Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Could anyone make a recommendation about family history software please? Some appears to be "free" e.g. Roots magic, some cost a lot e.g. £75 for Family tree maker. I have recently taken part in a course for beginners which used Family tree maker. My computer skills are probably a bit average and the programme would need to be intuitive. I am not keen to share the details of my tree with someone I do not know although I am happy with this forum. I have made a reasonable start on paper but I am realising its limitations. Thanks as always for your input.

Hi Fazak8474,
When I started out on this family history trail in a serious way some 15 years ago I cast around for a good program to keep the data on. I read a lot of reviews and found a sound piece of advice... All other things considered, get the software that offers quick one-on-one support if you hit a snag. Top of the list was Brother's Keeper by John Steed [no, not him of the Avengers!]. You will find it at http://www.bkwin.org/

It costs $45 [£27.50] on CD with a great manual and price includes airmail to your address. Email support if needed is extremely quick and you are talking to the author/software writer, not some anonymous customer service center in the wilds of 'back-of-beyond'. I am not on commission but cannot praise it highly enough!

It is not specifically aimed at the American market but at the 'international' market, hence it is available in several languages. There is no charge to download a full version of BK to try it out for a 30 day trial period. I just went ahead and bought the CD!

I like Family Historian which is an English biased software rather than American biased, plenty of help online from both the manufacturers and also an online help forum and newsgroup, via email.

This subject and some associated topics, such as storage of your data, have previously been discussed and you might find the comments useful http://forum.liverpool-genealogy.org.uk ... t=software

Just a comment about Family Tree Maker, although you can upload to Ancestry using this programme, and so make your tree public or private on there, there is also the option to NOT have it upload automatically.

I use Family Tree Maker but don't allow it to be shown on the internet. You just tick to not allow it. I think I'm on the 2011 version

You can often get deals with Family Tree maker that include a short subscription to Ancestry. I'm sure you can buy it for less than your quote I will have a ferret. I believe Tesco often has good deals.


I find it easy to use and I am not the best at computers things as others will know!

Thanks, that's certainly food for thought!

Just adding my two cents for what it's worth. I have used Family Tree Maker software for 12 years. This is the one supported and owned by Ancestry.com (Oh, perhaps I should not have said supported, because the support is terrible)

Initially I loved the software and would still love it if it worked as advertised. I eventually bought the package that allowed me to sync my on line Ancestry tree with the one in my computer. The software continually crashes, but when it works, that is a lovely feature.

When I discovered how terrible Windows 8 was, I gave up and bought a Mac, plus the Family Tree Maker 2 for Mac software. It is even more unstable than the PC version. Much as I would like to do so, I cannot recommend these to anyone for purchase. I'm stuck with it though, because I have used it so long.

cwsfam wrote:I'm stuck with it though, because I have used it so long.

Not at all. Most good FH softwares are based on the gedcom standard - ie it saves a file as family.ged "family" being the name of your file. This standard has been around for many years, and is used by so many so that they are compatible with each other.

I could open my file in Family Tree Maker, as you could yours in Family Historian and others. Your gedcom file, created in another software should also be able to be uploaded into Ancestry if you wanted to, fairly easily.

My suggestion would be, if you ever thought you might want to try a different one, is to download a demo version, usually one that you could view your own tree in, and even make some changes to see how it feels, but it probably won't give you the option of saving, and see what you think of them.

Hi
I'm also a user of Family Tree Maker and have always found simple to use. There are lots of features on the program that could be used but have never bothered with!
My advice for the Tree Syncing - although I only have 2010 which doesn't use that option that later versions that offer the syncing you don't have to use them. I use Family Tree Maker and Ancestry separately.
S & N Geneaology web based shop that sells most of the top family history programs give brief descriptions of them all. They are offering Platinum edition of Family Tree Maker for £39.95. This gives you an Ancestry subscription which includes the parish registers and military as well as census and BMDs.
Amazon have the same FTM 2014 for £29.99
If you chose FTM don't buy the Worldwide edition as this is the most expensive and gives you Ancestry Sub for all the worldwide records which you can get for free in Libraries!
Sorry if this answer comes after you have purchased a program but have had no laptop since my hard drive went last week - luckily I took my own advice and all my family trees were backed up on flash drives

Another thing I'd like to add - if you're local to our Society's area you can always come into one of our Family History help desks if you have any trouble with any program you decide to buy and we can always try and help you out with any difficulties!

It's a very good point Kat makes about buying a version, probably on Amazon, with the freebie six months Ancestry. I have done this twice now, giving away the software and got myself Ancestry for less than £30 for a half year.

PS Kat's suggestion might not be suitable for those living at a distance, but if you happened to live near Merseyside or could get to one of the Help Desks, she is very good with that software, often giving talks about it's use.

Yes Mary, I meant if you were local you could pop in - although if anyone is willing to pay air fare I'm willing to make house calls

and pack me in your suitcase

Thanks, have tried Family Historian as a free trial but not convinced. I am going to the family history fair in London in February so may see something I like there.

Don't forget to say Hi to our Society members who will be manning the table there, Katie and one of our founders Joyce will be there.

Thank you everybody. Well after a few days of research, reading all your comments, reading reviews of programme users and a few free trials I am going with Family History 6. I like that it's British too I'm on a free trial and it's the programme I feel suits me the best.

It didn't recognise my gedcom file and read it as corrupted so I had to install my old Family Tree programme and upload the FTM file and convert it to gedcom so finally it recognised the new file and wow so many names I had forgotten about and so many I have since found on the censuses and hadn't bothered even typing up the data So much needs to be done but I am luckily for me a touch typist

If you like Family Historian, don't forget to explore the plug-ins, query store and extras, one extremely useful one being Ancestral Sources which is a free download and assists in entering census details, marriages and baptisms, all of them available on the User Group website. There is also a User Group mailing list so that you can receive the emails of those with queries, I've often found others have the same problem as I might have had and reading these have solved it.

Thank you Mary. I am still getting to grips with it. I am definitely interested in ways to get census data in easily without copying and pasting all night long!!