I wonder whether anyone has had experience - good or bad - in using multiple 'genealogy programs' with the same tree data. I'm interested in any tips (or pitfalls, risks). To be honest, I haven't done much research or maintenance in over a year.
The background to this question is that I decided some years back to take more personal control of my family tree data (especially source citations and source media) and rely less on Ancestry.com online to fill in links to sources and media. The main reasons were that a) I could make no sense of the media filenames downloaded from Ancestry and b) there were many duplicates of the same source media. So I started using FTM more and changed source references (and filenames) to refer to local data that I could check and verify. I upgraded to FTM 2017 which now works well in synch with Ancestry.com.
Around the same time, I did a trial with RootsMagic and I liked the 'data integrity checks' that FTM2017 didn't have. I also liked the clarity of RootsMagic in relating 'facts' to 'source citations' to 'media'. I find that FTM (perhaps through my inexperience) makes a less clear distinction when viewing/editing a person or fact.
So, I would ideally like to continue using the strengths of both FTM and RootsMagic on the same tree data. My guess is that keeping the data in both programs synched via Ancestry.com is probably the best way of maintaining data integrity. There are export/import options from both programs and from what I've read the GEDCOM standard maintains the basic facts and relationships but may not include all field from all programs.
Any tips? If I had to choose between FTM and RootsMagic I think I'd choose the latter for the reasons I gave. But there are things I like about FTM too.
Is sharing data and maintaining data integrity between 2 different programs a realistic option?
Thanks,
Mike
