Others say...

"Great Software, boring tutorial"
The software is completely compatable for uploading into the various genomic projects and preserving a pedigree record of your family tree. It is fairly straightforward. However the audio tutorial part is quite boring. The instructor's voice will put you to sleep and he digresses quite often into minutia when all you want is the simple path to loading data onto the pedigree. I would recommend fast forwarding his instructions only going to the parts you are interested in.

"An Excellent Geneology Program"
This is an easy to use program. I like the fact that you can enter pictures and text of individuals.

"Great for all skill levels"
I work in IT and I purchased this product for my mom as a gift. She has only owned a computer for about 1 year, but she immediately caught on after going through the fantastic tutorials. She was entering data in no time. It is wonderfully organized and I would recommend it to anyone. We love that you can scan photos and documents, etc. into the software and attach them to people or events.

"This program is probably not for you"
I recently bought RootsMagic on the strength of its Amazon reviews to manage the webs of geneological information that I've gathered from my extended family. In my opinion, the product was useless - not for lack of features (it will let you search records, organize information, include pictures, and find relationships) but because its family tree display functions are virtually useless and because its useability and display are appalingly bad.

On the first point, the charting features (which were the feature I was most excited about) are designed to display only direct ancestors and won't display siblings, aunts, uncles etc on the family trees. If, like me, you are interested in tracking the branches of your extended family - displaying your links to cousins and great-aunts, this program is not for you. You can enter information on them, but it won't present the linkages to these people in a useful form.

My second problem is with the claims that the software is user friendly and intuative. It isn't. I'm not saying this as a limited and hesitant computer user. I'm saying this as a software product manager who uses and designs software for a living. Remember what user interfaces were like 15 years ago? Lists of text, poor or non-existant graphics, no flexibility, and certainly no drag-and-drop? Now you've got the idea. If, like me, you're entering geneological infomation from non-computerized records, the program will quickly make you wonder why your going to all the trouble. The interface is un-intuative and clunky, and your reward for your trouble is search functions (which I don't need) and family trees that don't display 90% of the people you've entered.

Bottom line, don't waste your time or money.

"Great program, bad interface."
I have a long history with this program, going back to the days when it was known as Family Origins. I started working with it about Family Origins version 5, so that means in someway I have been using the program for 8 versions total. I also have previously worked for Broderbund providing technical support for their genealogy products, which included Family Tree Maker and Family Origins at that time. I am now a programmer in my own right so I do understand the development cycle to a degree.

In all of this time Rootsmagic has internally became a much better and stronger program. Unfortunately the one thing that has not gotten better or more powerful is the user interface. I laugh when I read a review saying Rootsmagic intuitive to use and learn.

Say you are a new user, you have managed to create a blank data base and now the time has come to enter people. By default your blank database is showing a pedigree chart. A normal person would click on the chart and expect to be able to start typing. This does not happen. Ok, so at the top of the pedigree chart are 4 lines, the first blank, the other three have b:, m: and d:. It doesn't take much to think that this must be where you enter a person, so an unsuspecting user clicks in this area and nothing happens.

Then and only then do your eyes continue up to the row of buttons and the menubar, because by now you are beginning to get desperate enough to look for the Help option. On the button bar and on the menubar you see an option called 'add' and 'Add' respectively. Bingo! A file begins. Then the adventure begins when you want to begin adding facts for your newly entered individual...dialog boxes galore.

Compare this with other prgrams like Family Tree Maker where you click in a box and start typing your first person, then tab to the spouse box and continue typing, then to the children etc. In a timed test, entering the same 50 individuals with only birth, death and marriage facts, using FTM and RM, I can enter individuals at about 4.5:1, and I know the program.

RootsMagic is probably not the best choice for a newbie genealogist to use unless they have many years of computer usage under their belt. I recently read a book called "Why Software Sucks..." by David Platt. One point that he harped on was ease of use. He says over and over to developers, "know thy user, he is not you". What seems easy and intuitive to we programmers is not always so to our users. If we do not provide what the user needs (within reason), they will find and use a product that does, which may be why FTM claims to be the #1 selling genealogy product of all time.

Over all the program has a gazillion strong points, and about one bad point, which is why I have used it for so long.