Family Tree Maker SIG Goes Virtual

The Family Tree Maker Special Interest Group, co-facilitated by Ron Madson and Karen Halfon, became our first CGS Special Interest Group (SIG) to take its meetings to the Internet.  The regular meeting of the group was held online on Zoom on May 16, 2020 at 1:00 pm.  The official meeting was ushered in by a “social hour” beginning at 12:30. Attendees were free to chat with each other or ask questions before the meeting started.

A notable guest to this virtual event was Russ Worthington (“Cousin Russ”), who authors the blog “Collecting Cousins.” He contributed updates and insights on the progress, status, and functioning of the new FTM release.  We may be seeing him in upcoming virtual meetings.

The Family Tree Maker Special Interest Group met online this month

The topic for this meeting was a discussion of the newest release of the FTM software, FTM2019.  The agenda included new features of the software program including a function called “TreeVault” which allows users to upload a tree to the vendor’s (Software MacKiev) cloud storage. The Vault-saved tree is updated in real time with every update or change made to the FTM tree and can be restored to the user’s computer when and if necessary.  

A video recording of the meeting is posted on YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCsv3SAykTI

The FTM-SIG plans to continue the monthly Zoom meetings during these shelter-in-place times, at the usual time on the third Saturday of the month. The June 20th meeting program will focus on "Family History Fact and Event Management Tools." For more information, contact:
Ron Madson (rmadson@californiaancestors.org)
or Karen Halfon (khalfon@californiaancestors.org).

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