Software Review of:
Family Ties 
Deluxe Edition 6.0 

My Qualifications: 
I am familiar with the rudiments of genealogy, and in the mid 60's was "asked" by my parents to help with some of the basic research - records searches, talking with individuals, cemetery searches, grave stone information searches in the field. Not an easy task, but I quickly discovered that trying to put it all into something that made sense was the difficult part. Remember, that was the days before PC's and any genealogy software. Just note books, scraps of paper, index cards, etc. to keep record all the information gathered. Then the shoebox, briefcase, suitcase, railway car (just kidding), or whatever you chose, depending on how much you had collected, to keep all the information in one place. The Family Ties Deluxe Edition has helped solve most of the sorting and storage problem, while arranging the information in a more easily understandable format.

The program:
Family Ties Deluxe Edition is the Complete Family History Solution by Individual Software, Inc. The professionally written and easily understood User's Guide (about 200 pages) covers about every phase of the program's capability. It did such a good job for me that almost every question I had was answered at some point (usually in a logical and progressive order for the instruction/information being presented). It left me asking, "Why can't every program have a similar User's Guide?" (From this I figured the company was one of quality and catered to the product user. It was confirmed when I found something else that I will address later.)

The software combines a powerful genealogy program designed to work in the Microsoft Windows environment with advanced multimedia scrapbook and Internet web page capabilities designed to help you preserve and present your family history in an exciting, educational and entertaining way. This comprehensive ancestral database software package should help you take your first step through the door to the exciting world of genealogical research and discovery, if you are somewhat of a novice, or help you better organize your information if you are a more seasoned veteran.

The Family Ties software allows you to perform such tasks as entering and organizing information about individuals and families, linking multiple generations, printing attractive reports, and preparing copies of your database to share with others even when they use a different genealogical software program. It also meets the particular temple submission and ordinance recording needs of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS).

The program has been designed to share data with other genealogy software that support the GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data COMmunications) format, making information exchange with relatives, associates and other large data repositories an easy task. This should be an appealing feature to those who are somewhat "hard core" keepers of family genealogy records.
 

Helpful Tips The Internet  The Internet can also be of help as you gather information. Three of the most popular genealogy web sites are: Family Search  International Genealogical Index, Ancestorial file and Family History Library Catalog. Ancestry  Census Indexes, Marriage Records and American Genealogical Biographical Index. KindredKonnection  Ancestorial Archives, Cornwall Census and Professional Genealogist. Special Interest Group Also, don't forget about the Genealogy Special Interest Group. It is for the beginner — no experience necessary and no prerequisites and focuses primarily on Internet genealogy and related information. The SIG leaders, and others interested in family information can probably help you or give some pointers/answers to most questions on areas of interest to you

Family Ties program is database compatible with PAF (Personal Ancestral File), versions 3.0-4.0. Due to their unique beliefs regarding eternal families, the LDS church (the Mormons) has established publicly-available Family History Centers throughout the world, and created PAF, an early and a very popular DOS PC genealogy program. Family Ties was built to be directly compatible with the sophisticated PAF database structure, thus providing PAF users a Windows interface. The Family Ties 6.0 edition incorporates all of the key functions of PAF and moves well beyond it. Those who have or use PAF will find Family Ties able to SHARE the data already available. Family Ties directly reads, edits and generates reports using existing PAF data, as a Windows program, without using GEDCOM.

The multimedia features of Family Ties will open up the whole new world of electronic scrapbooks. The photos, scanned documents, video clips and audio clips that can be stored and organized into entertaining yet educational presentations, will truly bring a family to life, both for the personal viewing of children and grandchildren at your computer, and for extended family at gatherings such as family reunions (with the aid of a suitable projector). Also, printing reports with photographs will make them more interesting and meaningful. With the tools available to record, save, and share genealogical information, you simply need to begin the adventure into the world of genealogy.

The Family Ties software package consists of 4 CD's. Obviously one is the Family Ties setup CD. The other 3 bundled CD's include:

• Progeny's Social Security Death Index

Access to over 61 million names of individuals born in the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Francis Frith Collection

Includes a collection of over 3500 historical images of Great Britain, from 1860 to 1969. The accumulated archive contains images of over 1460 towns, villages and cities in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
• Clockwork Centennia Working Model Edition 

Historical maps of European Expansion from 1792-1819. This appeals to genealogists interested in the European history and European national development.

To run the Francis Frith Collection, Centennia Maps Working Model, and the Progeny Social Security Death Index (SSDI) CDs require a 2X CD-ROM drive (or higher). Progeny's SSDI also requires 16 MB of available RAM memory and 10 MB of hard disk space.
 

Individual Software Inc.
4255 Hopyard Road, Suite 2
Pleasanton, CA 94588-9900

sales and Customer Service: (800) 822-3522
Tech Support: (800) 331-3313
General: (925) 734-6767
Fax: (925) 734-8337