Month: January 2016

2016 Maryland Area Genealogy Speakers

2016 promises a couple of must attend events for family historians in the Maryland area.

First, on Saturday, March 26, 2016, Judy G. Russell (A.K.A. The Legal Genealogist) is speaking at the Pratt Library Annual Genealogy Lecture.
Get the details for the lecture here: Pratt Annual Genealogy Lecture: Judy G. Russell, The Legal Genealogist
This is a free event but you should register by calling the library.

And then on Saturday, April 16, 2016, Dick Eastman is speaking at the Baltimore County Genealogical Society’s Spring Seminar.
Get the details for the seminar here: Baltimore County Genealogical Society Spring Seminar: Dick Eastman
The seminar is open to all, no membership needed but the $30 non-member seminar fee will include membership to the society to the end of 2016.  The member fee for the seminar is $15.

Both events are sure to fill up so register NOW!

I JUST Bought Family Tree Maker 2014…What?

Yup, you read that right.  I just purchased Family Tree Maker 2014.  This is why…

Unless you have been under a rock for the last month you know that ancestry.com announced that as of December 31, 2015 the sale of Family Tree Maker was being discontinued.  The software will still be supported until January 1, 2017.

I use Legacy Family Tree as my desktop genealogy software and I do not plan on changing that.  I have used it pretty much since I started genealogy and I like how it works.

But, I recently read a blog article on The Ancestry Insider entitled “Why Buy Family Tree Maker While You Can?” The reason made sense to me.
I have several trees on ancestry.com, both public and private.  I use them mostly for “cousin-bait” and collecting hints.  Because ancestry.com does not interface directly with Legacy Family Tree (and I am OK with that) and I don’t upload and download trees a lot, I have never found a reason to take a look at FTM.
However, I do see the need to maybe “backup” my on-line tree.  One advantage of FTM is that it will download the sources attached to your tree, something not possible with a standard GEDCOM download of an ancestry tree.

Now, that one advantage was not worth the full price of $70 for FTM software.  But, I did find FTM 2014 on Ebay for $22, so I pulled the trigger.  To me $22 is worth a year of being able to sync what I have now to make sure grab all the sources I have collected on my ancestry.com trees.  I also think the ability to generate a temporary tree for some of my “Genealogy Go-Over” families will be advantageous.
I have also closely watched recent posts on Facebook from FTM refugees who have adopted Legacy and how their FTM converted files import into Legacy.

And if it doesn’t work out the way I think (hope) it will I am only out $22.

Wish me luck!!!