Just which is the best Family Tree Program?

[JS Lewis]

If I can pick a few brain's here it will be a great help not only to myself but possibly others...

...In your oppinion just which is the best family tree program on the market?
...Also what are their capabilities on uploading to the internet?

I currently have all my information on a 'tribal pages' site, which in all honesty I've been fairly happy with. However, a few tips & advice on whether this can be improved will be much appreciated.

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

I use Family Tree Maker and I'm very happy with it, but it is American based. If you read the messages here, there are opinions of others:

http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43

In case the link doesn't work, it's under General - Genealogy Software. :)

[Peter Goodey]

Why pay good money? If I were you I'd download the free ones first. Legacy has been mentioned and there's also PAF which can be downloaded from http://www.familysearch.org/

Play with them for a while and see if they meet your needs. If they don't, don't worry - you haven't wasted anything - they can both export the data you've input in a form that can be read into whatever program you might change to.

[Geoffers]

If I can pick a few brain's here it will be a great help not only to myself but possibly others...
...In your oppinion just which is the best family tree program on the market?

I would think there are as many opinions on this as there are programmes. I suspect the answer is the one that works best for you.

Some family history magazines come with free CDs containing either trial or full application versions of programmes. Alternatively, S+N Genealogy sell (or at least used to sell) a CD with several trial versions which may help you to decide. It is worth looking around before any outlay.

I won't dodge the question completely, personally I use two programmes, Family Historian and Custodian III (the latter isn't really a FH programme, but rather a series of connected databases, useful for one-name or one-place studies).

Geoffers

[cdnsctgirl]

I use The Master Genealogist. I switched from Family Tree Maker a couple of years ago. FTM is easier to learn and use, but TMG has so many options; you're pretty much unlimited in the amount of information you can input. I don't think I'd go back to FTM now... I like having the freedom to enter lots of different possible dates and locations (after all, when you're tracking down ancestors, it helps to be able to enter possible links as well as confirmed ones, and have them all in the same place for easier reference).

As far as making webpages with TMG, you can create basic narrative journals of descendants, ancestors, etc. There might be a few other website creation formats (I haven't really used them). There is an add-on program available for TMG called "Second Site"... you can make some really nice websites with that.

Hope this helps!

[JS Lewis]

Thanks for the tips everyone...