Review by Heidi Anne Heiner

There are other genealogy programs out there but this is one of the better designed ones, especially for people new to the field. And with the six month subscription to Ancestry.com, the software essentially pays for itself. Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org are two of the best online genealogy resources and this software helps you use both, especially if you don’t want to work online 100% of the time. You can create files by importing and transferring previous files from other sources, such as GEDCOM, too, so if you are not new to this, the software is still useful.

That said, the navigation is good, but not always intuitive and there will be frustrating moments. But that is part of the pain and joy of family history research anyway. One of the more pleasing features is the ability to download images easily from the web–like census pages–and add them to your file. The software is strongly tied to Ancestry.com obviously, but it is a great resource, primarily if your family has been in the US for several generations at least. Otherwise, you will need an expanded international subscription and are going to face more frustrations–not associated with this software!–trying to find the information you want about those who came before you.