Blog

How to display the new Family Tree Colors in your charts

The new 2017 edition of Family Tree Maker introduces exciting features, including the option to assign up to four colors to people in your family tree. You can color each branch of your ancestors, or lines of descendants, or by place of origin. FTM 2017 is undergoing final testing, and will be available soon. Charting…
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Tell the story of your family as an illustrated novel

I discovered the most original and attractive way to tell the story of your family at RootsTech this year: a graphic novel, or comic book. Il Museo del Cognome  (the Museum of Family Names) can translate your family history into a vibrant and inspiring comic book. The Museo describes it best: How many times have…
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Family Tree Maker “Web Links”

Family Tree Maker has a Web Links feature: Family Tree Maker Web Links Although FTM does not appear to publish these Web Links at the present time, Charting Companion (6.4.39 and later) can display the Web Links in any chart or report that allows selection of event types. You can display Web Links in the…
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Genelines: Genealogy timelines

Genelines – Timeline Charting Software GENELINES is one of the most powerful research and storytelling tools available to anyone researching their family tree. By bringing together elements of time, history and family relationships on visual time line charts, Genelines (for Windows) software can bring your family tree to life. Genelines automatically reads your family tree…
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The SEO racket: 21st century Snake Oil

Once a month I get a call from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm who stumbled upon one of my Websites. They want to optimize my SEO, improve my Website, increase traffic, yadda yadda. They can be very persistent, calling repeatedly. One outfit (EZ Marketing) impersonated phone numbers so I would not recognize them on…
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Charting Companion and the new Family Tree Maker

New Family Tree Maker Two months after declaring in Dec. 2015 that it would discontinue Family Tree Maker, Ancestry announced that Software MacKiev will be picking up FTM and continue to sell it. We are pleased to announce that Charting Companion continues to be compatible with the new version of Family Tree Maker. Better still, Charting Companion…
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The cruel world of email newsletters

A lot of our revenue comes from sales generated by our newsletters, sent as monthly email. The newsletters often contain notice of new releases, discounts, etc. stuff that you would think everyone is interested in. We understand if someone wants to unsubscribe; we readily comply with their request, and never send them email again. Unfortunately,…
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PDF: going our own way

Over the years, we’ve relied on a variety of methods to create charts in the popular PDF (Portable Document Format). Our first choice was PDF-XChange, by Tracker. We had various problems with it. The final straw came when we discovered that Tracker was including a secret payload in their software: a self-contained PDF output driver,…
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What is the best format for publishing your Family Tree chart?

Charting Companion offers many options for telling the story of your family. Image (BMP, PNG, GIF, JPG, TIFF) PDF Portable Document Format RTF Rich Text Format HTML Hyper Text Markup Language SVG Scalable Vector Graphics DXF Data eXchange Format STL STereo Lithography Big wall charts Y Y Y Y Take to a print shop Y…
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Print your family tree on a 3D printer

3D printers use melted plastic or fused resin to create objects in every shape imaginable. 3D printers are becoming popular as the technology improves and prices come down. Charting Companion now includes an option to output Ancestor and Descendant Fan charts as “STL” files, which can be fed to 3D printers for printing as physical objects….
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Ancestor chart, “Bottom-up” style

Charting Companion now prints the Ancestor chart in vertical or “Bottom-up” style. Many of you have requested this option, and we are pleased to provide you with another attractive way of telling the story of your family. Preview of Ancestor “Bottom-up” vertical format Charting Companion also outputs charts in DXF format. DXF is used by all CAD…
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