Being a thirty-something that is not tech savvy feels like a disgrace. My husband is the techie in the family and I constantly ask him for help with some piece of software or program I am interested in. The one thing that is all mine is my family history software. He did help me set it up, but I have been proud at how much I have done on my own. That is, up until recently. Over the last month I have more than once wanted to throw my computer out a window over the frustration it has caused. I started using Family Tree Maker through Ancestry right after I began doing research last year. Everything has been grand, right up to the point where I updated the software so I could sync all of my trees (online, iPad, and desktop). In December I even spent 3 hours (no kidding) on the phone with tech support trying to figure out what in the worled was going on. Thought I had it all solved too.
Yesterday I discovered that half of my image files were no longer in my database. There was an odd thumbnail instead and a link broken message. I found them, luckily, in an old back up (ALWAYS back-up) and now have to go through the process of fixing it all. So while I am at it, I may as well make sure everything is correct and up-to-date. I feel a large project coming on...
If anyone has any tricks, tips or advice about using the program I would love to hear it. Sometimes I get very frustrated with the way it wants me to use their source citation prompts if anyone has any clues on exactly how to make that less scary I would be grateful.
*Image from Clipart Pal, eve picking from the tree of knowledge
I'm with you Shannon. I spent my entire day yesterday trying to update my 2012 FTM on my new laptop. The laptop that I have everything on is starting to go . . . so on my newer laptop I did have 2011 FTM with some data and upgraded to 2012. I had more data on my old laptop and needed to bring the new laptop up to the same number of people. I put it on a thumbdrive and then was going to add it on the new . . . didn't work and still can't get it to work. So I am going to be calling FTM support to see how I get this done. Then I want to use the sync option. I am not tech savvy and it really scares me! I hope you get your issues resolved . . . it's so very frustrating and all we really want to do is find our ancestors! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThe sync option, once you get it working, is fantastic. I don't have to worry about updating my computer when I get home from the library, or while browsing on my iPad. Still have to fix the broken link problem I am having... but that is just a matter of sitting down and doing it.
ReplyDeleteI, too, was intrigued by the sync option in FTM 2012, and installed it on a separate machine to test, just downloading my current Ancestry tree. I seem to have the opposite problem - there are over 1000 more images in my Media directory than the program knows about. :) Some of these come from deleting duplicates - for the most part, Ancestry.com does not let you share source citations across people, and so duplicates each per person, which I clean up in FTM to use a single source across multiple people. I'm not sure that it always "recycles" the associated image files when removing sources. And a whole pile of images that I renamed (the default names downloaded for commonly used resources, such as 1930 United States Federal Census-73.jpg, are not helpful in identifying record images) have old copies hanging around in there. I'm not entirely convinced that the delayed background media sync does everything it should. :-/ But I have backups of all the files on multiple computers - backups are GOOD!
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