[Ladyandthejudge]

I have just inherited the family vintage photographs. I want to create a family tree showing all the birth and death dates in a formal line drawing. Does anyone know of a good software program that will help me create the family tree showing the lineage? Then somehow, I want to make digital scrapbook pages from the drawings. I purchased Heraldic Crest Collection and Family Tree Collection Super Mini to help with that part today, but I need a software program to get me started so I can learn the people and their relationships. Anyone out there with any experience or help with ideas about this would be greatly appreciated.---Ann

[varanda]

Hi Ann,

I used to work with Broderbund and I worked on creating some of the samples you may see on the box. I found the program rather difficult to use, though they may have upgraded it since then. I only speak as a designer----it was really hard to create nice looking trees....but they did seem to have all the data needed to do such a thing.

I don't think you'll be able to merge the info from Family Tree Maker into Photoshop to build upon our collections. But you may be able to figure something out.

What edition are you looking at getting?

It will be interesting to hear about other's experince with this.

[sschofi404]

Hi,

I use the program The Master Genealogist for my family tree. Their website is www.whollygenes.com. You can download a 30 day trial of the software to see if it's what you want. This is the program that a lot of professional genealogists use. Their source documentation is based on Elizabeth Shown Mills and Lackey (I forget his first name).

Jennifer

[lyoung04]

Hi Ann,
I use Family Tree Maker and you can print trees, reports, etc. from it.
They improved some of the ways you can print out trees & the number
of generations you want to print out. I am sure you can do some interesting
things with that & digital scrapbooking. My intentions have been to print
out the different generations and put together a 2 page LO with one page
the tree & the second using photos, dates, some journaling, etc.
Let us know how things go. I would love to see some of your LOs & ideas.
With Family Tree Maker I also had a subscription to Ancestry.com

[sschofi404]

I forgot to add that you can export/save reports/charts in Word, pdf, and other kinds of files. I can also make the pdf documents into picture files and use them in photoshop, so I've found that really handy to use.

Jennifer

[Ladyandthejudge]

Let the research begin! Thank you all very much for you input. i will advise of my progress.

[MelJohnson]

I just helped my dad publish a volume of family history. He uses Roots Magic software. According to their feature list, it appears that you could add graphic elements to their charts but I can't speak to that since we weren't doing a visual thing--just a book listing all the descendants.

Good luck!

[fit2walk]

Just came across this thread and wondered which program you ended up buying. I started with PAF back in the '80s, switched to The Master Genealogist, and then a few months ago I switched to Family Tree Maker. IMO, Family Tree Maker is way easier to use than The Master Genealogist. If you're a professional, TMG is the way to go, but FTM is a much friendlier program, you get 30 days free of ancestry.com, and you can start using it right away as it's very intuitive.

[jenrou]

I've been using Family Tree through several upgrades, for years. I've found it to be the easiest and a good all-around program. You have to get used to the menus to add content to your family trees, etc. but I really like it. I can swap information through .pdf files online which makes it nice.
J

[catinkeri]

I have been using Family Tree Maker (Broderbund) for over 15 years now and have had a few upgrades (and could probably upgrade again me thinks) and I love it. It's easy to follow (once you get the hang of the basics) and you can do all sorts of things with it. I have over 5,000 family members in my tree - and have four trees going, so it's capable of lots of stuff. You can add in family photos, and all sorts of interesting snippets.
I haven't seen any 'family tree' print outs (with actual trees) but they do the geneology version of it which you can do in various ways.
I love FTM!
Am interested to see what you go with though and how you find it! Good luck - family trees are very ... interesting!!

[JenniferZ]

I am going to throw another vote in for Family Tree Maker. Have been using it for years and have upgraded most recently last year. It is user-friendly, generates several types of trees and has places for photos, facts and lots of neat tools, like a relationship calculator.

Aside from digi-scrapping, genealogy is my other obsession!

Good luck and I hope you find something that meets your needs.

[SandiC.]

I just subscribed to ancestry.com and in less than a month I've found over 300 ancestors, just on my mother's side. I will definitely check out some of these suggestions. I'm lucky that the second biggest genelolgy library is right here in my area and I'm planning a trip there Tuesday. I need to learn how to start organizing my searches and keeping track of all my information. I do have some lovely old family photos going back to the civil war and I am slowly adding to profiles on ancestry.com. I never imagined how much fun it is to discover my linneage.

[patsyt]

I have used Family Tree Maker, Master Genealogist, PAF, and several others over the years but I'm using RootsMagic now. It's easy to learn and the newest version (4 which is in Public Beta right now) has a feature called RootMagic To Go where you can actually use a flash drive to save the program and your data and use them in a library, etc on a computer that does not have RootsMagic. Nice feature!

[Sarah in VA]

Another Family Tree Maker here! I've used several programs over the years since beginning in 1986 with a very plain, but complex, DOS program called Roots. Needless to say, I love the user-friendliness of FTM. And the ancestry.com membership!

[elibar]

Family tree maker and ancestry.com work hand in hand. It is the main software I've used. I have worked with Legacy - and there are some features I like about it more than FTM.

I believe you can build your family tree on ancestry.com for free. It will keep track for you. But if you want access to the databases for research, you need to pay. Then there are the advantages to purchasing the software, though - its quicker to navigate through and build reports. and easy to use.