Welcome to Family Tree Maker Connect, the free mobile app that’s designed to allow users of Family Tree Maker® desktop software to view their family tree on a smartphone or tablet and to share a realtime view of the tree with relatives, who can then provide their comments and corrections directly through the app. For more information on Family Tree Maker and how you can use it to easily create your own family tree, please click here.
If you don’t have a tree of your own family history yet, you can still enjoy using Family Tree Maker Connect to view our free library of Famous Trees — a collection of genealogies of notable families from history, politics, popular culture, literature, music and the arts, all compiled by Software MacKiev™ researchers. You can see the close family ties that bind the British royal family to other royal houses of Europe; trace the lineage of the Kennedy political dynasty back to its roots in 15th-century Scotland; untangle the complex and interwoven bloodlines of the Starks, Lannisters, and Targaryens; get a clear overview of all Darth Vader’s known descendants; and much, much more.
And if you spot something that needs correcting, or if there’s a fact you’d like to see added, you can place a sticky note with your comments on the relevant person to be seen by the MacKiev team.
Family Tree Maker Connect is free and can be installed directly from Google Play for Android (click here) or the iOS App Store (click here).
This article covers the following topics:
- Creating a Free Guest Account
- Moving Around and Viewing a Tree
- Viewing Person Info
- Working with Sticky Notes
- Finding People with the Index
- Using the Settings
- Managing Your Account
Creating a Free Guest Account
Once you have installed FTM Connect on your device, you just need to create a free guest account.
1. With Family Tree Maker Connect open at the login screen, tap Create Guest Account.
2. Enter your first and last name, your email address, and select your country of residence. Then tap Next.
3. Enter a password that you'll use for logging in to your guest account and confirm the password by retyping it. Tap Next.
4. Tap the blue link to read the Family Tree Maker Cloud Terms and Conditions, and then indicate you agree to them by tapping the switch. You can also indicate if you would like to receive Family Tree Maker news and announcements by email.
5. Tap Create Account.
You are logged in to your account as soon as it is created. You can now go to the Famous Trees library and start browsing through the trees.
Opening Famous Trees
1. Tap the Trees icon at the bottom left of the screen.
The Trees area that opens contains two groups of trees:
- Invited Trees shows all trees that FTM users have created and which you have access to, either as a guest or as the tree owner (the person who created the tree). If you don’t have your own tree yet and haven’t been invited to view one, this list will be empty.
- Famous Trees allows you to explore the genealogies of a number of celebrated historical and fictional families. The collection currently includes these family trees:
- Alexander Hamilton
- Bach
- British Royal Family
- Disney
- Houses of 7 Kingdoms
- Kennedy
- Lincoln
- Peregrine White
- Skywalker
2. In the Famous Trees list, tap the name of the famous tree that you want to view.
The tree starts to download to your device and opens onscreen as soon as the download is complete.
Now that you have opened the tree on your device, you will still be able to view it even if you go offline (though you will need to be online to see all tree data) — just tap its name in the Trees area. And when you’re online, the tree will be updated in real time with any additions or changes that are made to it.
Moving Around and Viewing a Tree
The tree opens in “family view”, centered on the home person, with ancestors branching above — paternal on the left and maternal on the right — and descendants below.
Note: The home person is the “central” person in a tree. You will be able to see how all the other people in the tree are related to this person. For example, in the Kennedy family tree, with JFK set as the home person, you will see in the Person Info that Robert F. Kennedy was the “Brother of John Fitzgerald Kennedy”, while Eustache Bouvier was his wife’s third great-grandfather. (If you view your own family tree in Family Tree Maker Connect, you can identify yourself in the tree to see how all other family members are related to you, however distantly.)
When you are browsing around a tree, you can quickly and easily recenter the view on the home person using the Home Person icon (see below).
You can change the tree’s home person by going to Settings or using the touch-and-hold shortcut menu in the tree.
You can now set out to explore the people and relationships that make up the family tree:
- Swipe and drag to move around the tree — up, down, and across the generations.
- Pinch two fingers together or apart to zoom out or in.
- Tap a person’s “leaf” to select that person.
- Tap the selected person’s leaf again to open a shortcut menu with the most frequently used commands:
- Show Person Info. Open the Person Info view with information about the selected person. See the “Viewing Person Info”[LINK] section below to learn more.
- Add Sticky Note. Attach a sticky note to the person with your comments or corrections. See the “Working with Sticky Notes”[LINK] section below for more information.
- Show Sticky Notes (available only when the selected person has at least one sticky note added). iOS: Open a list of all the sticky notes you have added to the selected person. Android: Open the Sticky Notes browser with a list of all people in the tree who have sticky notes added. The selected person is highlighted in the list—tap their name to view all their attached sticky notes.
