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All the latest news and information from Chronoplex Software.

2019

My Family Tree 9.0 now available

Today we are excited to announce the release of My Family Tree 9.0 available now from the latest updates page.

This release contains several new features and changes in the following areas:

  • Support on modern operating systems
  • GEDCOM files
  • Dates
  • Improvements to editing sources and facts
Support on modern operating systems

My Family Tree now requires Microsoft .NET 4.8 which is supported on Windows 10 (1607 and later), Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 (SP1 only).  Users running Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 8 can continue to download and use version 8. 

GEDCOM files

My Family Tree supports importing data from GEDCOM files based upon all versions of the GEDCOM specifications published by the LDS Church since 1987 (in addition to a plethora of application specific GEDCOM extensions).  This release adds support for importing new types of GEDCOM file and additional GEDCOM extensions.

Dates

My Family Tree now includes improved validation rules for 'day and month only' and 'month only' dates.

Improvements to editing sources and facts

This version adds several simplifications to editing source repository citations, religious events, and ages at events.

Upgrading from earlier versions

You can upgrade to My Family Tree 9.0 if your computer is running Windows 10 (1607 and later), Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 (SP1 only).
Users of the Microsoft Store version of My Family Tree will automatically receive the update.  For all other users the new version is available now ....

Published 27 Oct 2019 18:00 GMT

My Family Tree 8.9 now available

Today we are excited to announce the release of My Family Tree 8.9 available now from the latest updates page.

This release contains several new features and improvements in the following areas:

  • Date validation
  • Text editor options
  • New chart options
  • Updated themes and display fonts
  • Relationship creation
Date validation

In earlier versions, user input dates were validated silently, and invalid dates excluded from statistics and calculations. In this version, a subtle green squiggle warning is displayed under the display text to help you notice when you enter an invalid date. A warning triangle is also displayed on the date popup.

warnings when entering invalid dates
Text editor options

Strike through options have been added to the story text editor.  We also added a font size drop down which makes it easier to choose the desired font size.

exporting people
New chart options

It is now possible to customise the display font used in the family chart, as well as alter the font size.  The thickness of lines drawn in the chart can also be customised.

changing font family, font size, and line thickness in the chart

Multiple births are also shown by default.  Try adding two siblings with the same birth date and the chart will indicate that each person is a twin.  Of course, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, and so on are all supported.

showing multiple births in the chart
Updated themes and display fonts

The dyslexic theme has been redesigned to use softer colours and lower contrast.  We also added support for another dyslexic friendly font called ADYS.  ADYS supports Western, Central and Еаstern Europe languages, and provides Cyrillic glyphs which are not part available with OpenDyslexic.  You can choose the display font in Tools⯈Options⯈Theme.

lower constrast dyslexic theme
Relationship creation

Adding spouses is now much simpler because the marriage date and place can now be entered when adding a spouse, rather than later.  If the person is divorced, you can also include the divorce date.

adding marriage date when adding a spouse
Upgrading from earlier versions

My Family Tree 8.9 is a highly compatible upgrade from earlier versions of the application and is supported on Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista (SP1 or later), and Windows XP (SP3 only).
Users of the Microsoft Store version of My Family Tree will automatically receive the update.  For all other users the new version is available now ....

Published 14 Aug 2019 15:00 BST

My Family Tree 8.8.2 now available

Today we are excited to announce the release of My Family Tree 8.8.2 available now from the latest updates page.

This release contains several new features and improvements in the following areas:

  • Exporting people
  • Adding facts
Exporting people

The options for exporting people have been expanded and additional help is available to explain what each option does.

exporting people

All in all, these changes make it much easier to export parts of a tree to a copy of your file or to GEDCOM.  Try it out and let us know how you get on.

Custom fact types

Several more predefined fact types have been added and if you have ever added a custom fact to a person, you can now select that same type of fact when adding facts to other people in your tree. These are helpful timesavers, which should make it much easier to add custom facts to people in your tree.

Upgrading from earlier versions

My Family Tree 8.8.2 is a highly compatible upgrade from earlier versions of the application and is supported on Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista (SP1 or later), and Windows XP (SP3 only).
Users of the Microsoft Store version of My Family Tree will automatically receive the update.  For all other users the new version is available now ....

Published 09 Jun 2019 15:00 BST

My Family Tree 8.8 now available

Today we are excited to announce the release of My Family Tree 8.8 available now from the latest updates page.

