Family Tree Maker 9.0 Deluxe

Other products by Riverdeep

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005M0ID
• Item model number: 381162
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 9, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,781 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  Software > Home & Hobbies > Genealogy

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Although not as concise as family tree software the comes on DVD-ROM, version 9 of Family Tree Maker Deluxe from The Learning Company has trimmed the CD library down to 11 discs, putting a lot of their searchable databases online. While you'll still do some disc-swapping when searching on CD, the online searches can take only seconds with a high-speed connection, letting you view, download, and interact with over 200,000 researched family trees at the World Family Tree Collection (a one-month subscription comes free with the deluxe version of Family Tree Maker).

In addition to the extensive online searches, Family Tree Maker also includes several CDs typical of family tree software, including two family history discs, military records, and the Social Security Death Index from 1937 through 1999.

But it's the program's organizational tools that home genealogists will really appreciate. Family Tree Maker walks you through the steps of creating your own tree, displays entire family groups on a single page, and offers a variety of ways to personalize your tree. In addition to adding images for individuals, Family Tree Maker lets you insert audio and video clips to a tree as well as use a variety of borders, colors, and fonts. The click-through interface is intuitive for the average user, with wizards that step you through most of the creation and sharing processes.

Unique tools, such as the Personal Research Journal, help users keep tabs on tasks that need to be done for a tree, while the Relationship Calculator will automatically figure out the relationship between any two individuals in your family file (so you can see just how far removed that weird cousin Vera really is).

Family Tree Maker makes it easy to share your tree with family members in a variety of ways. You can display your tree in different formats for printing if you want to share hard copies, but you can also upload your tree to the free home page provided at Genealogy.com. In addition to the tree, you can also share slide shows, multimedia scrapbooks, and photos at the home page.

While searches with Family Tree Maker sometimes resulted in the same costly dead ends as other family tree software (where you have to purchase additional CDs or subscriptions to see the results of your search), for the under-$70 cost, it offers a lot of tools and databases to get the beginning genealogist well on the way to branching out his or her family tree. --J. Curtis

Amazon.com Product Description

Family Tree Maker 9.0 is an easy and complete resource for building a family tree. Family Tree Maker features sophisticated research tools, a wide variety of keepsake printouts, easy-to-use home page wizards, and one of the largest Internet genealogy communities.

Search U.S. and international indexes and records to find family members and history. Look through census reports, immigration records, passenger lists, birth records, military, and more. A step-by-step guide and customized tips help users research like a professional. Comb the Web and proprietary data with a genealogy search engine to find information on ancestors. Create personalized, heirloom-quality family trees, books, maps, multimedia scrapbooks, and family home pages. The Deluxe Edition includes one month of free access to the World Family Tree Collection featuring 200,000 researched family trees.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Like SPAM get this product, June 16, 2002

By	Bob (MA) - See all my reviews

This is not a good product. The graphics are fine however sign up for the free research and you learn you get nothing or very little for free. Most requests for info result is a request to join the pay service. By the way you need to sign up for the "Free" services and you will recieve weekly advertisments to upgrade, join, and a host of other things. I have sent them email to stop, yelled screamed; nothing works. It just keeps comming and comming. I was able to find all the information I got from their "free" service from independent searches. EVEN THE 10 CDs THEY PROVIDE USUALLY GET YOU A REQUEST TO JOIN THEIR PAID SERVICE. The basic product isn't bad but not at the price and the constant SPAM really ticks me off..I GET ENOUGH JUNK MAIL!

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the Lot, July 25, 2002

By	Ed Mortensen "Sci-Fi Guy" (CA Transplant to Utah, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I got the family tree maker with the fewest CDs to get started and that turned out to be best, it let me sign up for the online data that I needed and not fumble with stuff that I might not need. (It also saved me some money.)

Unlike products with fancy graphic interfaces and colorful screens, the dumpy yellow interface doesn't even hint at the power of this application. Family Tree Maker allows me to record a tremendous amount of information, source citations and even record information that contradicts itself until I can get a definitive source.

The graphical charting and reporting are the best of the ones I've seen or tried, far more than I'll be able to use.

By far the most advanced feature of the product is their family finder report. This kind of smart searching saved me months of research by finding others working on my family lines, buy a copy of the CD and letting me contact them directly when they gave their permission to broderbund.

Their for-fee data sources are valuable and worth the price, free would of course be best, but I guess they aren't in business to do work for me and for free.

The product needs a face-lift to make it look more modern and the importing of data from other genealogy products can be slow, but this is still the hands-down best product.

I find all e-mail annoying so I went to their site and asked that it not be sent.

I believed the software magazine editors that this is a winner and am glad I did.

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Windows 3.x program marketed as XP!, June 18, 2002

By	John R. Connolly (Marysville, OH United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've spent a great deal of time compiling Family genealogy notes and thought that this product would be much easier than using Word or Excel to organize and chart all my data. I was given an old copy of version 6 from a friend, but quickly saw that it was a very old interface with few features and little ability to import or export data to other Windows applications. I quickly upgraded to version 9 hoping to gain all the advantages of XP- an easy to use interface, etc. I installed this product three times thinking that it wasn't working and I was still using version 6. I finally checked the help menu for the version number and discovered that I was running version 9, but that it looked and behaved exactly as version 6!! The current version of this product is almost 10 years behind the current technology. If you're looking for an arcane way to enter information that can't be well displayed or organized, this is it; otherwise, I'd recommend you save the money for technologically superior method: a notepad and a pen. Shame on Broderbund for marketing old software in a new box.