I use Legacy Family Tree! There are many charts to tinker with and view your results as well as a pleasant look about it. There are many free upgrades in between the major upgrades that cost money, so they are always keeping up on tweaks. Major upgrades occur every 3 or 4 years or so your wallet isn’t drained. There are designated spots to put in your Find-A-Grave as well as Family Search ID Numbers so when you click on it, it opens right up to the page you want. There are many fun features that I cannot think off as I have been using the program for years and probably don’t even realize what I take for granted anymore!

Looking for the best family tree software for genealogy? Mobile app and downloadable software (for Windows and Mac); Can be made completely private.

I switched to Legacy from Family Tree Maker over 15 years ago and have sampled a couple other programs, before I made the switch. I especially like the Facebook group. You can read the manual, but reading how others use certain fields or reading what how they want to input something is fascinating as I keep learning more and more about this program and how to use it! I am using Reunion 12 and like it very much. I only got my first Mac about 5 years ago. Before that I was a PC user since 1986.

I have used PAF, Family Roots by Quinsept, Roots III (my all time favorite), Family Tree Maker, and Legacy Family Tree in the past. If I were a Windows user looking for genealogy software today I would probably go for RootsMagic. It seems to be most popular and Bruce Buzbee, the creator, is quite accessible.

All are similar to cars though. The steering wheel is always in the same place; windows sit atop doors. The trunk is in the back and they all have four wheels.

It boils down to brand loyalty or which style and color pleases you the most. I am presently looking at RootsFinder put out by Dallan Quass and others. It’s online and evidence based rather than people based (I think). He also was founder of WeRelate.org, another online database program that was different from the others.

I tried it but never quite got it even though I liked the concept. Now that he’s offering another take on standard genealogy recording I’m going to try again. I have been going back and forth between Reunion and RootsMagic for years. I was really looking forward to RootsMagic’s ability to sync with Ancestry.com, but then I discovered that I could only prevent sending my attached files (like photos, birth certificates, etc.) to Ancestry on the initial synch.

Subsequent synchs of updates sent the attached files with no way to prevent it unless I made each one private. I only have rights for personal use of some of these files — commercial use is prohibited. So, I’m back to Reunion.

I used a very early version of FTM and kept upgrading to new versions. I also kept my trees on Ancestry, but wanted an application resident on my computer that I owned and made me not totally dependent on the Ancestry cloud.