Which family tree software do you use?

[jenoco]

I use PAF at the moment but am thinking of "upgrading". I have a friend who loves Family Historian but I haven't decided what to get yet. It looks like FH is very popular though.

[Guy]

I use Brothers Keeper 5.2G as it is fast responsive and suits my style of working.
I also have Brothers Keeper 6.2.80 which is the latest version of BK but only use it occasionally.

I have tried most family history programs over the years (starting with A-Gene for the Amiga).
I find that many either do not allow enough events or images to be added to a person.Some slow down when a large number of images are added.

Brothers Keeper is very versatile (eg. it allows reports to be constructed using a number of external programs) which is only of its many strengths.
Cheers
Guy

[Velma Dinkley]

I have Family Historian too

Now why aren't they on the list?

[KiteRunner]

Velma, I already said sorry if you have to choose "Other" but there is a limit of 10 for any poll. Obviously I didn't know which programs were the most popular before posting the poll!

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I use Brothers Keeper 5.2G as it is fast responsive and suits my style of working.

Oooh, but Guy......BK5 can only hold a million names, whilst BK6 can take 10 million! :D

I agree that having lots of images on BK doesn't slow down the running of the program. I should think I have about 2,500-3,000 images, maybe more.

[Mary from Italy]

So far I've never added any census images to FTM, because I thought it'd slow down my computer too much - instead, I type in the details to the notes section, which is very time-consuming.

However, I assume the speed of the computer depends on the system you have, not so much on which family tree program you use?

I have quite a large tree (about 2000 people), because I like to investigate siblings and step-relations as well as direct relations to get an overall picture of their circumstances. I wouldn't necessarily want to download census images for each one, but if each person I'm particularly interested in (maybe 500 people) appears on an average of even 2 censuses, that'd mean an awful lot of images.

About half my tree is in Australia, so no censuses there, but it'd be great to download the electoral roll images instead of typing out the details.

Do other people have a lot of census images (or photos) attached to their family tree programs, and do they find it causes any problems?

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Do other people have a lot of census images (or photos) attached to their family tree programs, and do they find it causes any problems?

Erm....yes and no! lol I've just been counting and I actually have about 3,200 images and 6,500 people on my tree. I can remember when I had no images and about 50 people (but also a slower computer system!!) and there's no difference in speed. BK is slightly slower to open in the first place though, but I think that is because I have to access it from OH's system unit via our home network thingy-whatsit.

[WendyPusey]

I have approx. 12,000 people in my tree and I do NOT add census images to FTM as it would make the file much too big. I keep all Census images on a CD, where they are safe and I can access them when I want.

[MarionH]

Um - I have a small query about the poll itself. It's only a small point - but you can't have the total % totalling more than 100! I think the %'s have been worked out on the actual number of voters as opposed to the total number of votes cast - causing the apparent error. If the total number of votes is equal to 100% the %age would change slightly and it would read:
23.62
8.66
6.30
44.88
0.79
3.15
12.60

100.00
(not that it would make a tremendous amount of difference in the long run!)
Marion

[Elaine ..Spain]

The way the poll has been set up, members are allowed to vote for more than one option.
So, using the current votes we could say that 32% of the members who have voted so far use an Online tree, such as Ancestry, Tribal Pages.
61% of members who have voted use FTM compared to nearly 12% using PAF.

Because you can vote more than once, the percentage numbers in the final column will always be more than 100%. They are not proportional to the number of votes cast, they are individually proportional to the number of members who have voted.

[KiteRunner]

Don't worry, Marion, we'll do the results properly in the end. It must just be the way vBulletin handles polls, as the percentages are automatically calculated. I didn't think it would be a good idea to restrict people to one vote each as I know a lot of people use more than one tree program.

[Anne in Carlisle]

A point about adding photos and other images. Family Historian does not store the images on the program itself (although it could if you wanted). Instead it accesses the image from the place where it is on your computer - so no need to add it more than once. This leaves the program fast and responsive at all times.

Anne

[Crafty Sue]

A point about adding photos and other images. Family Historian does not store the images on the program itself (although it could if you wanted). Instead it accesses the image from the place where it is on your computer - so no need to add it more than once. This leaves the program fast and responsive at all times.

Anne

I discovered that FTM 2009 can do that too I don't know if it leaves it 'fast and responsive' though as I haven't added very many yet.

I didn't add any images to my 2005. I didn't think that system was very user friendly (but that may have been just me!)

[MarionH]

Because you can vote more than once, the percentage numbers in the final column will always be more than 100%. They are not proportional to the number of votes cast, they are individually proportional to the number of members who have voted.

Yes I realise that voters could choose more than one programme - that is why the %age should be in relation to the actual number of votes rather than the number of voters. We now have "one vote one value" in Australia but before that it was a nightmare trying to work out %ages!

As I said - it won't matter that much in the long run - I had a feeling it may have been the way the host treated polls but I made the point in case others were wondering if their maths were off today!

Marion

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

A point about adding photos and other images. Family Historian does not store the images on the program itself (although it could if you wanted). Instead it accesses the image from the place where it is on your computer - so no need to add it more than once. This leaves the program fast and responsive at all times.

Anne

Maybe that's what I should have said about BK - the images are attached to it rather than being part of the program. :o

[Phoenix]

All the programs you are mentioning are better than the one I designed in the 70s in PL2. It had my gg grandfather marrying his daughter several hundred times, till the printer ran out of paper:o
I've used PAF and Brothers Keeper and Legacy. I inclined towards Legacy, rather than BK, finding it easier to use, but, when I singed my feathers, although I recovered my gedcom, I didn't realise that the images were saved elsewhere and I lost them all.:(

[Little Nell]

I was very happy with PAF but now want something more sophisticated. I was interested to see that the Family Historian folk seem very happy with it and I did like the samples I saw on their website.

[Uncle John]

Please miss, I meant to vote twice (FTM and online) but I couldn't vote a second time.

[Canadian Cousin]

The poll asks

Which family tree software do you use?

I included a vote for Online (as well as for Legacy), but on reflection I wonder if this might be misleading. I do have trees on Ancestry and GR, but I don't use either of them to build or maintain my database. I just have them so that other researchers can look at them and contact me if they think they might be related. This is - I think - quite different from someone who uses online software as their primary research/filing system.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this poll is (although I'm finding it very interesting), so perhaps I'm worrying about nothing. But I'd caution anyone who's trying to interpret the results to do so with caution (at least w.r.t. the Online responses).

Tim

[Tony Cummings]

tree programs

I started years ago with Generations,then tried FTM but couldn't get away with it. Finally went back to updated version of Generations obtained on cd from TWR.
Happy Again !!! Regards Tony