So what’s happening with Family Tree Maker 2017? In short … the world is still waiting for it.

It was about a month ago when Ancestry together with MacKiev, announced that TreeSync on Ancestry would be disabled, with MacKiev’s new FamilySync being implemented, and following that Family Tree Maker 2017 would be released.

Alas as is the way with software, things don’t quite as planned, but it’s getting there, with fixes and continued testing throughout the last month.

Part of MacKiev’s 20 April update report says:

“Results from expanded beta testing this week showed 94% are now able to sync (up from 89% last week) with all but the largest of trees. And Ancestry continued to roll out modifications to their connection systems to help ensure that syncing works reliably for all users. The last major Ancestry system update will be live tomorrow (Friday) and we expect to start building our part over the weekend and have it ready to test and put into builds early next week.”

So you’ll see that MacKiev are being cautious and are wanting it released when it is right ready. So while the delay is frustrating a number of users, you have to admire them for not releasing a product before it’s ready as we all know what happens then (just look back at what happened when FTM 2008 was released).

And to answer one other question …
Q. Can’t Ancestry just turn syncing back on while we are waiting?
A: No. We couldn’t test the FamilySync system while TreeSync was still running and we still can’t. So TreeSync has to remain off while we prepare FamilySync for release.

So sit tight, and it will come. But you can keep up to date with the latest developments from MacKiev on their own Support page: https://support.mackiev.com/ and on the Family Tree Maker Facebook page.

For more important Q&A’s relating to Family Tree Maker 2017, click here.