The Mad Genealogist

FTM 2011 is now available for pre-sale.  If you want a chance to preorder it now at 40% off the regular price of $39.95 before it is release it to the public at the end of August. You can get another 20%  percent off that price also, which will come out to 48% off the retail price. I’ll tell you how but you can only do it until August 18th.

1. First Click the link below for 40% off and add the product to your cart, it will show a 40% off Price of $23.97.

World Vital Records is extending their promotion of for their offering of FREE PUBLIC ACCESS to its entire online collection to August 18, 2009. Originally it was suppose to end on the 13th.

I just received an email like many of you probably have, about the new Family Tree Maker 2010.

Build your family tree. Preserve your family legacy. Millions of people have used Family Tree Maker, the #1 selling genealogy software, to discover and share their family stories. Now, with dozens of new features the latest version makes it easier than ever to explore your roots.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting on your family tree, Family Tree Maker 2010 can help you create a family tree faster, easier, and better than ever before. The end result is a family history that you and your family will treasure for years to come.

In addition to the population schedules, federal, state and local governments have requested special information for administrative decisions. These special schedules can be quite useful for family historians.

An act of 3 March 1879 provided that any state could take an interdecennial census with partial reimbursement by the federal government. Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, and the territories of Dakota and New Mexico returned schedules to the secretary of the interior. The schedules are numbered 1, 2, 3, and 5.

TGN is letting users get acquainted with all the new features during an upcoming free webinar that will be held March 12, 2009 at 8pm EST. They say they will show
you what’s changed as well as demonstrate how to do some new things in Family Tree Maker 2009 like:

• Use the new extended family chart
• Keep track of important dates in the new calendar
• Take advantage of new data entry enhancements
• Clarify the process of citing sources with new source templates
• Create family history books and more with the new desktop book–building tools

I received this in my email last night. If you’re program won’t update the right mouse-click on the icon and run as administrator.

This upgrade is FREE to all Family Tree Maker 2009 owners. With this latest update, you”ll be pleased to find a robust set of new and enhanced features. This new update includes the following new features and enhancements:

• BOOK BUILDING – You can once again create family history books compiled from charts, reports, and text documents.
• DATA ENTRY FLOW – You can now more easily enter information about your family in the Family view using the keyboard. Simply press Ctrl+Enter to navigate to and add or edit the next person in the family.

***********UPDATE FAMILY TREE MAKER 2011 POST IS LOCATED HERE************

I received my email last night to upgrade to the new Family Tree Maker 2009 in an email which stated in part:

We’re pleased to provide you with a FREE upgrade to the newest version of Family Tree Maker. Thank you for your patience, helpful comments and suggestions. We’ve come a long way over the last year, and we want you to enjoy all the latest additions and improvements at no cost.

When I clicked on the link I got a server overload message. So i decided to sleep on it and try again this morning.

GRRRRR! Memorial Day is a United States Federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who perished while in military service to their country. It is not in honor of all veterans. I am a vet myself and have the utmost respect for all vets who serve, but the day that honors them is Veterans Day not Memorial Day. This is the day we honor those who died. All media outlets are doing stories to honor the living vets but nothing on the ones who died which is why this day was originally created. Thats what makes me mad.

On the eve of Memorial Day, Ancestry.com is making its entire U.S. Military Collection — the largest online collection of American military records — available for free to the public. From May 20 through May 31, people can log on to http://www.ancestry.com/military to view more than 100 million names and 700 titles and databases of military records, the majority of which come from NARA, from all 50 U.S. states.

They list some of their Feature Databases which are:

• U.S. Navy Cruise Books – Yearbook-style books detailing sailors and others on board U.S. navy ships, dating from 1940

I have been using the Rootsweb County pages almost since its inception. Mainly with mixed results. Some County Coordinators (henceforth abbreviated as CC) do a fabulous job putting relevant information on the web, while others take the CC position and do nothing then disappear. The rest do an average job keeping the pages updated.There is a core group of CC’s that have been there for years and are really dedicated to the rootsweb philosophy of keeping Rootsweb free to all. Some have many websites in order to keep some counties from being abandoned. I have hosted a site or two over the years and it takes a certain amount of dedicated time in order to keep things fresh and active. I salute these people who have now or in the past been a CC of the rootsweb sites.