Leading family history publisher S&N Genealogy Supplies has just released TreeView 2, the next version of the firm’s popular family history software package specially designed for UK family historians.

TreeView stores your family tree on your PC or Mac with the option to easily sync your tree with TreeView.co.uk and its free iOS and Android app, allowing you to keep your family history at your fingertips. Privacy options for your online tree allow you to retain complete control over your research.

TreeView has many powerful features including:

• Sync your tree between the software and all of your mobile devices
• Display your tree in a variety of different ways including pedigree, family, ancestors, descendants, hourglass, fan and even a full tree view
• Create beautiful charts and detailed reports in seconds
• Attach facts, notes, images, addresses, sources and citations to your ancestors
• View your entire tree on screen, or zoom in to a single ancestor
• Quickly discover how people in your tree are related using the relationship calculator
• Identify anomalies in your data with the problem finder
• Map out your ancestors lives with map view
• Import or export your family tree using the GEDCOM standard.

Powerful new features in Version 2 include:

• Linked charting
• Click to focus
• Extra charting features
• Five new customisable reports types
• Enhanced individual reports
• Drag and drop mapping
• Improved search

The new linked charting feature is a great time saver – when you reopen a chart you will be given the option to update it to include any new changes that you have made, such as date or place changes to events.

While using the Tree Views you can click to focus on any person to shift the emphasis on the tree displayed. The person chosen will then become the main focal point of the page.

As well as customising the types of charts, text size, background colours and images, extra charting features have been added so you can now customise the font and colour of the text, along with the colour of the boxes, borders and connections.

Adding to the original report facilities (Individual, Family & Narrative reports), TreeView now comes with a range of new customisable report types, including Address List, Birthday/Anniversary List, Missing Information Report, Descendant Report, printer-friendly Pedigree Chart and a handy blank Pedigree Chart to fill in when out and about researching. All of these reports can be exported in PDF or RTF formats.

The individual report (which outputs all the details about a person) now supports multiple individuals, so you can select one person and add ancestors, descendants, both or even select your own list of people to include.

The new drag and drop mapping feature allows you to pinpoint an exact place on a map where an event occurred. Coordinates for the places you tag are saved and can be exported in GEDCOM files.

The improved search enables you to look for common attributes among your ancestors. You can now search your entire database using keywords, for example ‘Baker’ would find the word in a name, fact, note, etc.

TreeView 2 is a powerful and easy to use family tree program. You can sync to the cloud and your mobile devices. TreeView’s privacy options allow you to keep full control of your data when storing your tree in the cloud.

Victorian mining brought to life in 3D

England’s worst-ever mining disaster has been brought to life using cutting edge 3D technology. Former miner Alan Andrews has used computer generated imagery (CGI) to tell the tale of 12 December 1886, when almost 400 people died in explosions at the Oaks Colliery in Barnsley.

Alan has worked with the Dearne Valley Landscape Partnership to showcase the technology – which can be seen in drop-in sessions at the Experience Barnsley museum, on Saturday 14 and Saturday 28 January.

Wearing a special headset, members of the public can place themselves at the centre of the events that unfolded 150 years ago. They can experience what it would have been like both above ground and within the Victorian mine when the explosions went off, with the chaos brought to life in 3D.

Alan, who lives in Darfield and worked at Goldthorpe Colliery in the eighties before moving into IT, narrates the story himself. It is his first major project using 3D and CGI technology, produced through his company The Art of Mining. He will be on hand during the sessions to answer any questions.

Alan said: “As far as I’m aware this is the first time that mining has been the subject of this type of technology. The experience of being a miner is not something that can easily be explained to people, so I’m hoping that virtual reality will open doors in terms of education and bringing mining heritage to life in general.”

As well as the drop-in sessions a CGI film by Alan can be seen in the ‘When the Oaks Fired’ exhibition at Experience Barnsley curated by the Dearne Valley Landscape Partnership (DVLP). For more information visit discoverdearne.org.uk.