need software recommendation...

[Slowpoke]

I am trying to find a good software package to handle mapping a family tree. There are a couple of canned packages out there that do this and I will probably end up with one of them.

My question is....

Which package do you use? Do you like it?

thanks in advance for not hijacking this thread...

[TechHeavy]

I am trying to find a good software package to handle mapping a family tree. There are a couple of canned packages out there that do this and I will probably end up with one of them.

My question is....

Which package do you use? Do you like it?

thanks in advance for not hijacking this thread...
Hi Slowpoke!

Before you go with the "canned package" check out the Mormon web site, (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). This group, (my ex-wife is a member) is the definative authority on family tree mapping. If you can't do what you need from their site, I promise you someone there can point you in the right direction. Believe me, I speak from experience. These people know how to dig up "roots".

Good luck,
Tech

[MM03MOK]

I would also be interested in what people are using. Years ago, I bought Family Treemaker (I think that's the name of it....not home to check) but my operating system was probably Win95 or previous. It's cumbersome and I didn't have any luck getting it to work right with XP.

Also, how are people doing their own research? Have you bought any of the Census CDs or searched local records? I actually spent part of a day at the Latter-day Saints genealogical library when in Salt Lake City and did find out a thing or two I didn't know about family - like my great-grandfather's occupation during the 1900 census timeframe and his address at the time. http://www.familysearch.org/ You're actually using this website to search but then you can retrieve the microfilm yourself to view.

A few more websites:
http://www.ellisislandimmigrants.org/
http://www.cyndislist.com/index.htm

[Slowpoke]

I already have the information.... 7 generations of data on both sides (with pictures!!) I am just trying to find a very good software package that I can use to print out tree info and store datas of birth, death, marriage, etc.

[Slowpoke]

I was lucky. Most of the research had already been done for me. My parents just moved and I came into possession of 200 pounds of photos, slides, movies, immigration records and handwriten trees. I just need some software to organize all this stuff into a coherent visual to send out to my relatives.

Within those cartons of stuff is copies of passports, paasenger log sheets from passenger ships. old newspaper clippings, copies of wills, and a few deeds to cemetary plots.

If I was to start from scratch it would be a real headache since my family comes from four distint and different countries.

[MM03MOK]

You surely found a family treasure, Rick!!! I too have a written family tree of my maternal grandmother (she had 45 first cousins!) that includes 7 generations of info and would love to organize it better for distribution.

[N40GL]

I like (and use) Family Tree Maker, which came with my Ancestry subscription. I think they are up to version 12 now, but I started with v4 and recently upgraded to v10. It's very user friendly and comes with a built-in .pdf writer, so you can print your history on chart paper and Kinkos can print it for you (if you want a 4' by 12' history roll).