How Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 Saved Me $590!

It was one of the highest ticket impluse purchases I've ever made. Usually, I limit myself to contraband Snickers.

I really love my MacBook Pro. I love iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, GarageBand. I love not worrying about viruses and pornadoes. However, I do NOT love iWork. I have tried to get used to Pages-no luck. I also do not like Reunions 9.

Since the two main things I do with my laptop (besides using it as a portable DVD player) are word processing and genealogy, I was starting to think it was time to go back to Windows. (Please let's not start Platform Holy Wars).

I ran into Office Max for a notebook and a pen. $137 later...I came out with 2 notebooks, a pen, a thumb drive, a calculator, and Family Tree Maker for Mac 2. I figured that since my purchase also came with a free 6 month subscription to Ancestry.com, the software really only cost me $10 and saved me from making a $600 laptop purchase. So, according to Sequester logic, I saved $590, right?

So far, I've managed to update my Mac OS, install and register FTMfM2, and import my GEDCOM's. It only took one phone call to Ancestry.com tech support (PEBCAK=Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard).

It's a little premature to offer an opinion on the software itself. I'm hoping that it's more intuitive for the way my brain works. That will be a topic for another post.

What is your favorite genealogy software? Leave me a comment below.

Serendipity Saturday: Family Tree Magazine--Just for me???

The spacebar on my darling MacBook broke...off. So, Saturday, after work, while my kids were having a Father's Day/Birthday picnic with their dad and new step-mom (that's a post for another day) I drove down to Milwaukee to Bay Shore Mall to visit the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. I got really, really good service. Which is why, even though genealogy is a little less convenient on Mac, I still love Apple. 

Anyway, Barnes and Noble (my other place of worship) is conveniently kiddy-corner to the Apple Store so I had to go in. I picked up the July 2011 issue of Family Tree Magazine. In the sealed plastic wrapper there was a copy of Family Tree Builder 5.0 (this is of no use to me, I have Mac, see above--if you want it, it's yours). On the cover, the featured articles got me excited. Not only did they have articles about the state census and top 40 genealogy blogs (so I can check out how to do this right), there is an article on 

research tips for Detroit!

This article alone is worth the price of the magazine, the drive down to Milwaukee, the broken spacebar...and the order of Mushroom Stroganoff with Braised Beef at Noodles & Co. 

My family came from the various old countries (England, Germany, Switzerland and Romania) and settled in Detroit between 1832 and 1923. My nuclear family moved to Wisconsin in 1971, but aunts, uncles and cousins remain in Detroit. 

I was thinking that I was just going to have to take a trip to Detroit to visit family and to raid the courthouse. Good thing I picked up this issue of Family Tree Magazine. Now I have a wealth of resources to try online before making a trip. This also gives me a new angle to use when reconnecting with my cousins: "I saw this article about genealogy in Detroit and so naturally that made me think of you and how long it's been since we talked." I'd totally go for that if the shoe were on the other foot.

So, all because Family Tree Magazine was publishing an article on Detroit research tips, God arranged for my spacebar to break, so I'd be near the bookstore and of course go in and buy the magazine, thereby opening the path for finding more dead people to write to you about. That's Serendipity.