
5. If you have more than one Ancestry account, you will need to choose the account you want to use.
6. Enter the password associated with your Ancestry account and click Continue.
7. Click Finish to complete the activation.

Millennia, the publishers of Legacy Family Tree made the announcement earlier this week, that “New FamilySearch” integration is now available in Legacy Family Tree 7.4 (public pre-release).

The FamilySearch integration features are now available in version 7.4. The Update  is available in two versions, the Standard edition which is FREE, and the Deluxe edition which is US$29.95.

For the differences between the versions, check the “which version do you want to download” chart on the publisher’s site.

Anyone using Legacy Family Tree version 7 Standard, Deluxe or Platinum editions can update to version 7.4.  Click here for details on the release, and here to download the update.

Version 7.4 is certified in Access, Print, and Ordinance Status. This will allow you to:

• Match your Legacy individuals with FamilySearch individuals
• Combine potential duplicates that exist at FamilySearch
• View the real-time ordinance status of individuals
• Much more…

Please note: if you wish to purchase the Legacy 7.4 upgrade edition, you will have to buy it direct from the publisher’s in the US as it is not a product (Update) that we can sell.

Just keeping you informed, Version 7.5 will follow within the next month or so with more features.

For more information including downloading the free update, as well as videos on the FamilySearch update visit the FamilySearch page on the Legacy website.

The people over at Legacy Family Tree have been busy working on the new releases of Legacy … they released the following announcement a few days ago:

“Legacy version 7.5 is finally almost here. Version 7.4 is even closer….

In January we will release Legacy 7.4 which will add most of the long-awaited FamilySearch integration tools to Legacy. This will be a free update for both Standard and Legacy Deluxe edition users [as well as Legacy Platinum Australian & New Zealand edition users].

We’ve created a special web site devoted to keeping you updated on this release. At www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/fs.asp we will publish the very latest information:

• News / Updates section – this is where we will publish the latest announcements (in addition to this LegacyNews blog)
• Video Tutorials – we’ve published our first video entitled Getting Started in Legacy Family Tree for the brand new LDS genealogist.
• Preparing for Legacy 7.5 – these are links to all the articles we’ve published in LegacyNews about preparing your Legacy family file for working with the new FamilySearch tools”

We’ll keep you informed with more about version 7.5 as the release comes closer.

If you are a user of Legacy Family Tree, we have compiled a listing of Legacy User Groups around Australia.

There was an announcement a couple of days ago in the Ancestry.com blog that there was an update to Family Tree Maker 2010 imminent … this is now available for download to current Family Tree Maker 2010 users.

Here are some of the highlights:

1. Improved Relationship Calculator. Direct-line relationships now take precedence over less direct lines.
2. Greater control over hinting. A new option lets you turn tree hints off, so you can get hints from records only. See the new check box in the Options dialog. Also, the program will stop hinting on trees owned by the logged in user, as well as not hinting records that have been downloaded with a tree from Ancestry.com.
3. Improved data and formatting in a number of reports.
4. Improved support for GEDCOM, PAF and Legacy import.
5. Many other small changes throughout the program to help it run more smoothly.

You can read the full details of the announcement including where to download the update from, on the Ancestry.com blog.

The publishers of RootsMagic have just announced the “immediate availability of RootsMagic Essentials” which is a free desktop genealogy software program based on their award-winning RootsMagic 4 program.  RootsMagic Essentials contains many core features found in its namesake that allow the public to easily start tracing their family trees.

When people start researching, they aren’t always ready to pay for a program. RootsMagic Essentials gives people the features they need to start researching and recording their family tree at a price that can’t be beat—free!

RootsMagic Essentials shares many of the same features with the full RootsMagic software including clean and friendly screens, the ability to add an unlimited number of people and events, pictures and media management, the SourceWizard to write your source citations for you, powerful merging and clean-up tools, dozens of reports and charts, support for international character sets, FamilySearch integration, and the ability to share data with other people and software programs.  The full version of RootsMagic is available for purchase and includes features not available in RootsMagic Essentials.

There is a comparison chart showing what is included in both the RootsMagic Essentials, and the RootsMagic programs.

For more information on RootsMagic Essentials, you can read about it on the RootsMagic blog.