Tip: Find Exactly What You Want with a Few Keystrokes

IncSearch

You’re looking at the index of people on the main RootsMagic screen.  You see “Aldred, Mary” but you want to move to “Taylor, William”. Your only hope is to scroll down through the list, past thousands of names and 20 letters of the alphabet until you find what you’re looking for, right?

Sadly, we see this happening all too often, even with experienced RootsMagic users. The saddest part of all this is that it is completely unnecessary with RootsMagic’s fantastic incremental searching.

How does it work?

Step 1) Click anywhere inside whatever list you want to search in order to “select” that list. You can tell if it is selected because the colored bar highlighting the selected record will be blue instead of gray.

IncSearch1

Step 2) Start typing the text you want to search for. RootsMagic will automatically jump to the first matching record and will put an orange box around the text that you’re searching for.

IncSearch2

Step 3) Keep typing the text you want to search for until you find what you’re looking for. In the case of a list of names, once you match the surname, press the , (comma) key to start searching on given names.

IncSearch3

Step 4) If searching a list of names, start typing letters of the given names until you find the record you are looking for.

IncSearch4

That’s it! You just jumped through thousands of names from “Alred, Mary” to “Taylor, William” with just 8 keystrokes!

IncSearch5

And the best thing? It will work on almost every list in RootsMagic! Try it on lists of places, sources, fact types, and more to quickly find the record you need.

So if you haven’t used this feature in RootsMagic, what are you waiting for? Try it for yourself. And the next time you see someone slowly scrolling through a list in RootsMagic, share this time-saving tip with them. You’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you saved someone from  hours of unnecessary scrolling and be promoted to “RootsMagic Hero” in their eyes.

Help us Improve RootsMagic and You Could get $50 at Amazon

RootsMagic Survey

Let your voice be heard! We want to hear from you on how we can improve RootsMagic to better serve your family history wants and needs. To this end, we have setup a survey available HERE.

And to show our appreciation for your time, we are giving away five $50 Amazon.com gift certificates to randomly-selected survey respondents.

The survey will be available until Tuesday, July 15, 2014. But don’t wait, take the survey today!

Tip: Easily Follow the Fathers (and Sons)

FathersDay

Many of our user’s around the world will be celebrating Father’s Day this weekend. In commemoration, I’m going to show you a unique feature in RootsMagic that makes working with lines of fathers (and even sons) a snap. Isolating lines of fathers and sons can be useful in genetic genealogy when you need to find just those men in your file that should share the same Y-Chromosome. Others have used this feature for surname studies, tracking legal records, and more.

The magic happens in the “Select People” screen. You’ll see this screen when you go to export a GEDCOM file, select people to color code, print a report for a group of people, publish a website online, and more. Any time you need to select a group of people to work with.

Fathers-1

Type the name (surname, given name) of the starting person of the line you wish to select. Once the person is selected, click on the Mark group button then select Genetic lines of highlighted person.

Fathers-2

Here you have several options. To select the line of fathers for the highlighted person, choose Y-Chromosome Line (Y-STR). If you select Ancestors of highlighted person, you’ll follow the line of fathers up the tree. If you select Descendants of highlighted person, you’ll follow the line of sons down the tree. Click OK twice to complete the selection.

Fathers-3

Ta-da! You’ve now isolated a line of fathers and sons! Happy Father’s Day  to all those important men in our lives.

P.S. – We don’t want mothers to feel left out of the excitement. Astute readers will have noticed the option to select a genetic line based on Mitochondrial DNA Line (mitDNA).  Since Mitocondrial DNA is passed directly from mother to child so this option will similarly allow you to isolate a line of mothers and daughters.

Tip: Never Get Lost in Your Tree with Color Coding

Color Coding

Have you ever started exploring around your family tree and found yourself lost, unsure which line to follow to get back down to your more recent ancestors? The Color Coding feature in RootsMagic makes it easy to leave yourself “breadcrumbs” so that you always know which people are your direct-line ancestors.

