Others say..."Extra CDs a useless marketing gimmick"I used version 6 of Family Tree Maker that came with Family Tree Maker for Dummies. I liked it so much I bought version 11. It came with the program CD and 4 additional CDs marketed to help you expand your family tree. The 4 extra CDs aren't worth the cost of producing them. At least not to the consumer. All the CDs do is list names that have been extracted from other data bases that it then refers you to. In other words, if a name appears on the social security death index, the CD lists the name and then tells you to go there for the information. A useless waste of time, and money. Every step along the way, Broderund uses every opportunity to steer the unsuspecting consumer toward purchasing even more CDs. The program is very good. Buy it without the extra CDs, and then don't fall for the World Family Tree marketing lies. The program will prompt you to contribute to the World Family Tree, but then you have to "subscribe" to see what others have contributed, if anything. There are far too many free and legitimate sources of information to fall for the easy CD fix.
"Easy to use - creates great reports"I am very confused by all negative reviews of this product. I think this product is wonderful! With the click of your mouse, you can create beautiful color reports & charts and store them in .pdf format. I emailed them out as Christmas gifts to my relatives and they were thrilled! I was amazed at how easy it was to create professional looking reports with FTM.
I should mention I originally purchased The Master Genealogist program because the customer reviews were better than Family Tree Maker - but found it to be very difficult to work with. After 3 months using TMG, I still couldn't figure out how to make a decent report. Within 1 day of using the FTM, I had created a beautiful family tree book.
I think the FTM is perfect for the amateur genealogist looking to quickly and easily create family charts, trees & reports.
Also, I found entering data to be so much easier in FTM than TMG. I have been just thrilled with the product.
"Robust program that has a lot of spam"I've used a lot of different programs. The best free program is "Brother's Keeper", but Family Tree Maker is light years ahead of that program. I've used Origins because of its macintosh compatiblity. But at the end of the day Family Tree Maker has the most features, makes entering information and sources a snap, and generally keeps things easy.
The two real contenders these days are genealogy.com (the makers of Family Tree Maker), and ancestry.com. By far, the better website is ancestry.com. You can download a FREE program from their site to input ancestor information in. However, this program is very clunky to enter descendants, to add source information, etc. But what it does do, which you won't find anywhere else, is give you FREE access to one of the largest databases of personal family trees. I highly recommend starting with ancestry.com, if you want to dive into the genealogy world. The program immediately connects to the internet and tells you what the closest matches are to your tree. You just point and click. (another note, I have dsl, so the tree may be slow for dial-up users. Only for the internet savvy!)
In the other corner is Family Tree Maker. The program is far more robust, allows you to enter images into scrapbooks easily, has tons of features, and seamlessly integrates with the massive family tree library. If you have the money, you can go really far with FTM. But you will have to pay for CDs or internet information. If your tree matches up with an online tree, you'll need to pay the monthly fee to look at it.
The site requires you give them your credit card information, and you have to CALL to tell them when you want to stop, as it auto-renews your subscriptions. No email to tell them to cancel you! A real hassle.
But at the end of the day, the program itself is solid, and the best to create a family tree in. But I agree with other reviewers in the respect that the online "features" of the program are expensive and annoyingly spammish.
To wrap up, I strongly recommend FTM, but don't spend money on "Collector's" and "Deluxe". Just buy the plain and straightforward one. Use the program to keep all of your info in. Then start your internet search at ancestry.com and the Mormon's site familysearch.org. Once you've built up an extensive tree, then consider spending money on FTM cd's and internet access, if you really need them.
