Suggestions Please

BonVal · Mem Joined: Jan 25, 2009 Posts: 54 Location: Florida

I may have asked this before - but -- when extracting the town records, do you all simply devise your own Excel sheets to make linkable databases or is there a decent program out there such as a tree program to fill in? I hate to just start a huge new tree of unlinked people - especially when those programs want to link similar names that maybe should not be. But I want to really extract all of the information from each record that I can so it seems a lot for just an excel sheet? Suggestions from those of you who are working on the town records? Seems I am only one who is at point to do this for Itri and surrounding towns?! Gulp! Confused

nuccia · Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 2:22 am Post subject: Re: Suggestions Please

I have made my own excel sheets to extract names, as has Mary. Slowly I am entering all the names into an excel work sheet but it takes alot of time. I figure I should be done in about 5 years at this rate.

charliemis · Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 12:40 pm Post subject: Re: Suggestions Please

I have made up forms for each document type (Nascita, Morte and Matrimonio) which I then enter into FTM2006 (I also purchased FTM2009 but I discontinued using it because I did not like it). Some folks at my FHC enter directly into their PCs, but I like to have the forms as a backup plus they come in handy when there is an error or conflict with names.

BonVal · Mem Joined: Jan 25, 2009 Posts: 54 Location: Florida

Charlie - what did you not like about FTM2009? Just curious because I have not had any issues yet although I will admit the learning curve drove me batty for awhile!

charliemis · Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 10:29 pm Post subject: Re: Suggestions Please

It has been about 3 months since I first installed it and I just found it very cumbersome and unfamiliar as compared to most of the earlier versions (I think I have used 3 or 4 earlier version since I started doing this)......it seemed that they had made a few improvements, but took away just as many useful features.....I can't offer any more specific issues as I only used it a few days before switching back to FTM2006. This version also has some shortcomings, but I have used it about 3 years so I am used to it. My "gut" feeling about FTM2009 is that it was not completed before it was put on the market (they had a master plan for an improved product but ran out of time or money during the development phase). Not sure if I can offer any additional comments, but I have gotten similar feedback from some other folks as well ---- and at least 1 or 2 of them have tested early releases for this software company in the past.