Ancestry announce retirement of Family Tree Maker software
Ancestry.com announced late on the evening of 8 December 2015 (UK Time) that they were retiring Family Tree Maker, the desktop software application used by significant number of users worldwide. As can be seen from the comments on their blog this has not gone down well with subscribers coming so soon after the announcement that the controversial new Ancestry website will be the only version available from 14/15 December 2015.
At time of writing the blog contained in excess of 7,000 comments the vast majority condemning Ancestry for withdrawing a popular product. http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/12/08/ancestry-to-retire-family-tree-maker-software/
In reality nothing will change for a year, support will still be given until 1 January 2017 and even then the application will still continue to work albeit without the syncing functionality to the online tree. Subscribers have 12 months to investigate and decide on an alternative product of which there are number available and then plan their migration strategy. So there is no immediate reason to panic, take time to think about what you wish to do, try other products, most give a 30 day trial period, talk to the suppliers ask questions of users, then decide what suits your needs and plan what you are going to do.
The main alternative software suppliers are detailed below:
RootsMagic – www.rootsmagic.com
Legacy – www.legacyfamilytree.com
Family Historian – www.family-historian.co.uk