* Comparisons with Generations Family Tree

[Ellejaye]

HAS ANYONE USED GENERATIONS AND IF SO WHAT IS THE NEAREST GENEALOGY PROGRAM TO THAT?

[davidm_uk]

Google "compare family history programmes" turns up quite a few comparisons. Try these for starters:

http://genealogy-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

http://www.my-history.co.uk/acatalog/so ... tware.html

[tatewise]

I have moved this topic to the General Forum because the User Group Forum is for questions about using this FHUG website.

I wonder why you are asking, because Generations Family Tree stopped being developed in 2002 and stopped being sold in 2011.

The TWR Computing website recommends switching to Famly Historian.

[mjashby]

Ah, the heady days of the 1990s when genealogy was largely about spending hours in the dingy corners of City Libraries and ancient Archives Offices getting eye strain as you worked through poor quality and unindexed microfilm and microfiche records. You certainly needed an attractive software interface and some good graphics to lighten the experience. Of course the original developers of Generations came from a Mac background rather than Windows, which probably explains why there was such a strong emphasis on its graphical and publishing capabilities.

So, back to your question. Well, it all depends what you mean by "nearest". Is that in terms of appearance, and methods of use, or functionality? I would probably say that you are likely to find that any up-to-date software is likely to be far more capable than Generations ever was, simply because of advances in internet capabilities and increasing interaction with websites. TWR Computing, which continued to sell Generations until supplies were exhausted, recommends Family Historian as the 'best' replacement but they don't say why. However, if you prefer working with or in diagrams then I don't know of any other current software that provides the same capabilities as Family Historian, whilst also providing a parallel user interface that is almost entirely text based (which I prefer). RootsMagic is probably the only one which comes close, but I don't think it offers anything like the same flexibility in terms of its diagram control. I have discounted Legacy because it uses an external rather than an internal component to achieve its full charting capabilities and there also seems to be a great deal of discontent amongst the users of the latest version. After those two there is currently only one really big commercial player left in the Windows market: Ancestry/Family Tree Maker, which bought and eliminated Generations, Ultimate Family Tree and Family Origins, and then there is a plethora of smaller contenders each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

If you are undecided then all you really can do is narrow down the options to eliminate those you aren't interested in and then try out some of the free/demo versions to see which you get on with best. Hopefully, that will be Family Historian! I've been looking for a better option since Version 2 and haven't found one yet.

Mervyn

[tatewise]

TWR Computing do say why to use FH:

... the authors of a much newer program Family Historian have made a great effort to build into their program many of the best features from Generations and in our opinion have now come up with a product that is much better than Generations. We are confident in recommending Family Historian as a replacement for Generations and it has received several awards for being the best software available for Family History and professional genealogists.

Please take a look at Family Historian. It handles images in a much better way than any other family tree program and almost has the complete functionality of your old program. The later versions look very much like the Generations program including images on the family screen. If you are ready to add photographs to your Generations database then changing to Family Historian is highly recommended as it is able to handle images in an extremely clever way.

I have recently been reviewing the GEDCOM import/export capabilities of Legacy, RootsMagic, and FTM 2014 to update my Export Gedcom File Plugin. Legacy is pretty good, RootsMagic is less good (both support Witnessed/Shared Facts as in FH), and FTM 2014 is extremely poor.

[Ellejaye]

Thanks for all the info. I guess Generations has been a bit like my security blanket and I can see so many problems with it compared to more relevant programs and I do in fact have both Roots Magic and Family Historian but have never really felt confident in swapping to one or the other and continue to use Generations as my main back up. With Windows 10 about to hit the market then I do need to get one that I am more comfortable with so it looks as if FH wins over RootsMagic at the moment.
Ellejaye

[tatewise]

Checkout the how_to:import_generations|Import from Generations advice.

But post any questions in the Importing and Exporting Forum.