Win an iPad in the RootsMagic 2012 RootsTech Treasure Hunt!

Michael Booth 12 Comments

It’s been a tremendous last few months here at RootsMagic. We’ve been busy with the new releases of Personal Historian 2 and RootsMagic 5. We’re also excited to participate in one of the largest genealogy events in North America- RootsTech!

We want to celebrate these momentous events with you, our loyal users! And what better way to celebrate than with a treasure hunt where you could win one of many prizes including an iPad 2!

Online Treasure Hunt

We’ve partnered with 15 of the best and brightest genealogy bloggers who will be reporting at the RootsTech conference. Each blogger will place one of 15 clue words on their website. The clue word will look something like this:

From Thursday, February 2 through Wednesday, February 8, 2012, visit http://www.rootsmagic.com/treasure for a complete list of the blogs where the 15 clue words can be found. Visit each blog, collect all 15 clue words, and you could win software, prizes, or an iPad 2!

Enter at RootsTech or at Home

Once you’ve collected the clues there are two ways to enter.  The first is at the RootsTech conference itself.  Pick up an entry card at the RootsMagic booth (#224) in the Exhibit Hall.  Write the clue words on the back of the card and return it to the RootsMagic booth in the Exhibit Hall by Saturday, February 4 at 1:20 pm.  At that time, we will hold the prize drawings.  You must be present to win.

We didn’t want those who aren’t able to attend RootsTech in person to feel left out so we’re holding a second drawing and giving away more prizes including a second iPad 2.  To enter this drawing, visit http://www.rootsmagic.com/treasure anytime between Thursday, February 2 and midnight MST on Wednesday, February 8, 2012.  Fill out the online form to be entered into the second drawing.  You may enter both drawings but one entry per person, per drawing.  Winners will be picked at random and notified via e-mail by Friday, February 10, 2012.

Remember, the treasure hunt doesn’t begin until this Thursday. Good luck!

Coming soon: You could win an iPad from RootsMagic!

Michael Booth 57 Comments

It’s been a tremendous last few months here at RootsMagic.  We’ve been busy with the new releases of Personal Historian 2 and RootsMagic 5 and now that we have a chance to breathe, we feel like celebrating with you, our loyal users!  And what better way to celebrate than with a treasure hunt where you could win one of many prizes including an iPad 2?

Excited yet?  Well, you won’t have to wait too much longer.  Watch this blog early next week for all the details!

New Year’s Resolutions for 2012

Bruce Buzbee 22 Comments

2012 Resolutions

Welcome to 2012!  With 2011 in the rear-view mirror, let’s look ahead to 2012 and some of our goals and resolutions for the coming year.

New Platforms

New Platforms

The technology world is changing, and we are working hard to keep up with those changes.  For the past several years, we’ve been laying the groundwork to bring RootsMagic (and our other products) to new platforms and even new devices.  Like you, we know how important it is to have your information where and when you want it.  So we’ve been busy in our secret underground laboratories working on some very exciting new tools.  Be sure to watch this blog and our newsletter for official future announcements.

New Products

Glowing Box

In addition to new platforms and new devices, our secret underground laboratories are hard at work developing new ideas and products to support our mission to create “software to unite families”.  Again, the best way to learn about these new products and when they are released is by watching this blog and our newsletter for official announcements.

New Webinars

RootsMagic Webinars

Thousands of you have told us how much you love our free webinars, and we’re thrilled to continue bringing them to you.  Watch for new webinars on the great new features in RootsMagic 5 and Personal Historian 2.  A number of you have told us you would like to see some shorter webinars on just a single feature, so we will be offering some mini-webinars to do just that.  And don’t forget, whether you attend live or watch an archived recording, our webinars are always free.  They’re our gift to you, our users, to help you get the most out of our software.

New Genealogists

Kids

We are pleased to announce that we will be the sponsor of the Genealogy Youth Kamp at this years NGS Conference in Cincinnati.  Youth Kamp is designed to assist children between the ages of 8 and 16 with gaining an appreciation of and connection to their ancestry.  To aid in this, parents, grandparents, or other adults are encouraged to attend and participate in Youth Kamp along with the children. There will be a special program for the adults who attend.

New Updates

And last but certainly not least, 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.

Thank You!

Of course, these resolutions are not a comprehensive list of our plans and goals for 2012. There are many other projects which are in development which we’ll talk about when the time is right.  Keep watching this blog or our e-mail newsletter for announcements.

In the meantime, thank you again for your support. We try very hard to listen 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.  Happy New Year and may you have a prosperous 2012 (both genealogically and otherwise)!

