GSP Who Do You Think You Are? Family Tree Maker Deluxe (New Version)

The Who Do You Think You Are - Family Tree Maker is my favourite genealogy programme. It is simple and easy to use but provides all the facilities you need to make your family history look professional.

The Family Tree Maker does not run off the disc but obviously this needs loading onto your PC before you can begin using it. This process takes no longer than ten minutes and then after that you can simply pop the disc back in its box ...
...will now run simply by clicking the icon on your screen.

Family Tree Maker has many different facilities on it to ensure that searching, collating and presenting your family history is as easy as it can possibly be. The first feature I am going to look at is the Build Your Tree feature. Here you are presented with a family sheet and you simply enter in the information you already know. Husband and Wife's data are entered side-by-side ... more

The Who Do You Think You Are - Family Tree Maker is my favourite genealogy programme. It is simple and easy to use but provides all the facilities you need to make your family history look professional.

The Family Tree Maker does not run off the disc but obviously this needs loading onto your PC before you can begin using it. This process takes no longer than ten minutes and then after that you can simply pop the disc back in its box and store it on a shelf somewhere, as the programme will now run simply by clicking the icon on your screen.

Family Tree Maker has many different facilities on it to ensure that searching, collating and presenting your family history is as easy as it can possibly be. The first feature I am going to look at is the Build Your Tree feature. Here you are presented with a family sheet and you simply enter in the information you already know. Husband and Wife's data are entered side-by-side and basic information about their children e.g. name, birth and death dates are entered below. This is extremely useful as it enables you to see people connecting with the relative you are looking at all on one screen.

Travelling to the sheet of another relative is also extremely easy. It is done by clicking on the mother/father tab above their name or one the little arrow next to one of the children's names. Doing so will take you to that persons family sheet. If the person is unrelated to the individual you are looking at it is also possible to scroll through a list of the names of people you have inputted and then simply click on their name to be taken to their family sheet.

As well as basic information such as full name, birth date and place, death date and place it is also possible to input information such as marriage date and place, occupation, christening date and many, many more. The whole process is extremely easy and can be completed relatively quickly.

The next feature is the ability to search for ancestors. The program has the ability to search through online collections of family history at ancestry.co.uk (Note you do need a subscription at the site to do this). A web report can then be accessed and you can compare side-by-side the results from the search and the information you already have. If you feel there is a match the new information can be directly merged into your tree.

The next feature is the designing of trees, charts and reports. Family Tree Maker has a collection of pre-designed family trees and you by simply clicking on the family tree tab you can choose one of these designs to present your own history in. It also gives you the ability to choose who is included, what information is visible but more importantly whom the tree starts with. The programme also includes a large number of border designs, fonts and colours to enable you to personalise your family history.

The final feature of the programme is that which allows you to present your genealogical findings in book form, which can then be printed out. Here you can page by page decide what family trees or genealogical tables are included, what text you want to input and what pictures should be included. In this way you can produce a professional looking heirloom quality book for you or someone else to cherish.
As you can probably tell I really like the Who Do You Think You Are - Family Tree Maker. It really does provide the amateur genealogist with endless possibilities, when it comes to storing and presenting the data they have collected. I bought this programme after trying a few others and can therefore personally say that it is the best I have come across. It is easy to use and also includes a useful help section should you need it. Better still it takes up little space on my PC and not only saves my file automatically but also creates a back up file ensuring that all my information is never lost.

For this reason I can with confidence recommend this programme to anyone looking for a computerised way to store their family history information. 

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