Genealogy Chat

I am currently using one of the earlier editions of Family Tree Maker. I think it its great, has everything that I need. It is easy to navigate around and allows several different report types. I recently printed off five different charts to send to my uncle in the UK. I have asked my kids to get me the new version 11 for mothers day in May. Unless you are doing a lot of research in the US I have found that the deluxe version with all the discs is really not necessary. Other people may tell you that they use all these discs, I just haven't had the need to so far.

Family Historian (FH) has an all relatives chart and also a combined ancestor plus descendants one. You can switch on or off the display of individual branches. You can also select a number of indivuals by various methods export them as a .ged file and then open the file and display a chart containing just them. I find this method is very useful for communicating some specific part to a correspondent. If you want anything more than just basic functions for a beginner then I recommend FH.

Until I tried Wintree all my previous programmes would only print trees that either started with one pair of ancestors and then expanded as it came down to include all cousins and their descendants or started from one descendant and expanded upwards to include all direct ancestors. I wanted a tree showing all relatives and this is what Wintree does. Do other programmes provide this facility?

I am Family Historian fan. It's totally Gedcom compatible and oriented towards organising your data rather than presentation of dozens of different formats of family trees and webpages. However, there is plenty of excellent shareware available for this kind of thing, and the Family Historian Gedcom file downloads very easily into these free programs. Lisa

So far we have Family Historian and Family tree maker from the to buy list Which one would be best, or do you have any other options? Is it worth strting with free software before buying? Thanks for helping us beginners.

This site persuaded me Family Historian was the best and, after I spent a bit of time getting used to it I have to agree. It has a lot of scope for presenting info. in different ways. It is also Gedcom friendly so it can be used in other sites (such as this one). It costs £30 + from Amazon, if I remember correctly but I have found it to be good value for money and given me much pleasure, and control over my data.

Again thanks to all who have advised me on this one. I have a much clearer idea of what to look for now. I really appreciate your guidance. Lindsey

Like Christina I too downloaded Wintree and had trouble getting it to work, but for me that is par for the course. Things improved after I registered for the shareware and paid my £10 although I am not sure if that did it or I just got better at it. I now have no problem inputting data and am very impressed by being able to print out a tree which includes all relatives. It does this for me by printing out on 5 A4 sheets. Previous programmes I have used have not been able to show all relatives and ,for me, this justifies coping with a new learning curve.

I have used Legacy for many years and find it to be very good,there are 2 versions the free version and the deluxe version. You could also buy a family history magazine which has a free CD on it as they contain software for you to try. http://www(.)legacyfamilytree.com/Index.asp Steve.

Thanks fro all your replies so far. I really appreciate the advice, as Im sure other newbies like myself do. I shall certainly have a look at the ones suggested so far. If anyone can recommend others it would be good to hear. Thanks again Lindsey

PAF from the LDS site does most things except print off 'flash' family trees. It is easy and quick to use and it is FREE.

Freebies Brother's Keeper from www.bkwin.org ( gedcom compatible) - been adequate for my needs. LDS PAF from familysearch - not tried it but I'm sure others can comment.

This would really help us beginners to know the best sofware to get. Please say if it's free or to pay..... if possible how much, otherwise we will all be getting software that might not help us at all. Thanks

I downloaded Wintree but I'm blowed if I can get it to work. I have taught myself many programs so I'm computer literate. I have Generations Beginner's Edition, it is very easy but I have been told its not a gedcom format.

I like Heredis 7.0 - 7.2 is obtainable from here: http://www.myheredis.*com/ (remove *)

Whats the best offline software package for storing my family tree? Are any of these freebie downloads any good? All advice appreciated