RootsMagic Wins Two 2013 About.com Readers’ Choice Awards

The awards keep coming in.  Just 3 months after winning its 4th straight GeneAward for Best Genealogy Product of the YearRootsMagic has won not one, but two 2013 About Genealogy Readers’ Choice Awards!

2013AboutReadersChoiceAwards

After a month of nominations and voting by the community, RootsMagic received awards for:

About.com Genealogy is the highest-ranked single contributor genealogy site on the internet.  Kimberly Powell, the curator, does a terrific job keeping it up-to-date with the latest news and tips as well as detailed and valuable lessons and how-to articles.  If you aren’t already familiar with this resource, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

We’d like to thank all of you who made your voices heard through your votes.  We work hard to bring you the best genealogy features and software available and it’s gratifying to see that many of you approve of the job we’re doing.  Of course, we’re not just sitting around.  We have even more surprises in store to make researching, recording, and sharing your family history even easier!

Special Holiday Offer Ends December 20th

Our special holiday offer continues through December 20th.  With the holidays coming up, we often get requests from our users about buying copies of RootsMagic to give as gifts to their family or friends.  In what has become an annual tradition, RootsMagic owners can buy discounted copies of our software to give as gifts.

Brand New Version 6!

Once again our Holiday Special hits at the exact same time as the release of a new version.  During this special holiday sale, you can order gift copies of RootsMagic 6 for just $19.95 (plus shipping).  Even better, you can order our other products at that same $19.95 price.  There is even a special bundle of our 3 best selling programs (and the RM book) for just $59.95.

There is no limit on the number of discounted gift copies you can buy during this limited time offer which will expire December 20, 2012. You will receive the full program for each copy you order.

To take advantage of this offer, just visit:

http://www.rootsmagic.com/holidayoffer

or order by phone at 1-800-ROOTSMAGIC (1-800-766-8762).

Here are a few resources if you would like more information about the new RootsMagic 6.

RootsMagic 6 – Free Online Publishing at My.RootsMagic.com

My RootsMagic

We released our new RootsMagic 6 software last week with an impressive list of new features.  One of our goals with this new release was to make it easier for you to share your information online with your family.

With that goal in mind, we’re pleased to offer our new My RootsMagic free hosting service for users of RootsMagic 6.  With it, you can easily publish and share your family tree, notes, sources, and media with others.

Publish Online

To publish your information to My RootsMagic, just run RootsMagic 6, then select “Internet > Publish online” from the main menu.  RootsMagic will step you through choosing which people you want to include, privacy options, and customizing your home page.  Then, with the click of a button, it publishes it online for you.  Your site will be located at my.rootsmagic.com/yourusername and will include a home page, a searchable name index, and pedigree view, family views, and individual view for every person you choose to include.  You can also include the notes, sources, and pictures on your site as well.

Your My RootsMagic site will have a very clean appearance, and is very easy for visitors to navigate.  Here’s a sample of what the pedigree view looks like (click the image to embiggen it).

Publish Online

See it in Action

If you want to see a sample of what RootsMagic 6 can create, we’ve put up a sample site for you to experience.  This sample site is purely fictional information, but will let you navigate the various views and see how notes, sources, and media are included.

If you’ve like to see a live demonstration where I created and published a family tree online, watch the last half of our free webinar “What’s New in RootsMagic 6” (it starts at 40:00 minutes into the webinar).

And be sure to read Randy Seaver’s blog articles about his experiences trying RootsMagic 6 and it’s online publishing here and here.  Randy sums up the My RootsMagic online publishing nicely:

“I really like the ease of creation of the website – it’s so idiot-proof that even I can do it.  I really like the tree content, the visual product, and the ease of navigation within the tree.  Plus, it’s FREE as part of buying a superb genealogy software program.”

So if you’ve been wanting to share your family history online but haven’t had the time or tech-knowledge to do it, get or upgrade to RootsMagic 6 today!

