Tags
Ancestry, family tree, Family Tree Genius, Family Tree Maker, Legacy Family Tree, organization, software
When I volunteered to enter someone else’s tree into a software program to make it easier for her to edit and print, we choose Family Tree Genius. Fairly easy to add & edit entries. A few years went by. She printed her tree, handed it out at reunions, and that was that….or so I thought.
A decade later, one of my g-grandfathers jumped out of his grave, grabbed me by the throat and asked what I was doing about tracing my ancestry. Within days I was collecting information from historical societies, museums, libraries, courthouses, and other places. Eventually my milk crate was overflowing with paperwork. And no organization!
I bought a binder. Divided it up by date. That didn’t work. So I divided it up by family. Some better, but still couldn’t lay hands on things I wanted. Then I remembered Family Tree Genius. Plugged in some of my info. Not impressed, a little too bare bones for me.
Then someone suggested Ancestry. So I subscribed. And made the typical newbie mistakes. Figured everyone there knew what they were doing, and had perfect trees. So I started copying. BIG mistake. Because I didn’t know there was a “make tree private” button, let alone how to use it, my tree got copied. All of a sudden I find out one of the offspring in my tree did not belong with those parents. Yikes! How to remove the bad info in the other five trees he was copied to? They didn’t respond to my requests to move him to the correct parents. I determined to figure out a way to do research online properly and save my discoveries offline.
Family Tree Maker was given to me for Christmas a few years ago and my tree now syncs with my computer. Use Ancestry for research, and source from my computer. Brilliant idea, I thought. Not so great when trying it. Plus it still lacked reports and info I desired to pull from my tree. Love their app though. Nothing better than having your whole tree in your phone or tablet.
After stumbling around for a while, somehow or another I discovered Legacy Family Tree. Well, actually I discovered their Wednesday webinars first. Was impressed with their coverage of topics, and their speakers, so purchased the software. So far, so good. I am very pleased with what I can pull from my tree, even moreso with version 8. Time will tell!
pastsmith 