The Master Genealogist Gold Edition

by Wholly Genes

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000060NVV
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 30, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,868 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

The Master Genealogist Gold Edition is a tool for anyone interested in researching their family tree and a means of organizing the reams of information as it comes to light. In addition to bringing one-click indexing to the heretofore confused mass of birth, death, and marriage entries, this program will help users publish their findings, either at home or on the Web. Unlike other genealogy packages that come with CD after CD of research data, TMG is comparatively spare, offering a single disk of glossaries and bibliographies as well as access to an online resource database. Where this package has the edge is in its capacity to organize a family history into coherent and readable reports. TMG will import data from a variety of formats, including other genealogy packages, and turn it into beautifully laid-out trees, charts, and graphs. This data can be exported in HTML code, allowing for convenient presentation online.

It is important to note that this Gold Edition of The Master Genealogist is a reissue of a 1999 package. In computer terms, this makes the program rather elderly. Though this version has some Web-friendly features added into its mix, it is prone to glitches, particularly during installation. Its interface is on the clunky side and may frustrate users who are still learning the ins and outs of Windows. A lengthy examination of the manual is a must for learning to use anything but the simplest TMG features. On the other hand, this program will run on a very modest computer system, and its reports are well worth examining. Well laid out and easy to read, they are the centerpiece of a hard-working tool designed to change your family lore from a pile of clippings and photographs to a coherent--and intriguing--story. --Alyx Dellamonica

Amazon.com Product Description

Ever wanted to research your family history and create a family tree? The Master Genealogist Gold Edition not only gets you started, it manages extensive genealogy projects. This robust bells-and-whistles edition provides family-history novices and aficionados alike with an extraordinary suite of tools recommended by professional genealogists.

The Master Genealogist Gold Edition's truly remarkable set of reporting tools lets you produce ancestor box charts, fan charts in any direction, and much more. A range of references, including a special edition of the Ancestry Geneaology Library, are at your fingertips. Multimedia features support more than a dozen graphic formats and digital sound, and even integrates slideshows, presentations, and movies. The software's customizable data entry options all offer maximum flexibility and ease of use.

For maximum control, Master Genealogist Gold Edition can produce reports in more than 50 native file formats, including HTML, and seamlessly supports production of headers and footers, endnotes and footnotes, and a table of contents. Compatible with several data formats, including Family Tree Maker, you can also import data with ease. Other tools range from historical timelines to correspondence logs. A tutorial and a printed reference manual help you get started, while a convenient to-do list keeps you on task.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars User-Friendly? What's User Friendly?, February 7, 2003

By 

Electric Squid (the Ocean Deeps) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Master Genealogist Gold Edition (CD-ROM)

When I purchased TMG, I underestimated the complaints about this being a difficult program to use. After all, I teach computers. I have mastered many, many types of software. I was already using genealogical software, and found it too simple. The problem isn't, however, that TMG is difficult because it is so powerful or because the task is so complex. This program is difficult to use because it is poorly designed.

I bought this program because they offered so much information. They have a detailed website and downloadable demo. Family Tree Maker has done neither of these things to gain my business. TMG's download makes the program look straightforward, but TMG is nothing like that demo. The demo is based on an outdated and completely different version, and to be still handing this out seems like a dishonest business practice to me. Let me try to take you inside TMG 5.04.

Imagine that you are entering a new piece of information for your ancestor and would like to enter a new resource. You'd like to click on the "new resource" button, and then see a Resource Manager appear. One could imagine this Resource Manager having a scrolling pane along the left to choose the type of resource (census, photo, book, newspaper) while the main part would have the appropriate data entry boxes (title, author, date, repository, etc.). Perhaps at the top there could be a pane showing a preview of how this source would appear in a bibliography. If one wanted to add extras, each data entry box could have a "comments" or "annotation" button next to it, or the data entry boxes could even have up and down arrows that could change the order in which that item would appear in the bibliographical entry.

Nothing is this easy in TMG. There is no "new source" button. Clicking on the "add" citations doesn't take you to the sources. Instead, TMG takes you first to a separate popup for comments - really a peripheral item.
Then you click on the "search" button and the popup of existing sources appears.
Then you click on the "add" button and a separate popup for source types appears.
Then you scroll and click on "select" and a separate popup with the data windows appears.
Then you click on the tab labeled "attachments" and click on the "Add" button. Then a separate popup window appears labeled "repository link screen". This screen has no real function except to make you click on "search" to bring up the separate popup for repositories. How deep in separate popup windows are you now in? Lost count? This typifies the experience with TMG; for each fact and indeed every sentence of your genealogy, you will not have any sort of central manager, but will have to click pearl-necklace style through window after window for item after item, function after function.

However, even if awkward, the resource management fulfills its promise - it's meticulous. The reporting capabilities of TMG, on the other hand, are a downright cheat. The wizard seen in the demo is not actually on TMG. The varieties of descendancy charts seen on the demo are not available on TMG. A "Register" report - probably the most popular style of written genealogy - is not available on TMG. Essentially, there are only two genealogical reports: a ancestry (Anhentafel) report, and a descendancy report. And other reports? Just try printing the sources. You probably think that you could open that popup window containing the list of sources and there would be a button labeled "Print" or "Generate Report". No such luck. So you try the word "report" on the toolbar at the top, and indeed "bibliography" appears on the dropdown menu. You can select the file folder in which you want to generate this report on the popup window. Then you click "Save" and go look for your file. Nothing there. No report has been generated. Somehow, though, you have this hunch that in a program this big there must be a way to print out all your sources... but where? How? The options menu says that certain options are only available with word processing, but where do you set one up?

Some say that this "has a steep learning curve" - which insinuates that it's your fault you can't use this clumsy thing. But consider: There is an Internet bulletin board dedicated to people trying to figure this out... My experience leads me to suspect that this awkwardly designed product remains viable only because it has no genuine competition.

Some people buy a car because they like to tinker with it; I have a car because I have places to go. Some people like TMG, I guess because they like to fiddle with a program. I, however, have genealogy to do.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a Handfull to Learn But Well Worth It!!, February 11, 2002

By 

Richard N. Fox (Anchorage, Alaska United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Master Genealogist Gold Edition (CD-ROM)

After I decided to publish my genealogy information to my own website I found Family Tree Maker was great for use on its own site but terrible for general web creation. I had to cut and paste from FTM and it was a real hassle.

After reading up on The Master Genealogist I plopped my money down and gulped as I read the manual. The manual is very detailed and a great guide after a few false starts.

The Master Genealogist (TMG) is a super program. All the source information and repository data you'd ever need is on TMG. The web publishing system is totally HTML driven and easily customized once you get the system down. I can publish pages in a fifth of the time it used to take!

Trust me...once you learn this program you won't go back! I strongly recommend the Gold version over the Silver version. The few extra dollars are well worth the additional features you receive.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There was a new download only version 5.0 released in May, August 31, 2002

By 

"bluedcelt" (Miami, Florida United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Master Genealogist Gold Edition (CD-ROM)

The version for sale here appears to be 4.0 which has been around for years and is somewhat outdated. I bought the new 5.0 version of this program recently and really like it although the learning curve is fairly steep and for the truly serious genealogy enthusiast. The new version is not complete yet but has most features working and is available only by downloading the program and there is no manual yet. The program CD will be available sometime in the future with a manual and that is included in the price for the download. It is actually cheaper than this 4.0 version so I would wait and purchase the full 5.0 version with manual sometime in the future unless you get a free upgrade to 5.0 when you purchase the older version. 5.0 works with Windows XP.