Genealogy software.

[maddymoss]

I've been using Legacy 7 (free version) for some time. I''ve also looked at Brother's Keeper and LDS Personal Ancestral File. I'm undecided as to what genealogy software is best. There are pros and cons in each. Any suggestion, anyone?

[AnneM]

I like Family Historian. It is straightforward and easy to use. It also offers a good selection of reports but nothing with fancy backgrounds in the tree line. Think it appeals to my utilitarian soul. It does however allow easy importing of multi media and entering sources is also straightforward. The various views make navigating and addingm data easy and you can get into an individual record in numerous ways. FH v 4 is a marked improvement on previous versions though they were good too. Having said all that I have little experience of other programmes.

Anne

[maddymoss]

Hi Ann,

I downloaded a 30 day free trial of Family historian just a few days ago. I downloaded my family tree into it and I must confess my initial impression was very favourable. I'm going to explore it bitty more over the next couple of weeks.

Thanks,
Jim

[Currie]

I’ve been using Personal Ancestral File for about ten years and there have been no changes to the program since then. The program is no longer being updated. I’ve been looking around for something to replace it but I still haven’t found one that will do things better. It does all that I expect from a genealogy program. There is a paid ‘version’ of PAF that is called Ancestral Quest, I think, that is very similar, would be easy to swap to, and which is still being developed, but that offers me nothing that would justify the cost.

My impression of most genealogy programs is that they are constantly introducing a lot of new features that are never used by most people. They do this to try to outdo the competition and not because of consumer demand. It’s Clutter and Bloat and Clutter and Bloat and in the free ones some of the sort of functionality you get in PAF is disabled until you pay the price.

Changing genealogy programs is a real pain. You go from expert to complete novice in two seconds flat. It’s like getting out of your car and trying to drive one that’s just off the boat from Mars.

That’s what I reckon,
Alan

[trish1]

It always seems to me that everyone likes the program they first used - probably for reasons given by Alan. I was given a copy of Family Tree Maker V5 - found it easy to use, looked at a few others (free trials, free downloads) but stayed with what I knew. Foolishly decided I should update and went to V11. I'm still looking for the wonderful new features mentioned in the publicity - so have never updated again.

I think with WIndows 7 despite my version loads - it doesn't seem to "work proper" so I too may be looking for something new. At the minute I'm thinking to use a random generator to select what to use and then spend some weeks/months getting to understand same.

Trish

[mallog]

It always seems to me that everyone likes the program they first used

I think you are right !!! I recently bought FTM thinking it was the best but I'm not liking it at all. Hopefully it will grow on me I think my original software was just called Family Tree

[apanderson]

I'm with Anne M. and Jim (maddymoss) on this - I've settled with Family Historian now after trying various others.

Like everything else, it takes a wee bit of getting used to, but once you 'get the hang' of it, it's very good.

Anne

[wini]

I use Family Historian it is easy to use and FHUG is an online user group which is very helpful. Have a look at the FHUG site and it will give you some idea of problems users have and how they are resolved
wini

[maddymoss]

I dipped my toe in the water with Family Historian 30 day trial and what I found suits me so I've settled on that. Thanks all for the advice.

Jim

[Susie Q]

Hi,
Read all the posts as I'm trying to decide which one to go with. Does Family Historian allow you to make PDF that I can attach to email, and so send on to others ?

Cath