This release contains several new features and improvements in the following areas:

  • Family member display images
  • Photo cropping
Family member display images

You can now choose the part of a family member's primary image which represents their face.  This really enhances the display of faces in charts and lists where a family member's primary image is displayed, without changing the original image.

changing the primary image

When ever you add or change a person's primary image, you will be prompted to choose the region of the image which represents the family member's face.  If you are running Windows 10, My Family Tree uses the Windows 10 offline face detection library to automatically detect select the region most likely to contain the family member's face, eliminating the need to perform a manual crop.

face picker

If you already added a primary images to your family members, you can run the face detection tool on all primary images, with just one click.  Just head to the 'Tools' menu.  It even works on paintings!

bulk face picker

All in all, these changes make it much easier to manage a family member's display image.  Try it out and let us know how you get on.

Photo cropping

The photo cropping tool has been updated to make resizing and repositioning the crop region easier.

photo cropping
Upgrading from earlier versions

My Family Tree 8.8 is a highly compatible upgrade from earlier versions of the application and is supported on Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista (SP1 or later), and Windows XP (SP3 only).
Users of the Microsoft Store version of My Family Tree will automatically receive the update.  For all other users the new version is available now ....

Published 30 May 2019 18:00 BST

My Family Tree 8.7 now available

Today we are excited to announce the release of My Family Tree 8.7 available now from the latest updates page.

This release contains several new features and improvements in the following areas:

  • Place holder files
  • .NET 4.8 support
Place holder files

We have improved support for handling multimedia files which are not present on your device when importing data from a GEDCOM file or a database from another application.  Missing files are now imported as 'place holder files'.  Place holder files represent files which could not be located during the original import.  Immediately after import, the 'Resolve missing files' tool will assist you in searching for any missing files.  It can download images at URLs, and scan folders on your device for the missing files.

place holder files
.NET 4.8 support

.NET 4.8 is required to run My Family Tree on Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 (1610 and later).  The update delivers many stability and accessibility improvements and will ensure that the application can continue to be fully supported on these operating systems for many more years.

End of support for older operating systems

The next major version of My Family Tree (9.x) will only be compatible with Windows operating systems running .NET 4.8.  This means support for Windows XP and Windows Vista will end.  Users running these operating systems can continue to run earlier versions of My Family Tree indefinitely, but will not receive any bug fixes or new features.
Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 (1610 and later) are all compatible with .NET 4.8 and continue to be supported.

Upgrading from earlier versions

My Family Tree 8.7 is a highly compatible upgrade from earlier versions of the application and is supported on Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista (SP1 or later), and Windows XP (SP3 only).
Users of the Microsoft Store version of My Family Tree will automatically receive the update.  For all other users the new version is available now ....

Published 20 Apr 2019 15:00 BST

My Family Tree 8.6 now available

Today we are excited to announce the release of My Family Tree 8.6 available now from the latest updates page.

This release contains several new features and improvements in the following areas:

  • Direct import of databases
  • Enhanced task editor
  • Relationships
  • Witness editing
  • Photo editing
Direct import of databases

Ancestral Quest, Ancestry Family Tree, and Legacy databases can now be directly imported into My Family Tree.  Import of PAF databases has been enhanced to support photo crop information.

Direct import is very useful if you do not have a GEDCOM file containing the data entered into the original application.  This can happen when the original application you used to create a database is incompatible or no longer available for your version of Windows.  It can also help in situations where the original application has limited or no support for GEDCOM, or does not export all the data you entered to GEDCOM.

New and enhanced task editor

Tasks are a convenient way to track and record future research opportunities that you wish to explore.  For each task, you can provide a title and detailed description along with comments and results.  You can track the status of tasks with dates and status flags. You can also link tasks to specific sources or repositories.

Relationships

The order in which a person married their spouses can be specified where specific marriage dates are not yet known.  The determination of 'step' relationship has been improved so that spouse relationships which ended before the birth of a child are correctly handled.

Improvements to witness editing

Witness editing now supports custom roles.  You can also add witnesses who are not family members.

Improvements to photo editing

The photo editing tools have been updated to support photo crop, red eye removal, automatic corrections for faded photos, and options to adjust hue/saturation/brightness, lightness/contrast, and gamma.  File dates can now be recorded using any calendar system or simply as free text.

Upgrading from earlier versions

My Family Tree 8.6 is a highly compatible upgrade from earlier versions of the application and is supported on Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista (SP1 or later), and Windows XP (SP3 only).
Users of the Microsoft Store version of My Family Tree will automatically receive the update.  For all other users the new version is available now ....

Published 17 Mar 2019 13:00 GMT