Official release version of Clooz 4 now available!

Clooz 4 is the most significant enhancement in the program’s 25-year history, continuing its rich tradition of providing a document-centric approach to family history research. Totally rewritten, Clooz 4 is full of strong features assisting researchers plan and track their efforts, record source citations, extract and analyze information content, and then export evidence to other family tree programs. Clooz 4 goes beyond researching people, supporting research subjects such as businesses, buildings, ships and artifacts. This new version provides a solid base for further expansion in the years to come. Report generation is more powerful and flexible than ever before, giving you additional control of the report content. In addition to reports, you can now directly output records to Excel files.

Clooz 4 Official Release Announcement Video

Clooz 4 Official Release

Find out how to obtain Clooz 4

Clooz 4 User Guide (pdf)

Check out all of the new features

What’s New in Version 4!

Lost your Clooz serial number?

Retrieve it from the online self-help support page

Coming soon: Clooz 4 Beta availability and US 1950 Census Template

After years of development work, version 4 of Clooz is finally nearing completion.   Version 4 is a complete rewrite of the program, with numerous major improvements.  A small group of users has been testing it and finding much to be excited about. The software is fully functional except for report generation.  A public beta version (still without the reporting) will be released in mid-November.  The report generation will be included in the coming months prior to final production release.

The focus of development has been on version 4, which nearly doubles the number of information record templates, including the 1921 UK Census and the recently released US 1950 Census.

Clooz 4, as promised, will be a free upgrade to those users running version 3.6 with paid licenses.  More information on recovering lost serial numbers will be provided.

Stay tuned for more exciting details in the next few weeks!

Clooz Development Roadmap [14 April 2020]

It’s been nearly eight years since Clooz 3.0 was first publicly released in July 2012.   A steady stream of new features and capabilities in Clooz has continued since then.  Here are just a few of the highlights during the lifetime of Clooz 3:

  • Clooz 3.1 (2012) – Exchange people and sources with Legacy Family Tree databases
  • Clooz 3.2 (Feb 2013) – The Composite View (hierarchical display of documents & people)
  • Clooz 3.3 (Oct 2013) – Expanded Legacy Family Tree interface allowing Clooz documents to be exported to Legacy and create events for people in the Legacy database.   Media Location Tool for fixing broken media file links when moving to a new computer.
  • Clooz 3.3.5 (April 2014) – Imports from RootsMagic, The Master Genealogist and GEDCOM files were added.
  • Clooz 3.4 (Aug 2014) – Event exporting to RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, and other programs via GEDCOM files was added.
  • Clooz 3.5 (Oct 2015) – Import/Export capability with Family Historian. Improvements to the Composite view filtering and sorting capabilities.
  • Clooz 3.6 (July 2019) – Maintenance release fixing a number of minor issues.

Since 2014, we have been working on a total rewrite of the program to support more flexible development of document templates and use of document data.   Our original goal was to support both Windows and Mac OS X computers (without special virtual Windows environments).   Unfortunately, after years of effort we came to the conclusion that a Mac OS X version of Clooz was beyond our limited resources.   It remains possible that there may be a Mac OS X version further out in time, but for now, the initial implementation of version 4 is now focused entirely on Windows.   In the meantime, Clooz does operate fine on Mac computers under virtual Windows environments such as VMWare Fusion and Parallels.    Clooz 4 will require Windows 7, 8 or 10.

On December 1, 2019, the first developmental version of Clooz 4 was released for early testing to a small group of Clooz 3 users.   This developmental release was only a partial implementation of the full set of Clooz functionality required for official release.   It did however provide a glimpse of the new features we are very excited about, and it was well received by the testers.   We continue to invite current Clooz 3 users to join in this testing effort.  Send email requests to assistance@ancestralsystems.com if you are interested in receiving further information.  While these developmental versions are not yet ready for actual research use, it is a great way to have your feedback and ideas reflected in future releases.   Meanwhile, we will continue to add in the missing pieces and when the program is fully functional and tested, it will be officially released.

The list below describes our goals, and should not be considered a commitment.   It remains subject to change.

Test version 4.0.0.0 [released December 2019]

  • New document editor for both form-based and tabular formats, supporting all of the current document types as well as new templates such as for baptisms and additional census years
    • Spreadsheet type document templates for documents having tabular formats (e.g., censuses)
    • Form-based document templates for documents such as certificates
  • Embedded document viewer to assist in document transcriptions (zooming, panning)
  • Added ability to edit all of the summary data for a person while in the document editor
  • Data from previous Clooz versions (1.23, 2.1, 3) will upgrade to version 4

Test version 4.0.0.30 [May 2020]

  • Implement additional editing panels to extract event and family (parent-child) relationship information on a per-information record basis (similar to Clooz 3 document export process, however, now retained in the database along with each document record)
  • Finish the implementation of the Subject, Source, Repository tabs (supporting editors and composite view data content)
  • Add additional record templates  (e.g., obituary, will, estate settlement, military service)

Test Version 4.0.0.40 [July 2020]

  • Implement Research Planning screen and supporting editors
  • Implement Support panels
    • Database overview
    • Program Options
    • Help
  • Import/Export capabilities with Legacy Family Tree, RootsMagic, and Family Historian.   Data exchange with other programs such as Ancestral Quest and Family Tree Maker via GEDCOM.   These are already in version 3.

