General Chat

I have got to the point in my research when I think I have to bite the bullet and buy a family tree program. Can any of you knowledgeable people tell me what one is best. I am studying several different lines although they all come together and I was wondering if the tree programs allow you to have several lines that can be separated or joined together as the need arrives. By this I mean I would have a HORWELL tree which would involve my mothers branches which are OLIVERS, but at times I would only want to look at the OLIVERS and share them with other OLIVERS.

Hope you can understand all this.

Roy Horwell

I don’t know if there is one best tree programme. You probably need to do a bit of googling to find the pros and cons of each one. Try this site whiich compares several.

https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/feature/family-history-software/

Fwiw, I’ve always used Family Historian and been happy with it. It does have a facility to merge trees but I haven’t used it so I don’t know if it does what you require.

That’s a difficult question. People seem to like the one they use and find it difficult to change to a different one.

I agree with Suffolkvera. Look at the comparisons and choose one that seems to do what you want.

I have FTM, I bought a version from curry's(i think) and upgraded to their 2005 version...which I think had a web search facility, for a short time.
at that time I had a virtual infinite search with 1837.on line but since then the subscription ended, enthusiasm has dwindled....(domestic family problems)
the program still works
and is installed on several devices.
trouble with that is. they are not all synced up..(no one could tell me how to do it!) but good enough to keep up with the g grand brats as they arrived

If I am looking at different branches i tend to use the tree facility on Ancestry, as you can have several different trees.

The Stand alone package i use is Rootsmagic 7 - there is now Rootsmagic 8 which i'm not so sure about yet as not had time to get use to it. I have used Rootsmagic for many years now since version 2.

I know you can have as many trees as you want all different names or numbers and have at least 2 up at a time or more if you have 2 or more screens, (eg a laptop and a large screen or 2 large screens - you could have more and use split screens - so you could have 5 trees up) A friend has 2 x 32 inch monitors and laptop and has 5 good size screens for her work.

Does that help or confused things more.

That sounds really complicated, unless you are used to working with multi screens.

I have my tree on FTM. It is split into several parts. My mothers side is all in one but my fathers side is split into 2. The root is always me. The same with my OH, it is split into two with him as the root on both.

This works well if the familys are from different parts of the country.

Luckily I haven't yet come across any crossover - fingers crossed.