New RootsMagic 6 Software Released

RootsMagic 6

Latest Version of Genealogy and Family Tree Software Now Available to the Public

SPRINGVILLE, Utah. — November 19, 2012 — RootsMagic, Inc. today announced the official release of RootsMagic 6, the latest version of the award-winning genealogy software which makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history easy and enjoyable.  With this release comes an update to the popular “RootsMagic Essentials” free genealogy software.

Family History Made Easy

Family Tree Magazine said RootsMagic is “probably the best all-around genealogy program” and “offers a winning combination of features for both casual and serious genealogists.”

Throughout its 11-year history, RootsMagic has helped people research and share their family trees with innovative features such as moving people from one file to another with your mouse, a SourceWizard to help you document your work, creating a Shareable CD to give to family and friends, and running RootsMagic off of a USB flash drive when you are away from home.  RootsMagic has also received numerous awards, including the award for “Easiest to Sync” from FamilySearch for their work in interfacing with that system.

New Features

RootsMagic 6 adds many new features while making existing features even easier to use.  “This release includes something for everybody,” said Bruce Buzbee, president.  “Whether you want an easier way to share your family history with family or are looking for better tools to help you organize your work, RootsMagic 6 has something new for you.”  New features include:

Publish Online

  • Online Publishing – Create beautiful, dynamic websites with pedigree, family and individual views as well as supporting notes, sources, and media.  And with our free My.RootsMagic.com hosting service, your genealogy has an online home with the click of a mouse.

Timeline View

  • Live Timeline View – A live-edit panel on RootsMagic’s timeline view makes this one of the most powerful editing features ever!  Make corrections to your data while viewing it in context with other family members life events.

Find Everywhere

  • Find Everywhere – With a single search you can now find every  record in your file containing the text you want.  Quickly find people, families, notes, sources, places, to-do items, research logs, and more.  Then edit those found records directly from the search results.

WebTags

  • WebTags – Link people, sources, places, and more to websites using RootsMagic 6’s new WebTags.

CountyCheck Explorer

  • CountyCheck Explorer – Look up a county, state, or country from a multi-national database.  It can even show you online maps of county boundaries for that date.
  • Plus dozens of other enhancements and features

Free “RootsMagic Essentials”

RootsMagic 6 is also available in an updated, free edition named, “RootsMagic 6 Essentials”.  RootsMagic Essentials contains many core features from the RootsMagic software and the two products are fully-compatible with one another.  “Many people are curious about their family history and don’t know where to begin,” said Michael Booth, vice president.  “RootsMagic Essentials is the perfect way for someone to get started, risk-free.”  RootsMagic Essentials is available for download at http://www.rootsmagic.com.

Available Now

RootsMagic 6 is now available online at http://www.rootsmagic.com or by calling 1-800-766-8762.  New users may purchase RootsMagic 6 for only $29.95.  Users of previous versions of RootsMagic and it’s predecessor, Family Origins may purchase RootsMagic 6 for the upgrade price of only $19.95.

About RootsMagic, Inc.

For over 20 years, RootsMagic, Inc. has been creating computer software with a special purpose- to unite families. One of our earliest products- the popular “Family Origins” software, introduced thousands of people to the joy and excitement of family history.

That tradition continues today with “RootsMagic”, our award-winning genealogy software which makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history fun and easy. “Personal Historian” will help you easily write and preserve your life stories. “Family Reunion Organizer” takes the headaches out of planning those important get-togethers. And “Family Atlas” creates beautiful and educational geographic maps of your family history.

For more information, visit www.rootsmagic.com.
Source: RootsMagic, Inc.

Have an interesting family history picture? Win a Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner!

Do you have photos, drawings, quilts, or even coins and jewelry that you would like to digitally preserve for your family history?  If so, are you familiar with the Flip-Pal mobile scanner?  The Flip-Pal is a compact, cordless, battery-powered scanner that uses patented flip-and-scan technology to scan photos safely while they are still in the album or frame.

Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner

We’ve teamed-up with our friends at Flip-Pal to offer one of their mobile scanners, a scanner cover, and our Personal Historian software  to one lucky RootsMagic user!  How can you be that lucky user?  Easy.  We’re looking for the most-interesting family history picture and an accompanying story.

