Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Family Tree Maker 2009 EssentialsFamily Tree Maker 2009 PlatinumFamily Tree Maker 2009 DeluxeI was surprised that I don't hate it. From the reviews, I thought I would. I have been using this program since the DOS days, because I am averse to change. When the new one came out, it lost most of what I used it for, so I stayed with the old one. This is my first try at the new one.
I was very pleased that it didn't try to overwrite the old one, or store files in the same place. It meant I could try it without worrying about losing my data,
It is not user-friendly. That is the first thing I noticed. I realized that because it is a new program, it doesn't have sixteen ways to do something, the way older programs do. It only has one, and you have to learn what that one way is. Just like the DOS version I started with. The print is vey small and hard to read, and I just today found out how to change it.
It is a good data-base. It has helped me find a number of errors I never knew I had, and to regularize entries, so the same thing is always written the same way. It has helped a lot with place names, for instance. That said, there are problems with default place names. They are alphabetical. For instance, Portland is in Multnomah County. The default is Clackamas County, because it is first in the alphabet. I looked for Iowa City, and found one in every county in Iowa, with no way to tell which was right. I can look straight at a town on the map, and find the program doesn't recognize it.
The program has gone into a partnership with Microsoft on some of it's features. With all the new software out there, much of it better, that might be a bad choice. There is a note that those features may drop without notice.
It is a space hog, and does crash. I could probably solve that with a new computer, but then my old program wouldn't be available to me, and the new one just isn't up to snuff yet. The thing I really use, regularly, is the book function. I print books almost yearly for family. This one says I can build the book on line, and still print it myself, so it is not as useless as I thought when I read that it had to be done on line, but I dno't know how they are going to get the program on line to print the accurate index, which is essential in a family book. And, because it is only a data base, there is no place in the new program for the essays on family history, family homeland, stories, recipes, and so forth that make such books more than a list of names. The old program could keep everything together, which was nice.
I am a suspicious sort. When I saw that it would no longer work with the disks we own, but is made to work with data that they expect you to pay monthly or yearly fees for, and that they want you to pay them large amounts to publish a book, I think "greed". After seeing the program, it is possible that it just doesn't have space for those features. I want to be able to print a descendant chart, with a photograph of each person, the information, and then the next person. I have not yet been able to find a way to do that. It should be an obvious option.
This is not a bad program, but I think it is finally time for me to seriously investigate all the other ones out there.
I can't run the new program satisfactorally on my current machine, and I can't run version 16 on a new machine, so if I atick with this program, I am stuck.
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Family Tree Maker 2009 by Ancestry.com, the #1 selling family history software, can help you easily discover, preserve and share your family history. It can help you build your family tree, gather stories and photos and create charts and books to share with your family. The Deluxe Edition includes a three-month subscription to Ancestry.com — the world's largest online collection of family history records with more than 7 billion ancestors' names. You'll also receive an interactive training tutorial, The Family Tree Maker Little Book of Answers, a 25% off coupon for Ancestry DNA and a 10% discount on a professionally printed family history book or poster.
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