Big News occurred two days ago. And we want to make sure our MCGG members are aware of it.
Software MacKiev announced that a new update (24.2.2) for its Family Tree Maker 2019 software is about to be released in a few days. The update will restore Green Syncing weather meaning a safer sync situation for your FTM2019 tree files and their associated Ancestry online member trees.
The last updates for FTM2019 were in February and March of this year. But for several months since, an Orange Syncing Weather problem has prevailed. This means syncing could cause problems/errors/damage with tree files for users and uploading a tree or downloading a tree could be problematic as well.
Family Tree Maker Sync Weather status levels are: Green means no problems so it is safe to sync; Orange means problems may occur so syncing is not recommended; and Red means serious connection problems so syncing is disabled.
According to the August 11th News announcement, "We've worked with Ancestry engineers to create a free update to FTM 2019 that will allow it to handle the changes made on Ancestry's side. We plan to start rolling out the extensively beta-tested update to version 24.2.2 in a couple of days."
To keep up on the latest Family Tree Maker news be sure to subscribe to Software MacKiev's News. News emails are only sent out when needed and are sent out in smaller batches to help avoid them ending up in your email's spam. So your cousin/friend might get notice before you or you might get it before your cousin/friend.
If you have registered your FTM2019 software with Software MacKiev, you will receive a notification when your updater file is ready for you. A controlled, release of the FTM2019 update will hopefully prevent FTM users from overloading the Ancestry website.
In the meantime, remember the basic protocol to protecting your FTM tree files: compact and manually backup before doing any sync, update or upgrade.
Compact your tree files until you get to 0% reduction; manually backup your tree file (including media files) to an external device (USB, external drive or cloud service.) When you receive your updater file and have done your backups, apply the update. Then again compact your tree files until you get to 0% and then manually backup your tree files to an external device. Then for those tree files that are synced with an Ancestry online tree -- sync them. If you need to sync/upload a tree upload it. If you need to sync/download an online tree download it. And if all went well, then again compact the tree file and manually backup the tree file again. Doing this gives you a backup file to restore from at the various points change happened and gives you more options if you need to go back.
Remember, more backups means that there is less chance of losing your work.
For Family Tree Maker 2017 users, there is no news of an update yet for FTM2017. FTM2017 is still supported but it is two years older than FTM2019. Remember, Software MacKiev is in Ukraine which is in the middle of a war zone. That the company has managed to create a few updates during the war is commendable. The one solution available at this time for FTM2017 users is to upgrade to FTM2019. Or wait.
Side Note: For some unknown reason, the Ancestry Message Board for Genealogy Software > Family Tree Maker software [the PC version] was deleted. Ancestry message boards are where users help other users on various topics. Ancestry appears to have been updating the message boards last month as many disappeared for a while before reappearing. (Remember Ancestry was shutting down the rootsweb.com website trees and message boards starting in May.) The Genealogy Software > Family Tree Maker software message board with over 77,000 posts has not reappeared. If we learn more, we will let you know.
Good luck everyone!
See you soon at our favorite library!
LE