To enter, e-mail your most-interesting family history picture with an accompanying story to flip@rootsmagic.com by Sunday, October 21, 2012.

The five (5) most interesting pictures, as judged by RootsMagic staff, will be placed online from Monday, October 22 through Tuesday, October 30, 2012 where the public will be able to vote for their pick of the most-interesting family history picture and story.

Results will be announced on Wednesday, October 31, 2012.  The person who submitted the picture and story with the most votes will receive a Flip-Pal mobile scanner, a Deluxe Carry Case with Pocket, and a copy of Personal Historian personal and family history writing software (retail value $209.93).  The four (4) runner-ups will all receive a copy of Personal Historian personal and family history writing software (retail value $29.95).

Don’t forget, you have until Sunday, October 21 to e-mail your entries to flip@rootsmagic.com.  Good luck!

What Are Research Logs and Why Should I Use Them?

What is the Difference Between To-Do Lists and Research Logs?

A to-do list is just that… a simple list of things you need to do. It might be writing a letter, making a phone call, looking up a date, or any number of other things.

A research log on the other hand is a list of all the sources you have looked at towards a single research goal. Your research log lets you easily trace back through the documents you have looked at, and if done properly, your research log can even lay out your research plan for that goal.

Creating a Research Log

Set a Goal

The first step in creating a research log is to define your research goal. That research goal might be very general, like “All sources I have looked at regarding James Brown.” But it might also be quite specific, like “All sources I have looked at to try and determine where James Brown was born.” Research logs are particularly useful for trying to knock down those brick walls, so be as specific about the particular problem as you can.

Log Your Research

Once you have a goal defined, you simply keep track of every source you look at towards that goal. Every time you do a search, record the following information:

  • The date of the search
  • What you were looking for
  • What source you looked at
  • Where the source was located
  • The results of your search

When should you record a search in your log? Here are 3 situations:

  1. You searched and found something you were looking for
    This is what most people think of when you mention a research log… a list of all the sources you looked at and found useful information in.
  2. You searched and didn’t find what you were looking for
    Why bother keeping track of sources that didn’t have what you were looking for? How about to remind you that you don’t need to keep checking that same document every year when it hasn’t changed for the last hundred years?
  3. You want to search a document but haven’t had a chance yet
    By adding sources that you want to look at to your research log, you are creating a plan of attack for your goal (also known as a research plan). Write down what you want to find and where you plan to look. When you finally get the chance to view that document you can add the search date and the results of your search.

Be Specific

When recording a search in your log, try to be as specific as possible about what you are looking for, where you looked, and what you found. It’s easy to get lazy and just put something like:

Searching for information about James Brown in the 1880 census and didn’t find anything.

You will find that as your genealogical skills improve (from taking classes, attending conferences, and just plain old practice), you will discover that there is usually more than one way to analyze a particular record. If your research logs are too general, you may not remember what specific information you looked for, which particular form you viewed, or even what it was that you didn’t find 😉

If you are looking for a birth date, say that you were looking for a birth date.  If you are later looking for christening information you will be able to see that you weren’t specifically looking for that at the time, so you may want to check the source again.  Of course if you recorded that you didn’t find that birth date but did find a christening date, you won’t have to go back and recheck it later.

If you are looking in the 1880 US Census Population Schedule for Podunk, NY, make sure to record that specifically.  If you happen to find it online, also record the link to the original.  One note though… do not skip recording the information just because you have the link… links can disappear!

Using RootsMagic 5’s New Research Logs

RootsMagic 5 added a full feature Research Manager which lets you create unlimited research logs using the techniques I’ve described above.  You can create research logs for people, families, events, places, or just plain old general research logs.  To see RootsMagic’s research logs in action, visit:

http://www.rootsmagic.com/webinars

and watch the free webinar #32 “New Research Log and Manager in RootsMagic 5”.

RootsMagic’s New “Who Was There” Report

RootsMagic 5.0.3 introduced the new “Who Was There” report, which can be as simple or as powerful as you want it to be.  At the most basic level it will print a list of people who may have been in a selected place at a selected time.  Just enter the place and date and RootsMagic will do the rest.  List people in a census, people who served in a war, or people who just happened to be living in a particular place at a particular time.