2011 Year in Review

Bruce Buzbee 6 Comments

2011 Year in Review

Is it December 31 already?  As has become an annual tradition here at RootsMagic, we’d like to take a few of the last remaining minutes of the year 2011 to review some of our accomplishments from the last 12 months with you, our users.  If you’re not one to dwell on the past, check back Monday as we present our 2012 New Years’ Resolutions with a peek at our plans for the coming year.  But until then, crowd on into the time machine (don’t worry, there’s plenty of room) as we journey back to January 2011.

Free Online Classes (Webinars)

RootsMagic Webinars

Beginning in January 2011, we pioneered the use of “webinars“, or free online classes, to help our users get the most out of our software.  Over the last 12 months, we’ve offered nearly 30 classes spanning over 30 hours of instruction to answer your questions and to teach you all the ins-and-outs of our software.  And the response has been phenomenal!  Our webinars have been viewed and downloaded hundreds of thousands of 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.  If you haven’t already taken advantage of this resource, don’t wait, pick a webinar on a topic that you’ve been curious about and watch it today!  No other genealogy software comes close to providing the level of support and training that we do.

Sponsorships

This year brought the usual conference travel, but this time we wanted to give back a little to the genealogy community that has given us so much.

At the Southern California Jamboree in June we brought the experience of the Jamboree directly to you.  We sponsored free live streaming of some of the best known speakers in the industry right into your home, including Lisa Louise Cooke, Curt Witcher, David Lambert, Kory Meyerink, and Kerry Bartels.

RootsMagic Cyber Cafe at FGS 2011

And at the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Springfield, Illinois we sponsored the RootsMagic Cyber Cafe, the place to hang out, go online, charge a device, or print those syllabus pages you needed.

Personal Historian 2 and Personal Historian Essentials

This year saw not one, not two, but 3 new releases.  September brought the long-awaited release of Personal Historian 2, the latest version of our ground-breaking computer software which helps you write the story of your life and of other individuals.  Personal Historian 2 built upon its predecessor and added easier filtering and searching, an even better word processor, improved book publishing, and much more.  We also released a free “Essentials” version of the software to help people start recording their life stories.

RootsMagic 5

RootsMagic 5

We released regular free updates to our RootsMagic 4 software throughout the year.  And in November we released RootsMagic 5, the latest version of our award winning genealogy software.  RootsMagic 5 added a Timeline View, CountyCheck, Research Manager, “On This Day” List, Media Tagging, and much more.  In the short time since it’s release, RootsMagic 5 has already proven itself to be our best, most popular version of RootsMagic yet.  And the best is yet to come!

Awards

And for the 3rd straight year, we received the GeneAwards Best Genealogy Product of the Year.  “Several competing products saw major upgrades this year, but there is no better all-round desktop genealogy application“.

Thank You!

We say this every year, and we know this always sounds clichéd, but none of this would have been possible without you and your support.  2011 has been a huge year for us and, rest assured, we’re working hard to make 2012 even better!

RootsMagic 5 Updates

Bruce Buzbee 40 Comments

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

Bruce Buzbee 20 Comments

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.

Personal Historian 2 Software Released

Bruce Buzbee 7 Comments

Latest Version of Personal and Family History Writing Software Now Available to the Public

SPRINGVILLE, Utah. — September 28, 2011 — RootsMagic, Inc. today announced the official release of Personal Historian 2, the latest version of the ground-breaking computer software which helps you write the story of your life and of other individuals.  Personal Historian breaks this seemingly monumental task into small, manageable pieces and then reconstructs it into a complete, publishable document.  With the release comes a free “Essentials” version of the software as well as a discount offer for new users and previous owners of the software.

Bring Life to Your Life Stories

“Many people want to write a personal history about themselves or family members but get lost or overwhelmed,” said Michael Booth, vice-president and lead developer of the software.  “It’s very gratifying to hear people tell us that they are finally able to write their life stories thanks to Personal Historian.”

Personal Historian creates an interactive timeline of a person’s life to keep the stories organized, give context to life events, and to allow users to write stories in any order they wish. When ready, Personal Historian will compile the stories into a finished book complete with table of contents, chapters, pictures, indexes, and more.  The book may then be printed at home, edited in a word processor, published professionally, or shared with friends and family.

New Features

“The new features in Personal Historian 2 have been worth the wait,” said Bruce Buzbee, president. “While we’ve added many new and powerful features, we’ve worked hard to make the software even easier to use than before.”

Personal Historian 2 boasts an impressive list of over 40 features including streamlined step-by-step wizards; expanded timelines and memory trigger questions; easy filtering and searching of stories; management of categories, people, and places; improved outlining and writing analysis; wrapping of text around pictures; fonts and text styles; and more-powerful publishing and output options.

