Who’s your daddy? Everybody on earth has ancestors, and the study of who we are and the people we came from (genealogy) is currently one of the most popular pastimes, online and off. The internet has made it extremely easy to perform this research for free, with paid (subscription) options also available.
As you do this research, you will soon run into the problem of what to do with all the facts and materials you are finding (names, dates, images, articles, etc.).
That’s where Synium’s MacFamilyTree 11 comes in. Provided in both desktop and mobile format, MacFamilyTree/MobileFamilyTree not only offer you a platform into which to input your findings as raw data, but also do some incredibly useful things with those otherwise boring facts. (See the bottom of this page for what’s new in version 11.)
For instance, the screenshot above (with Night Fan theme activated) shows what depth you can end up with when enough people are entered into a family (these are some of my actual New England ancestors). This colorful presentation style is called a “fan chart”, and you can click on any person in your family tree and immediately get an attractive visual representation of that person’s ancestors on each side (mother/father). The further back into your family line you can go, the bigger this chart gets.
Another way to view a family is via a Descendant chart, as shown below, with the older originating family members at left:
Let’s take a look at some actual examples from my own family tree, whose members I have been entering into MacFamilyTree for well over a decade now. The screenshot below centers on a particular person and displays the available fields for entering information: Name, gender, life events (such as birth, marriage and death and the locations of each of these events), parents, spouse and children. Further down on this same screen (not shown) are fields for adding various facts about the person (physical attribute, Social Security number, etc.), media (images, documents , etc.), text notes, citations of your sources, people associated with the target person and To Do items.
The strip along the bottom of the window offers additional functionality, such as being able to view the selected person in context with the rest of his or her family, a timeline chart showing the relation of the person’s lifespan to those of other family members, plausibility warnings, a map where coordinated assigned to family events will appear, a list of world history events that overlap th lifetime of the selected person, an Action option to add/delete people, find duplicates, etc., alternate views (8 different style trees/charts and two reports), a place to enter To Do items and a change log. At far right you can also access a Person List of everyone in your extended family and view it organized by first or last name, birth or death date and other factors.
Kinship Reports (shown below) are another way to view a person’s information in the context of his or her family members:
A main advantage of MacFamilyTree is that its performance is great and its charts are not dry and ugly like many other genealogy applications. Below is an example of the Virtual Tree where you can view your ancestors in a 3D environment!
The Virtual Globe option is another way to view your family’s history, in this case their movements across continents over time.
So what else can you do in MacFamilyTree 11? For the convenience of the researcher, you can interact with the free and very popular FamilySearch website from right within MacFamilyTree, downloading data and also uploading your research to share with others if you desire. Or perhaps you wish to generate an interactive website (below) or PDF chart for other family members to access, or design and export a PDF family history book (see templates further below) as a gift for a special occasion. If you wish to share your research with others in a form that can be imported into other genealogy apps, you can export an industry-standard GEDCOM.
Using iCloud and now CloudTree as database repositories, MacFamilyTree 11 gives you maximum flexibility when editing and managing your family tree. MobileFamilyTree now enters the picture, enabling you to continue inputting data while out and about on your mobile devices. The interface is pretty much exactly the same in both desktop and mobile apps, further contributing to the seamless experience.
As I said above, I’ve been using MacFamilyTree 2008 (and it’s been around even longer!) and I really enjoy firing it up often to add some new bit of family information I just discovered. The app is a great place to keep all this valuable information together in one easily accessible and editable database.
If you’re a Mac user interested in family history, MacFamilyTree and MobileFamilyTree are definitely worth checking out.
WHAT’S NEW IN VERSION 11:
MacFamilyTree 11 is by far the largest update ever released. It comes with a huge number of new features and improvements, almost every section of the app was either re-developed or hugely improved.
New Photo Colorization, Enhancement, and Editing Features
•New Colorization Models: Choose from multiple colorization models for your photos instead of being limited to one suggestion
•Photo Restoration: Restore old and damaged photos and images
•4x Super-Resolution: Upscale small images and improve text readability in hard-to-read documents
•Advanced Image Adjustments: New tools for customizing photos (exposure, gamma, channel-specific adjustments, etc.)
