Review by Thorvald

I came into this version of Family Tree Maker from a very old version, figuring it was more than time to get an upgrade. The version I had would not import directly into the 2011 version, but an export, then import, of a Gedcom file moved my data over okay.

At first I was quite enthused with the new layout and features, but the more I used it the less impressed I became. The first major problem I had is that Family Tree Maker 2011 really needs to be used on a large, wide-screen monitor. I have two monitors on my desktop PC setup, a square one center and a wide-screen to the side, so I could shift the program over from one to the other. And, in fact, at one point in using it, I absolutely had to switch to the wide-screen monitor as a critical scroll bar was cut off and there was no side-to-side scroll bar to move the window box contents over.

Then, too, your monitor needs to be large as there are many smaller box/windows crammed onto the screen. I could not use this software on my petite notebook screen; would not be able to read it.

The month of free Ancestry.com subscription is a nice bonus. I had had Ancestry before and this was a good reason to re-up my subscription (which I will be keeping, and upgrading, after the free month). But the free portion is US/Canada records only, so if you trace your family back further you’ll hit dead-ends. I did not like having Ancestry.com online records being squeezed into the little box in this program. It made everything involving Ancestry.com small, awkward, and slow.

Navigation on this program is not particularly intuitive, in my opinion. It took probing about to find the function or information (remember I was using an existing family tree file) I was looking for.

Still, despite all other reservations, I was suitably impressed with Family Tree Maker 2011 until I got to trying to export the file to a web format. It’s quick and easy to upload your tree and information to Ancestry.com, but to export to a format I can use on my own website? Not happening. The old version of this I had would generate a fully complete website with multiple pages linked backwards and forwards. With this new version I could only find ways to export very limited single pages–not the entire family tree. That was a huge disappointment. The code it generates for even those pages was not pretty. I’m a web designer so can work with almost any web code, but this did not even begin to meet my minimum standards. This part of the program was a complete zero-star disappointment.

I only briefly explored the printing options, but as with the web page export, did not find the ability to print the full quantity and quality of documents the very old software had given me. There seemed to be plenty of links to commercial options for your material to be printed up and bound for you, but not much that let you do it yourself.