Review by Dustin

Every couple of years, I get on a kick to get into genealogy and research and document my heritage. In some cases I am very fortunate, as some lines of my genealogy records so far go back almost 1,000 years. In other cases because one side of my family recently emigrated (or more accurately, most are still in Iran), I have very little reliable information going back even 50 years. So I can have both the puzzle and the satisfaction of a ton of information, and I need a lot of good research tools as well as a great way to organize my work.

I’ve used Ancestry.com before, without additional software, and the difference between the website and Family Tree Maker’s GUI is substantial. It’s much faster and easier to work with this software. I found the included documentation easy to use. Importing pictures and documents was also easy, which was awesome as I have two very extensive word documents from two relatives that are now preserved for my family to enjoy. I ran through a bit of the tutorial and found it well made, but the software was intuitive enough that I really didn’t need it. Exporting appears to be very straightforward as well.

For that matter, I put a lot of time into this software and have already exhausted my free month. In that time I did not encounter any glitches. Solid software.

Another point about Ancestry.com is that I don’t really need a persistent subscription. I’ll get on this kick once in a while, usually just after the holidays, and then I’ll go a year or more without having time for it. This software gives me the best of both worlds as I retain my work and can even update my digital family tree, as well as share it with family when they visit, but I only have to pay for Ancestry.com on months where I’m going to be using it. All my work is stored locally on my computer.

The different editions primarily pertain to the duration of the included membership. I have the Essentials edition, which is the one I’d recommend as the best practical value, even though the Platinum costs less per month of Ancestry.com use. And Ancetry.com is the real deal and will be of tremendous use to most people who are researching their family history.

The family tree viewing is dynamic and intelligently conveys relationship information in a variety of ways, especially for very detailed family trees in the Pedigree mode. For me this had the effect of making it much more fun to include a lot more information and more relatives on my tree (and actually all of them). The other effect is that people actually enjoy seeing my family tree, because it is actually easily presented on screen.

There’s no better way to sum it up but to say this is a really good value for the money.