Discovering your family roots is fun and exciting but before long you gather so much information that you need to implement a good way to stay organized. If you trace family tree ancestors, you'll likely want to find and use one of the many easy to use computer software programs designed to help you. Although I am going to review Family Tree Maker (FTM) software in this article, Roots Magic is another excellent and easy to use program that offers a free version. I would strongly recommend that you look into it before making your genealogy software decision. It's one of the programs I use myself.
When you want to trace your family tree and track ancestors, good software can be invaluable. You'll want a program that will give you good value for what you invest and one that will serve you well now and for the foreseeable future. One of the most commonly used software programs by genealogist hobbyists is FTM. It was developed by the huge and popular genealogy website Ancestry.com. It is one of the best programs available, is very robust and can be found at familytreemaker.com
This software has a large number of features that are very helpful as you build your family history legacy. You can organize and save your videos, photos and even audio clips. You can also see your people and dates in perspective with its timeline. The program has various charts and reports in addition to the central feature - the ancestral or pedigree charts. Another of it's very important features is its ability to easily exchange information with other sites and researchers. That is a "must have" feature in any program you use.
Family Tree Maker was developed by Ancestry.com and as a result, it is easy to exchange information with that site and their many resources and use them together. Additionally, Rootsweb and many other websites available allow you to connect to them and download and save important information they have on their sites that you wish to collect.
Printing out professional looking family history books or large family tree posters are also some of the features of FTM. With a little bit of time and energy, you can make attractive keepsakes that will be of interest to you and many in your family for years to come.
One of the regular features of all good genealogy software, is that it lets you to enter information one individual at a time. This program contains what I believe to be, all the basic features needed in good genealogy software. After an individual is added, you can then enter the details about each of the many details you discover about their history. Important dates and places where events happened can be added to their profile one at a time - including birth, christening, marriage, divorce, death and burial details. Also you can add any other information about them you may want to save.
After entering information about where an individual lived, the FTM software can display where they lived on a map. Another valuable feature of this program is that it allows you to publish your family tree into an online website so that others can see it and tie into it from their genealogy records. For many genealogy enthusiasts, sharing the family's history is one of the more rewarding aspects of the hobby.
FTM is a very helpful and robust software program but it is not cheap. Though not too expensive for most genealogists, many of the cheaper ( or even free ) programs can do most of the same things. There is one good free program called Family Tree Builder that you can get from MyHeritage.com. Likely the most popular of all the free or inexpensive programs is Personal Ancestral File which can be downloaded from Familysearch.com in the download area here: PAF 5.2
Family Tree Builder is available at myheritage.com/family-tree-builder. This is a great free genealogy program but remember, you are not going to get all the "bells and whistles" with the free programs that you do with the ones that take an investment. If you can afford to go with one of the programs that require an investment, it is likely worth it because you are building a legacy that will last for decades. Now, go out, have fun and happy family tree hunting!
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