Genealogy Software Recs - family tree maker?

[alainr]

With a family reunion coming up next year, i want to work on a family tree. A program that allows family members around the world to update the chart would be great. That is true w/ancestry.com but if you stopt your subscription, it removes access to the docs you've linked to your tree. So i do want a program on my mac.
It would be great to be able to easily share the database w/family members who aren't necessarily on a mac and don't have the same program. gedcom file transfers seem complicated.
Ease of use and long term support w/upgrades are important to me.

Any recommendations? I've read about:
2017 Family Tree Maker now owned by McKiev--is it supported/updated?
Heredis?
MacFAmilyTree? it is only for macs; will that impact be able to send a file to non mac users?
Reunion? only for macs; very mixed reviews.

 

[AZhappyjack]

With a family reunion coming up next year, i want to work on a family tree. A program that allows family members around the world to update the chart would be great. That is true w/ancestry.com but if you stopt your subscription, it removes access to the docs you've linked to your tree. So i do want a program on my mac.
It would be great to be able to easily share the database w/family members who aren't necessarily on a mac and don't have the same program. gedcom file transfers seem complicated.
Ease of use and long term support w/upgrades are important to me.

Any recommendations? I've read about:
2017 Family Tree Maker now owned by McKiev--is it supported/updated?
Heredis?
MacFAmilyTree? it is only for macs; will that impact be able to send a file to non mac users?
Reunion? only for macs; very mixed reviews.

Family Tree Maker by McKiev is, indeed, supported and updated. Additionally, it is the only program AFAIK that syncs directly with Ancestry.com. I believe there is also a Windows version, but can't say for absolutely sure.

 

[alainr]

Family Tree Maker by McKiev is, indeed, supported and updated. Additionally, it is the only program AFAIK that syncs directly with Ancestry.com. I believe there is also a Windows version, but can't say for absolutely sure.

Thank you for responding. If I stop subscribing to ancestry.com does the information from searches stay on Family Treemaker?
Is there a way to send the tree to someone who doesn’t have family tree maker? As printing out a multipage tree and scanning it and emailing it gets cumbersome to reassemble.
Thank you again!

 

[AZhappyjack]

Thank you for responding. If I stop subscribing to ancestry.com does the information from searches stay on Family Treemaker?
Is there a way to send the tree to someone who doesn’t have family tree maker? As printing out a multipage tree and scanning it and emailing it gets cumbersome to reassemble.
Thank you again!

Ironically, my subscription to Ancestry.com just lapsed... like most subscribers, I use it a while, then let it lapse for a while, then resubscribe. And not only does the information stay in Family Tree Maker, but you can continue to sync between your FTM tree and Ancestry.com, even without an active subscription.

As far as "sending the tree" to someone, I don't think so... but the FTM software has a pretty good set of reports that you can create and print to .pdf files and share those. I am always getting requests for information from my siblings and some cousins, and printing reports to a .pdf file makes that very easy to do.

 

[bdj33ranch]

I’ve used Reunion for many years and been happy with it. Currently using v12.

I don’t think you should let GEDCOM be a major concern to you. It’s a pretty universal method, with rules, for transferring data between genealogy programs. More info about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDCOM

 

[AZhappyjack]

I’ve used Reunion for many years and been happy with it. Currently using v12.

I don’t think you should let GEDCOM be a major concern to you. It’s a pretty universal method, with rules, for transferring data between genealogy programs. More info about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDCOM

I have nothing against the GEDCOM standard or the files as a method for sharing data... but does it also work with media? I have almost 4200 people in my family tree and a lot of attached media (over 3700 photos)... if I share that via GEDCOM, that all gets lost, as I understand it.

 

[bdj33ranch]

It would appear transferring multimedia files is not an easy process. Especially between different computers running different programs. That difficulty would not be limited to just Reunion - but probably all genealogy programs. Here are some links from the Reunion forum discussions, and cautions, that may be of interest:

Gedcom:
https://www.reuniontalk.com/forum/using-reunion-12/12472-importing-from-ancestry
https://www.reuniontalk.com/forum/using-reunion-12/12699-importing-from-ancestry-com-into-reunion

Multimedia:
https://www.reuniontalk.com/forum/using-reunion-12/89354-gedcom-from-ftm-2017
https://www.reuniontalk.com/forum/u.../9280-copying-multimedia-files-to-another-mac

I'm certainly not a Reunion expert and I’ve never tried doing media transfer so this is about the limit of my ability to assist you.