I am often asked by society colleagues, and email correspondents, 'what family tree program do you use?' My response is usually 'I use RootsMagic to manage my genealogy research, but I have and use Family Tree Maker and Legacy Family Tree for certain features (e.g., charts, reports, statistics), and I use online trees at Ancestry.com, MyHeritage, Geni.com, FamilySearch Family Tree, WikiTree, WeRelate and FindMyPast to be a cloud backup, to find research leads, and to provide cousin bait.' I have often wondered which software programs and online trees are the most 'popular' or most used. Email newsletter from the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) asked the question last week, and this week they have tabulated the responses from 4,530 society members. The results are. Anonymous said. I switched from PAF to Family Tree Maker (FTM) for Mac about 4 years ago when PAF fizzled out.
FTM has had quite a few growing pains but the last few updates seem to have stabalized the program - there are still problems however. I started a blog to help others with problems that wasn't able to find solutions to (link below). I am very hopeful that Ancestry will invest more into programming for the FTM desktop programs. I agree with others that have mentioned that desktop software offers much greater control and power over online versions, however companies seem to be pushing and investing more in online. Online is probably the quickest and easiest way to get new people to join up and hence increase revenues. I have seen articles that say that desktop programs are dead.
I adamantly disagree and speculate that although casual genealogists are likely to use online versions, serious genealogists are probably more likely to utilize desktop programs. There should be a place for both. I have used FTM for 10 years. I like the input interface and the fact you can 'see everything' in one place. I love how it syncs to the online tree. However, their source & citation templates are lousy; definitely not up to EE standards. Also, the reports are weak.
I have purchased RM in order to to a do-over but find it to be cumbersome in the way one enters sources and you can't see the list of sources used in one glance. The RM reports are superior, as well as the source & citation area.
If I can get used to it, I will pursue it. Randy, I know you've demonstrated that a hand-written source or citation will GEDCOM between programs without any loss of info. It's a big job to convert sources to hand-written, but that seems to be the best solution. Over the past nine months, my mother has slowly trusted me with the family genealogy. My desire is to get it computerized so it isn't in one place, notebooks on my desk, but can be accessed by many.
MacFamilyTree Review by Stephen Meyers, Dec 12, 2015 Rating I had downloaded the demo version early 2015, and there were a lot of positives for this program, except the cost, especially since I already had RootsMagic.
My ultimate goal is to get it all into familysearch.org because I believe the LDS Church's commitment to long-time safekeeping can be trusted. In the meantime, I have been primarily using ancestry.com due to the number of people using it and the varied resources available. I took my dad's PAF file and loaded it into MyHertitage for reference. I started my ancestry tree from scratch to be able to check and add to his work but can access MyHeritage if I have a question. I loaded my ancestry.com tree into WikiTree for safekeeping and for the fact that I am always drawn to the 'one tree' concept, life familysearch. I have an account at family.me because I think there is a potential for nieces, nephews, cousins - people who are living - to add memories there but I haven't pushed it yet.
I have purchased RootsMagic and installed it but have not yet used it. I am still in the 'thinking' stage about how I want all of this information to be stored and organized. I appreciate all the comments that have been made because it gives me a better idea of what is working for others. This is the first place I have seen that productive, respectable genealogists solely use a word processing software like MS Word as I have often thought about that for my notes along with an online system. Being able to store those notes on a cloud drive that I can access from any computer is enticing. Thank you for that so I don't think I am crazy. Enjoying your blog!
Thank for all the time it takes! It is a big commitment on your part and oh, so helpful to all of us. Anonymous said. Over the decades have prob used most of them. Right now it depends which machine or OS I am using or what I am doing.
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In Windows my main program is Roots Magic which I have been using since it's original Family Origins day. Prior to that I was using Brothers Keeper, and prior to that ROOTS III. I do use Dorot Tree for my Jewish Genealogical Research. I use FTM to sync my tree on Ancestry.
In my Linux I use Gramps. I have Ancestral Quest, PAF, Roots Magic, FTM, Heredis, Gramps, Legacy Family Tree, Ancestris, Dorot Tree, Brothers Keeper, Family Tree Builder installed on my laptop which I use as part of teaching and presentations to show the various software packages available. Over all it boils down to personal choice and what you want to do with your genealogy, the bells and whistle you want and the OS and PC you are using. While several of those listed have been discontinued many folks stick with them as they are used to them, they do what they want, and as long as they keep with the same PC should be OK. The problems come when you upgrade your PC or OS and suddenly your software won't work anymore and you have to upgrade or change your program. My hubby and I started using Family Tree Maker when it was V3 or similiar (late '90s) on our Windows desktop computer.
