Genealogy Software?

Question:

Genealogy Software?

My computer crashed and I lost all the information I had. No, I didn't think to back it up <sigh> Fortunately, I had written a family book for my mother's side and most of the information on my father, I got from the same person. So I have the information, but since I have to start all over with entering the information, I was wondering if I should go with a different software program.

What is your favorite family tree software and why?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Roots Magic, because I have worked as a computer programmer for 30 years and know good work when I see it. RM has a number of features that make life easier because they have a really good data base design.

To take one example, if you decide to change all 800 birth, death, marriage and burial place citations of "Modesto, Ca" to "Modesto, Stanislaus, California", you can do it just once.

RM's custom report feature make it easy to select any group of people and report on them. I sent each of my nieces and nephews a list of their ancestors that shared their name. (Niece Elizabeth had lots; Nephew "Cody" didn't have any.) I sent all of my nephews a list of their (extended) family members who had advocated the overthrow of the US Government by force, just in case anyone asked. It had name, rank, regiment, birth date, death date and spouse.

(Cyrus Pack, Sgt, 10th Virginia Sharpshooters, for instance.)

It is easy to use. You don't have to be a programmer to appreciate that.

Turning now to backing up, you should back up every week or so to a flash drive, and put that flash drive in a different room of the house - or in your desk at work, if you have one. Once every 6 months you could upload your data to Roots Web World Connect. They privatize it for you, and if something untoward happens again, you can get a copy from them unprivatized.