The first thing to do is to find yourself on the RootsMagic main screen. Once you’re selected yourself, choose Tools > Color Code People from the main menu. You’ll see this screen:

ColorCoding-2

Choose whichever color you like from the Set color box (I prefer something that really stands out). Select Ancestors of current person and then click OK. You’ll now see that all the ancestors of the selected person will appear in the selected color, whether on the main screen or in various reports and charts.

ColorCoding-3

Now if you ever get lost in the upper-branches of your tree, just click on the Family view and look at the list of children:

ColorCoding-4

Whichever child is marked in your selected color is a direct-line ancestor. Just click on the arrow to the left of the name to climb down the tree until you reach familiar territory.

Of course, this is just one possible use for Color Coding. Not only can you color lines of ancestors and descendants, but you can also color people based on endless criteria such as where they were born, if they are missing information, if they are the end-of-the-line, etc. You can use up to 14 different colors, each with a different meaning of your own choosing.

To learn more about Color Coding, be sure to watch our short video demonstrating it:

Tip: Planning Cemetery Trips with RootsMagic

Cemetery

It’s Memorial Day weekend in the United States which means that many of you will be visiting gravesites of friends and family to honor and remember them. Did you know that RootsMagic can help you plan your visits and make sure that you don’t miss any ancestral resting spots?

Listing Everyone Buried in a Location

Would you like to have a list of everyone who was buried in a given location? The Individual List in RootsMagic does just what you need.  To create the report:

1. Choose Reports > Print a Report from the Main Menu.

Memorial Day 1

2. Select Individual List from the report types and click Create Report. The Report Settings screen will appear.

Memorial Day 2

3. In the People to print option, choose Selected people

4. In the People to include box, choose Select from list. The Select People screen will appear.

Memorial Day 3

 5. Click on the Mark group button, then choose Select people by data fields. The Search for information screen will appear.

Memorial Day 4

6. In the first row, set the options to Burial, place, contains, and the name of the location you wish to search.

7. Click OK three times until you return to the Report Settings screen.

8. Check/Uncheck any options from the Information to include section to you wish to show or hide.

9. Click Generate Report to see the list.

Memorial Day 5

Voila! You now have a list of all individuals in your file that are buried in a given location. You can also experiment with different options to include precisely the people and information you need for your trip.

And while you’re there, don’t forget to take pictures of the gravesites and record GPS coordinates to record in RootsMagic for later. But that’s the subject of another tip for another day.

Happy Memorial Day!

RootsMagic App for Android Now Available!

RootsMagic for Android

With more and more devices and operating systems becoming popular, we are always asked, “When will RootsMagic be available for _______?” We are working hard to make RootsMagic available on whatever device you use, wherever you go. RootsMagic is already available for Windows and iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) and even the Mac (with help). Today, we are pleased to add Android to that list!

So now all you Android-gadget-groupies can easily take and show off your family history with you wherever you go.  RootsMagic lets you carry your genealogy on your Android device!  It’s fast, easy, and free!

RM-Android-Mockup

The app provides many useful features including:

  • Access your actual RootsMagic files via iTunes or Dropbox – RootsMagic for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch uses your actual RootsMagic files- no conversion needed. You can copy as many files as you want right on your device via iTunes or Dropbox. Users of other genealogy software such as PAF, Family Tree Maker, Legacy Family Tree, and others can convert their files into viewable RootsMagic files using our free desktop software.
  • Easily search and explore your family tree – Familiar Pedigree, Family, Descendant, and Individual Views help you quickly explore your family tree. You can also search for specific people by name or record number.
  • View pictures, notes, and sources – All of your RootsMagic data is available inside the app. Touch any name to see more information about that person as well as family members. All of a person’s information is there including notes, sources, and pictures.
  • Lists – Browse lists of your information and view more information about sources, to-do items, research logs, media, addresses, repositories, correspondences, and places.
  • Tools and Calculators – useful tools to assist you in your research including a perpetual calendar, date calculator, relationship calculator, and soundex calculator

The app is available right now on Google Play and the Amazon appstore. More information is available at www.rootsmagic.com/app.

