Family Tree Maker 2008 is breaking my heart – a little

Family Tree Maker 2008 is breaking my heart – a little. I want to use it and I even volunteered to be a beta tester. The program should be great but I just cannot get into it. I cannot get excited about the new format for a few reasons, none of which have to do with bugs or errors with the program. I think the software engineers have ironed out most of the problems but I cannot get over the feel of it. I just do not feel comfortable with the program yet and do not know if I will ever feel good about it.

When I used to sit down with Family Tree Maker 16, I could burn through a stack of documents to enter within an hour or two. Family Tree Maker 2008 is so complicated, or maybe detailed is a better word, that it takes five times as long to get anything done. I find myself spending more time entering data than I actually spent at the archives looking for the stuff!

There are so many screens to enter data, sometimes the same information in more than one spot. I feel like I have to be diligent and enter everything but there is so much stuff! If you scan and document the source, the repository, the actual data and maybe a media item, you just spent an hour. That would take only a few minutes in FTM 16.

With FTM 16, things went faster because the layout was simple. I could use the tab and alt keys to jump all over the screen with little effort. It is as if FTM 2008 gives you too many options and I am overwhelmed.

Don’t get me wrong, I love FTM 2008. I think it is a great program, and it is probably the future of genealogy, but it is dense. I am a young guy – only 30 – and I consider myself to be pretty computer savvy. I know that older, less computer-literate individuals have got to be having a hard time with it.

I have honestly lost interest in genealogy over the past few months, largely because of FTM 2008. It is so bulky and slow, I dread sitting down and spending hours with it. I probably have not touched it in over a month. I hate to go back to FTM 16 because I have made changed to my file in FTM 2008 that will not go backward. I am almost stuck with 2008 now and that is somewhat depressing.

I think I am going to try and give it another shot in the next few days. One evening, after the wife and kids go to bed, I will pull out a few documents and maybe time myself on how long they take to enter. I am honesty in a funk right now and have almost no interest in even trying. I wish I could find a document that I have been looking for a long time, something to stimulate my interest again...Does anyone out there have a copy of Francis Lett’s will from Brunswick or Mecklenburg County, Virginia? As far as I know, it does not exist, but that might re-spark my interest enough to give FTM 2008 another try.

Family Tree Maker 2008 Bug - All data from people tab missing and how to find it.

I am going to start listing any of the bugs and fixes that I find for Family Tree Maker 2008 on the site. Maybe they will help someone that has lost data.

I have come across a bug in 17.0.0.438. While in the people tab, scrolling through the index, the program crashed. All I did was scroll up with the up arrow key, from one name to the next. The program closed completely and without any warning or error message.

When I try to restart FTM, this message appears: “The tree is already open or invalid file type [path]”. This message can be dismissed and the program will start. After the first failure, the typical Microsoft error message pops up. If you click the button to send the error report, the process will start but it will never actually send.

After restarting FTM, even after restarting the computer, the “open or invalid file” message appears each time. When inside the program, everything runs normally except that you cannot see anything on the people tab screen. The places, sources, etc. tabs work fine but the people tab data is not there. The funny thing is that you can press F2 and the index will come up, populated with data.

I then tried to export the file and open the exported file/packet, saved with a different name. This process worked fine and nothing appears to be lost, all of the tabs function properly. Even stranger is that once I exported the original file and then opened it and saved the package as a new file, the original file now works properly again, people tab and all.

My note to the maker of Family Tree Maker 2008

I sent a short note to The Generations Network, markers of Family Tree Maker 2008. I did not want to completely rag them out but I was not happy with their product. Here is what I wrote:

“Disappointment with FTM2008:

The program is too slow and there are too many features (reports, etc.) missing that made version 16 great. I understand this is a new direction for the product but you have lost the simplicity that made the FTM brand great. I have tried to use 2008 since the BETA and feel that the release version was no better than the BETA. I work in quality assurance and FTM2008 smells like a BETA labeled as a release to me, just to get the product to market sooner.

I have to say that I am a long-time fan but I will probably revert to FTM16 and not buy additional upgrades, unless some of the old features come back and overall stability returns. If I were you I would refund everyone their money, take the loss and fix the product before releasing it again. There are clearly too many problems with 2008 for you to stand behind it fully.

Kevin Lett”

If you would like to share your thoughts on the product with our readers, click the comment link below and let us know how you feel.

Advice when you are in a genealogy slump!

I am in a genealogy slump right now. For the past few weeks, I was really getting into a good groove but I am officially burned out! Lately I have been finding documents right and left, things I have been looking for a long time. Now I have a briefcase full of copies and no energy to enter them into Family Tree Maker! I hate that! I am sure these papers will end up in some “to-do” stack and probably never make it into my family tree. Maybe one day they will get processed, but not today!

How many of you out there are in the same place? You get all excited about finding a certain document and when you do, you turn around and get too lazy to properly catalogue and digest it? That seems to be the story of my genealogical life! I love doing the research but I cannot stand the organization. Now don’t get me wrong, I am very organized. I have an excellent filing system and 90% of my data is properly entered and put away. It is that last ten percent that really gets to you and keeps you too depressed to get over the hump.

My usual rule is that I do not go to the archives again until I have entered the data I found last time. However life gets in the way, you know the wife, kids, work, and time slips away. When the next Saturday comes, you pull out the brief case and realize that lasts weeks finds are still in there! You are not going to cancel your trip because of some extra baggage so you haul those papers back to the archives and add them to next weeks organization project. After a few revolutions of this cycle, you can no longer close the briefcase and have to do something, even if it means putting the documents into another “to do” folder.

The best solution I can come up with is to find a genealogy buddy, some close relative that likes data entry and is less interested in the research aspect. I have never found someone like that, mostly because my wife does not trust herself to read old handwriting. The rest of my family could care less about genealogy so I am stuck doing it myself. If anyone is going to catalogue and preserve the family tree, it is going to be me alone. With that in mind, I have to stay motivated, stay organized and take a break once in awhile. This hobby is not meant to be stressful. Stop when you must and restart by cleaning up the old mess when you return, before jumping into any new projects.