Saving Family Trees

[gbuttery]

Many many many moons ago I used Family Tree Maker to store my research. I used to print out the pages and put in files for ease of reading. I had the pedigree charts and Individual Reports printed. I was also able to print out the notes and Sources, and make up pages of photographs.
For reasons I cannot remember, when I changed computers I installed the free RootsMagic software and (eventually!) transferred my work across. The Individual Reports etc, do not look as good on the Roots Magic, and I have never really got on with the software.
I have now got a new laptop and looking to install new software with the hope that I can download all my information.
I have my printed version, but want to update a few details and also I want to print out one branch of the family tree for a relative, hopefully with all the notes and sources information.
Do I need an independant software package (Family Tree Maker, RoostMagic, etc) ?
I am thinking of becoming a member of Ancestry shortly. I know you can put your family tree on their site, but does it hold notes, sources and photograph information, or is it just a pedigree chart? Can you print off Individual Reports?
Sorry for the long winded message, but I want to try and get my head around what I'm doing before  I spend a lot of money!
Regards, and thanks in advance,
Gill

[ggrocott]

Ancestry holds notes sources and photographs, there are also options to print pages for an individual and parts of trees

[Spelk]

Ancestry holds the Notes for a person which it gets when you upload a GEDCON file. I do not think it takes in the Notes which you might have for a marriage. A nuisance for me as in my Reunion tree I have quite a lot of marriage Notes where I put facts which are relevant to both parties.
As far as I can see the Notes which are on a tree in Ancestry are only visible to the owner of the tree. I would have thought that they would arrange so that one could let selected people be given Read Only access to the Notes but it seems the only way to let someone see the Notes is to make them joint Owners of the tree with full editing rights.

[youngtug]

Try TribalPages.

[Biggles50]

Where to start?

Once you have your tree on Ancestry it will have the references, but not the actual documents or images, a Gedcom file uploaded to Ancestry is physically far to small in file size to contain anything other than basic information.

So build a Tree on Ancestry, populate it, add media, documents, images etc until to reach the stage that you are happy with each persons citations.

Buy the full version of Roots Magic, download a copy of the tree to a new Project (not via a Gedcom).  Then use the full gamut of error checking tools in Roots Magic.  Then Backup the tree and include the media.

In Roots Magic you will have plenty of Reports and Outputs available.  Do watch the available tutorials.

Once the tree on Roots Magic is error checked and backed up use the Tree Share feature to correct the tree on Ancestry.

If you are happy with Roots Magic then continue to use it as your primary repository for your family tree.  If you do not care for the software do not worry its job is just to error check and to correct the Ancestry tree.

Family Tree Maker is the next buy and you can download the full corrected Ancestry Tree including all media etc and also it saves copies of all the census images of the citations you use to your hard drive.  You can then search Ancestry from within FTM and any changes you make in the software will sync with the Ancestry tree.

The reason for using Roots Magic is just for its error checking features which are imo way better than those in FTM, but FTM has great reports and is again imo more user friendly

Hope this helps.

[ChrissieL]

I have my tree on Ancestry. You can add notes on there but there isn't the same sort of facility eg in Family Tree Maker to print out detailed reports, pedigree charts, relationships etc etc.  I like to use Ancestry to update my tree, and it easily syncs with FTM so you can use the extra facilities to print out the chart. I haven't used any other Family History software so I can only comment on FTM.

Chrissie

[gbuttery]

Thank you all so much for your help.
I still haven't 100% decided what to do, but I will give it lots of thought  I really do need to make my mind up!
What is stopping me is the cost. I will join Ancestry, something I've been meaning to do for a long time. But Family Tree Maker is so much more expensive than RootsWeb, for example, and I'm worried I lay out all this money and then it doesn't work for me.
Regards, all

[martin hooper]

Keep in mind that Ancestry won't let you see images of your source records (census, baptisms, marriages etc) once your subscription has lapsed. You need to keep renewing it every year.

OR Keep your main tree on your computer using RootsMagic, FamilyTreeMaker or whatever. This is much the better option in my opinion.

Martin

[Biggles50]

I have my tree on Ancestry. You can add notes on there but there isn't the same sort of facility eg in Family Tree Maker to print out detailed reports, pedigree charts, relationships etc etc.  I like to use Ancestry to update my tree, and it easily syncs with FTM so you can use the extra facilities to print out the chart. I haven't used any other Family History software so I can only comment on FTM.

Chrissie

To add to my prior suggestions.

Subscribe to Ancestry, try to get a discount, I got worldwide for £89.99.

Then create your tree and populate it as far as you can.

THEN you buy software, download the tree from Ancestry and ensure that the Ancestry subscription does not automatically renew.

Roots Magic has their free version which you could use as a demo and Family Tree Maker does have imo better charting and reporting so that to is worth considering