Current and up to date Genealogy programmes recommended at present

[85jbk]

After researching the net this afternoon I have still failed to decide which programme to use. So with a tree on ancestry and piles of paper from research which programme do I choose?

Any advise from the gurus on here welcomed.
JBK

[pinefamily]

You will probably be bombarded with suggestions, but really it comes down to personal choice. You need to ask yourself what are the most important features you are looking for, and see which one fits the bill. Most of them have a trial version to play with, so you can get a feel of the programme. And there are some free ones out there as well.

[85jbk]

So what are some of the main components of a programme that one would be looking for?

[KGarrad]

It's probably down to your personal choice of what charts and reports that are available?
Or whether the software links automatically into other sources.

There is no "right" solution!
You pays yer money, and takes yer choice!

Personally, I use RootsMagic.

[smudwhisk]

It also depends on how much customisation you'd like to do with display in reports and charts and to a certain degree how technical and how much time you wish to put in.  I use Family Historian, having used FTM and RM before, but its not for the feint hearted.  Its usable out of the box if you're not using an import from another program, otherwise you do have to do some amending to get it to do what you want but its down to personal choice.  A recent upgrade for importing from other programs has improved things.  It is very good on customisation, however much you wish to do, but some prefer to have something that just works from the start.

As the others say, you pay your money and make your choice.  Most offer trial versions with the odd thing disabled so that's the best way to go forward.

[Deirdre784]

Same issue here!! I have a tree on Ancestry but decided to move away (progress) to independent software and have succesfully transferred my tree to Family Historian 6 (free trial). Slowly getting used to it! i had loads of additional text added to census and BMD entries on Ancestry, which have copied across and have now discovered how to show any that i want in the FH reports. So it was looking like FH for me.

But i've just realised that it doesn't offer a tree, which i would like to be able to include in my reports (i find it much easier to visualise).

Also as it's PC based I can't use it on my tablet when visiting archives etc so will need to keep my Ancestry tree going too, at least until i have a break or decide i've done enough.

Is there a way of adding trees to a report, or would i need to create them elsewhere and add as a picture? I'll keep playing with the FH trial until it expires but any suggestions re trees welcome.

Many thanks,

Deirdre

Edited to add: maybe i could get around it by creating individual generation reports in FH6 then combining the pdfs in something like one note (not used that yet either but use all the other ms office bits!) and i could then insert pages after each generation with scanned charts from ancestry and add other pics i hope to find, eg churches and villages.

[smudwhisk]

Is there a way of adding trees to a report, or would i need to create them elsewhere and add as a picture? I'll keep playing with the FH trial until it expires but any suggestions re trees welcome.

Many thanks,

Deirdre

Edited to add: maybe i could get around it by creating individual generation reports in FH6 then combining the pdfs in something like one note (not used that yet either but use all the other ms office bits!) and i could then insert pages after each generation with scanned charts from ancestry and add other pics i hope to find, eg churches and villages.

Family Historian offers several tree views which can be saved in different file formats, such as pdf or jpg.  You are correct that none of the reports include tree views, only the reports themselves.  This could be got round by using something like the free Libre Office which allows you to edit PDFs, but can be very fiddly.  Exporting a report to a text file loses much of the formating, especially if you have media in the reports.  There is though also the facility to create a book which can include the reports, tree views, etc, although I've not yet tried that in the three years I've been using FH having migrated from FTM (I've also used Roots Magic in the past).

I would suggest, if you haven't already, that posting on the Family Historian User Group Forum (http://www.fhug.org.uk/forum/) would be the best way of finding out how to do things, albeit you'll probably get pointed to the FH Help pages but otherwise they are helpful.

[KGarrad]

RootsMagic has a "Publish a Book" facility.

Quoting from their Help pages:
The RootsMagic Publisher allows you to create a single document made up of multiple reports and charts. This document can include narrative books (modified register, etc), pedigree charts, family group sheets, and more. The document can also include cover and title pages, a table of contents, and other introductory pages, as well as indexes for people and places and a source bibliography covering all the sections in the document.

[jennywren001]

Hi JBK,
I have a related question which I hope you don't mind me tagging onto this thread. I'm looking for a program that lets me create a tree really quickly so I can have an overview of a group of people. Something almost devoid of any features as it were....I just want to use it as an aid to my research.
Jen