Upcoming Genealogy Changes You Don’t Want to Miss

You might not want to miss the following:

Elizabeth Shown Mills lecture on Legacy Family Tree Webinars is offered FREE through October 31st. This is Elizabeth’s LAST LECTURE as she is retiring from lecturing. I will greatly miss her.

Special thanks to reader Tess who responded regarding my earlier blog mentioning problems I encountered with RootsMagic 8. She recommended posting on the RM Users Group on FaceBook so I’d like to pass that tip along if you are having difficulties. Before doing that, I viewed the FREE webinars that are available on YouTube and that solved my issue. More will be coming so here’s the link to register in advance.

The root of my problem was I was trying to reconnect to Ancestry.com due to a pop up on RootsMagic 8. I did not need to do that as the webinar stated if you were already logged into Ancestry.com on RM 7 you would automatically be connected in RM 8. That would explain why the program froze for me. My tree is very large which doesn’t help. I logged out and waited a day. When I logged back in I followed the directions provided on the video and have had no problems since. I absolutely LOVE version 8 – kudos to the RootsMagic staff for their hard work.

If you are doing French research, two changes are in the works. Geneanet.org has been purchased by Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com has acquired 90% of Filae.com. I’m not sure when databases will roll from the old company to the new one or what you do if you were a member of the old company. I recommend contacting the company for details. MyHeritage did blog about the new content so check that out here. I had a free Geneanet membership and never subscribed to Filae.

Valentine Gift Idea – a Family Tree Poster

Valentine’s is around the corner and here’s a quick gift idea for family – a poster of your family tree.  I discovered that Geneanet has some free templates that make awesome (inexpensive) gifts.  I did this last minute before Christmas and the results were beautiful.

If you have a Geneanet tree you can follow the instructions below.  If not, first you need to create an account a thttps://en.geneanet.org/  Although they have a premium service, which is a nice option, you don’t have to pay to become a member and upload a tree.

Download wherever you’ve saved your family tree and then upload to Geneanet on the ribbon under Family Tree – Import/Export a Family Tree.  Depending on the size of your tree, this may take a few minutes.

Once your tree is uploaded, open up the individual (or yourself) that you want to start as the base of your chart.  Then click on Charts & Lists – Ancestry – Printable Family Tree.  There are several templates from which you can select.  I chose a fan design and used a tree in the background on one and a lion on another.  You can also select up to 10 generations to include.  I saved it to a thumb drive and then took it to my closest big box office supply store.  They quickly printed it for me on poster paper and the cost was $3.17 ($1.08 a piece with tax).  Make sure you tell the sales person to leave a border around the poster if you intend to get it framed.  I didn’t which I should have.

The only downside is that GENEANET is printed in large letters at the bottom right but for the price, I believe it’s worth the advertising.

Now just think – you’re family will stop asking you how so and so is related and when great grandpa died.  Well, maybe if your family is like mine they’ll continue to ask but that’s okay, you can redirect them to the chart.  I call it baby steps in training them to be interested in genealogy.