Frequently Asked Questions
Will the Android app run on my Kindle

New Year’s Resolutions for 2014

2014 Resolutions

Happy New Year!  2013 was a busy year for us and we’ve hit the ground running in 2014.  Let’s look ahead at some of our goals and resolutions for the new year.

More Awards

We received some last-minute awards for 2013 after we did our Year in Review.

GenSoftReviews RootsMagic 2013

GenSoftReviews has presented RootsMagic with the “Top Rated Genealogy Software” award for the fifth year in a row.  These awards are based on reviews made by users and visitors to the site.  And while you’re there, be sure to rate RootsMagic for the 2014 awards!

Geneaward 2013Geneaward 2013 Yellow

RootsMagic also received the GeneAwards for “Best Genealogy Product of 2013”, “Best New Feature of 2013” for the RootsMagic Problem Alerts, and a mention for the “Best New Trend of 2013” with “single cross-platform file format”.  This is the 5th straight year that RootsMagic has won the GeneAward for “Best Genealogy Product”.

Help You Get the Most out of the Software

Help Button

We’re dedicated to making RootsMagic the easiest way to record and share your family history.  Our free online classesRootsMagic TV, and user groups help you learn how to most effectively use our software.  We offer online forums, mailing lists, a knowledge base, and free technical support to answer your questions and get you through rough spots.  In the coming year, look for more content and more ways to help you get the most out of our software.

New Updates and Features

Watch for regular updates to all of your software with improvements, fixes, and new features.  Updates can be found by clicking Help > Check for Updates on the main menu of most of our software.

RootsMagic Everywhere You Want It

RootsMagic 2014 PlatformsAndroid Coming Soon

One of the most common questions we hear is “When will I be able to run RootsMagic on my __________?”  We hear you loud and clear.  We know how important it is to have your information where and when you want it.  We’ve already expanded online and onto iOS devices with Android devices coming in the very near future.  We’re pushing out onto other platforms as well.  Be sure to watch this blog and our newsletter for official future announcements.

Thank You!

As you can see, we’ve got big plans for 2014 and beyond.  None of this would be possible without you and your support.  We try very hard to listen and respond to your problems, questions, and suggestions. If there is something that you’d like to see us do, please contact us and let us know.  May you have a successful 2014 (both genealogically and otherwise)!

2013 in Review

2013 Year in Review

It’s New Years Eve here in the RootsMagic underground labs which means that it is time for us to crawl out and spend some quality time with friends and family.  It also means that it is once again time to reflect on all that has happened this past year.  And don’t forget to check back on Wednesday as we present our resolutions for 2014.  But until then- let’s all gather in the TARDIS (don’t worry, its bigger on the inside) and travel back to January 2013.

Help Us Help You

RootsMagic Webinars

We know that one of the reasons our loyal users love RootsMagic so much is that no other genealogy software provides the level of support and training that we do.  Over the past three years, we have pioneered the use of “webinars“, or free online classes, to help you learn anything you wanted to know about our software.  Our webinars have been viewed and downloaded over a million times from users in nearly every country on the globe.  And best of all, all of our webinars are archived and still available, free of charge.

One of the most frequent requests for our online instruction was for smaller, briefer tutorial videos that focused on very specific tasks. With this in mind, we introduced our YouTube channel, RootsMagic TV.  These videos are usually only a few minutes long and quickly show you how to do particular task without the details and explanations that you’ll find in our regular webinars.  Best of all, because they are hosted on YouTube, they are easy to share with others via e-mail or social networks.

RootsMagic for PAF Users: A Quick-Start Guide

 

In June, FamilySearch announced the retirement of its Personal Ancestral File (PAF) genealogy software and recommended that PAF users upgrade to FamilySearch-partnered software like RootsMagic.  To make the transition as easy as possible for PAF users, we created a free 16-page, full-color booklet titled, “RootsMagic for PAF Users: A Quick Start Guide“.  We mailed out thousands of of these printed guides while thousands more downloaded the PDF version.

