Gracey D.

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.

I was very new to family research in 2014, and pleasantly surprised at the vast amount of records available at Ancestry. These official records from Government agencies, parish records + more seemed to back up what I knew, and some records corrected family misinformation.

I even had a very heart warminmg success when my hairdresser casually told me about a relative who had been killed age 24 and she had brought up his little girl, now an adult. With just his name and city of birth I was able to trace his family, and she has now found her grandmother (who never knew about her granddaughter). Tough to argue with those kind of results.

And very positive results in tracing cousins ancestry. Of especial interest has been the Departure/Arrival information from National Archives, showing overseas travel. I located a 2nd cousin of my late father and he never knew we existed. I visited him just in time, he passed away 3 months after that. I wouldn't have found him without this information. Other family relatives are excited to see journeys that their parents made with themselves as infants

However, Other members public trees were a very different picture. I found other trees that had very incorrect information about my family. Some even had cousins that didn't exist (they were children of other couples who had same surnames, not even same first name). Many other public trees has wrong dates (off by years). I even went to the trouble of acquiring their birth certificates and putting that family in my tree (but disconnected from my family) so others could find it and see the errors. There needs to be a way to dispute incorrect information in other public trees, or a way to only allow validated portions of trees to be public.,

There is value is seeing other peoples trees, but there needs to be some sort of "rating" system to indicate relative quality/accuracy before other people just copy rubbish and make more rubbish.

This is very much a feature of today's world: "DisInformation". It really is troublesome to see so much rubbish, and makes it extremely hard to filter the good from the bad. I know feel the need to completely review all of my tree information that has been gleaned from other trees. Colour coding to separate an official record from a public tree would be useful (as some competitive tools allow). Be very careful with public trees. I now consider them almost 100% speculation. Just last week I was researching an ancestor from teh 1700'as and found a large group of people with the same info. Hmm. 'Strength in numbers?" NO. "fools never differ". They were all from another country, and had all keyed on someone who has exact same name but very different parts pf the country. There was a lone person who like me, just has a little bit of info. So the 2 of us (<10%) appears to have valid info, and 90% have rubbish. People act foolishly in crowds, and this is what Ancestry appears to be morphing into: A pool of rubbish driven by crowd instinct (and corporate greed), rather than a serious genealogical tool.

The DNA aspect is also questionable. I can trace my heritage to UK (87% UK, 13% Irish). Ancestry suggest that I am 22% Scandinavian (they got the 13% Irish correct)., Hmm. I suppose if you include the Vikings then everyone in UK is 22%. So I think that their sample/reference database is in error. I consider Ancestry DNA a waste of money, and just a gimmick. They may have scientific machinery performing tests, but they are making too much of a "leap of faith" in their assertions. I have taken other DNA tests (Family Tree and 23nad ME and find the FamilyTree research to be most effective, and better use of my money).

The clincher came with this new look and feel of their website. It is plain ugly. It is now harder (takes longer) to achieve tasks, Many more clicks, can no longer hover to get results). The insertion of arbitrary "this world event was going on at the same time" in the timeline is very annoying. I think this was built by folks who see the future as 100% tablets/touch screen oriented, and are excited by electronic toys.

The New Maybe/Undecided hints, while initially seeming useful, really isn't There is no way to search and find all the people that you have with Undecided hints. You have to look at each person individually to see if they have such hints once you have indicated Maybe. There is no way to search/find all the people that you have marked as Maybe.

There is no concept of backward compatibility, a concept poorly understood by new software developers (I have developed software for decades, even on these new tinker toy computers). They seem to think that changing something that has impact on customers is perfectly acceptable. New functionality is welcome, but provide it via new options that the user can activate/select when they are ready, not on a developers timetable,

Ancestry has lost me as a loyal customer. When my current subscription expires, I'm gone. Period. I'll come back when they pay me.

If you haven't yet signed up for Ancestry, don't bother. There are better places to waste your money.