RootsMagic Family Tree Genealogy Software

by RootsMagic

Product Features

• "The best genealogy program we've seen" - Smart Computing Magazine
• Create shareable CDs of your data and pictures to send to family and friends
• Publish family history books for your family and friends
• Create spectacular wall charts which you can fully customize
• Run RootsMagic and your data directly from a flash drive

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• ASIN: B0002ZI8SO
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 4, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,009 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #7 in Software > Home & Hobbies > Genealogy
  • #66 in Software > Home & Hobbies > Hobbies

Product Description

Awarded "Editor's Choice" by Heritage Quest Magazine. RootsMagic is an easy to use family tree program with extensive family history reports, multiple navigation views, photos, publishing, and website creation features. RootsMagic supports unlimited people, families, events, notes, and photos. Users can print complete books (where the program writes the sentences for each event), spectacular charts, forms, lists, and even create custom reports. RootsMagic program also provides multiple database support (with drag and drop), SourceWizard, todo lists, powerful merge features, and more. Full GEDCOM support allows users to easily share their data with others, or to easily import their data from other programs. Import directly from Family Tree Maker (v16 and earlier), PAF, Legacy, or Family Origins. Create shareable CDs of your data and photos to send to your family and friends.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

380 of 382 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Full featured and easy to use, with excellent source management, November 27, 2005

By 

Robin G. Sowton "rsowton" (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: RootsMagic Family Tree Genealogy Software (CD-ROM)

I discovered RootsMagic (v3.0) fairly recently. First, some background... I'm working with roughly 2000 names, and my goal is to research and publish the data, along with personal stories. I started with Family Tree Maker several years ago, but I didn't like the lack of citation capabilities with that earlier version. So, I switched to The Master Genealogist (TMG) which provides great source management but has a clumsy interface. The newer release of TMG has not improved this. Because you spend a lot of time entering information, the interface needs to be fairly painless and transparent. So, then I looked at Legacy, GenBox and RootsMagic, which have the necessary functionality but are also easy to use. It was a difficult choice between Legacy and RootsMagic, but I chose RootsMagic because I felt that it had a slight edge in its source management and that this feature was comparable to The Master Genealogist.

Installation was easy. After I exported my old TMG database files to a single .gedcom file, I used RootsMagic to import it. It was fast and the data loaded quite cleanly. RootsMagic lets you import GEDCOM files, Family Origins database and backup files, and PAF database files. Also, for anyone working with LDS, you can create and read TempleReady files and handle ordinances.

The interface is easy to use and it provides three views: Pedigree, Family and Descendants. You can access an individual or family by selecting the name from a list and loading it into the views. To modify an individual's data or relationships, you can right-click on the name (in any view or list) to access options from the popup menu. RootsMagic provides master lists for Sources, To-Do, Addresses, Repository, Correspondence, Places, and Fact types. Also, you can modify places, which contain addresses/locations, to include Latitude and Longitude coordinates, describe the history of the place, and include multimedia files (e.g., maps and photos).

Of course, this tool's major advantage is its source management capabilities. You can assign one or more sources to an individual, a family, or an event. Whenever you create a new source, you can define the information through a Source dialog box that has multiple tabs (Source, Text, Multimedia, and Respository), and link multiple media assets to the source (e.g., photos, files, sound, and video). Also, each time you assign the source to something, you can enter descriptive text for just that specific assignment.

As you enter data into RootsMagic, the application writes to an .rmg file for which you can create multiple backups. You can also export to the GEDCOM format for easy importing into other genealogy applications. When you export, you can define what will be exported and manage privacy options. You can generate books and reports (in many different formats). You can also publish to a web format (although I don't like the way RootsMagic outputs this). Also, I found some search capabilities to be better when they're done through the Reporting functions. Other RootsMagic options include calculators (relationship, Soundex and Date), shareable CD creation, timelines, color-coding of individuals, and charts (including wall-sized ones).

In conclusion, do not let the lower price or the easy-to-use interface dissuade you. This application has some serious citation/source capabilities that makes it competitive with The Master Genealogist and ahead of some other similar applications.

136 of 139 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely the best in the business, December 20, 2005

By 

Blaine S. Nay (Cedar City, UT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RootsMagic Family Tree Genealogy Software (CD-ROM)

I've tried 'em all. This is clearly the best genealogy software I've used. RootsMagic is the most intuitive software on the market. My database has over 50,000 names in it and this software handles the load effortlessly and quickly. It can create very nice charts and web pages. The publisher listens to the users and continually upgrades the software to meet their needs. He stays on top of the changes being made by the LDS church's Family History library system and updates the software to work seamlessly with the library's systems.

96 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great program, bad interface., January 1, 2007

By 

Kenzworld (Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: RootsMagic Family Tree Genealogy Software (CD-ROM)

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.