RootsMagic

Don't bother if you want to load it it on a MAC. Total garbage, crashes and freezes up constantly. They're own support admitted the MAC version had known bugs but they sell it anyway. Criminal

I really wanted to love this program but the amount of glitches is unacceptable. Half my ancestory sync people match to "unknown." I can't transfer more than one category of sourced at a time without getting an error message and it is not user friendly. I will be switching to a different program when I can afford it. RM 8 has the ability to be great but it's now been over nine months since it was released which is plenty of time to work out the bugs, especially with the number of errors reported but they don't seem to care. Save your money and find a different program.

Version 8 is, in my humble opinion, a HUGE letdown. It's clunky at best and very difficult at its worst. Version 7, as it's been pointed out, was a smoother, more user friendly. I was able to memorize keystrokes to achieve what I needed to do. With Version 8, it took me 20 minutes to figure out how to generate a Family Group report. Hey, RootsMagic, make Version 8 more like Version 7 in looks and abilities. I've chosen not to use Version 8... I'll just write the amount I wasted on my upcoming taxes. Or, better yet, find a better genealogy program... now that's a good idea.

RootsMagic 8 is kludgy and counterintuitive. For some unknown reason, the developers have eliminated all of the single key commands that made entering genealogical data quick and painless on previous versions. They've completely sacrificed ease of use and the needs of the genealogist for a cartoonish UX that forces the user to hunt for buttons to accomplish what used to be done with a couple of keystrokes. I ditched it after an hour and have gone back to RM7.

How many have been taken in by the RootsMagic 8 scam/vaporware? I was looking to upgarde my genealogy software so I bought into the lie that RootsMagic 8 would be released "soon" and buying version 7 would include the upcoming release. These people have been selling their v. 7 with a free license for a non-existant v. 8 for well over a year now promising a free upgrade "when available". They certainly took me for $30, and a year and a half later the promised upgrade is still just a rumor.

The development timeline, poor performance and recent lack of updates betray a failed business plan. In an attempt to capture a larger share of the Mac market by updating a successful product the company has bit off more than it can chew.
It appears that Rootsmagic is little more than a garage operation with only 3 identifiable employees - far too few to support an effort of this magnitude. This was evident when they failed to appear at RootsTech - a premier marquee event for all genealogical software.
Their pricing history on previous versions (too low) has failed to accumulate sufficient cash to hire the manpower necessary to support this update. This has resulted in a delayed and disastrous product introduction which was partly rescued by a rapid series of updates. Unfortunately, the updates have slowed to a crawl and customer frustration has mounted. Its not clear that they can reverse this death spiral without a cash infusion to hire the required programmers.
Don't be surprised if Rootsmagic changes hands or, worse, ceases to exist.

This is a good idea letting the elder generation talk to young members of family. It can be very helpful transporting little stories and historical motovation.
How nice would it be to include speach of grands?

Terrible program, what a let down, version 7 was better looking and more user friendly. Total waste of my money. Won't be using version 8 and thank God I still have v7. I'm a retired IT tech and this program is NOT an improvement.

RM7 was great bnut RM8 is just garbage. Freezes all the tiem on the simplest of tasks and has to be killed in task manager or by rebooting. DO NOT BUY!

I have been waiting - as I am sure most Mac users have - for going on a year for the release of RM8. The Mac wrapper of RM7 has started locking up my Mac running Catalina. I have neither the time nor the patience to continue with ‘any day now'. Synium's MacTree 9. 1. 2 works fine and is actually available.

I wanted to list all those on my tree who had lived in a particular place and my husband said it would be a nice feature but that it couldn't be done on My Heritage. I quickly called the Helpline, was on hold for no more than 20 secs and then spoke to the charming and helpful Talia who handheld me as she walked me through the minimum of steps to reach my goal. Brilliant solution and even better support from Talia.

I had never even heard of Roots Magic before they charged my debit card. Nothing but thieves. Trying to get a refund.

Have had RootsMagic 7 Mac for about 6 weeks. Just when I think I've resolved one issue... another comes along. I've spent hours just having to figure out why it's not doing this, or not doing that. Called their customer service and was told "oh, it's a Mac issue... don't know much about that, the person who usually takes care of Macs is gone. You might trying calling when it's not 5 minutes before we leave for the day". Other customer service calls were equally frustrating, so most times I'm left to my own devices. Big disappointment.

I started out with Ancestry, and used them extensively. However my long term experience with Ancestry is not positive. So when Ancestry announced that it would stop supporting FamilyTreeMaker, RootsMagic announced a special deal to allow customers to move to RootsMagic. So I now have all 3: Ancestry Online, FamilyTreeMaker on my PC and RootsMagic on my PC.

In general I like what I see with RootsMagic, but I still consider myself a novice with it.

While its GUI Interface isn't as slick as Ancestry browser based GUI, its functionality as a PC based program far exceeds what I can get our of Ancestry online.

I'm expecting to transition from FamilyTreeMaker to RootsMagic when RootsMagic supports syncing with Ancestry. Yes its coming soon (in fall 2016, I think)

Some details I really like about Roots Magic:
Count trees - Will find "islands" of people in your tree, IE disconnected sections
Problem lists - Allows extensive validation checking, and offers flexibility in what it checks
Colour coding - Like highlighting a hardcopy
Grouping - You can make your own groups of people
Online hints - They support hints from multiple sources

RootsToGo - You can take you database on a USB stick to the Library, FamilyHIstory Centre etc. No extra charge.

Sharing. You can make a copy of your database to distribute to family members and they can view it on their PC. No extra charge. Called Sharable CD, but I burn mine to a USB stick. I recently burned 6 copies to share with my cousins. So now we can all see the same details.

They also have a Publish to Web option where you can make a website that they host. I haven't fully explored this yet, but it looks very promising.

And a manual that details how to do things. (It does cost $$, but I'd recommend it. Perhaps I'm old school, but having something to read helps you understand what it can do).

Compare trees seems powerful if you have multiple versions of your tree, or are comparing your tree to someone elses.

Importing GED files was easy. No hiccups at all. It can also import many other formats, such as FTM directly.

When you start it up on your PC there is a popup with news items and possible software updates to download.

However, I haven't fully explored their printing yet. I'm still hooked on FamilyTreeMaker's ability to print a large chart as a pdf (eg 10 feet on 36" paper) that I can take to my local print shop.

And I need to explore their ability to build a book based on your family tree. This sounds extremely promising/interesting. They also have companion software intended for that purpose.

So in summary, I'd suggest a vastly polar opposite corporate culture for RootsMagic than for Ancestry. My opinion of Ancestry is that they are driven by corporate greed, while RootsMagic appears to be driven by a true interest in genealogical success.

Excellent service nothing was any trouble. Good program and easy to use, recommend it to anyone doing their Family Tree.

This is similar to the old LDS PAF program for Windows that I used in the past so the learning curve was easy. I like the 'Rootsweb to GO" feature that let's "bring" your file with you portable devices. I even bought copies of the program for family members without any genealogy software to share "our tree."

My favorite feature, beside the ease of use, is the "Tree Share." This feature gives me the control of what to accept and not accept for my research. Thank you, Roots Magic!

I use this program often for housing my own family history records and it has always worked beautifully