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General => Technical Help => Family History Programs, Tree Organisation, Presentation => Topic started by: PaulRobinson on Sunday 26 December 04 18:53 GMT (UK)
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I'm evaluating a couple of free programs to store my family history data but
before I commit loads of data to a program I'd like to be sure it's stable and the data is exportable if necessary.
I'm currently trying Legacy 5.0 (free edition), Embla Family Treasures (I've managed to crash it a few times!) and GenealogyJ.
Anyone got any comments on these or any other suggestions?
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Have a look at
http://www.1stopfreeshop.com/gensoft.htm
or have a look at some of the computer magazines (british) which have recently given genealogy software away on their cover discs.
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It's all a matter of what you want it to do. Legacy is great for all sorts of reports but limited in the sort of charts it can produce. If you download an assortment of freebies you still might not get exactly what you want, and then decide to pay for that extra functionality.
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Paul,
I use Family Historian and am very satisfied with it. You can download a demo version to try from :-http://www.family-historian.co.uk/index.htm
regards -- Peter
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Thanks all - I'm sticking with Legacy for now, it seems more than capable for my purposes.
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Hi Paul,
I am in Canada and use Family Tree Maker 2005. It has a lot going for it including the feature of creating various books for different families etc.. It has all reports re family etc.. I have never had a problem with it except for one weakness in transfering back up to cd's. You might look into it, but everyone running Windows XP might want to try it out at the store before using it to assure the cd transfer works for you.
Tallted
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Paul
Have a look at The Master Genealogist (TMG).
Goto http://www.whollygenes.com
Also there is a forum for help at http://www.whollygenes.com/forums201/index.php
I have found it to be the best.
Reg
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Hi Paul
I use Family Tree Maker 2005. I have used Family Tree maker for years, and have upgraded a few times. I like the fact that it is easy to fill in, and you can store so much info.
Sue
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I moved from FTM as I found it too limited when it came to multimedia support, the files get very large as you add images. Also its export support is poor and unless it has improved greatly support for accurate sourcing is difficult.
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Paul
I've used Embla family Treasyres and it's caused real problems with my computer. I think it's best to give it a miss.
Thaanks for the other info everyone.
Nellie
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Thanks Nellie & everyone, some useful info here.
I've put just about all my available data into Legacy now and it seems to work very well. The interface is a little dated but I have no other complaints considering it's a free program - I'm probably going to shell out the $20 (what's that, about £12) to upgrade to the deluxe edition.
Cheers
Paul
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Hi Paul
One important feature of any genealogical program is the ability to do backups, so you can protect your data.
Check Legacy for exporting to Ged files and ensure that for your own protection, that you use it.
Regards
Fran
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Fran
Yep, it does export to GEDCOM and I'm using the back-up! ;)
Paul
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Yes, I have used Legacy for about 6 years and found it very, very dependable. I am now using Version 5 De Luxe.
But you might also be interested in GenPro. It is a free program which produces a genuine tree. That is its function. The Help instructions are clear and straightforward. It handles Gedcom beautifully. I use it as an addition to Legacy. Find it at GenoPro.com
Best wishes
Bill
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Thanks Bill, I'll check it out
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Six years late but ... I use GRAMPS (Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming System) - primarily for Linux, but has Windows and Mac OS versions too. Plenty of on-line documentation, and a users mailing list - both cover using the program, and genealogy help.
It's open source as well as free.
http://gramps-project.org/
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I see there are Legacy users on board Please can anyone tell me if Legacy is capable of producing Ancestor narrative reports which will include children in each generation plus " more about" feature , marriage notes and other notes in the narrative. I have been seen a very nice ancestor narrative report with all those features but dont know what software produced it.I can do main ancestors only and also narrative descendent reports but would like to be able to produce full narrative ancestor reports