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Software Scorecard
Which genealogy software program is right for you? We tee up today's technology and separate the birdies from the bogeys.
Just a few years ago, researching your family history meant filling in pedigree charts by hand, organizing your research with index cards and sharing photocopied charts with other researchers by snail mail. Today, genealogy software automates all of these tasks, from entering your findings and generating numbered pedigree charts to creating family tree books and publishing your family history on the Web.
Since we last compared genealogy software ("Getting with the Program," June 2000), Ultimate Family Tree has dropped off the map, but two promising new titles, Family Tree Legends and RootsMagic, have just appeared. Many of the old favorites have had significant upgrades, and you can now choose between several excellent programs. Most are reasonably priced—or even free—and all have modest computer requirements.
Almost any genealogy software will help you organize your research, create reports and even search the Internet, but some programs excel in certain areas. Here are some of the key features you should look for to pick the program that's right for you.
Organizing your research
Data entry: Most genealogy software lets you record individuals' dates and places of birth, marriage and death and other events in their lives, along with the sources where you found the information. You can also include biographical information and pictures, and link individuals into families.
Ancestral Quest, Family Origins and Personal Ancestral File make it especially easy to add events to an individual record. Then they automatically display the events in a person's life in chronological order on one screen, creating a handy biographical timeline. Data entry is easy in Legacy Family Tree, too, and the program features a handy Chronology View showing a timeline with all the events in an individual's life.
Ancestry Family Tree, Family Origins and Personal Ancestral File help you avoid repetitive keystrokes when documenting sources. If you find information on several people in the same record, you can enter the data for one individual and "memorize" the citation. When you enter more data from the same source, just paste the memorized citation. If you want to cite a different page within the source, you can change the page number. Ancestral Quest has a similar system: Once you create a source citation, you can easily attach it to a series of events.
Legacy's Source Clipboard also makes citing sources efficient. The Clipboard holds up to five source citations, and you can cite a source with the click of a button.
Navigation: Most programs let you view your data on screen in either individual, family or pedigree view. You can navigate through the generations, edit your information and print reports.
Ancestral Quest and the programs based on it (Ancestry Family Tree, Family Trees Quick & Easy and Personal Ancestral File) all feature a well-designed pedigree view that lets you see both the big picture and details without switching to a different view. With five generations displayed on screen, you can place the cursor over any name, and a small window will appear with details on that individual. Click on the name, and the window expands to show the person's spouse and children.
In addition to its superb pedigree view, Personal Ancestral File's family view is streamlined and easy to grasp.
Family group sheets and pedigree charts: Family group sheets summarize your information on a couple and their children; pedigree charts show a person's ancestors at a glance, usually for four or five generations. Nearly all genealogy programs create these charts from your file, so you don't have to fill them out by hand. You can keep printouts in a three-ring binder for easy reference at home and on research trips.
Ancestral Quest, its spinoff programs and Family Origins all create nicely designed family group sheets and numbered pedigree charts showing four, five or six generations on a page.
Exchanging data
Genealogy software makes it easy to share your family data with other researchers. Most programs can't directly use family files created with other genealogy software, but all popular programs can work with a standard file format called a GEDCOM (short for GEnealogical Data COMmunications). If you want to share your data with a cousin who uses a different program, just create a GEDCOM file—a copy of all or part of your family file in the standard format. If you ever want to switch genealogy software, a GEDCOM file is also a handy way to transfer your family information to the other program without having to retype everything.
Family Origins, Generations Family Tree, Legacy and Personal Ancestral File all handle GEDCOM transfers well. Since GEDCOM transfers are not always reliable, though, The Master Genealogist reads several other programs' family files directly to ensure that no data is lost or garbled. Ancestral Quest users can collaborate on a family file placed on the Internet and do away with GEDCOM files altogether.
Creating Reports
Books: Most genealogy software can create a narrative family history with people numbered according to a standard system. This report shows all of an individual's ancestors or descendants for a specified number of generations. Your source citations may appear as footnotes or endnotes. The software automatically generates an index of names.
Family Origins and The Master Genealogist both do an outstanding job on book-format reports. You can customize the wording in your report so that the dates and places you've entered for immigration, land purchases and other events will be converted into natural-sounding sentences. Both programs' book-format reports also have markers for indexed terms and footnotes. That means you can edit the report with a word processor before printing it, and you won't foul up the index and footnotes. You can add more footnotes, insert photographs and even reformat the whole thing into two columns—the footnotes and page numbers in the index will still be numbered correctly when you're ready to print.
If you use a program other than Family Origins or The Master Genealogist, you might want to use an add-on program from Progeny Software (www.progenysoftware.com) to get better book-format reports. Progeny's PAF Companion for Personal Ancestral File and its Charting Companions for Ancestry Family Tree, Ancestral Quest and Legacy produce excellent book-format reports and fancy wall charts in many formats. Heritage Family Tree Deluxe bundles Ancestral Quest with Progeny Software's Charting Companion.
Graphic charts: Many genealogy programs create graphical family trees suitable for family reunions and gifts. See the June 2002 Family Tree Magazine for an in-depth guide to printing books and graphic charts.
You can easily create well-designed graphic charts with Family Tree Maker. Charts can be customized with pictures and your choice of fonts, borders and tree formats. Or you can choose from several pre-designed templates with well-coordinated background patterns, borders and fonts.
Generations Family Tree also creates attractive charts in several styles. You can easily change the colors, fonts and borders to suit your taste.
If you use other genealogy software, take advantage of PAF Companion or the Charting Companions from Progeny Software to get high-quality graphical charts.
Multimedia: Most genealogy software can edit photographs, create a slide show and even put together a multimedia scrapbook with photos, sound and video.
Family Origins, Family Tree Maker and Legacy have the most powerful photo-editing capabilities of any genealogy software. All three can rotate and crop pictures, as well as adjust brightness and contrast. Family Tree Maker can also correct red eye. If you want to do anything beyond basic photo editing, you should get image-editing software such as Jasc Paint Shop Pro (www.jasc.com/products/psp) or Adobe Photoshop Elements (www.adobe.com/products/photoshopel). These programs offer tools far beyond those you'll find in family tree software.
Using the Internet
Web-page creation: Most genealogy software can create HTML reports for publishing on a Web site. In addition to a narrative family history and an index of names, you can usually include photos and a downloadable GEDCOM file. You just select a few options, and the software creates your pages instantly.
Family Origins is the only genealogy software reviewed here that gives you the option of publishing your Web pages on either the software maker's own site or a server owned by your Internet service provider (ISP).
Online-database access: Some genealogy software comes with databases on CD-ROM, but bundled CDs are now being replaced with access to data on the Internet. Family Tree Maker can be purchased with a subscription to one or more online databases.
Most genealogy programs automatically search online databases for one or more names in your family tree. Ancestry Family Tree automatically reports how many times each name on your pedigree appears in Ancestry's online databases. Then you can do a search with a single click.
But links to online databases are only marginally useful because they search on just a name, such as John Smith, and produce many matches that aren't the person you're researching. You usually have to refine the search by adding more information, such as an approximate date or place of birth, to find your John Smith.
To see how each software stacks up, see the February 2003 issue of Family Tree Magazine.
By Rick Crume
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