•AI Background Removal: Automatically remove backgrounds from portraits or other photos
•Faster AI Processing: Significant speed improvements of our AI servers
•Improved User Interface: Enhanced interface with help texts, especially for iPad and iPhone
Completely New Places Management
•Configurable Place Templates: Pre-configured templates for major countries
•Completely customizable place citation styles, configurable for each place template individually
•Favorites and Default Templates: Mark frequently used templates for quick access
•Diagram and Report Options: Specify which citation style to use in diagrams and reports
•Improved GEDCOM Support: Properly incorporates format information for places
•Grouping Options: Group editing views by the first or second administrative level
•Integrated Maps: iPad now displays a detailed map alongside place editing, similar to Mac
•Flags and Pins: Optional flags for easier identification and movable pins for adjusting coordinates
•Map Styles: Select map styles while editing places
Completely New: Place Details
•Detailed Place Descriptions: Specify exact locations within a place (e.g., address, hospital, cemetery)
•Coordinates and Maps: Display notable locations on maps with geographic coordinates
•Integration with Existing Places: Easily convert places into notable locations
•Support in Reports and Diagrams: Includes notable locations
New: Search for coordinates and alternate names
•Results from a massive database of locations
•Multilingual, including historical place names
•In addition to the geographic database, Apple Maps search can also be used to locate significant places
•Precisely configurable to determine which components of a place name are adopted in which language
•Once downloaded, the new geographic database is fully usable without an internet connection
•With data stored locally, location searches are impressively fast
Completely New: Search for Geographic Coordinates for All Locations
•Comprehensible presentation of all found coordinates for locations and significant places
•Significantly faster than the previous server-based search
•No internet connection required once the location database is downloaded
Wikipedia Integration for Places
•Auto-Loaded Images: Display images from related Wikipedia articles
•Direct Article Links: View Wikipedia references while editing places
•Preview Articles: Access article previews directly in the interface
•Completely integrated in new places search, which also show Wikipedia articles
•Save as Media: Add Wikipedia content as media attachments
New Website Creation
•Highly Customizable: Tailor website templates to personal preferences
•Integrated Search: Built-in search functionality on exported sites
•Reduced File Size: Smaller storage requirements for exported family trees
•Many included website styles ranging from plain to playful designs
•A website may include more than one style a visitor may choose from
•Multilingual Support: Websites can switch between multiple languages
•Easy Hosting: No server/database required; simple static file hosting is sufficient
•Completely new user interface for exporting websites
•Significantly faster website exporting
•Management of multiple websites with different configurations per family tree
•Website settings are synchronized via CloudTree and iCloud Drive
•Share button for quickly sharing the website
•Continued support for uploading to FTP and MacFamilyTree.com – or burning to CD/DVD on Mac
New Feature: Influential Persons
•Customizable Relationships: Define various relationship types between a person and their most influential persons
•Icons for Relationship Types: Assign unique icons for each relationship type
•Date Range Settings: Specify dates or date ranges for each relationship
•Notes and Sources: Add notes and citations for each relationship
•Reports and Diagrams: Updated to display influential persons
•Additionally, the kinship report shows influential persons of the start person
•GEDCOM Compatibility: Import and export support for influential persons
•Interactive Tree: Easily add and visualize influential persons using a new mode
•Indicators for Influencers: Mark individuals with attached key influencers in the Interactive Tree
Completely New Diagram: Sociogram
•Display Influential Persons: Visualize all influential persons of a relative
•Entire context: Optionally show children, parents, and their influential persons
•Display all connections: Even highlights relationships when influential persons are linked to multiple people
Improved User Interface
•Significantly improved navigation with better clarity
•Enhanced representations in all editing views
•Larger title images in the person-editing and family-editing views, where space permits
•Improved dark mode for higher contrast display
•Improved dark mode in the editing section
•Improved structure in almost all dialogs
•Noticeable performance improvements
•Enhanced list views (better fonts, alignment, etc.)
•Improved integrated browser (now supports forward/backward navigation, and websites can be added as media)
Completely New Welcome Screen
•Modern Design: Enhanced layout for better tree organization
•Color Labels: Assign labels to manage large collections of trees
•Favorites: Mark trees as favorites for quick access
•iCloud Tree Management: Improved download process for trees stored on iCloud Drive
•Collapsible Sections: Collapse sections for better organization
Charts
•Many new, customizable styles for persons added
•New diagram templates introduced
•New styles and templates for the fan chart
•Noticeable performance improvements for most charts
•Distribution chart can now also analyze places of death
Interactive Tree
•Improved Family Editing: Access all options from the regular family editing view
•Quick Family Selection: Select families linked to a person via a dedicated button
•Zoom Feature: Quickly zoom to the tree section of the starting person
•Enhanced Action Buttons: More visible and user-friendly buttons
Customizable Title Images
•Editable Header Images: Configure the display of header images in editing sections
•Family Photo Composites: Automatically generated from family members pictures
•Placeholder Options: Use placeholders instead of images
Favorite Functions – your personal MacFamilyTree
•Quick Access: Mark frequently used functions as favorites
•Dedicated Category: All favorite functions are grouped in a separate category for easy navigation
•Customizable: Fully configure which functions are shown as favorites
•Re-order Favorites: Adjust the order of functions to suit your workflow
•Highlight Key Functions: Certain functions can be emphasized and displayed as larger icons for faster recognition
New Backup Feature
•iCloud Drive Backup as an alternative to local backups: Backups can now be stored on iCloud Drive and are accessible across devices
•Configurable location where Backups should be stored
•Improved Management: New interface for viewing and managing backups
•It is now possible to define how each family tree is backed up individually
•Improved automatic saving, which can now also be configured per family tree
CloudTree
•Noticeably improved performance, especially when downloading new family trees or processing many changes
•Faster setup
Performance Enhancements
•Performance: Improved editing, diagram rendering, and app start-up times
