Family Tree Software Review

RootsMagic UK (V3) Platinum Edition

It's usual, when I receive a genealogy application for review, for me to sift through the pile of included diskettes and spin the majority of them, discus like, across the room in an attempt to hit the bin. I have very little use for USA Social Security data, family trees of everyone who has ever lived in Russia or the 1850 census of Bolivia.

I was very pleasantly suprised then, when I opened Roots Magic and found that all seven data CDs held potentially useful UK data!

Also in the box was a twelve-page instruction manual, small and concise enough that I actually felt it might be worth my time reading it. All too often, software manuals are so large and technical that no-one bothers reading them.

The application itself is packed with features to make the genealogist's life so much easier; for example, whenever you enter regularly used data, such as names and places, they are added to easily selected drop-down lists so that you need never enter the same data twice. If you ancestors are the 'Gynhallis-Prigings' of 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch', that's got to be a bonus! In fact, even if your ancestors were the 'Po family from Leeds, it will still save you some time as you record your family genes.

There are numerous ways to add and edit your family tree data, while the ease with which the many extras such as facts, notes, images, movies and sound clips can be added is truly exceptional. I particularly like the ease with which it is possible to add notes to family and individual records, set priorities, and produce a report which will group together every note in the database, or just selected notes, depending on your research need. The number of reports that can be produced by this application is truly amazing and I suspect that anyone using this package will discover a selection that they have never considered yet soon cannot live without.

Importing your existing data into RootsMagic couldn't be easier. Gedcom, Personal Ancestry File (PAF) and Family Origins files are all handled confidently by the Import Wizard, as are the Temple-Ready and Gedcom exports. The Temple-Ready wizard makes the submission and management of LDS files so easy that I feel it will be particularly beneficial for those submitting files to the LDS to take a very serious look at this application.

Budding publishers are well catered for; be your desire to put your research on the Internet or in a book. The publishing tool will output your books as acrobat (.pdf) or word processor (.rtf) format files. They can also be easily printed from within the application itself. The web page publisher provides an oppurtunity to upload your pedigree charts, family group sheets and family books, in a wide range of formats, directly to the web. In just seven steps you can even export a read-only version of RootsMagic and your database on a CD, for sharing with your family and friends. Being able to share your data this way may just be the stimuli to get your aunts, uncles, and the rest of the family searching through their cupboards and drawers for those long-lost documents, certificates and photographs you know must exist somewhere.

There are so many extras that to mention them all would take a lot more space than available here; suffice to say, this is probably the most fully-featured genealogy programme I have ever seen and, for the money, no other genealogy package even comes close.

Included data disks:

  • 1898 Atlas Maps
  • 1898 Atlas Index and Street Maps
  • 1760-1901 Index to Changes of Name
  • Burke's Encyclopedia of Heraldry
  • Scottish Landowners 1872 - 1873
  • English and Welsh Landowners 1873

Alan Brigham
East Yorkshire Family History Society

Find Out More:

RootsMagic UK V3 Platinum - available from GenealogySupplies.com

View more Genealogy Software at GenealogySupplies.com