Len, In addition to running this list, I'm also a genealogy lecturer. One of my speeches is genealogy software.
Genealogists are periodically surveyed. Dick Eastman (of Eastman's Online Genealogical News; former CompuServe Genealogy Forum leader) ran a survey about 2 years ago now. The 4 most popular genealogy softwares out there for PCs were: 1) Family Tree Maker. This had the largest share (I think around 35%). It syncs with Ancestry and is easily available from Fry's, Best Buy, and other electronics stores. But you want to get away from Ancestry. So I'll discuss the others. The next 3 were all close. I remember them being like 12%, 14%, 16% of the market share. All have had a new version in the past year. So I will present them alphabetically. 2) Legacy (www.legacyfamilytree.com). They have their Standard version (free) and their Deluxe version with about 100 more features for about $30 or $40. That program is fairly easy to learn to use and has a lot of features as well. For my lecture, I took my best friend's family, showed how her mom was married to her dad, but during a mid-life crisis had another child with another man (assigned as "partner" in their program) and had that child come out as a half sibling to my best friend and her sisters. On the main screen though, I have to have either the husband or the "partner" up. Not both at the same time. 3) RootsMagic (www.rootsmagic.com or www.rootsmagic.com/essentials). Their Essentials version is free. The Essentials does get a lot of criticism for being pretty bare bones, but you can still download it and play around with it. It's probably one of the easiest to learn to use. Depending on what kind of computer user you are, you may outgrow the program. However, I know a couple of engineers who love RootsMagic. Their paid version also comes with "RootsMagic To Go" that you load on your USB/Flash/Thumb drive and you will have your genealogy with you to access at all times. I don't remember the label for my best friend's family, but it did take them all. 4) The Master Genealogist (TMG) (www.whollygenes.com). You can download their program and try it out for 30 days free. It is the most powerful program on the market today and can do just about everything imaginable. Because of this, it does have a large learning curve. They heard this criticism and they have developed a "beginner's" mode and an "advanced" mode. They also have added pop up windows that explains the features. Helpful until you learn it. Then, you can turn them off. I put my friend's family in TMG. Their layout is different (customizable too) so I can see one main person (her mom) and both men on the screen at the same time. I don't have to chose one over the other. Len, make a Gedcom from Ancestry. Download Legacy (Standard), RootsMagic (Essentials), and TMG (free for 30 days). Import your Gedcom and play around with it. Marry yourself to yourself and see what happens. Give yourself a new "wife" and name him George Washington and see what the program does. See if there are any Users Groups in your area and go and talk to them (we get people coming to our User Group, shopping for a new genealogy software program). Once you've decided on which program you prefer, delete the "family" or "file" or "project" where you married yourself to yourself as well as George Washington and import your Gedcom again from Ancestry. The "best" program will be the one that you find best suits your needs and allows to manipulate or search your data in the way you like best. Although inaccurate, you might want to browse this site for the Top 10 Genealogy Software reviews: http://goo.gl/CNIw4 According to the above site, the program I use has no privacy option or rating system for sources. It has both. The privacy option becomes available when you go to publish your information. The rating system for sources is on the source screen, so I don't know why they didn't find it. So if you do really like one program a lot but you are concerned about one of their features that is missing in the above critique, look in the help file or ask a user of that program. This web site was a bit more though, but he no longer updates it. But you still may find it useful if you are after particular features: http://goo.gl/P1Gdk Again, the "best" program will be the one that best suits your needs. And all of these programs have had updates within the past year, I believe. And you PAF users (Personal Ancestral File) can go ahead and arm yourself with rotten tomatoes to throw at me. I know you are all loyal users of many years. However, I won't recommend a program that hasn't been updated in years to someone who is currently shopping for a new program. Just like if you were shopping for a new computer. It would be crazy of my to tell you not to have the current version of Windows installed. Instead, I have my copy of Windows Me/Millennium that you could install on your new PC. You'd think I was insane. And when I called Salt Lake when writing my genealogy software review lecture, they told me that PAF is going away and they are coming out with something else. I think it's rather soon now, given everything that they are doing with their FamilySearch site. Cheri Mello Listowner, Azores-Gen Researching: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, Ribeira das Tainhas, Achada -- To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. Follow the confirmation directions when they arrive. For more options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership."
