Who can recommend

[ninkasi]

a good software program that requires buying, rather than sources that are free online? I've been tracing my family tree, and on my Dad's side of the family, I'm stuck in about the late 1700s. I see Ancestry.com, and several others, but don't want to pay for something that doesn't really perform.

Any suggestions, even a PM, if you prefer, would be appreciated.

[ninkasi]

1. Anybody?

[Montauk6]

2. I rely heavily on Family Tree Maker 2006

The online search/merge is worth the price of admission.

Gensmarts is a somewhat helpful auxiliary tool in that it comes up with hints on where to gather info both online and offline for a relative.

The Master Genealogist is a highly respected expert-level program; I went ahead and bought a license but I've not been too impressed the way I have been with FTM.

[fudge stripe cookays]

3. Not sure...

if you're talking about the data entry type of software to STORE your data or websites that will provide the genealogy data to put into it.

Ancestry is expensive, but my original harshness towards it has mellowed since a cousin granted me his access to it. It really DOES have everything. But yes, it is pricey. I've found folks I never would have found if I hadn't used it.

I'm big on www.genforum.com for posting queries on the people I'm looking for. It takes awhile in some cases, but I've had 7 or 8 cousins find ME from stuff I've posted there.

I also use the county forums at rootsweb/genweb a lot. Do you know where your ancestors settled? Enter the town here: http://resources.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/townco.cgi

It automatically spits out your county, and you have all sorts of great resources for that county to use. I'm lucky that two of my search locales are Rock County, Wisconsin and Tompkins County, New York, which both have excellent county pages. They get folks to submit data for ancestors, and depending on the county, the page can have cemetery transcriptions, bible data, courthouse data, and all sorts of other goodies.

And I mention it over and over again on this site. I could not EXIST without Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. If you're not close to the ancestral spot, check this place, and a volunteer nearby may be able to look up a courthouse record or obituary, or take a gravestone picture for you: http://www.raogk.org/listing.htm (Make sure to read the FAQs first!)

And I use Family Tree Maker for data entry. I'd still been using my old workhorse version 6, but recently upgraded to 16. I don't like the user interface as much, but I can handle it.

fsc

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. I have a cousin

who has Ancestry, and likes it, but she also is a member of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, and has access to their files. If your ancestry goes back to New England, that is definately worth the investment. If I had the money, I'd join. Don't know about any comparable site for Mid-Atlantic or the South, though.

[Cybergata]

5. I may be late on this, but

I adore Legacy. I've been using it since I first began about 5 years ago. I tried the others, but it is Legacy that I continue to use. Since I was a web page maker longer than I've been into genealogy, I found the web making abilities of Legacy very useful for huge amounts of data. I do edit many of the pages, but most of the "grunt HTML" is done for me by legacy.