Software choice revealed

aquiss · Post by **aquiss** » 13 May 2009 11:42

Afternoon,

Well after trying out a lot of software, the battle came down to Family Historian v4 and RootsMagic UK Edition v4 which during all my tests performed really well when uploading to Ancestry which is my main research tool...ie: the trees were perfect, descriptions were uploaded as expected. Both also have great communities, useful for help.

However, I decided after a lot of field trials (so to speak) that RootsMagic was better for me, and feel it only right to offer a reason why.

The reason for myself deciding against FH v4 was I just could not get on with the interface, RootsMagic just looks and feels easier to get around. Looks sell a product, and for me Roots is more polished.

Sentence creation is another area where RootsMagic for me was better which makes creating books and reports more informative.

Reports and Books, RootsMagic is IMHO miles ahead in this area. Whilst FH has lots of ways you can create reports and build queries, but I rather is a little overwhelming for someone new to the field of family research.

So where does FH do well?

Well I have found RootsMagic comes in 2nd when entering dates. Both can work out automatic dates, but FH seems to understand better where known dates are entered how to adjust the automatic worked out dates.

GEDCOM support is slightly better, though a few conflicts between 5.5 and 5.5.1 have cropped up. Not sure who is in the right?

ID:3723

Post by **NickWalker** » 13 May 2009 13:42

Does Roots Magic have the equivalent of Gedcom Census to make it easy to enter census information though?

What about trees? I don't use trees very often but I hear that FH's tree handling is far better than others.

Also I would say that this FHUG website is a major plus for Family Historian and something that many of us would miss if we used other software.

RalfofAmber · Post by **RalfofAmber** » 13 May 2009 14:31

Having had a quick look at the RootsMagic site I can see some attractive aspects to the interface and also the Atlas (at least UK) also looks nice to have. I strongly suspect there is no universal best product and we all have styles of working and research needs and have to make compromises / find other tools to supplement our core product choices.

I myself am finding that I need to cover more of the lifecycle of research and exploit tools I have such as MS Office much further than I do (and even brush off my old programming skills, such as they were[grin])

Post by **NickWalker** » 13 May 2009 14:33

I googled for a nice friendly Roots Magic community like this one but couldn't see one. I found some forums on the American Roots Magic site but it seemed very slow and a bit dull

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » 13 May 2009 15:20

Roots Magic have two forums one in-house and the other Roots Web. As with everything the programme has some plus points (such as a warning when you are typing in duplicate names) but the charts don't look very professional and the way photographs are handled is in my view very cumbersome.

If you want an Atlas you can buy the one from the Roots Magic web site, it used to work with FH3, I haven't yet tried it with FH4.

As with everything it depends on what suits you personally.

Margaret

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 14 May 2009 07:20

Nick Walker said:
Does Roots Magic have the equivalent of Gedcom Census to make it easy to enter census information though?

...

Also I would say that this FHUG website is a major plus for Family Historian and something that many of us would miss if we used other software.

Hear, hear!

I would add: Does RootsMagic have Auto Source Citation?

Gedcom Census + Auto-Source Citation + this forum -- hard to beat that combination.

Jan

Family Historian User Group