RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Neli on Thursday 15 December 16 00:29 GMT (UK)
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Hi, I'm thinking of hinting about some new Family Tree software as my Christmas pressie but, I have no clue which one to choose. My tree at the moment is mostly stored on-line at Ancestry and I'd like to be a bit more independent.
I've had Family Tree Maker in the past but, found it awkward and tricky to use which concerns me as many of the reviews I have Googled place it as one of the best
I want something where I can see branches of my tree clearly, maybe produce some nice print outs for family, store all the associated records for each individual, just make my life easier! I want to jump between websites and have everything I find in one place, Gedcom is great but it doesn't transfer everything.
Any ideas anyone or should I just write my own and make millions :-) (someone must have got there before me, surely).
Thanks
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Plenty of helpful posts in the relevant part of the forum?
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/fh-programs-organisation-presentation/
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Any ideas anyone or should I just write my own and make millions :-)
If you've got programming skills, give it a go! Not to make a fortune, but so you have a program which works just the way you want it, with all the features you want. (I wrote my own years ago for a uni project and I still use it - and am still modifying the program all the time.)
Software currently available has an advantage of better graphics / visually displaying your tree - I've had trouble writing my own, I've adapted Java's JTree class to display my tree, but it needs a lot of work. :)
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If you take a look at GenSoftReviews at
http://www.gensoftreviews.com/ you will see Family Tree Maker is not the highest scoring in the reviews,
The original software was very good but unfortunately it was taken over by Ancestry and users did not like the resulting software.
There are two groups of reviews for FTH the high scoring pre Ancestry reviews and the low scoring Ancestry sourced software.
The advertising about it relies on the fact it was taken over by Ancestry and pushed to Ancestry users as the software to use in connection with Ancestry Trees.
This quickly made it the most used software but did not make it the most suitable software to use.
There is a big difference between the two though many people were taken in by the advertising.
Take a look at the above reviews and try a number of the software titles for yourself to see which both meet your needs and suit your style of working.
I prefer Brothers Keeper but other people prefer different software.
Cheers
Guy
PS GenSoftReviews features 928 programs
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Thanks everyone ;D