The week I have been waiting for!
The week you all are going to tell me which genealogy software I'm going to love AND use.
No. No, I can't decide. I want you to do it for me. Please??
I began my journey with Family Tree Maker back in the early 90's. I never really used it. It didn't make sense to me. When Ancestry first showed up I embraced it's ease of use and dove in. I LOVED it!! I built my entire empire in Ancestry.com. I loved that I could access it anywhere, any time. I loved it's visual appeal. I loved the design of it - it made sense to me. Then I started hearing about the foolishness of having all your work stored off site - in someone else's database. What if Ancestry should go belly-up? Then what?
I purchased an updated, 21st century version of FTM thinking it would simulate the ease of use that Ancestry provided. It still didn't make sense. I never used it.
 |
| FTM - the devil |
I purchased the upgrade.
Seemed like a good idea at the time.
In reality, what has transpired is one big fat mess. One GIANT mess that I don't even want to THINK about, as it will require mindboggling hours of tediously deleting the triplicate records that have crossed over. TRIPLICATE! In ALL my synced trees (of course I synced them all!!)
And even with the new upgrade, I still hated FTM. It still didn't make any sense. It still seemed hard to use. (I know you are asking yourself right this very second, why Anne, why did you continue down this path of perpetual error?) I don't know. FTM would not even work correctly on my brand new Win8.1 laptop (which I also detest - but that's a rant for another time). I was forced to uninstall it and reinstall it on my desktop (this is where the triple records problem originated). Either I didn't have a clue or there is no good way to remove all the synced trees from one computer and re-sync them to another computer. I am so angry with it now I doubt I will ever agree to use it again.
And all the money I wasted! All the time! All the frustration!
FTM is the devil.
And I STILL don't have an off-line program.
Afraid of recreating my previous experience I have refrained from pursuing that activity.
Until now.
Now it is a topic point, now it is something to look at, study, compare and pursue.
So, here's where you all come to my rescue, right?
footnote: I see this same problem over and over again on synced trees on Ancestry.com. Duplicate, triplicate, quadruple records. I am the first to admit that I am just slightly above clueless when it comes to many aspects of the whole computer "thing", but there has got to be a better way! Dang it!