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We have upgraded lots of times through the years, but the upgrade to the 'New Look' which I think was about 2009 was the worst. For many years I had been working on books on several of my different lines and the new program, whilst having more Word like features in the book section, failed to have a 'Wrap Text' feature around scans, photos etc. After this I went through the cumbersome exercise of swapping them all over to Word docs. We have both swapped to Macs in the last two years and use FTM for Mac3. I do like the ease of using it now that I'm used to the differences, and also the ease of running reports.
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Having said that I find the Ancestor tree cumbersome in trying to fit it into less pages. Although I have my tree 'private' on Ancestry, I never use it online, much prefer the desktop model and also when we tour in our van and are out of wireless reception area, we can still work on our trees. Ancestry private family tree And - always keep my family trees on my own computer: Software: Legacy latest v.- 1st RootsMagic latest v. 2nd old v. Of Family Tree Maker 2012 Heredis latest v. Because I teach genealogy for beginners, I like to use various software programs, to be familiar with them.
While form follows function, there are differences in reports, ease of Sources/Citations, and general ease & look of the tree. As I have no intention of ever syncing Ancestry & FTM, I won't be updating to the latest v. For those people who use multiple programs, do you keep your trees in the different programs in sync or do you have different trees in different programs? If you keep them in sync, what is the best way of doing that? I have a private tree on ancestry.com that syncs to my Family Tree Maker, but I also have the current version of Legacy. I'm interested in Legacy for the more 'correct' way of doing sources.
Is there any easy way of keeping a Legacy tree and a family tree maker tree in sync? Importing/exporting the changes from one tree to the other using gedcom. In both directions? I am a native San Diegan, a graduate of San Diego State University, a retired aerospace engineer, a genealogist and a family guy. My wife (Angel Linda) and I have two lovely daughters, and five darling grandchildren. We love to visit them and have them visit us. Angel Linda and I love to travel to visit friends and relatives, to sightsee, to cruise or to do genealogy.
Our travels have taken us all over the USA, to England, Down Under and Scandinavia. For earlier posts (not visible on the main post list), please see the Archives listed below by month. If you like my blog, please put it in your Favorites or Bookmarks and visit regularly. Contact me via email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.
Updated today and have spent the afternoon trying to work with it, but I'm frustrated. Moves (by keyboard) from person to person are slow and/or hung for a moment. But MUCH more annoying is that the program keeps freezing and I have to CTRL+ATL+DEL and close out the program. Its not running for more than about 10 minutes at a time. I'm on Windows Professional 7, 64-bit, 8 GB RAM. A very new machine and I was having no issues with running version 6. Anyone else having a problem like this and if so on what system?
Try disabling WebHints to see if that improves things. Tools File Options WebHints. It seems to be the one new feature most likely to destabilize the program because it is launched every time you open one of the Main Views (Pedigree, Family, Descendants), runs in the background, and is trying to access FamilySearch and MyHeritage. We know there were/still are issues with using FamilySearch Central to match or download people so I would not be surprised that there could be similar issues with WebHints. You are all talking about freezing.well have a go at my previous post else where.Misery!!!!!! RM 7 froze after editing a person and had to use ctrl alt.delete via task mgr to get out. Then the program will not open again.
I downloaded RM 7 program again and the download will not open as it says there is already RM 7 running. I then turned off computer and opened computer again and still cannot get program to open and still cannot get download to open as it keeps saying that there is RM 7 running. GIVE ME BACK VERSION 6 this RM7 IS HOPELESS WITH FREEZING first Updated I cannot even uninstall the program as it tells me RM7 is running.how can this happen???????????????????????????? Very frustrated I give up.time to go to another program NOW.money wasted on RM 7 ONLY PROBLEM HOW DO I MAKE A GEDCOM FILE WHEN i CANNOT OPEN RM 7????????????????????????????????? Second updated After removing the battery from the laptop and threatening to get the axe to the computer I tried several more times and the program finally opened! Third updated Again froze after editing a person and had to ctrl alt delete via task mgr and start program again. Fourth updated still freezing and close program and re open.