Welcome to the new Family Tree Maker blog!

We hope this blog will be a vibrant forum for our customers to share information and advice with each other—and with our Family Tree Maker software developers and product managers. Your input is critical in helping us determine the future direction of Family Tree Maker and other Ancestry products.

Since we released Family Tree Maker 2008 last month, many of our loyal customers have asked why the new product is so different from the previous versions they have known and loved for years. Some customers like the new look and feel, while others miss the familiarity of the old interface.

The first version of Family Tree Maker was released in 1989. Since that time we have continually improved the product by adding new features to the original code base. The technology environment has changed significantly in the past 18 years, and after more than a dozen versions, we reached a point where the old code base simply could not support the new features and technologies that we wanted to integrate into the program.

In order to take advantage of new technologies, we made the decision to rewrite the program from the ground up. The new code base has allowed us to add many new features that would not have been possible in older versions of the software. It also provides a robust platform for future development.

We’re excited about the opportunities for extending the program’s functionality and hope you’ll help us by offering suggestions for improvement. You can use the enhancement request form to submit questions, comments and success stories as well as suggestions for new features.

http://ftm.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ftm.cfg/php/enduser/ask_feedback.php

Please tell us what you like about the new version and what we might do to provide an even better family tree building experience.

The Family Tree Maker Team