Test Version 4.0.0.50 [September 2020]

  • A new report generator providing more interactive settings and control by the user

Clooz 4 [Fall 2020]

  • Release of the production version having the full set of capabilities described above

Post Release [2021…]

Ideas under consideration for the future:

  • Tool for moving data from one template type to another (such as from a Generic Document to a new more specific document type)
  • Expansion of direct interfaces to other genealogical software
  • Import / Export capability to external spreadsheet files
  • Interfaces to online data repositories for finding and downloading document information
  • Integration with online services such as Dropbox for moving Clooz data between user systems
  • Additional new templates
  • Add ability to group document lists by geographic area
  • Improvements and new features to support interactive analysis of document content (assisting in the proper identification of people mentioned in a document, building of relationships between people)
  • Additional new reports and options for user customization
  • Versions of Clooz for mobile devices allowing retrieval of information and photographic capture of documents
  • Multi-language support
  • Ability for users to edit / create document templates
  • Ability for users to edit / create report formats

Have comments or suggestions?    Drop us an email at support@clooz.com

Clooz Release 3.6.0 (17 July 2019)

  • Fixed several minor issue with database upgrades.
  • Now properly observe Legacy Family Tree settings for RIN generation.
  • Database query modification regarding businesses.

Clooz Development Roadmap [Updated: 17 July 2019]

It’s been nearly seven years since Clooz 3.0 was first publicly released in July 2012.   A steady stream of new features and capabilities in Clooz has continued since then.  Here are just a few of the highlights during the lifetime of Clooz 3:

  • Clooz 3.1 (2012) – Exchange people and sources with Legacy Family Tree databases
  • Clooz 3.2 (Feb 2013) – The Composite View (hierarchical display of documents & people)
  • Clooz 3.3 (Oct 2013) – Expanded Legacy Family Tree interface allowing Clooz documents to be exported to Legacy and create events for people in the Legacy database.   Media Location Tool for fixing broken media file links when moving to a new computer.
  • Clooz 3.3.5 (April 2014) – Imports from RootsMagic, The Master Genealogist and GEDCOM files were added.
  • Clooz 3.4 (Aug 2014) – Event exporting to RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, and other programs via GEDCOM files was added.
  • Clooz 3.5 (Oct 2015) – Import/Export capability with Family Historian. Improvements to the Composite view filtering and sorting capabilities.

Since 2014, we have been working on a total rewrite of the program to support more flexible development of document templates and use of document data, and allow the program to run on both Windows and Mac OS X computers (without special virtual Windows environments).  This has  been a long and exhausting process for a small company such as Ancestral Systems, LLC.  We have maintained top-notch user support throughout the effort.  However, some of the development tools and products being used in this effort have not delivered the level of quality you deserve.  Correcting or working around these issues have used up substantial amounts of time.  Dealing with these types of unforeseen issues is a fact of life in the software development industry.

Unfortunately, after years of effort we have now come to the conclusion that our goal of supporting both Windows and Mac OS X computers is beyond our limited resources.   It remains possible that there may be a Mac OS X version further out in time, but for now, the initial implementation of version 4 is now focused entirely on Windows.   In the meantime, Clooz does operate fine on Mac computers under virtual Windows environments such as VMWare Fusion and Parallels.    Clooz 4 will require Windows 7, 8 or 10.

The plan at this point is to begin an early beta testing program with a limited set of capabilities, and then adding the missing components as they are ready.   When the program is fully functional and tested, it will be officially released.   The list below describes our goals, and should not be considered a commitment.   It remains subject to change.

Beta version 4a [July-August 2019]

  • New document editor for both form-based and tabular formats, supporting all of the current document types as well as new templates such as for baptisms, estate files/wills, obituaries, military service
    • Spreadsheet type document templates for documents having tabular formats (e.g., censuses)
    • Form-based document templates for documents such as certificates
  • Embedded document viewer to assist in document transcriptions (zooming, panning)
  • Add ability to edit all of the summary data for a person while in the document editor
  • Data from previous Clooz versions (1.23, 2.1, 3) will upgrade to version 4

Beta version 4b [September 2019]

  • Tool for moving data from one template type to another (such as from a Generic Document to a new more specific document type)
  • Import/Export capabilities with Legacy Family Tree, RootsMagic, and Family Historian.   Data exchange with other programs such as Ancestral Quest and Family Tree Maker via GEDCOM.   These are already in version 3.   

Beta version 4c [November 2019]

  • A new report generator providing more interactive settings and control by the user
  • Expanded research planning capabilities

Clooz 4 [end 2019]

  • Release of the production version having the full set of capabilities described above

Ideas under consideration for the future:

  • Expansion of direct interfaces to other genealogical software
  • Import / Export capability to external spreadsheet files
  • Interfaces to online data repositories for finding and downloading document information
  • Integration with online services such as Dropbox for moving Clooz data between user systems
  • Additional new templates
  • Add ability to group document lists by geographic area
  • Improvements and new features to support interactive analysis of document content (assisting in the proper identification of people mentioned in a document, building of relationships between people)
  • Additional new reports and options for user customization
  • Versions of Clooz for mobile devices allowing retrieval of information and photographic capture of documents
  • Multi-language support
  • Ability for users to edit / create document templates
  • Ability for users to edit / create report formats

Want to help make these plans actually happen?  Go to https://clooz.com/join-us/

Have comments or suggestions?   Drop us an email at support@clooz.com

 

Free Updates — Annual Renewal of Update Support is terminated [2 August 2017]

Future software updates to Clooz (including and through version 4) will now be free of charge for all users who had active update support as of July 23, 2016, or purchased Clooz after that date.   It is no longer necessary to annually renew update support.   Development of the next major release of Clooz, Version 4, has taken much longer than anticipated, and updates have been slow in coming.   Ancestral Systems will now return to the more common practice of charging for major upgrades, beginning with Version 5.

Users whose update support had expired prior to July 23, 2016, will need to purchase a new license in order to receive future updates.  Contact support@clooz.com to obtain a discount.

Clooz versions 3.5.24 and later will recognize existing serial numbers and this change in policy.  Always use the latest serial number you were issued.