Best Family Tree software to use

[Guest]

My mum recently got a new laptop and wants to continue doing her family tree on it. As it's Windows 64-bit, her old family tree software doesn't work so she needs a new one. What would you recommend?

Also, in the free (and admittedly not very good) software we did try out, the old GEDCOMs from the old software didn't appear to have imported properly. I did however find a free GEDCOM viewer which seemed to work fine. Is this because the GEDCOMs are an older version or because the software I downloaded didn't import them properly.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Elaine ..Spain]

Choice of software is a question that comes up frequently, in fact if you look through this forum you'll find other threads asking the same question.
I'm a Family Tree Maker user and know that FTM2010 works on 64 bit computers.
Another popular program is Family Historian - if you click on the Family Historian tab at the top of this forum there is a link where you can download a 30 day free trial.

Re your GEDCOM import, I suspect it may be down to the software you used rather than not being able to import GEDCOMs from older programs. When you say it didn't import properly, what went wrong?

.. and by the way, welcome to Family Tree Forum!

[Anne in Carlisle]

I use Family Historian, which I understand works fine with 64-bit computers. When you load your old GEDCOM file into it, it will try and make sense of it and make a list for you of doubtful entires. Then you would have the opportunity of correcting them.

I know when I moved from a previous "no-ones-ever heard of it" program I found it a huge learning curve but I found the main reason for eroors with the old GEDCOM file were that I had not really been using the old program correctly. It was hard to see how to enter some things and I had put them in the wrong place. With Family Historian its much clearer and there's a great on-line user group to help as well.

Anne

[Lord_Uber_Dowzen]

Choice of software is a question that comes up frequently, in fact if you look through this forum you'll find other threads asking the same question.
I'm a Family Tree Maker user and know that FTM2010 works on 64 bit computers.
Another popular program is Family Historian - if you click on the Family Historian tab at the top of this forum there is a link where you can download a 30 day free trial.

Re your GEDCOM import, I suspect it may be down to the software you used rather than not being able to import GEDCOMs from older programs. When you say it didn't import properly, what went wrong?

.. and by the way, welcome to Family Tree Forum!

Thanks!

I'll check out the two programs you suggested. Re the GEDCOMs, the issue seemed to be that it had created 2 copies of every family member and many of the relationship connections seemed to be wrong. I'll post back if any other software package causes the same error.

[Lord_Uber_Dowzen]

I use Family Historian, which I understand works fine with 64-bit computers. When you load your old GEDCOM file into it, it will try and make sense of it and make a list for you of doubtful entires. Then you would have the opportunity of correcting them.

I know when I moved from a previous "no-ones-ever heard of it" program I found it a huge learning curve but I found the main reason for eroors with the old GEDCOM file were that I had not really been using the old program correctly. It was hard to see how to enter some things and I had put them in the wrong place. With Family Historian its much clearer and there's a great on-line user group to help as well.

Anne

I reckon I'll give Family Historian a go then, it sounds pretty good. The way it handles GEDCOM sounds really useful. I'll get on that soon!

[Lord_Uber_Dowzen]

Tried out Family Historian and we're very pleased with it. I've been trying to get my Mum to upgrade for years and this is the first one we've found that she's been happy with. It also seemed to import the GEDCOM properly so it's looking all good. Thanks for the help.

[Anne in Carlisle]

Glad you like FH. Look at the User Group here http://www.fhug.org.uk/ You'll get lots of help. FH can be complicted but you only need to use it at your own level, confident that as your needs increase the program will do everything you can think of (and more!)

Anne