It’s been a tremendous last few months here at RootsMagic. We’ve been busy with the new releases of Personal Historian 2 and RootsMagic 5. We’re also excited to participate in one of the largest genealogy events in North America- RootsTech!

We want to celebrate these momentous events with you, our loyal users! And what better way to celebrate than with a treasure hunt where you could win one of many prizes including an iPad 2!

Online Treasure Hunt

We’ve partnered with 15 of the best and brightest genealogy bloggers who will be reporting at the RootsTech conference. Each blogger will place one of 15 clue words on their website. The clue word will look something like this:

From Thursday, February 2 through Wednesday, February 8, 2012, visit http://www.rootsmagic.com/treasure for a complete list of the blogs where the 15 clue words can be found. Visit each blog, collect all 15 clue words, and you could win software, prizes, or an iPad 2!

Enter at RootsTech or at Home

Once you’ve collected the clues there are two ways to enter.  The first is at the RootsTech conference itself.  Pick up an entry card at the RootsMagic booth (#224) in the Exhibit Hall.  Write the clue words on the back of the card and return it to the RootsMagic booth in the Exhibit Hall by Saturday, February 4 at 1:20 pm.  At that time, we will hold the prize drawings.  You must be present to win.

We didn’t want those who aren’t able to attend RootsTech in person to feel left out so we’re holding a second drawing and giving away more prizes including a second iPad 2.  To enter this drawing, visit http://www.rootsmagic.com/treasure anytime between Thursday, February 2 and midnight MST on Wednesday, February 8, 2012.  Fill out the online form to be entered into the second drawing.  You may enter both drawings but one entry per person, per drawing.  Winners will be picked at random and notified via e-mail by Friday, February 10, 2012.

Remember, the treasure hunt doesn’t begin until this Thursday. Good luck!

It’s been a tremendous last few months here at RootsMagic.  We’ve been busy with the new releases of Personal Historian 2 and RootsMagic 5 and now that we have a chance to breathe, we feel like celebrating with you, our loyal users!  And what better way to celebrate than with a treasure hunt where you could win one of many prizes including an iPad 2?

Excited yet?  Well, you won’t have to wait too much longer.  Watch this blog early next week for all the details!

Is it December 31 already?  As has become an annual tradition here at RootsMagic, we’d like to take a few of the last remaining minutes of the year 2011 to review some of our accomplishments from the last 12 months with you, our users.  If you’re not one to dwell on the past, check back Monday as we present our 2012 New Years’ Resolutions with a peek at our plans for the coming year.  But until then, crowd on into the time machine (don’t worry, there’s plenty of room) as we journey back to January 2011.

Free Online Classes (Webinars)

Beginning in January 2011, we pioneered the use of “webinars“, or free online classes, to help our users get the most out of our software.  Over the last 12 months, we’ve offered nearly 30 classes spanning over 30 hours of instruction to answer your questions and to teach you all the ins-and-outs of our software.  And the response has been phenomenal!  Our webinars have been viewed and downloaded hundreds of thousands of times from users in nearly every country on the globe.

And best of all?  All of our webinars are archived and still available, free of charge.  If you haven’t already taken advantage of this resource, don’t wait, pick a webinar on a topic that you’ve been curious about and watch it today!  No other genealogy software comes close to providing the level of support and training that we do.

Sponsorships

This year brought the usual conference travel, but this time we wanted to give back a little to the genealogy community that has given us so much.

At the Southern California Jamboree in June we brought the experience of the Jamboree directly to you.  We sponsored free live streaming of some of the best known speakers in the industry right into your home, including Lisa Louise Cooke, Curt Witcher, David Lambert, Kory Meyerink, and Kerry Bartels.

And at the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Springfield, Illinois we sponsored the RootsMagic Cyber Cafe, the place to hang out, go online, charge a device, or print those syllabus pages you needed.

Personal Historian 2 and Personal Historian Essentials

This year saw not one, not two, but 3 new releases.  September brought the long-awaited release of Personal Historian 2, the latest version of our ground-breaking computer software which helps you write the story of your life and of other individuals.  Personal Historian 2 built upon its predecessor and added easier filtering and searching, an even better word processor, improved book publishing, and much more.  We also released a free “Essentials” version of the software to help people start recording their life stories.

But now RootsMagic will be able to notify you anytime there is an update available.  RM5 will display this indicator in the status bar at the bottom right of the program screen if there is a new update available.

Just click that indicator and RootsMagic will download and install that free update for you.  If you want to know what is fixed in the update, read on.

Where is the list of fixes?

We also used to post a blog article any time a minor update was released (along with a list of the items fixed).  The problem with that is that those fixes became scattered all over our blog and you weren’t able to easily find all the fixes in one place.  We have addressed this by putting a pinned topic up on our RootsMagic Forums (you *did* know we had forums, right)?  You will always be able to visit that topic to find out the latest version of the program, as well as what was fixed in each update.  Go to:

http://forums.rootsmagic.com

open the Announcements section (at the top) and you will find the “RootsMagic 5 Update History” right there at the top.

SPRINGVILLE, Utah. — September 28, 2011 — RootsMagic, Inc. today announced the official release of Personal Historian 2, the latest version of the ground-breaking computer software which helps you write the story of your life and of other individuals.  Personal Historian breaks this seemingly monumental task into small, manageable pieces and then reconstructs it into a complete, publishable document.  With the release comes a free “Essentials” version of the software as well as a discount offer for new users and previous owners of the software.

Bring Life to Your Life Stories

“Many people want to write a personal history about themselves or family members but get lost or overwhelmed,” said Michael Booth, vice-president and lead developer of the software.  “It’s very gratifying to hear people tell us that they are finally able to write their life stories thanks to Personal Historian.”

