FTM2005

[zeno]

Hi,
I really need some help with this...

My Dad died recently and going through some of his papers(he kept every receipt and invoice from 1938) I discovered a cousin - a live one - so I rang him up and mentioned the research into genealogy and said I'd send him some of it. I have Family Tree Maker 2005 and although I seem to be able to back it up on CD Rom. I sent it to my son first who said that he couldn't use it unless he too had FTM 2005. So I presume sending it to my cousin would be no good also. Does anybody know? Please.

[ChristineR]

If you create a plain gedcom, then it should open in any family tree software. Just check your help file to see how to do that.

[Jan1954]

So sorry to hear about your father. Our thoughts are with you.

If you save the information in your tree as a GEDCOM, only people with genealogy software will be able to read it. The software is needed to "translate" it.

However, you should also be able to save the information in another format, such as .pdf

When you click on the "save as..." a drop-down box should appear (if memory serves me right, but I am happy to be contradicted on this...) at the bottom. It should give you some options other than .GED

Have a look and let us know.

[Lesley Robertson]

Hi,
I really need some help with this...

My Dad died recently and going through some of his papers(he kept every receipt and invoice from 1938) I discovered a cousin - a live one - so I rang him up and mentioned the research into genealogy and said I'd send him some of it. I have Family Tree Maker 2005 and although I seem to be able to back it up on CD Rom. I sent it to my son first who said that he couldn't use it unless he too had FTM 2005. So I presume sending it to my cousin would be no good also. Does anybody know? Please.

As long as your cousin has some sort of genealogy software (and there's free software around on the web) the gedcom advice is good. If he doesn't, get FTM to generate a "genealogy report" - it's on the "report" menu. It's best to first call up your starting person on the screen (yourself, perhaps), then tell FTM to make a genealogy report. After that, you may need to go to "format" and tell it you want "ancestor ordered" (which shows all ancestors of the person on the screen). If you select "descendant ordered", then you get descendants of that person, and it'll ignor the ancestors of spouses, etc.

You can then print the report, or export it to a file - select "file", "export genealogy report" then choose whether you want a pdf, a text file or to send it to your word processor.

Please accept my condolences.

Lesley

[zeno]

Dear Christine, Jan 1954 and Lesley,

I can't thank you enough for the help and advice with this. I just couldn't figure out how to get all the info off to my cousin without typing it all out again.
Thank you too for the kind words. Strange, I feel, now, like a runner in a relay race and now it's me carrying the baton.
Thanks again.
Zeno