I first used Family Tree Maker in 1990. It was a DOS program and served its purpose well. But I quickly found that it couldn't handle certain genealogy situations very well, such as adoption. And navigation up and down a family tree was very difficult. So I switched to another program.

Years later, I bought version 4 of Family Tree Maker. I was very disappointed to find the same navigation problems. Oh well, at least the new version was a Windows program, and it could print very attractive charts. Plus, the included World Family Tree CD's made research easier.

But somewhere along the research trail, my needs changed. I found it difficult to stay on top of the massive amounts of paper I had collected: source documents, research notes, to-do lists, etc... FTM just wasn't helping me control the process. So I switched programs again. I bought Family Origins version 5.

Just last week, I evaluated the most recent versions of Family Origins (version 9) and Family Tree Maker (version 8.) Family Origins wins by a landslide. It has better handling of sources, a better screen layout (I can see see 5 generations on 1 screen!), and many, many more reports than FTM has. Plus I can create a to-do list for each person in my file and print a list of all the to-do's when I'm ready. I can fit my entire research notebook onto a single floppy now!!

I really want to like Family Tree Maker. I've used it 3 times over 10 years. But the product is consistently behind the competition in terms of features. It's only redeeming quality is the World Family Tree CD's, but you have to pay big money for the ones you don't have. For my money, its Family Origins all the way.




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