November 2012 – RootsMagic Blog

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

November 26, 2012November 26, 2012 Bruce Buzbee 5 Comments

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).

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

November 19, 2012November 19, 2012 Bruce Buzbee 10 Comments

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:

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.

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

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.

Most Interesting Family History Picture and Story

November 19, 2012November 19, 2012 Michael Booth 1 Comment

Some of you have been patiently awaiting the results of our “Most Interesting Family History Picture and Story” contest. We apologize for the delay. We had to contact each of the winners and then, frankly, we got so caught-up in other things that we forgot to tell you, our blog readers, who won.

We started out with hundreds of pictures and stories submitted by you. Then our panel of judges narrowed the list down to 8 pictures and stories. If you’d like to see the finalists and read their stories, click on any of the pictures below:

We then allowed you to vote on which picture and story you felt was the most interesting. We’re pleased to announce that the entry with the most votes was “Christmas Tires” by Rick D. Harms! Congratulations to Rick as he is now the owner of a brand-new Flip-Pal mobile scanner. Rick and all the other finalists have also won a copy of our Personal Historian 2 writing software.

Again, a big thank you to all of you took the time to share your precious family pictures and stories with us. We were overwhelmed with the love and pride that people felt for their family histories. They provided us with hours of entertainment and encouragement and made us thankful that we are able to help, in some small part, to the preservation and sharing of these priceless histories.