To access the “Who Was There” report, select Reports > Lists from the main menu.  It will be the last report in the Lists category (alphabetically).  Highlight the “Who Was There List” and click the “Create Report” button.  RootsMagic will display this screen.

Some Help with the 1940 Census

Let’s say you are interested in finding out who may have been in Iowa at the time of the 1940 Census.  You can simply type “Iowa” for the place, and enter “1940” for the date (you could also enter the actual “2 Apr 1940” date if you wanted).  Select any options you want and click “Generate Report”.

Tip: While the report will print in portrait mode, it looks a lot better printed landscape.  Click the “Layout” button and choose to print the report in Landscape.

RootsMagic will create a list of everyone in your file who may have been in Iowa in 1940 (you can click on the image above to see it larger).  Now of course you aren’t limited to typing in states.  You can enter countries, states, counties, or cities.  When entering a place that could be ambiguous, just make sure to enter enough of the place so that RootsMagic can figure out what place you mean.  In other words, don’t just enter “Springfield”, be a little more specific, like “Springfield, IL”.

The “Who Was There” report will list the name(s), birth and death dates, the person’s age on the date you selected, and any events in the person’s life which occurred in the place you entered.  You can also choose to print any alternate names for the person, as well as the most likely married name on that date for any females.

Other Uses For the “Who Was There” Report

While this report can be invaluable for finding people in a particular area during a census, it has a much wider range of usefulness.  Let’s say you wanted to find people under 30 who were in South Carolina during the US Civil War.  In the report options below, you would enter “South Carolina” as the place, and instead of entering a single date, you can enter a date range covering the time of the Civil War.  And finally you can set the minimum and maximum age to filter the results to those people under 30 (or between 18 and 35 or any other range).

The resulting list would look something like this.

RootsMagic also gives you a “People to include” filter which lets you use any criteria you want to further filter the list.  So if you only wanted males in your direct line, you can do that as well.

So while this is a very easy report to use (just fill in the date and place), it can also be a very powerful tool when used with the various options and filters.  And don’t forget that you can always press the “Reset” button on the report options screen if you ever want to go back to the default settings.

New Weekly Webinars Announced

They’re baaacck!  After releasing RootsMagic 5 we got so busy that we weren’t finding any time to schedule and prepare any new webinars.

Many of you have told us you would like to see shorter webinar classes covering a single feature in more detail.  So for  the next several weeks we will be doing just that, starting with  features that are new in RootsMagic 5.

  • Mar 15 – New Media Tagging in RootsMagic 5
  • Mar 22 – New Source and Citation Features in RootsMagic 5
  • Mar 29 – New Research Logs and Manager in RootsMagic 5
  • Apr 5 – New Timeline View in RootsMagic 5
  • Apr 12 – Installing and Upgrading Personal Historian 2
  • Apr 19 – New County Check in RootsMagic 5
  • Apr 26 – New Reports and Options in RootsMagic 5

To sign up for the free webinars, visit our webinar page at:

http://www.rootsmagic.com/webinars

And don’t forget about our free recorded webinars while you’re there.  We have classes for everyone, from beginners “Getting Started with RootsMagic” to classes for more advanced users, like “Creating Custom Reports with RootsMagic.  We have classes which everyone should watch like “Sources, Citations, and Documentation with RootsMagic”.  We even have classes on using our other software Personal Historian and Family Atlas.

And for those who are thinking about switching or upgrading to RootsMagic 5, check out our newest recorded webinar “Installing and Upgrading to RootsMagic 5”.

RootsMagic 5 Updates

One of the new features we added in RootsMagic 5 is an on-screen indicator when a new update is available.  RootsMagic 5 will still notify you in the News screen which pops up when the program starts, but we discovered that a number of people turn that screen off so they don’t see when a new update is available (and end up contacting tech support about bugs that have long since been fixed).

But now RootsMagic will be able to notify you anytime there is an update available.  RM5 will display this indicator in the status bar at the bottom right of the program screen if there is a new update available.

