8.8

Legacy Family Tree 7.0 Platinum

The family tree market on the PC and Mac is quite a specialist area that targets the genealogist users. The main drawback of Family Tree software is that they are generally targeted towards to the US market, however Legacy Family Tree 7.0 Platinum features an Australian and New Zealand Edition edition which is superb news for users this side of the world. So what exactly does the Legacy Family Tree 7.0 Platinum software package allow users to do? Quite simply, it allows you to map your family tree across generations.

Features

• Build Your Family Tree the Easy Way

• Quick and Easy Data Entry - Start with what you know

• To-Do Lists - Keep your research time productive

• Bookmarks - Quickly return to families who are important to you

• Multiple Views - Easily navigate up and down your family lines in Family, Pedigree, Descendant, Chronology and Index Views

You can even creates detailed maps from where your ancestors originated from, including traditional timelines and charts which makes this one of the most comprehensive family tree programs to date.

The program also boasts a 3-month subscription to www.worldvitalrecords.com which is a great asset to the user that does increase your knowledge base when tracking family members from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Ireland.  This covers a wide variety of areas from police gazettes, electoral rolls to even church journals.

The installation process of Legacy Family Tree 7.0 Platinum is quite self explanatory and it auto-installs once the CD was detected by our PC. After a rather lengthy installation, we were greeted to a very impressive user-interface that novice and experts should have no difficulty in navigating.

A detailed online help system is also available should you incur any difficulties with the program. Match that with a great video tutorial entitled “Legacy for Beginners” or the “What's New in Legacy 7” plus 34 easy to understand tutorials and you are truly in safe hands.

For those who have never used a Family Tree maker before, I do suggested that you start small in order to familiarise yourself with this powerful program. The best aspect of the interface is that novices can immediately jump into the program and start creating their family tree, whereas more advanced users can jump straight into the more advanced features such as creating wall charts.

An interesting feature of the software is that you can also record your family’s medical history which is great for informing future generations of any issues that may occur or something to be wary of. We created our family tree in under 10 minutes thanks to the wizards included in the software which does make the process quite an easy task.

Other new elements of the program include the inclusion of Microsoft Virtual Earth which allows you monitor and map your ancestors from around the globe. For those users with colour printers, the Wall Charts part of the programs creates some great coloured charts that allows you to go into quite detail.

Working in the aged care industry, I was pleased with the interview reports area that contains over 1,200 pre-written interview questions and memory triggers which is idea for family members with memory problems such as dementia or Alzheimer’s.

The New Relationship Calculator allows you to see how people are connected, whether through blood relationships or by marriage. As genealogy is a world wide phenomenon, the new search engine of the program allows you to search through billions of names in order to assist you with those missing links.

Those with Family Tree documents such as letters, marriage certificates or even videos can now easily be attached to your Family Tree database which is great for storing important files.

Lastly, the program contains an in-depth backup system and also a privacy option which allows you to keep your information private and accessible on other types of media. My only concern with the backup function is that the developers continue to make updates so you don’t need to start your tree at a later date.

Legacy Family Tree 7.0 Platinum retails for just $79.95 that is extremely affordable for such a powerful program that we could happily recommend to the budding or professional genealogist. The software, although quite comprehensive is quite easy to use and thanks to the wizards, makes this genre accessible to almost anyone.