- Touch and hold a person’s leaf to access a menu with additional commands:
- Show Family Tree. Switch the view to the selected person’s branch of the tree.
- Go to Parents. Jump straight to the person’s parents in the tree. The person’s father is selected at the center of the view.
- Go Back to Child. Jump to the person’s eldest child.
- Go to Home Person. Recenter the view on the home person and their branch of the tree.
- Set as Home Person. Set the selected person as the tree’s home person. All relationships in the tree will be shown in terms of this person, and the view will recenter on them whenever you tap the Home Person icon or the corresponding shortcut menu command.
- Double-tap a person's leaf to quickly open the Person Info view for that person (see the “Viewing Person Info” section to learn more).
- Tap the Tree Branch icon at the top-right corner of a person's leaf to switch the view to that person’s branch of the tree.
- Tap the Home Person icon /screenshot/ in the top-right corner of the screen at any time to recenter the view on the home person. Very handy when you want to return to a “starting point’ after investigating more distant branches of the tree.
- Tap the Tree Info /screenshot/ icon at the top right of the screen to view data about the tree. In addition to basic information on when the tree was created and by whom, you can see a range of statistics, including the total number of people, facts, marriages, generations, and different surnames that the tree includes, the average lifespan of family members, and the two people with the earliest and most recent birthdates.
Viewing Person Info
When you come across a person in the tree you’d like to know more about, just double-tap their “leaf”. The Person Info view opens to show information about that person.
In addition to the person’s name and years of birth and death (if applicable), the Person Info view shows the relationship of the person to the tree’s home person. Family Tree Maker users and their guests who view personal family trees can see their own relationship to each person in the tree.
The lower part of the view is divided into five tabs: Facts, Relations, Notes, Links, and Color Coding.
Note: Information on the first four tabs reflects data found on the Person tab of the People workspace in Family Tree Maker. The Notes and Web Links tabs are empty for famous trees because these features are not currently used in any of the trees in the Famous Trees library.
- Facts
This tab shows basic information about the person — their name, sex, and age (current age or age at death if the person is deceased) — as well as other facts that are known about them. These are divided into individual and shared facts. Individual facts may include the date and place of a person’s birth and death and cover many other aspects of their life, for example a title, a nickname, place of residence, occupation, military service, religious ceremonies, or physical characteristics like height. Shared facts are facts that the person shares with another person in the tree, such as engagement, marriage, or divorce. The total number of facts for the person is shown at the bottom of the view.
For some facts, more than one piece of information may be listed. In this case, one of the facts will be the “preferred” fact, shown in bold text, while the others are “alternate” facts. Alternate facts may be additional information, such as other occupations or places of residence, or conflicting information about a life event, such as a disputed birthdate.
- Relations
Here you will find information on the person’s immediate family: father, mother, siblings, spouses, and children. Tap any name in the list to open the Person Info view for that individual.
- Notes
This tab is for any personal and research notes the tree’s creator has made about the person. Personal notes can be anything from a simple physical description to a lengthy biography of the person, or the transcript of an interview with them or someone who knew them. Research notes may include a list of questions, the next steps that the tree owner intends to take to learn more about the person, or information that is yet to be corroborated.
- Links
The Links tab shows any web links the tree’s creator has included to sources related to the selected person; an article that mentions the person, for example, or an online map of a place where they lived or traveled to. Tapping a link will open the corresponding webpage in a web browser.
- Color Coding
Color coding appears in Family Tree Maker Connect as colored bars at the bottom of a person’s “leaf” and as colored dots next to their name in the Index. The colors are applied in Family Tree Maker and can be used to indicate at a glance which people belong to a certain family line or are part of another group that the tree owner has chosen to highlight (for example, people in the tree who have served in the military). A key to any colors applied to the selected person can be found on this tab. The total number of people in each group is also shown.
Working with Sticky Notes
As well as exploring the famous trees, you can help us to make sure they’re accurate, and even to grow them, by attaching sticky notes to people in the tree. This allows you to add your comments, corrections, or suggestions, which will then be seen by our researchers. The sticky notes can contain anything you like — from pointing out a typing error or incorrect date to suggesting people or facts that you think we should add to the tree.
Note: The sticky notes you add will only be seen by you and the Software MacKiev editors. Other people who view the same tree will only see their own notes.
To add a sticky note to a person:
1. Tap the person’s leaf, and then tap Add Sticky Note in the menu that appears.
2. In the new sticky note that opens, type the comments or information that you want to share with the tree owner (in the case of Famous Trees — the Software MacKiev team that created the tree).
