Genealogy Chat

I tried the limited edition of Family Historian from a cover disc. When it got full up, I bought FTM 4 becoause people raved about it. I find it irritating to use especially correcting errors. Has anyone used Family Historian? I thought of buying FTM 5. Is that an improvement? David

It all depends on what you want. I was using PAF which workied very well as long as I had a diverse tree. However, when I started putting together a very complex and disjointed tree,I found Rootsmagic was the best choice as it didn't presuppose anything. No assumption of marriages or parents or anything. It also has a great merge function which has been very useful. MArie www.tribalpages.com/tribes/pepler

Nudge

Sheila, FTM also allows you to add extra information. When you go to edit person, there is a drop fown box in the 'add a fact' section and you can add all sorts of things. You can also change the colour of your boxes for men and women, change the style of your boxes etc. I've had it for about 2 months and I'm still finding extra things you can do with it, and it was recommended to me by a professional researcher who uses it for his work. Kath. x

Hi Ally, Thanks for the info. Still thinking about it Christine

Christine. Family Tree Maker 2005 is half price at PC World at the moment (£19.99) if that is of any interest to you. Alyson

Wow! What a good response Thank you all for your replies. Think I might stick with Legacy a bit longer. Thanks Sheila for the tip about tree draw. (was that a free download too?) Christine :))

I have been using the free Legacy for the last 6 months but recently acquired FTM. I have to admit that so far I do prefer Legacy. I prefer their notes, split into general, research and medical. In contrast to others, I prefer their family reports. I print these off to take with me to record offices etc. instead of my heavy files and I find them perfect for the job, they are neat and concise, FTM's seem to be spread over several pages with huge gaps. The main downside to Legacy is that it doesn't have a chart programme attached but I did download Treedraw for Legacy and I find that more flexible than the FTM trees, I can add extra data to some people (such as census info, occupations etc.) and change colours for direct ancestors etc. but perhaps I just haven't played with FTM enough yet. So I agree with Ron I don't really think there is much between them, it is just what you get used to and if you use Legacy I do recommend Treedraw. Have fun whichever you choose, Sheila

Both are very good programs, Legacy is free which is a big advantage, we have most of the programs available on the market (over 30 at the last count) but we've been using FTM for our own database for years. It has the advantage of creating just about any tree chart you want which Legacy doesn't do. The gaffer prefers Legacy for written reports though. A lot depends on personal preference and anybody that uses a family history program will say that the one they use is the best because it's the one that they're used to. Try the free ones first for your self before buying. Good luck Ron www(.)genealogyprinters(.)com

I used to use Brothers Keeper and Legacy on a contrast and compare basis. When I upgraded my computer I just stuck to Legacy, but cannot remember why. The problem with one of them (and I now cannot remember which) was that importing a Gedcom, one distinguished between baptisms and christenings so that, as on Genes, baptism date would not be recognised.

I am currently running Brothers Keeper for all my info. How does this compare with other free downloads and FTM etc? Gordon

Hi Christine, Ditto Sam, except my preference it slightly in favour of Legacy, for layout, data input and the way it's handled. Problem with Legacy is the reports are cr*p, and that's where FTM comes into it's own. So like you, I run both programs, parallel, keep both fully updated, because I couldn't be without either. Debbie

I used the free download version of Legacy when I first started but then I got FTM 2005 as a pressie. I prefer FTM. I find it more intuitive to use and also it does more (better reports, exports, links to Ancestry, etc) but quite possibly the paid for version of Legacy could do some of this. Quite a few people on this site seem to use the free PAF from the LDS site and they find that pretty good. Therefore you don't need to feel pressured into buying FTM as there are good alternatives but if you can get it, FTM is certainly pretty useful. Hope this helps. Louise

I've got both - free versions of each, not the paid for ones. I had Legacy first and quite liked it but now that I've got used to it, I think FTM is slightly better. Easier to follow your family lines back and things like that. It's a close thing though and I still update/use both! Sam

I know there have been a few different threads on this, but I was wondering if anyone has tried both? I've downloaded the free version of Legacy, which is quite good, but see a lot of people recommend FTM on here can anyone compare the two? Christine