Genealogy Chat

I think everyone has their own favourite. The important thing is not to rely on storing your information on GenesReunited. Get some sort of family tree program and start recording *EVERY* bit of information that you come across and record the source of everything. You can always transfer the data to another program later MB PS I have used LEGACY for years.

Hi Ann. If you need any help with forming trees give me a shout. Put it on the board so that everybody can see it, they might have the same problem but also e-mail me privately so I know it's there. My time on the boards is restricted by work and I sometimes don't get the chance to look at them for a day or so and by that time the message could be some pages down. Ron www.genealogyprinters(.)com

Now I've got more choices than I know what to do with. I've tested PAF and downloaded Legacy this evening.....Just come off it. I think I like legacy better than PAF, just hope it doesn't shut down on me. Worked on it for the last two hrs or so and it's behaved itself so far. Thankyou everyone for your contributions and comments, very much appreciated. Will probably stick with legacy atm bbl. bfn. Lin XX

Jayne asked about buying upgrades. Most programs are upgraded every now & again. Family Tree Maker are famous for it, they bring out a new vesion about every August, in my opinion there has been no significant upgrade worth paying for since version 10 (4 years ago) when that version allowed you to save a chart as a PDF, this is great for sending trees to relatives by e-mail , it means that they don't have to have a family history program to look at your tree, although the resulting PDF is not usually very good for printing out on a large scale. Genbox, this program came out about 3 years ago and so far there have been many regular free updates. Family Historian has also had a lot of free updates, there is a new version/upgrade coming out February/March time, this is a paid for release but it is packed with one heck of a lot of new features. All of these programs have online mailing lists or forums where you can get free online help for any problems you encounter using the program. They are used by the program users and like the GR forums many people are keen to help you out. I know that the actual program makers on the Family Historian and Genbox mailing list monitor their lists and if nobody can sort your problem out they will assist. Family Tree Maker has it's own online forum where resident volunteer experts help out with any problems you may have. Regards Carol www.genealogyprinters(.)com

There are quite a few programs that can be downloaded fron the net. inc: FTM, PAF, Legacy....

We have all of the family history programs available and use a lot of them for commercial printing of trees. Each program has it's own features for tree printing, some have more features than others, the three I mentioned earlier are the only 3 that will produce a variety of printed tree fairly easily and hyave some capability of altering or ammending the chart. NONE of the free programs produce satifactory charts, only basic ancestor or descendant trees except Genopro, and they are very basic and pretty ugly and we would never use it to produce a print for a customer. There are only 5 basic types of family tree, 1. Ancestor 2.Descendant 3. Hourglass (ancestors & descendants) 4. All in One or Everyone Tree, this is everybody in the file on one tree chart. 5. All Relatives, this chart shows everybody related to you by blood or marriage (not evrybody in the file) For ancestor and descendant trees pretty much any program will produce these, some programs allow you to 'pretty them up' some don't again the free programs are restricted when it comes to this. Hourglass Trees are best produced using the three programs I mentioned earlier. All Relatives, this is a pretty exclusive tree and only Family Historian will produce it. All in One, this is our most popular request, Genopro free version will produce it but it's very basic, we use either Genbox (our first choice) or Family Tree Maker, the All in One created by FTM is not adjustable but the the Everyone (same chart) created in Genbox is fully adjustable. Pictures in All in One charts using FTM are restricted to either a small one inside each box, one in the middle of the chart or tiled over the entire chart, pictures in Genbox can be placed outside the box or anywhere on the chart and resized when they are on the chart. The best all round programs for charts are, Family Tree Maker. Genbox. Family Historian. As I said before each of them are available for download and have a free trial version. Regards Ron www.genealogyprinters(.)com

i have Paff and Legacy, i am only just getting into Paff and find it quit good, i don't use Legacy much now but have left it in the background for now, it kept shutting down on me when i was working on it!! then i would have to open it up again,and it would be right back at the beginning!! got on my nerves!!

I use and like Legacy - it can be downloaded free - and you can upgrade and get certain extra functions but the free version is very good - perfectly OK for my purposes. . You can print out nice reports. Have a look at legacyfamilytree (followed by com). I started off with PAF but didn't like the reports or interface.

FTM will give you an all in one chart that gives everyone on the tree as well as just ancestors or descendants. I think it is brilliant. Kath. x

I've used Family Historian for a while, I chose it because it does (so I think) things other programs don't do - seeing all relations, as opposed to just ancestors and descendants for instance - I do find printing from it a little quircky though. Matthew

Thankyou everyone for all your comments and advice, I'm testing out PAF for now, but will make notes of all your recommendations. Lin XX

Linda, I kept hearing great reports about Family Historian and Santa was all due to bring it for me. However, a new all-singing, all-dancing upgrade is due out shortly, so asked Santa to defer his purchase for a couple of months. Can't wait to get stuck in! Jay

Ron, Is there one better than the others? With FTM don't they keep bringing out newer versions - does this mean its best not to buy the older ones? Jayne

P.A.F. is a very good free program but when it comes to making family trees it's very poor at it compared to other programs. Trust me I print trees for a living. The 3 most powerful programs are. 1. Genbox 2. Family Tree Maker 3. Family Historian. All of these can be downloaded and tried before buying but some of the FTM chart making facilities are dissabled in the trial version. Regards Ron www.genealogyprinters(.)com

Thankyou for that Helen, I'll give it a go LinXX

I guess that everyone has different ideas. I use PAF (PERSONAL ANCESTOR FILE) which you can download free from www.familysearch.org. You can then import/export genealogical data using GEDCOM format. It enables you to see family groups, pedigrees or lists of individuals and there's plenty of room for notes. It also has the capacity to hold photos, though I havent' got that far. WH Smith has a range of family tree software. I guess its horses for courses. nell

Can anyone please give me advice on the best tree building programme to invest in? Lin XX