Family ChArtist reviews and interviews.

It's been a funny month. We've launched Family ChArtist and while the reception has been great, we've been really surprised to see our custom chart sales spike. That has left us quite a bit busier in unexpected ways and all the plans we had for further information and marketing have gone out the window temporarily. You can watch here for announcements about new graphics (hopefully soon) and then once we get through the BYU and NGS conferences this month we are planning a series of webinars that will help people get their creative juices flowing with this new tool too. We'll keep you informed.

In the meantime though, we've been thrilled with all the attention it has gotten and the wonderful response we've seen from you. Thank you so much. Here are some of the great reviews and attention we've received.

Lisa Louise Cooke released her interview with me yesterday about Family ChArtist. You can hear it here. It is always great to talk to Lisa. And she is a great interviewer. If you've never listened to her, you'll find a great new friend with tons of genealogy knowledge to share. And there is a coupon there for Family ChArtist too.

We were also given the massive honor to be the first advertisement in Shades the magazine. Again, If you aren't already a fan, you should be. Each Shades issue comes with regular articles by, Denise Levenick, Sheri Fenley, George Geder and Craig Manson, as well as many other talented writers. Best wishes for quick recovery to dear Footnote Maven. She writes the most interesting/most beautiful genealogy information on the internet.

And, we've had some wonderful reviews that I've been slow to post. We're so thankful for all the attention the program has gotten, all of the great ideas people have shared for it and for all of the patience as we've worked the bugs out. We had a few opening day glitches that are fixed now and we know things are working smoothly, but there are still features we want to add. There probably always will be.

We were excited to be reviewed by the illustrious Tamura Jones. We were pleased to be one of his Mega reviews. Pages and pages :-) As always, Tamura was exceedingly meticulous. My favorite comment of his was made as he was bemoaning the lack of several detailed design options that some other programs have. He said "Less options provide less chance to make tasteless choices, but how is my good taste going to stand out if others aren’t given sufficient opportunity to foul up? That everyone can access this app, make a few random choices and still end up with a chart that looks good just ain’t right." I'm so glad he liked our sense of what is tasteful and what isn't. He sent it through his "torture tests," he called it right on our "dialogue drama," (we're going to work on that), he loves our graphics and it appears he survived having to use a flash program. He also said "Family ChArtist app sure is so simple and easy to use that the lack of a manual isn’t an issue." That's exactly what we were shooting for. As we communicated back and forth over email about various questions he had, I sure enjoyed talking to him.

And of course we are always thrilled to have input from one of our favorite bloggers, Randy Seaver. He reviewed Family ChArtist and said "For a new product, Family ChArtist is off to an auspicious start. I look forward to experimenting with it in future weeks. I do think I will like it!"
He caught us early on with a few glitches, but those have all been worked out now and things are running smoothly.

Carolyn Murphy reviewed it for the Phoenix Genealogy Examiner. I loved that she caught the bigger picture--the whole point. She said, "Framing and hanging a Family Tree Chart in a home has been found to have a lingering and stabilizing influence." So completely right.

James Tanner said it is an "easy to use interface with lots of choices for charts from your own files." and Renee Zamora said "They do a wonderful job of making order out of the chaos in our genealogy databases. The hardest part about using Family ChArtist is trying to choose amongst the gazillion gorgeous graphics available. You really need to take a look at them to appreciate what they have done." They both caught what most every reviewer has appreciated the most--the ease of use, and the beautiful graphics.

And we so appreciate everyone just helping us get the word out. They all seemed really excited about it. Diane Hadad, Dick Eastman (twice), Renee Husky, Paula Hinkle, Cheryl Palmer, Lynn Palermo, and I'm sure others that I'm missing (If so I'm sorry.) It is so gratifying to see other people so excited about what we've been doing.

So we're off and running. And we couldn't be more pleased. If you haven't played around with it yet, please do. We know you are going to like it too.