I am on the board of my local genealogy society.  Another board member and I have been discussing how we can help society members with their genealogy software.  We’ve talked about giving lectures and small-group, hands-on help sessions.  Obviously, since members could use one of several popular programs, focusing on a single one in a general membership meeting would not be appropriate.  And then there is the question of which programs to cover.  I use Legacy Family Tree and my fellow board member uses Ancestry’s Family Tree Maker.  What about RootsMagic?  I believe that addressing these three software programs would give us good coverage among our members.

Since I have a background in software (over 30 years coding, testing and managing), I decided that I could purchase RootsMagic and learn how it works.  Then I though, why not get Family Tree Maker, too, and compare the three packages?  I could do a software “Bake Off.”  The next several postings will focus on my experience with these three genealogy software packages: Legacy Family Tree, Ancestry Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic.

Disclosure: I have purchased my own copies of each software package.  I have used Legacy Family Tree since September of 2008.  I used a previous version of Family Tree Maker in 1997.