Genealogy Chat

Can some one HELP ME PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Which software is the easist to use and print out family tree's.???
Although i use genes and ancestry i have no knowledge how to print out my results. As im Scottish most of my imformation is from scottish sources.
thanku
Anne

As professional family tree printers with 11 years experience we have almost every program available worldwide so I think I'm qualified to answer this.

There are numerous tree programs around but a lot of them will not produce a tree that can be printed especially the free programs.

Family Tree Maker is the most widely used program in the world and is preferred by a lot of people on GR, it is very easy to use and will produce a wide range of different family trees that can be printed, there are other better programs for designing and printing trees but they are not as easy to use as FTM, you get what you pay for, as a rule the more you pay the more you get in the way of various tasks that can be carried out using that more expensive program.

This leads to another point though and that is the more tasks a program will carry out the more complicated it is to use and it takes a lot longer to learn how to use the program to it's full capabilities.

Another bonus of buying FTM is that it usually comes with a free subscription to Ancestry for a limited time period, Ancestry own and produce FTM.

Ron
www.genealogyprinters.com

I agree with Ron. I have FTM 2009 and am a complete dunce with a computer yet have managed to find my way around this programme without having to read the instruction manual too many times!!

I probably don't use it to its full capability but I've managed to save census returns to each of my ancestors and also to save photos and other scanned images to a lot of the more recent rellies.

Thanku for your advise.

I had www.genealogyprinters.com saved to my favorities since last year.

I think i shall purchase FTM sadly the free use of ancestry is no good to me, as im already a memeber and it dont run out till the end of august. Unless i can come to a arrangement with them.

Briliant, this was exactly the suggestion that I was going to ask. I have a few hundred relatives on my tree on this site.

My technophobe father wants me to "type up" my research so that he can have a printout. The thought of word processing all of the info I have is beyond horrible! It has take me a long time to enter it into this site, and I would really prefer not to have to do it again, but I do want to somehow show my father what I have done, which will involve printing.

Any suggestions?

Can I print from this site?
Can I copy data from this site to a programme which will print?

thanks everyone

Clare

Clare. The answer to your questions is yes and yes.

Printing from GR can be a bit hit and miss as there are limitations on what you can print off in the way of various trees and get that print onto a suitable amount of pages.

You can export your data from GR as a gedcom file, this file can be imported into any family history program you have installed on your pc. so your data is transferred from GR to your chosen program on your pc, no word processing involved

Ron
www.genealogyprinters.com

You could try the free one first on the Mormons' site -
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/paf/

Thanks for all this advice as this is also a question that has been bugging me in my sleep!!!!! (as I also don't know very much about computers, I seem to have jumped ahead due to my enthusiasm for ancestral research, but I've missed a lot of the basics).

I'm sure this thread will answer a lot of member's queries. One question though......

When information IS printed from Genes Tree are the details put in the "Notes" section also printed? I have stored ALL my information in these notes under the relevant person.

Thanks again Ron.

No, the notes will not be printed from the GR tree.

The number of times that people recommend the free family tree program from the LDS is unbelievable, yes it's free, yes it's a good program, does it print trees which was the original question, NO IT DOES NOT except for very basic pedigree trees anyway or you buy the companion program to it..

Ron
www.genealogyprinters.com

Further to your advice Ron, I will be purchasing the FTM Platinum Edition with bonus of 6 months Essentials Membership with Ancestry for £39.98. RESULT!

Anyone wishing to purchase Family Tree Maker 2009 Platinum you can buy it today for £34.97 with free postage from Amazon

or

Family Tree Maker 2009 Deluxe cost £24.97 plus free postage.

I have checked several sites and this sems to be the cheapest.

Clare,

when you say your "father wants me to "type up" my research" I assume then that he is not after some huge A1 printouts of family tree diagrams. What you may be able to print is a 'book report' or 'ged report'.

The free Family Tree Builder software from myheritage.com can do this and save the 'book' as a PDF file. It uses a bundled cut down version of 'The Complete Genealogy Reporter' to produce pretty good results. A full bells-and-whistles version of this reporting tool can be bought from http://www.tcgr.bufton.org/tcgrover.htm which takes your GEDCOM file as input.

Mark.

Anne,

Just to let you know that when I bought FTM, the free 6-month subscription to Ancestry was automatically treated as a 6-month extension to my existing subscription - so it was properly honoured even though I was already a member.

Thanks for the very useful information all. I shall be following up on your advice soon. The book formate sounds great Mark.

Idealy I would like to as someone else has mentioned, have the notes section in full next to each entry, but this isnt very practical.

Thanks for the info about exporting files Ron, I might try this first.

Maybe if my father has the limited "names and dates only" version of the tree it will be enough motivation for him to start using the computer. He used to do it at work, but since he has retired, he has lost a little confidence in IT matters.

Thanks again everyone

Clare