Family Tree Maker support services
Family Tree Maker support, when a guide isn't enough
Every troubleshooting guide on this site is free, and most people fix their own problem with one. These are for the times that does not happen: a file that will not open, a sync that will not finish, or an afternoon you would rather spend being shown than reading.
The four things we do
Most people arrive knowing the symptom rather than the service. If you're not sure which of these fits, describe the problem and we'll tell you, including when the answer is that a free guide covers it.
Remote troubleshooting
A screen-share session for one stubborn problem. We look at it together, find the cause, and fix it while you watch.
- Good for
- Sync failures and Ancestry errors
- Crashes, freezes, won't-open
- Broken photo and media links
One-to-one training
An unhurried walkthrough at your pace, on whatever you want to cover. Recorded, so you can watch it again next week.
- Good for
- Getting started from scratch
- Sources, citations and reports
- Charts, books and printing
File repair & data recovery
A corrupted tree, an obsolete Broderbund file, or thirty years of research stranded on a computer that no longer starts.
- Good for
- Damaged or unopenable files
- Old
.ftwand.fbkformats - Trees inherited from a relative
Tree cleanup
A tree that has grown messy over twenty years, with duplicates, unsourced facts and inconsistent places, handed back tidy and with a record of every change.
- Good for
- The same person appearing twice
- Merge damage after an import
- Inconsistent place names and dates
What to expect
How a session works
No software to install, nothing to download, and you stay in control of your computer the whole time.
Tell us what's wrong
Describe the problem in a sentence or two and pick a time. If we don't think we can help, we'll say so before anything starts, and before you pay anything.
Share your screen
You'll get a link that opens in your browser. You share your screen, we talk you through it. You can stop the session at any moment.
Leave with it working
We fix the problem, explain what caused it, and make sure a working backup exists before we finish. A written summary follows by email.
Where our limits are
Third-party software support has a poor reputation, and it was earned. Here is exactly what we will and will not do, in the same wording on every page of this site.
- Screen share, never remote control. We can see your screen and tell you what to click. We cannot type or click on your machine.
- We will never ask for a password. If one needs entering, you type it and we look away.
- Billing and licences aren't ours to touch. Anything involving payments for the software or your subscription goes back to the seller, and we'll show you exactly where.
- No fix, no fee. If the problem is not solved, there is no invoice. Not a partial charge, and not a diagnostic fee.
- Remote only. We don't make house calls, and we'll never claim to be local to you.
Before you book
One thing we will not sell you
Worth stating before anything else on this page, because it is the pitch researchers are being caught by. If someone tells you your older tree files must be converted before a newer version will read them, and that they need remote access to your computer to do it, decline.
The conversion is automatic. Open an old tree in a current version and the program updates the format while it loads. Your trees usually appear by themselves the first time you run it. The publisher's own support is free and does not ask to take over your screen for this, and genealogy forums are full of researchers comparing notes on the people who say otherwise.
We charge for work that takes skill and time: recovering a damaged file, unpicking a bad merge, getting a sync talking again. We do not charge for something the software does by itself in a few seconds. If you contact us about upgrading and that is genuinely all you need, we will tell you to open the file and get on with your day.
How this differs from the other results you'll find
Search for Family Tree Maker support and you'll get a row of sites offering much the same thing in much the same way. It's worth knowing what the differences actually are before you hand anyone your family history, including the ones that do not look like differences at first.
| Commonly offered | What we do | |
|---|---|---|
| Access to your computer | Remote access — a technician takes control of your desktop | Screen share only. We watch, you click. We cannot type on your machine |
| First contact | A phone number, pushed hard, before you've read anything | A written enquiry, so you have our answer in writing |
| Price | Given on a call, under pressure, with the meter already running | Quoted in writing before any work starts — and no charge at all if we can't fix it |
| Who's behind it | Often no named business, no address, no disclosure | Stated on our About page and in our terms |
| Relationship to the publisher | Frequently ambiguous, sometimes deliberately | Independent, declared at the top of every page |
The remote-access one is worth pausing on. Letting someone take control of your computer is genuinely useful in some situations, and plenty of legitimate businesses work that way. But it also means a stranger can do anything on your machine that you can, and you can't always see what. We chose not to offer it. It makes some jobs slower, and we think that's the right trade when the file on the desk is thirty years of somebody's research.
Questions people ask first
Do you need remote control of my computer?
No. Sessions are screen-share only — we can see your screen and talk you through what to click, but we cannot type or click on your machine. You start the session and you end it.
Will you ask for my Ancestry password?
Never. If a password needs entering during a session, you type it yourself and we look away or you blank the screen. We don't handle credentials of any kind.
What if you cannot fix the problem?
You aren't charged. Some faults sit on the vendor's side — a bug in a particular build, or a server-side sync problem — and nothing we do on your computer will change that. We'll say so plainly and point you to the publisher's own free support.
Do you visit customers in person?
No. This is a remote-only service delivered by screen share. We don't make house calls or on-site visits, and we'd rather say that plainly than have you find out after booking.
Which versions of Family Tree Maker do you support?
Family Tree Maker 2024, 2019, 2017 and 2014, on both Windows and Mac. We also work with much older Broderbund-era .ftw files — there the job is usually getting decades-old data safely into a current format.
Can you help with Ancestry, RootsMagic or Legacy too?
Yes, within reason. Most of what goes wrong is at the boundary between programs — a GEDCOM that imported badly, a sync that stopped, a tree split across two applications. If your question is purely about another program's features we'll tell you honestly that someone else is better placed.
Not sure which one you need?
Describe what's happening in a sentence or two. We'll tell you which service fits — or that you don't need one, if there's a free guide that covers it.