Review by M Cox

My wife bought and used virtually every Family Tree Maker edition for many years up until the time she passed away in 2004. Before FTM she used PAF. I used earlier versions of FTM a few times, but I never even approached the level she did. A few days ago I installed Family Tree Maker 2012 Premium after I finally located the backup disks from over eight years ago. The 2012 FTM software loaded the old database and converted it flawlessly. To my amazement, there were over 19,750 names and just over 7000 families in her database! It will be fairly straightforward to add another 250 names to hit the 20,000 mark.

It took me a short while to learn how to use the new software and make updates, but only a few hours. I found it more intuitive than Version 8. Since I never used Version 8 very much, others might have a different opinion. I did a trial and error approach to learning, but finally had to resort to the manual. There is a relatively thick FTM book that came with the software, but I found it easier to just make a Google search on the specific topic I wanted to know. And I was able to find answers to the topics every time with almost no effort. The step by step illustrated instructions are very good.

I made some updates to my wife’s database and signed up for the Ancestry.com 6 month free trial. Then I uploaded the entire database to the Ancestry website. Then the Ancestry web site found several other FTM databases that compared to branches on my family tree. There were a few minor differences, but I was absolutely delighted how accurate my wife’s tree information was. Of course, I still have some refinements to make. I admit that I never would have done so much research to create such an extensive tree structure dating back over 600 years. I’m just thankful I was able to finally recover all her hard work.

You can add extensive notes and link photos, citations and many other things to any individual in the database. It has provisions for multiple marriages and children to the relevant spouse. But it will only display one spouse at a time. It allows you to pick a preferred default spouse. I wish it would display the full tree without being required to select each spouse separately. It has a provision to show foster children’s families and name changes, but I have not tried to do that. I read about it while I was learning some other things.

The performance seems very good in spite of the size of the database I have, but I am using a fast Intel i7 CPU based system with lots of RAM and two solid state disks - one for the operating system and one for the FTM files. But I think it will perform well on most modern computers. Before I installed the new FTM software, I installed Version 8 on a computer that is definitely not high speed with the same large database file. That computer handled it just fine.

The Platinum version is the one to buy. The six month free subscription to Ancestry.com is well worth the difference in price. There is a gold mine of information on Ancestry.com that can link up and compare to your own family tree saving you countless hours of research. Without the Ancestry link, you would be wasting so much time trying to do everything by yourself. Very likely your family tree is already on Ancestry.com to some degree, perhaps back even hundreds of years.

I don’t understand the picky points some people make about this product and the low scores. I’m sure they may have a very technical point to make, but it doesn’t warrant anything less than 4 stars. For the average user, this is superb software and a welcome addition to any family. I strongly recommend this excellent software.