What’s New in FTM 2024?
Dozens of new features and enhancements in FTM 2024—from game-changing upgrades to subtle refinements —make it easier than ever to discover your family story, build your family tree, and share your unique heritage. Here’s a list of the new features you’ll want to be aware of.
The Connect workspace makes it easy to share your family tree with relatives and get their help verifying details. Relatives can view your tree through the free Family Tree Maker Connect mobile app (available for Apple and Android). If they have something to share, they can add a Relative Hint™ sticky note. These notes appear instantly in your FTM tree. You’ll even get alert icons alongside Ancestry and FamilySearch hints. (Be aware that you must have a TreeVault subscription or free trial to use this feature.)
The expanded Family Tree Maker Connect app works hand-in-hand with the Connect workspace, making it simple to collaborate with relatives. Through Guest Access, powered by TreeVault, you can invite relatives to view your family tree on their phone or tablet. They’ll see more details than before, including Relationships, Person Notes, Research Notes, and Web Links from your FTM tree. For added fun, the app also includes some famous family trees, like Alexander Hamilton and Luke Skywalker.
Introduced in FTM 2019, Turn Back Time® lets you undo changes with a single click, thanks to its change log that tracks everything, even complex operations like merges and Ancestry syncs. Users asked for more, so in FTM 2024, we’ve increased the number of changes that can be walked back from 1,000 to 5,000.
The People workspace is where you spend most of your time in Family Tree Maker, so minimizing eye strain is essential for a better experience. In response to one of our most frequent requests, we’ve introduced Easy on the Eyes™. This feature temporarily enlarges sections of the People workspace while you’re working, then returns them to their original size when you’re done. No more squinting—just a more comfortable experience.
Photo Darkroom® tools were first available in FTM 2017. Now in FTM 2024 we’ve greatly expanded the tools you’ll have on hand to rescue old family photos. They include cropping and a range of new repair tools that will help you remove dust and scratches. And as always, your original photos remain untouched.
Charts and reports have been improved to better showcase your family history and support non-traditional relationships.
• A new option in the Place Usage Report lets you sort locations by country, state, county, and city. Previously, the report was only sorted alphabetically, starting with the smallest location, like cities or towns.
• The Kinship Report can display death dates in addition to birth dates. It also accurately labels relationship types—so if you’ve set a couple’s relationship to “Partner” or “Private,” it will display correctly. Previously, all couples were listed as husband and wife.
• You can now include the spouse or partner of each descendant shown in the Descendant Chart.
The People workspace has been tweaked to make it more informative:
• The pedigree view on the Tree tab can now display as many generations as your screen allows.
• In the family tree view on the Tree tab, you’ll now see the status of a marriage—whether it’s ongoing, deceased, or divorced— displayed next to the marriage date and place.
• The mini pedigree tree next to the Person tab now shows the total number of children for a couple. Simply click the arrow next to one of their children’s names to view this information.
FTM 2024 includes multiple optimizations (many requested by Facebook users), from managing relationships to support for hyphenated surnames.
• When you delete a person from your tree, you can now choose to also delete any media items, sources, and citations that are only linked to that person.
• A new preference can automatically change a couple’s relationship status to “Deceased” when you enter a death date for either person. This feature works for any new death dates you add going forward, but won’t apply to people you’ve already entered.
• When creating a custom fact, you now have the option to include just a date and description.
• In addition to changing relationship types, you can now change relationship statuses as well. This new feature lets you update one relationship or thousands at once. For example, you can quickly find all married couples listed as “Ongoing” where one spouse has passed away and update their status to “Deceased.” You can also correct relationships mistakenly shown as “Unknown” and change them all to “Spouse” with a single action.
• FTM 2024 offers enhanced support for individuals with dual or hyphenated surnames, also known as compound surnames, making it easier to accurately record and display these names in your family tree.