First Impressions of MyHeritage's Family Tree Builder 7.0

Since Family Tree Builder 7.0 has now been officially released, I can talk about the program I have been using for the past few weeks. I was one of the few Beta testers for the new program. I was given a copy of the program and access to the online MyHeritage.com website.

I have now used several versions of the program and was very pleasantly surprised at the complete redesign of the program. Previous versions were essentially stand-alone programs and although they were free, they were not so attractive that I would switch to using them exclusively. The only downside of the program from my standpoint is that I am primarily an Apple users and the program runs only on Windows. To avoid switching back and forth with Parallels Desktop, I installed the program on my Windows 8 computer.

The new Family Tree Builder 7.0 is a significant  improvement and places the free program in a position to be a huge contender for market share. From the download site today, it appears that there have already been over 37.5 million downloads of the program in 40 (maybe 37?) languages. I would guess that this moves MyHeritage and Family Tree Builder 7.0 close to the most popular genealogy program in the world. There are several good reasons for this popularity. First the program is visually appealing and relatively easy to learn. But the key here is the fact that the program incorporates both the Smart Matching and Smart Research technologies developed by MyHeritage.

For me, the most significant improvement was the synchronization of the program with my online family tree. Through Record Match, I have over 2400 sources waiting to be verified and incorporated in my database. With the new program, the suggested sources are prominently visible on the each of the individuals in the main view screen, so adding those sources to your database is a more efficient process.

Here is a summary of the new program from the MyHeritage Blog:

We've been working hard for more than a year to enhance Family Tree Builder to make documenting and sharing your family history even easier. We're taken the time to ensure this release is as robust as possible and have just completed a successful two-month beta program with some of our power users. Enthusiastic feedback from the first users to use version 7.0 indicates that this is the best version we've ever released. 

The new version now syncs your entire family history in both directions between your computer and your family site on MyHeritage, as well as smart phones and tablets, and opens new channels for discovering relatives and billions of historical records with our advanced matching technologies. This means you can now access your family tree securely not just from your computer but also from your online family site, smart phone or tablet device, and even grow the tree and add more information and photos to it, any time and anywhere. All additions and changes will sync back to your Family Tree Builder software on your computer.

For more features of the new program, go to the MyHeritage.com website.