Genealogy Software - Part 1

I haven't been able to find genealogy software that I really like.  Most software assumes that there is only one master copy.  Web-based software allows multiple people to maintain the single master copy, but different people like different software.  For me, this has been the main problem with genealogy software.

So far, I like the data entry of Webtrees.  I have been able to manually enter lots of records in a relatively short amount of time.  As an example, when you are on the edit screen for a male, there is a "Add Wife" link.  If you click that link, a popup opens that allows you to enter in First Name, Last Name, birth date/place, and death date/place.  After you enter that information, the person is added and linked to the male.  I can type in that basic information in a minute.  On top of that, the admin interface allows you to customize what items show up in the new person popup.  Who would have thought customization can be a handy feature!

My father-in-law has an ancestry.com subscription.  He also owns a copy of Family Tree Maker, from ancestry.com.  He has 172 people in his family tree.  The nice thing about that software is that it integrates with the website.  If you have an entry for a person, the software automatically does searches for any records online.  This allows you to easily import records and find more ancestors.  When you are searching, this really comes in handy.  I am not currently searching for records.  My wife's maternal grandmother mailed us a few hundred pages of a family tree.  This family tree contained 445 people that I have to manually type in.  So far, I have typed in 143 records.  The problem now, is that we have two "master" copies.  How do we cooperate?

Webtrees supports merging two records that both represent a single person.  It does not allow you to append a GEDCOM file into your tree.  You can import a GEDCOM file into a new tree, since Webtrees supports maintaining multiple trees.  My first attempt to merge was to import my father-in-laws exported GEDCOM file as a new tree in Webtrees.  Then, I tried out the single record merge feature.  When it came to merging facts, it worked great.  It had a nasty side effect that I will get into more detail in my next blog entry.  My next attempt was for my father-in-law to append/merge my exported GEDCOM file into Family Tree Maker.  It had the same issue as Webtrees.

This led me to HuMo-gen.  HuMo-gen is also web based.  I was able to import my Webtrees GEDCOM file, then append my father-in-law's GEDCOM file.  I then ran the duplicate search and it identified about 1/2 of the duplicates and merged them.  It merged them without the problems that Webtrees and Family Tree Maker had!  So, I now have a 380 people in my HuMo-gen database!  I was happy....until I had to add a new person.

The HuMo-gen interface is not as user friendly as Webtrees.  It takes me a few minutes to add a new person to the tree.  Each 'operation' is its own flow.  So, to add a wife, I have to go through the add person flow.  Then, I have to add a marriage.  The marriage brings up a dropdown for you to pick the person.  The dropdown gets big.  It also doesn't give a whole lot of information to figure out the exact right person.  This would be fine if there weren't so many Jr's and Sr's in the family.  In Webtrees, when you click on a person, it lists all the "wives" that man has had.  Under each wife, there is an add child to this family link.  In HuMo-gen, you have to go through the add person flow.  Then, you click on add parents in that person.  A dropdown shows up, listing every marriage in the system, plus every person in the event that they had a child with someone not in the family tree.  That dropdown is not sorted very well.  That is why it takes a while to add a person.  Adding parents and children can take a while since you have to search through multiple large dropdowns.

At this point, I'm not happy with any software available.  I have to choose between the ability to merge with my family tree with my father-in-laws family tree, or the ability to enter in new people.