DO NOT BUY THIS SOFTWARE IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME

I have had nothing but problems since day 1, which was with Family Tree Maker. It was constantly crashing, crashing, crashing, no error messages, just inexplicably closing.

I paid more $$$ and upgraded to Family Tree Maker 2, and it seemed to work ok for a while. Then I discovered I had 2 trees on Ancestry.com. Customer support walked me through eliminating the extra tree.

Everything seemed to work ok for a few weeks, but in the last week I have lost at least 20 hours of research time and spent about 3 hours on the phone with support. FTM2 is crashing, creating multiple trees on Ancestry.com, refusing to snyc, etc. etc. etc.

And to add insult to injury, per customer support I eliminated the two excess trees that FTM2 had created on Ancestry.com, and my DNA match "Has a Hint" green leaves have DISAPPEARED!!! And support has no idea on how to get them back. I had 25-30 DNA tree matches that I have to spend the time to find again, from ~2,700 potential matches. That is going to take hours and hours!!!

I asked support to just let me trade FTM2 for the Mac for the PC version, I have had it! I got nothing but a run around, I was told I had to "call NOVA" they were the ones who sold me the software, although I bought it on Ancestry.com's web site.

I am too upset right now to call NOVA, as I know I will get the run around again!!!

Ancestry.com and NOVA have to know how horrible FTM2 for the Mac is, yet they are doing nothing to correct the problems.

I use my MacBook Pro "professionally", that is I am a professional and have literally a dozen Mac programs that I use every day. FTM2 is the ONLY program I am having problems with.

So if you value your time, my advice based on my personal experience is DO NOT BUY FAMILY TREE MAKER 2 for the Mac.

F. Mitchell

The software has a 30 day money back, I suggest you take advantage of it.

That would be great! Except, I have had it for more than 30 days. As I stated in my post, I asked Ancestry to exchange it for the PC version, their reply (a supervisor), you didn't buy it from us, call NOVA.

Excuse me, I bought it off of Ancestry's website!!!

A VERY unhappy Family Tree Maker 2 victim uh, I mean customer.

F. Mitchell

Oh Dear!! This gives me little confidence!!
I, too, recently updated wanting the ability to sync directly to Ancestry. Worked beautifully for about 5 days, then SAME!!! constantly closing. Numerous calls to help line, none which fixed. They asked to send "crash report" and someone would get back to me... Not yet!! Now even though I can use it, names have dropped off, details have also. Can not "Compact" without crashing. Nor Sync or it crashes. I can do a backup, thank goodness. I, too am totally frustrated and as we have Macs and laptop as well. 30 days is also not applicable as it arrived weeks ago while we were on holidays. Did you get the problem resolved?
Yvonne (Adelaide, South Australia)

Sorry that you are having problems!

I emailed NOVA and explained my problems, and asked that I be allowed to "trade in" the MAC version for the pc version.

Do you think they bothered to respond? NO! No response. Nothing.

So much for "customer support".

The big companies no longer care about the single customer. They are so large that one customer makes absolutely no difference to them.

Again, I reiterate, based on my awful personal experience, IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME, DO NOT BUY FAMILY TREE MAKER FOR THE MAC!!!

I got the same runaround about contacting Nova and instead wrote to both customersolutions@ancestry.com and support@ancestry.com. I received a prompt reply (i.e., within 2 days) and the resolution I requested. This was back in November 2012 and I was writing about the prior version at the time. I was specific about the problem, who I had spoken with at their help desk and also forwarded a copy of my receipt from the original software download. The courteous response and resolution I received resolved my frustration and the dissatisfaction I was feeling with the company. I just wish they would get the word out to their help desk about how to handle this situation for their Mac customers. BTW, I received an equal value extension on my subscription as opposed to a refund which is the resolution I requested.