 Conferences, Sponsorships & Awards

2013AboutReadersChoiceAwards

In March, About.com Genealogy hosted the “2013 About Genealogy Readers’ Choice Awards”.  Readers nominated and voted for their favorite products and organizations.  We were honored to receive two awards for:

At the RootsTech conference in March, we once again gave away two iPads in the RootsMagic 2013 RootsTech Treasure Hunt.  Just as in 2012, it was a lot of fun and brought some well-deserved attention to bloggers in our genealogy community.

We attended conferences all over the United States from Southern California to Las Vegas to Indiana.  It’s also been our privilege to sponsor two great genealogy podcasts- The Genealogy Gems with Lisa Louise Cooke and The Genealogy Guys with George Morgan and Drew Smith.

Leading the Way

FamilySearch Family Tree

2013 saw several free updates to RootsMagic 6 that were firsts in the genealogy world.  In March, we became the first software certified to share data with FamilySearch Family Tree.  FamilySearch Family Tree is a new way to organize and record your genealogy online. It is free, is available to everyone, and provides an easy way to discover your place in history with free tools to help you preserve and share your family’s story for generations to come.

ProblemAlerts

In July, we introduced the world to “Problem Alerts“.  With Problem Alerts, RootsMagic will find any potential data entry errors (people born before their parents, etc.) in the background and display an alert next to the name of any person with a potential problem.  This alert will show on the pedigree, family, and descendant views.  This feature is a huge hit with our users and the genealogy community at-large.

More Devices, More Platforms

Android Coming Soon

 

Like you, we know how important it is to have your information where and when you want it.  One of our resolutions for this past year was to bring RootsMagic to even more platforms and devices.  We had already brought you RootsMagic for Windows Desktop, RootsMagic for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and My RootsMagic online publishing.  In 2013, we released the beta version of RootsMagic for Android.  After much testing and feedback from our users, we are almost ready for the official release.  Watch this blog for an announcement in the very near future!

Happy Birthday to Us?

2013 was the year that RootsMagic had its ten-year anniversary.  We wish we could say “celebrated” its ten-year anniversary but, in all honestly, we didn’t realize it had been ten years until it was pointed out to us earlier today by Tamura Jones.  RootsMagic 1.0 was officially released on February 4, 2003.  Oh well, maybe we’ll do something for the 11th anniversary 🙂

Thank You!

We sincerely mean it when we say that none of this would have been possible without you and your support.  We are grateful for the wonderful support, enthusiasm, and encouragement that we receive from our community.  We are humbled by the knowledge, patience and wisdom which we so often see freely shared among RootsMagic users.  2013 has been an incredible year for us thanks to you!

Working with FamilySearch Family Tree

As the only software certified to add and share data with FamilySearch Family Tree, we have received a lot of questions about “what is FamilySearch Family Tree”, “who can access FamilySearch Family Tree”, etc.

FamilySearch Family Tree

What Do the Different Certifications Mean?

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what the different levels of FamilySearch certification mean.  When a program is designed to work with FamilySearch, it must receive “certification” in order to have permission to perform various functions.

There are 3 different levels of certification, as listed on this “Partner Products” page at FamilySearch:

  1. Tree Access Tree Access means that the program can only read data from the FamilySearch Family Tree.  Tree Access does not allow writing to the Family Tree.
  2. icon-TreeConnectGray Tree Connect means that the program can read data from the Family Tree, and can also read artifacts like media or sources.  Tree Connect does not allow writing to the Family Tree.
  3. Tree Share+ Tree Share+ means that the program can read and write data to the Family Tree.  For a program to be Tree Share+ certified, it must protect the integrity of the FamilySearch Family Tree by also implementing all the collaborative features (sources, change history, reasons, discussions).  This is important, because a program should not allow a user to make changes to the Family Tree without showing them the full consequences of the change.

RootsMagic is currently the only software with the Tree Share+ certification, so you can easily share your data back and forth with Family Tree (if you want).

