Family
Matters® Genealogy Shareware
Welcome to the MatterWare™ Family Matters® Genealogy Software Web
page. Family Matters is now available at version 4.23c
(corrected startup file error and window sizing error on large monitors - see also versions.txt). Unlimited Source Citations allow linking of
sources to persons, person events, families, and family events. For web generation, you
can now include those photographs in your database, and the picture/person links you have
in your database can be included in your web site. Additionally for web generation, there
have been significant improvements in the creative control provided. FM is a full 32-bit
Microsoft Access application (so savvy users can extend FM's capabilities).
There is also versions for users of Access 2000 or better. To go to Family Matters
download page,
click
here. Your registration for each can be ordered by going to the on-line order
page. The cost of registration of
Family Matters is US$35. There's also a CD available with everything on it that can be
ordered.
The MatterWare help line is (803) 396-2011. First, check the Frequently Asked Questions
document to see if there's something there that will help you. The Family
Matters manual is now on-line in PDF format.
Even if you don't use FM as your primary genealogical software, it will import your
GEDCOM and generate your own nifty genealogical web site for you (even
if you're unregistered). And, you can choose to suppress output
for living people, and persons born more than 75 or 100 years ago. It gets better.
You can also specify persons and families to either include or exclude, overriding the
persons-living selection. It gets still better. Taking advantage of FM's
extensive notes capability, you can specify a portion (or all) of individual and family
note text as WebNotes for inclusion in your web site. And include
scanned pictures as well. And include portions of your Chronicles database of
your choosing. 
Check the author's genealogical web site by going to http://www.raynicklas.name.
The site is completely generated by Family Matters, and was evaluated (March 2005) by Ancestral Branches, and (they say) "found it informative, easy to navigate, original and an excellent contribution to the Internet genealogy community as a whole. We are happy to present you with The Genealogy Sleuth Excellence Award. Keep up the wonderful work!".
If you are unfamiliar with
Family Matters, read the reviews by professionals
and users. Or, to see an accumulation of links to FM-generated user sites at the FM-User Page.
To go to Family
Matters' download page, click here.
Highlights of some of the features in recent releases are (most recent additions on top):
- Output reports using Microsoft's Access Snapshot to
share with friends and relatives exactly as they look when previewed on your
computer (4.21) (get
the Snapshot Viewer from Microsoft);
- Include Pictures from your database on your web site, with automatically generated links
from and to the persons in the picture (4.20);
- More creative control over generated web site content (4.20)
- Unlimited Source Citations, and linkages between your Sources to and from your persons,
person events, families, and family events (4.20);
- Output only the files with changes to update your web site (4.14);
- Choose the event types you want included on your web site with the Event Dictionary
(4.13);
- Unlimited pictures and unlimited linkages to and from persons on
Picture View (4.10);
- Additional information with each child and parent on Group Report (4.01);
- Considerable functionality added to Pedigree View, in
response to users requests (4.01);
- "Output To" function on certain Views and all Reports in a variety of formats,
like plain text, html, word processing, and spreadsheets (4.01);
- Record Navigation bar on the bottom of all Views for ultra-fast browsing and direct
record number access (4.01);
- Integrated Spell Checker for Microsoft Office 97 users (4.01);
- Auto-delete prompt when a person's name is cleared, and for families when both members
are unlinked or deleted (4.01);
- Right-button menus are part of all on-screen views, thus easing functions which require
association between a screen field and a desired action (4.00);
- Quick-Finders on all data views allow the record you are looking for to be found and
quickly displayed;
- Persons and Events can be Copied, Pasted, and Deleted by use of the right-button
shortcut menus, thus simplifying family linking, second spouses, and the replication of
events (4.00);
- Data on a view not currently displayed is readily available through the "Show
Object" action. "Show" has been incorporated for Persons, Families, Groups,
and Repositories, also through the use of the right-button shortcut menus (4.00);
- The Toolbar can be customized by the user, to best fit the available screen width, and
present a desired number of view-buttons (4.00);
- Old Style, New Style, and double-dating for Julian / Gregorian calendar-change support
(3.30);
- Full Permissions to database for third party developers (and you tinkerers) (3.30);
- Source Documentation database, view, and report to
record your sources (3.21);
- Tools including Soundex, Relationship, Set_All_Relationships, and Calendar Birth/Age
Calculator (3.21);
- Source Repositories database, view, and report to record
the where your sources are archived (3.20);
- Quick-Print current records' reports from most all of the views (3.20);
- Improved analysis capability added to Event View,
including surname, and event type, (3.20);
- Descendancy Chart person selection by surname or soundex
code (3.20).