Just click that indicator and RootsMagic will download and install that free update for you.  If you want to know what is fixed in the update, read on.

Where is the list of fixes?

We also used to post a blog article any time a minor update was released (along with a list of the items fixed).  The problem with that is that those fixes became scattered all over our blog and you weren’t able to easily find all the fixes in one place.  We have addressed this by putting a pinned topic up on our RootsMagic Forums (you *did* know we had forums, right)?  You will always be able to visit that topic to find out the latest version of the program, as well as what was fixed in each update.  Go to:

http://forums.rootsmagic.com

open the Announcements section (at the top) and you will find the “RootsMagic 5 Update History” right there at the top.

New RootsMagic 5 Software Released

RootsMagic 5

Latest Version of Genealogy and Family Tree Software Now Available to the Public

SPRINGVILLE, Utah. — November 28, 2011 — RootsMagic, Inc. today announced the official release of RootsMagic 5, the latest version of the award-winning genealogy software which makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history easy and enjoyable.  With this release comes an update to the popular “RootsMagic Essentials” free genealogy software.

Family History Made Easy

A July 2009 review of RootsMagic 4 by Family Tree Magazine said, “Probably the best all-around genealogy program, RootsMagic offers a winning combination of features for both casual and serious genealogists.”

Throughout it’s 10-year history, RootsMagic has helped people research and share their family trees with innovative features such as moving people from one file to another with your mouse, a SourceWizard to help you document your work, creating a Shareable CD to give to family and friends, and running RootsMagic off of a USB flash drive when you are away from home.  RootsMagic also received the award for “Easiest to Sync” from FamilySearch for their work in interfacing with that system.

New Features

RootsMagic 5 adds many new features while making existing features even easier to use.  “This release includes something for everybody,” said Bruce Buzbee, president.  “Whether you’re a grandma wanting to share your family history with grandkids or a professional researcher trying to organize your work, RootsMagic 5 has something new for you.”  New features include:

  • Timeline View – put a person’s life in context with events from their own life and from the lives of family members.
  • CountyCheck – confirm and correct the existence of a county, state, or country on any given date from a multi-national database.  It can even show you online maps of county boundaries for that date.
  • Research Manager – avoid “reinventing the wheel” by keeping track of research goals, sources, and results that you have collected on a person, family, or place
  • “On This Day” List – bring your family history to life and view family events along with famous births, deaths, and historical events for any given day of the year.
  • Media Tagging – tag your media with people, families, sources, or places.  For example, tag an image of a census record with the people, families, and places mentioned in the record as well as the census’ source citation.
  • Plus over 80 other enhancements and features

Free “RootsMagic Essentials”

RootsMagic 5 is also available in an updated, free edition named, “RootsMagic 5 Essentials”.  RootsMagic Essentials contains many core features from the RootsMagic software and the two products are fully-compatible with one another.  “Many people are curious about their family history and don’t know where to begin,” said Michael Booth, vice president.  “RootsMagic Essentials is the perfect way for someone to get started, risk-free.”  RootsMagic Essentials is available for download at http://www.rootsmagic.com.

Available Now

RootsMagic 5 is now available online at http://www.rootsmagic.com or by calling 1-800-766-8762.  New users may purchase RootsMagic 5 for only $29.95.  Users of previous versions of RootsMagic and it’s predecessor, Family Origins may purchase RootsMagic 5 for the upgrade price of only $19.95.

About RootsMagic, Inc.

For over 20 years, RootsMagic, Inc. has been creating computer software with a special purpose- to unite families. One of our earliest products- the popular “Family Origins” software, introduced thousands of people to the joy and excitement of family history.

That tradition continues today with “RootsMagic”, our award-winning genealogy software which makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history fun and easy. “Personal Historian” will help you easily write and preserve your life stories. “Family Reunion Organizer” takes the headaches out of planning those important get-togethers. And “Family Atlas” creates beautiful and educational geographic maps of your family history.

For more information, visit www.rootsmagic.com.
Source: RootsMagic, Inc.