Review by Joe Marino

Let me discuss most of the other reviews first, then I will get to mine. It is kind of important for a software company to nail their demographic when making a product. Its just the way it is that most people doing genealogy are going to be older adults. This is because as we get older it is more important to make a link with our time here. There are some younger people doing this to be sure but most I have met are generally older adults. Regarding that I believe they may have made this a tad bit user-unfriendly. If you are well versed in computers then you cannot even see why they are having an issue. Just getting my mother to move one window over another on the desktop takes me 5 minutes and I have been building PC’s since the ‘80s it gets pretty frustrating. My recommendation to this company is to make an interface that mimics something found in an Apple product. Simple intuitive and foolproof.

———-My review———–nOverview:nOk lets say I love this software! For the past year I have been putting all of my family history on Ancestry. It has been pretty good with regard to finding details out that I might not know. The main issue I have with Ancestry is the monthly cost. With this software you get 3 months deluxe US, which is almost 2x the cost of this product, for that alone its worth it.

Reports:(+)nSo what makes this software so great? The reports mostly. I have one branch of my tree go back to 1060. Thats more than can be shown on any tree available from Ancestry. The farthest you can go on the web is around 3 generations not 25 generations. With the reporting tools on this software you can get a variety of reports that flesh out your family. Ones such as marriage report listing whom everyone was married to. A generation report listing who was born under whom. Honestly there are too many to list here, each one is a very unique way to view a part of the story.

Seamless integration with Ancestry:(+)nI lost not a single bit of data transferring it from the web down to my computer. All I did was log into ancestry from Family Tree Maker and it drew down all of the data in a GENCOM file. Once in the software it populated a local database with over a years worth of work. With my personal experience this was pretty great.

Trees:(+/-)nAlong with reports the trees available are all great tools for showing your family. I mean the software is Family Tree Maker it should also print out the trees. It does with some great designs. Unfortunately the trees on the software are also limited. I believe you can go back max 6 generations but then it stops. The designs are pretty good to show different relationships. Overall I would have liked more generations, knowing the tree would be physically huge but that is what I want to show.

Manual: (-)nHoly cow! This is the most convoluted huge tome I have seen in a very long time for a manual. My advice; skip it. Nice effort on their part to add it but it makes even opening the box a daunting appearing task that might scare more users than help them.

Summary: (+/-)nIf you are a versed internet user/ computer operator you can expect this software to perform as an essential at-home addition to the work you have done on Ancestry. If you are just starting out on this journey it might be better for you to use the website first and then start using the software. Their website has much of the same interface and use along with other family members you may not know providing key pieces to your tree. I don’t think of this as a solo tool but instead as an augmentation of another (Ancestry). As that, it excels.

Thank you for reading my review.