Customer Reviews

Family Tree Maker 10 Collector's Edition

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3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
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I was using Family Tree Maker 3.4 for a number of years. I decided to upgrade by purchasing Family Tree Maker 10.0 "Collector's Edition". I am pleased with Family Tree Maker version 10.0, but I was disappointed with the 20 CDs that were offered. The selection of data offered on the 20 CDs did not meet my expectations. I think it would be of marginal use by most people doing genealogical research.

I would suggest a person pay less and purchase the basic Family Tree Maker 10 by Broderbund. Additional money would be better spent on a subscription to genealogy.com or ancestry.com. Well, as I mentioned, I'm not disappointed with the Tree Maker version 10.0 software, just the selection of data on the 20 CDs. At the very least, I think it would be nice if the Web site had posted the titles of the 20 CDs included in the package.

I bought Family Tree Maker (FTM) for two reasons: (1) It is the most popular genealogy program among people that I share databases with, and (2) I was using Family Origins, but support for Family Origins has been discontinued.

In trying to get you to switch from Family Origins to FTM, they tell you, "Your Family Origins data imports accurately into Family Tree Maker via the GEDCOM format." I found this not completely true. I have run into serious problems in porting data from Family Origins to FTM. So far, I have found that key words are dropped from custom facts, long notes are truncated, and suffixes such as "Jr." are dropped from names. In addition, notes that Family Origins associated with facts are disassociated from the facts and dropped into the person's general Notes bucket, so that these notes lose their contexts, and many of them no longer make sense. And I expect to find more problems, as I have only begun sifting through the 1,197 warnings and error messages generated during the import. Another case of false advertising for FTM, to echo a charge made by other reviewers.

A number of customers on FTM's own message boards recommend migrating from Family Origins to RootsMagic. RootsMagic is supposedly done by the same people who did Family Origins.

On the other hand, this program is easy to use and produces nice reports and graphics, even better output than from Family Origins.

I'm surprised at the bitterness in other reviews regarding the CDs. I'm not so disappointed with the CDs, maybe because I wasn't expecting much from them anyway. If you rely heavily on CDs, you'll have to look at an awful lot of CDs to find many direct hits on your ancestors. In this set, I find several CDs interesting. Not bad.

Learned the hard way that this version of Family tree maker is not compatible with WIN7; Had to re-install operating system as it would no longer respond to links after removing noncompatible software. Works great in Win XP

I do not know about others but so far I have been mining data from the CDs for over 4 months and don't see and end to it, I come across linked names and locations and find new sources everytime, the 20 cd set is the most complete I have seen.

The collectors version is the most complete and very detail, unless your family name is krsoifj from eslobacovia then you may have a hard time, but it "may be" there; just have to search harder!

Very good I recommend.