The complete list of Family Matters features includes (but of course, is not limited
to):
- Designed for simple and intuitive use for experienced and inexperienced users,
- Intuitive Graphical user Interface (GUI),
- View your data from a variety of viewpoints, simultaneously on-screen,
- Extensive use of mouse right-button context-sensitive menus,
- Window objects resize themselves to fit your computer's screen and resolution,
- All functions available while using easy-to-use Family Matter's Family Group View,
- Use with Family Matters' unique Family, Person, and Event Views,
- Families, persons, and events all linked automatically as data is entered,
- Tools including Soundex, Relationship, Set_All_Relationships, and Birth/Age Calculator,
- Automatically generate your own personal genealogical World Wide Web site, or just
output changes,
- Unlimited number of spouses, children, persons, marriages, and
inter-relationships,
- Unlimited events, and user-defined events, for individuals and for families,
- Integrated, unlimited Chronicles database for To-Do, Locations, and the Lives and
Times of your ancestors,
- Integrated, unlimited Source Documentation database, views, and report for your
family's data,
- Integrated, unlimited Source Repository database, views, and report for where
your family's data is archived,
- Integrated, unlimited Source Citations to link your source documentation to your
persons, person events, families, and family events;
- Integrated, unlimited Photograph database, views, and report for your family's
pictures,
- Lineage- and Event- Linked Relational Database powered by the Microsoft Jet Database
Engine,
- Integrated Quick-Finders for Families, Individuals, Sources, Repositories, and
Chronicles
- Powerful Search and Replace with extensive wild-card capability,
- Soundex surname display, reporting, and Descendancy filtering,
- Multi-user, so several users (like husband/wife) can work on the same database at
the same time,
- Use Quick-Sort to sort any displayed view on any displayed field,
- Drag, resize, and dock the Toolbar anywhere on the screen,
- Print, and WYSIWYG view, Pedigree, Descendancy Charts, Person and Family Group Reports,
- Quick-Print from Family Group, Pedigree, Event, Person, and Source View,
- Print list-reports including Person, Family, Event, and Chronicles,
- Rich GEnealogical Data COMmunications (vers 5.5) file import and export,
- Microsoft Access application with all the necessary run-time programs supplied,
- Sequential, lineage, and random access of families and family members, and
- Free-form note text of over 64,000 characters for each and every
family, individual, source, chronicle, repository and picture.
If you're already convinced that this is a great value, go to the on-line order
page to order Family Matters now! You'll have your registration codes by
the end of the day, or at worse another day or so. To order and register Family Matters
for full use by snail-mail, rather than utilize the Internet for this purpose, send an
order form and check or money order (plus South Carolina sales tax if applicable)
made out to Ray Nicklas to: MatterWare,
381 Garnet Court, Fort Mill, SC 29708. Credit card orders must be placed
on-line.
Family Matters Take a
look at some screen shots of Family Matters:
Once have registered your copy of Family Matters, you
will have the ability to store as many families and persons in as many different files as
you wish. If you have not yet registered, the only limitation is that once you have
reached or exceeded twenty families in a data file, you'll not be able to enter more.
(Hint: a GEDCOM import can exceed it by thousands.) Payment of the registration / order
fee will provide you with a UserID, Key Code, and the latest version by mail. (But then,
if you've downloaded from here, you already have the latest version.) If you're now
convinced that this is a great value, go to the on-line order
page to order Family Matters now! You'll still have your registration
codes by the end of the day, or at worse another day or so!
If you would like to send me e-mail about MatterWare and Family Matters,
click here.
Just make sure you tell me which version we're talking about, and anything else relevant.
