When you purchase a genealogy program for your computer, there's just the purchase price. Most companies continue to add a few more features so every couple of years, they will have the upgrade for a price (they'ne got to pay their programmers!) Most have a discounted price for current users to upgrade to, however.
If you have your tree on Ancestry.com (or FamilySearch.org or MyHeritage,com or or or), you can create a Gedcom file. Since you are on Ancestry, I'd do an Internet search for: download tree ancestry and get this: https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Uploading-and-Downloading-Trees Save it to your Desktop. After you decide which genealogy software you like (RootsMagic has their Essentials as a free trial version and Legacy Family Tree has their Standard Edition for free), do File > Import and bring your data in. You mention Family Tree Maker (FTM), another genealogy software. They are now owned by MacKiev. I don't know of any free trials or sales on that. So if you like Family Tree Maker (FTM), you'll just have to purchase it and hope you like it. I don't know what you mean by the "matches." We are talking about genealogy software. Unless you mean being able to tell people with the same surname apart. Yes, the genealogy software programs for you computer can help. Here's a bunch of Manuel de Mellos in my program: [image: Inline image 1] On some, I have birth and death dates to tell them apart. On most, I have the father's and the mother's name. I have the spouse on many as well. So it helps me figure out which Manuel de Mello I want to work on. Also, many of these genealogy software programs have User Groups. You would have to look on the genealogy software site for one in your area. The nearest one to me was a 50 minute drive, but I did it. We met every other month. Going to the User Groups really helped me become a very good user of my genealogy program. Many people will insist their genealogy software program is the "best." The "best" is what is best for you. When I picked mine in the mid-90s, I needed something that could take loooong place names (Vila Franca do Campo and Ribeira das Tainhas were too long for all genealogy software programs back in the day) and take the diacritics (accented letters: ç, or João). Almost all genealogy software programs can handle these things today. You'll be interested in the look and feel. Check out their indexing system to see if it handles enough fields for you to tell all the Manuel de Mellos apart. Also see how it handles same-sex partners. Whatever your personal beliefs may be, that's your own personal thing, but I'm finding distant cousins who have a spouse of the same sex and function as a family, so I go ahead and enter their spouse in my program. Some programs won't take it at all. Also, most will have a Relationship Calculator so you can figure out that the new found cousin is a 3rd cousin 2x removed, a 4th cousin once removed, and a 5th cousin, all at once! The online ones (Ancestry, MyHeritage, Geni) can't do this. You may also want to look at their report features and chart features. Reports are good to send to cousins. Charts are good for your own use as well as cousins. Online programs don't do this. So just find the one that is the best fit for you. I know the most popular ones are Family Tree Maker (FTM) by MacKiev (partners with Ancestry), Legacy Family Tree (Millennia Corp and partnering with MyHeritage), and RootsMagic (partners with Family Search.org and I don't know who else). These also have User Groups you may be able to attend. There are other genealogy software programs that others have mentioned in this thread. Again, find the one that suits you best. Good luck! Cheri Cheri Mello Listowner, Azores-Gen Researching: São Miguel island: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, Ribeira das Tainhas, Achada On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 10:31 AM, Gordon soares <gws...@gmail.com> wrote: > Cheri > Does this mean that these programs you list have no monthly fee like > Ancestry? Can a person transfer the Ancestry trees to the programs? And > link to FTM? What about matches,etc? > Gordon Soares > > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Dec 13, 2017, at 11:08 AM, Cheri Mello <gfsche...@gmail.com> wrote: > > (Cross posted to Azores, Madeira, and IslandRoutes) > > Everyone should have a genealogy software program on their computer where > they maintain their tree. These programs give you complete control and have > many features not available on the online tree "programs" which are more > for display purposes. Anything that you change in your personal program can > be uploaded to the online sites. > > Here's a couple of genealogy programs with current sales. > > RootsMagic for $30 USD (bundle of stuff): > www.rootsmagic.com/holidayoffer > > Also, Heredis (I forget about this one as there's no user group in my area) > https://shop.heredis.com/ > > As always, there's Legacy Family Tree and their Standard Edition is free: > www.legacyfamilytree.com > > Cheri Mello > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Azores Genealogy" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/azores. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Azores Genealogy" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/azores. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Azores Genealogy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/azores.