Who Can Use FamilySearch Family Tree?

FamilySearch Family Tree is a free website, available to anyone who wants to set up a free account.  If you don’t already have a FamilySearch account, you can go here to sign up:

https://familysearch.org/register/

You can use FamilySearch Family Tree directly from their website, or you can use the Tree Share+ integration built into RootsMagic to view your own data side by side with the data available on FamilySearch.

If you use the FamilySearch integration built into RootsMagic, you don’t have to copy any data from RootsMagic to FamilySearch (or vice versa) unless you want to.  You can still look for matches without transferring your data back and forth.

Where Can I Learn More About Using RootsMagic with FamilySearch Family Tree?

We have created a number of short videos showing how to access FamilySearch Family Tree from inside RootsMagic.  To view these short videos, click here.

PAF users have a new home at RootsMagic; Upgrade offer and Free Quick Start guide

PAF users have a new home

In a blog posting today, FamilySearch announced the retirement of it’s Personal Ancestral File (PAF) genealogy software.

“Beginning July 15, 2013, PAF will be retired and will no longer be available for download or support. For full details and for information on alternative products, please visit http://familysearch.org/PAF.”

The linked page recommends that PAF users upgrade to family history software from one of the FamilySearch parters.  Of the three options listed, RootsMagic is the only software certified to utilize the full capabilities of FamilySearch Family Tree, including sharing data, ordinances, discussions, sources, and change history.

We understand that change isn’t easy, so we’ve worked hard at putting together some new tools and supports to make the transition as painless as possible for PAF users.

A New Home

Over the past few years, tens-of-thousands of PAF users have made the switch to RootsMagic.  They’ve enjoyed its amazing new features such as book publishingcolor codingwallchartsShareable CD’srunning straight off of a flash driveinteractive problem listsonline publishing, a mobile app, and more!

But don’t take our word for it.  Here’s what some of our satisfied-switches have had to say:

“I have used PAF for all my years in Family History research. I now enjoy working with RootsMagic, it is by far the best program. Thank you.” — Joyce

“I want to thank everyone at RootsMagic for all their hard work! I purchased RootsMagic 4 after attending a genealogy seminar this past September. I was still using PAF at that time. When Bruce explained how easy it was to convert my data I was extatic, so I purchased the software. When I received it, it loaded quickly converted all my old PAF data (just as Bruce said it would) and I was up and running. . . Love is a very strong word, and I Love RootsMagic!! Thanks everyone, great job!!” — Kathy

“I have been working on the family history for many years using PAF, and converted to RootsMagic, which is a great program, very user friendly. I have recommended the program to beginners that are interested in finding and recording their own family genealogy.” — Shirley

“A great improvement from PAF. This will help with the work. Thanks!” — Garth

Update Discount for PAF Users

To make the transition as painless as possible, we’ve set-up a special website at www.PAFUpgrade.com that includes training videos, testimonials, and more.  And for a limited time, we are offering PAF users the full-version of RootsMagic at the upgrade price of only $19.95.  You must visit www.PAFUpgrade.com to receive the discount.

Of course, we also offer a free version of RootsMagic named RootsMagic Essentials that offers the basic abilities of PAF plus the certified FamilySearch Family Tree features.

Free Quick Start Guide

RootsMagic for PAF Users: A Quick-Start Guide

We’ve also put together a special guide titled, “RootsMagic for PAF Users: A Quick Start Guide”.  This 16-page, full-color booklet guides you step-by-step in making the switch and answers the biggest and most common questions.  This guide is available in printed format and as a free PDF that can be viewed on your computer or mobile device and even printed at home.  We encourage our users to download this guide and freely share it with any PAF users who may benefit from it.

As a bonus, any PAF user who upgrades to RootsMagic at www.PAFUpgrade.com will receive a copy of this Quick Start guide.

We’re Here to Help

If you’re a PAF user, we understand that change isn’t easy. But with a little of your time and a little help from us, you’ll be just as comfortable with RootsMagic as you were with PAF.