18 years ago Family Tree Maker V1 was released and within a few years it became one of the leading Family Tree programs available. Each new version added requested features, more complex reporting functions, and even internet searching, and overall became more user-friendly. In September 2007, Ancestry.Com released Family Tree Maker 2008. The new version is has been completely redesigned, and has many new features, including the ability to find and import facts and historical documents on the Internet, and print custom-designed family trees and books.

The question remains, is it worth the upgrade for most people? Well I tried the Beta version, and finally have the full version on my new PC, and I thought I would share my experiences and views. Firstly the interface really needs a high-resolution larger monitor to display all the information clearly. My kids 15” CRT screen running at 800*600 resolution looks absolutely terrible, but my 19” widescreen running at 1440*900 displays all the details rather clearly.

I Have a fast PC – a Quad Core Q6600, with 2Gb of RAM, and a number of fast SATA Hard Disks, but running the new FTM 2008 makes my PC feel like my old 486 that I threw out 5 years ago! After importing over 33,000 people, FTM 2008 went from a quick program to something painfully slow, taking seconds to change screens, and minutes to create some reports. The old FTM 2006 that I ran did the same things with no apparent lag at all. Part of the problem is that my family file increased from 29MB to over 80MB, just by importing it into the new version.

There are features that I used a lot in the past such as register, NGS Quarterly and Ahnentafel reports that simply do not exist anymore! Other things such as the books for publishing your work now have to be done online, rather than on the privacy of your own PC, and even then, half the features that were available in the old Book section do not exist. The outline descendent report that I very regularly use to report updates to researchers has lost the ability to be modified to select the items I want to include. Oh and I can no longer copy that report (or any other one) so I can paste it into the email – I have to export it first, then open the exported file & copy from there!

FTM 2006 had something like 16 different charts available, but FTM 2008 has just 1 pedigree chart, 1 descendant chart and 1 new relationship chart. Even the error report that showed you bad dates, children out of order etc no longer exists. The automatic backup function is gone, so if your main file gets corrupted, watch out!

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. From a user that has been using FTM since about version 4 or 5, this is the worst upgrade ever. In many ways it is a downgrade, as features that I used a lot are no longer there. I urge people considering an upgrade based on previous versions to think twice before upgrading this time. Some people are happy with the new features , but the majority of people that I know that have upgraded have considered it a waste of time and money, and quite a few have begun looking at other family tree programs out there.

There are plans to release a patch to replace some of the missing functions before the end of the year, but things like the book builder will not be available in an offline version for at least 12 months (Summer 2008, which for us southerners, means mid 2008). I have happily returned to using FTM 2006 and will continue using it for the foreseeable future.