Free “Personal Historian Essentials”

RootsMagic is also releasing a new, free edition of Personal Historian named, “Personal Historian Essentials”.  Personal Historian Essentials contains many core features from the Personal Historian software and the two products are fully-compatible with one another.  “We wanted to give everyone a risk-free option,” said Booth.  “Personal Historian Essentials is perfect for someone who wants to start writing a personal history but doesn’t know where to begin.”  Personal Historian Essentials is available for download at http://www.personalhistorian.com.

Discount Offer

To celebrate it’s release, RootsMagic, Inc. is pleased to offer a special introductory offer for Personal Historian 2. Through October 31, 2011, Personal Historian 2 is available for a special introductory price of only $19.95, saving $10 off of the regular price.  The discount is available only on the Personal Historian website at http://www.personalhistorian.com or by calling 1-800-766-8762.

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.

Personal Historian 2 Synopsis

Bruce Buzbee 5 Comments

Yeah, I know synopsis is a fancy word for this article, but we’ve been blogging all month about all the great new features coming in Personal Historian 2 and we didn’t want to make folks have to dig through all of those articles.  So here is a list of those articles that you can just click to get to.

Personal Historian Essentials

Bruce Buzbee 6 Comments

As I mentioned last time, I have one more new Personal Historian “feature” to share with you.  While not technically a feature, it is an exciting change.  With the release of version 2 we will be replacing the usual demo version of Personal Historian with a new free Essentials version.

Personal Historian Essentials will share many of the same features with the full Personal Historian software including clean and friendly screens, the ability to add an unlimited number of stories, categories, writing tools, LifeCapsules, and the ability to publish a complete personal history.  The full version of Personal Historian will be available for purchase and include features not available in Personal Historian Essentials.

So what comes next?

Later this week we will begin taking orders for Personal Historian 2 and release it as a download, followed a few weeks later by the CD version (it takes a few weeks to get CDs duplicated and packaged).  When we begin taking orders you will be able to pre-order the CD and get the download early if you want to do that as well.

And if you want to watch a live demo of the new Personal Historian 2, don’t forget to join us for our free webinar “What’s New in Personal Historian 2” this Wednesday (Sept 28th) at 6pm MDT.  To sign up for the free webinar, visit:

http://www.rootsmagic.com/webinars

Publishing Your Stories with Personal Historian 2

Bruce Buzbee 4 Comments

One of the most powerful enhancements in version 2 is the Personal Historian Publisher.  The Publisher lets you create complete books, including cover and title pages, table of contents, copyright page, chapters with your stories, indexes and more.

Create Multiple Personal Histories

The Publisher lets you create multiple books from a single file.  When it comes time to print your book you may want to sometimes print every story, or you may want to only print certain stories.  Publisher lets you design custom books, each with their own cover and title pages, their own sets of chapters and selected stories, and their own index.  You can then quickly print different versions of the person’s history by selecting one of the books and generating it.  As an example, you might create one book that includes all of the person’s stories, another without “private” stories, and another with just the stories in the education category that occurred between the ages of 12 and 19.

Design Your Own Chapters

Personal Historian can organize your stories in several different ways.  It can group your stories based on their primary category, or group them by the person’s age, or not group them at all (by putting them in a single chapter).  You can customize the order the chapters are printed, including just rearranging them by dragging and dropping them.

Add Special Sections

Publisher doesn’t limit you to chapters with your stories.  You can also add special sections like a cover and title page, preface, dedication page, and more.  You can even have Personal Historian automatically create a Table of Contents for your book.

If you have tagged your stories with the people and places in those stories, Publisher can even create indexes for your personal history.

Preview Your Books

The Report Viewer shows you on screen what your book will look like on paper.

On the left is a list of thumbnails of each page in the report. You can use the arrow keys or the scroll bar to scroll through each page in the report, or you can use the mouse to scroll down (or up) and go to the desired page.  You can zoom in and out to see more or less detail.

Print or Save Your Books

The Report Viewer makes it easy to print or save your books.  Just click the Print button to send your book to the printer, or click the Save button to save your book as either a PDF (Acrobat) or RTF (Rich Text) file.

Email Your Books

If you want to send a book to friends or family, you can click the Email button on the Report Viewer, and Personal Historian will automatically save your book to file, open your email program, start a new email and attach the book to the email.  All you have to do is enter the email addresses and a short message.

So that’s an overview of Personal Historian 2.  In our next post I have one last new “feature” to mention, as well as details about the release, so keep watching.