Thursday, July 16, 2009

Genealogy Software

I started researching my family history back in 1990. At that time I didn't have a home computer. That changed in 1994. I was working and attending college(yes I've made a career out of going to school) so I didn't have much free time. The first software I used to organize my research was the "blue screen" version of what would become Family Tree Maker. Over the years I have only upgraded my software 3 times. I really couldn't see buying each version as it came out when the version I had did what I wanted it to do so basically I stuck with that version until I upgraded my Operating System and the software wouldn't work on it. I think I went from the Blue Screen version(I can't remember what number that was), to FTM 3. Then I had FTM 6 forever and a day. From that I went to FTM 10 which I've had for about 4 years. This software does everything I want to do(and more that I don't bother doing). I've tried other software through their free version or their demo and just never really liked them. The ones I recall right off the top of my head are Legacy, Brother's Keeper, TMG and PAF. None of them were as easy to follow as FTM. TMG was nice in the fact that you could customize it provided you had the free time to do that. I plan on staying with FamilyTreeMaker 10 until I have to change from Windows XP. Not sure what I will do then as I do not like any of the FTM versions after FTM 10.
FTM versions after FTM 10 feel like more of a marketing tool than anything else.

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