Personal Historian creates an interactive timeline of a person’s life to keep the stories organized, give context to life events, and to allow users to write stories in any order they wish. When ready, Personal Historian will compile the stories into a finished book complete with table of contents, chapters, pictures, indexes, and more.  The book may then be printed at home, edited in a word processor, published professionally, or shared with friends and family.

New Features

“The new features in Personal Historian 2 have been worth the wait,” said Bruce Buzbee, president. “While we’ve added many new and powerful features, we’ve worked hard to make the software even easier to use than before.”

Personal Historian 2 boasts an impressive list of over 40 features including streamlined step-by-step wizards; expanded timelines and memory trigger questions; easy filtering and searching of stories; management of categories, people, and places; improved outlining and writing analysis; wrapping of text around pictures; fonts and text styles; and more-powerful publishing and output options.

Free “Personal Historian Essentials”

RootsMagic is also releasing a new, free edition of Personal Historian named, “Personal Historian Essentials”.  Personal Historian Essentials contains many core features from the Personal Historian software and the two products are fully-compatible with one another.  “We wanted to give everyone a risk-free option,” said Booth.  “Personal Historian Essentials is perfect for someone who wants to start writing a personal history but doesn’t know where to begin.”  Personal Historian Essentials is available for download at http://www.personalhistorian.com.

Discount Offer

To celebrate it’s release, RootsMagic, Inc. is pleased to offer a special introductory offer for Personal Historian 2. Through October 31, 2011, Personal Historian 2 is available for a special introductory price of only $19.95, saving $10 off of the regular price.  The discount is available only on the Personal Historian website at http://www.personalhistorian.com or by calling 1-800-766-8762.

About RootsMagic, Inc.

For over 20 years, RootsMagic, Inc. has been creating computer software with a special purpose- to unite families. One of our earliest products- the popular “Family Origins” software, introduced thousands of people to the joy and excitement of family history.

That tradition continues today with “RootsMagic”, our award-winning genealogy software which makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history fun and easy. “Personal Historian” will help you easily write and preserve your life stories. “Family Reunion Organizer” takes the headaches out of planning those important get-togethers. And “Family Atlas” creates beautiful and educational geographic maps of your family history.

For more information, visit www.rootsmagic.com.

Source: RootsMagic, Inc.

Yeah, I know synopsis is a fancy word for this article, but we’ve been blogging all month about all the great new features coming in Personal Historian 2 and we didn’t want to make folks have to dig through all of those articles.  So here is a list of those articles that you can just click to get to.

• Personal Historian 2 Sneak Preview
• Getting Started with Personal Historian 2
• Writing Stories in Personal Historian 2
• Importing Genealogy Data into Personal Historian 2
• Using LifeCapsules in Personal Historian 2
• New Tools in Personal Historian 2
• Publishing Your Stories with Personal Historian 2
• Personal Historian Essentials

Personal Historian Essentials will share many of the same features with the full Personal Historian software including clean and friendly screens, the ability to add an unlimited number of stories, categories, writing tools, LifeCapsules, and the ability to publish a complete personal history.  The full version of Personal Historian will be available for purchase and include features not available in Personal Historian Essentials.

So what comes next?

Later this week we will begin taking orders for Personal Historian 2 and release it as a download, followed a few weeks later by the CD version (it takes a few weeks to get CDs duplicated and packaged).  When we begin taking orders you will be able to pre-order the CD and get the download early if you want to do that as well.

And if you want to watch a live demo of the new Personal Historian 2, don’t forget to join us for our free webinar “What’s New in Personal Historian 2” this Wednesday (Sept 28th) at 6pm MDT.  To sign up for the free webinar, visit:

http://www.rootsmagic.com/webinars

Create Multiple Personal Histories

The Publisher lets you create multiple books from a single file.  When it comes time to print your book you may want to sometimes print every story, or you may want to only print certain stories.  Publisher lets you design custom books, each with their own cover and title pages, their own sets of chapters and selected stories, and their own index.  You can then quickly print different versions of the person’s history by selecting one of the books and generating it.  As an example, you might create one book that includes all of the person’s stories, another without “private” stories, and another with just the stories in the education category that occurred between the ages of 12 and 19.

Design Your Own Chapters

Personal Historian can organize your stories in several different ways.  It can group your stories based on their primary category, or group them by the person’s age, or not group them at all (by putting them in a single chapter).  You can customize the order the chapters are printed, including just rearranging them by dragging and dropping them.

Add Special Sections

Publisher doesn’t limit you to chapters with your stories.  You can also add special sections like a cover and title page, preface, dedication page, and more.  You can even have Personal Historian automatically create a Table of Contents for your book.

If you have tagged your stories with the people and places in those stories, Publisher can even create indexes for your personal history.

Preview Your Books

The Report Viewer shows you on screen what your book will look like on paper.

On the left is a list of thumbnails of each page in the report. You can use the arrow keys or the scroll bar to scroll through each page in the report, or you can use the mouse to scroll down (or up) and go to the desired page.  You can zoom in and out to see more or less detail.

Print or Save Your Books

The Report Viewer makes it easy to print or save your books.  Just click the Print button to send your book to the printer, or click the Save button to save your book as either a PDF (Acrobat) or RTF (Rich Text) file.

Email Your Books

If you want to send a book to friends or family, you can click the Email button on the Report Viewer, and Personal Historian will automatically save your book to file, open your email program, start a new email and attach the book to the email.  All you have to do is enter the email addresses and a short message.

So that’s an overview of Personal Historian 2.  In our next post I have one last new “feature” to mention, as well as details about the release, so keep watching.