3. Tap Send. A sticky note icon /picture/ appears on the person’s leaf in the tree (if a person has more than one sticky note added, the leaf will have a multiple-note icon /picture/). A copy of the note will also be seen by the tree owner (in the case of famous trees — the Software MacKiev team that created the tree).
To view a person’s sticky notes:
1. Tap the sticky note icon /picture/ on a person’s leaf. You will see all the sticky notes that have been added to that person.
2. If a sticky note has a disclosure arrow next to it, tap the arrow to see the full text of the note.
You can add a new note to the selected person in the sticky notes view by tapping the Add Note icon /screenshot/ in the top-right corner, or go to the individual in the tree by tapping their name.
To view all the sticky notes you have added to the tree:
• Tap the Sticky Notes button /picture/ in the toolbar at the top of the screen.
The Sticky Notes browser opens, showing all the people in the tree who have sticky notes added as well as the number of notes for each person and, below the list, the total number of notes. Tap the right arrow next to a person’s name to view that person’s sticky notes.
Note: On Android tablets, the Sticky Notes browser appears in full-screen view, with the list of people with sticky notes on the left and the selected person’s sticky notes shown on the right.
Finding People with the Index
Swiping around a tree to find a particular person can be time-consuming, especially if the tree is a large one. The Index lists all the individuals in a tree and provides a quick and easy way to find any person with just a few taps, allowing you to jump in an instant from Prince Harry today to his fifth great-grandfather, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, in the 18th century.
With the Index options you can sort the list and choose which information is displayed. This should enable you to find people of interest more easily and see relationships and connections that may not be apparent from the graphical view of the tree.
To find a person using the Index:
1. Tap the Search icon /screenshot/ in the top-left corner.
2. Enter a part of the person’s name or surname. Only people who match your search request will appear in the list.
3. Tap the person you want to find. Family Tree Maker Connect will take you to that person in the tree.
You can decide what information you want to see in the Index. You may change the order in which people are listed and have more or less information displayed.
To change the Index display options:
1. In the Index, tap the Index Options icon.
2. Turn on the options you want in each of the groups: Sort By, Name Options, Show Dates, and Additional Info.
3. Tap Done to return to the Index.
Index Options
- Sort By section
Options in this section allow you to change the sorting order of the Index. They are: Family, Given Name; Given Family Name; Birth Date; Marriage Date; Death Date; and Sticky Notes.
You can choose only one option. If you choose an option for sorting by date, people in the Index will be grouped chronologically into twenty-year periods for convenience. The Sticky Notes option will move people with sticky notes to the top of the list.
- Name Options section
Use married names for females
Lists females by their husband’s surname rather than their birth surname.
- Show Dates section
Use the options in this section to specify the dates you want to have displayed for people in the Index. The options are None, Birth Date, Marriage Date, Death Date, and Lifespan.
The Show Year Only option lets you hide the day and month in dates.
- Additional Info section
Color Coding
Displays dots of the appropriate color for people to whom color coding has been applied in Family Tree Maker. You can see what the color coding for a particular person means by opening their Person Info view and going to the Color Coding tab (see the “Viewing Person Info” section above).
Sticky Notes
Displays a sticky note icon to indicate people who have had notes added.
Using the Settings
To go to the app’s settings, tap the Settings icon /screenshot/ at the top left of the screen.
You can:
- Set the Home Person. To change the tree’s home person, tap the right arrow next to the current home person’s name. Next, on the Set Home Person screen that appears, use the search field at the top to help you find the person you want to be the new home person. When you see their name in the list, tap it. The words “Home Person” will appear below the name. Finally, tap the Back button in the top-left corner to return to the Settings screen. The person you have selected will now be the tree’s home person—all relationships in the tree will be shown in terms of this person, and the view will recenter on them whenever you tap the Home Person icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
- Change the Tree Background Color. Tap the color well and select a color for the background the family trees are displayed on.
- Show Color Coding in Tree View. Turn on or off the display of color coding on people’s leaves in the tree.
Note: Color coding is not currently used in any of the trees in the Famous Trees library in FTM Connect.
- Open FTM Connect Intro. View the app’s Intro screens.
- Open Acknowledgments in your web browser to see license policy details of third-party materials used in the app.
- See the version number of the app.
Managing Your Account
Tap the Account icon /picture/ in the top-right corner of the Trees area to:
• Check the name and email address you use for your TreeVault account.
• Log Out. To be able to view trees, you will have to log in again using your email address and TreeVault account password.
• Remove Account. If you want to delete your TreeVault account, tap this option to be connected to Live Chat with an agent who will help you to do so.
• Read the Software MacKiev Privacy Policy, which will open in your web browser.