Generations Family Tree – Is it a Good Choice?

Having a Family Tree software program will help you with your research, organization of your documentation and charting. A search online will show that there are many options available to choose from, so how does Generations Family Tree stack up against the other options.

Generations Family Tree has been around since the early 90’s and has been through much development and a number of owners. It is now owned by genealogy.com but still sold under the Broderbund label. The basic features allow you to store and organize your research, sort and search your stored details, include photos, documents, captions and graphics, and create a variety of genealogy charts.

The package comprises four key components:

• Easy Tree – The core Family Tree software.
• iCollect – An Internet library application that allows you to save and organize Web sites to your hard drive, and read and research them offline.
• SnapShot Express – A basic editing program that enables you to repair damaged photos and documents.
• Master Cook Heritage Edition – To preserve treasured family recipes. It is questionable how much value this provides to the package and may well be a hangover from when it was owned by Sierra Home, producers of a range of book titles including cooking and gardening.

The setup is easy and there is a helpful tutorial and easy to read user manual, you can rearrange entries with easy drag and drop function, and include photos, audios and captions. The core program uses an index card style interface that makes it simple to add all the information you researched. It has nice charting capabilities including timelines, enhanced hourglass charts and full-size wall charts.

The core program is smart enough to take into account same-sex marriages and multiple spouses and will also check the ages of each and alert you to an attempt at an illogical entry, such as adding a child to a female under the age of 12. Reports are compiled automatically on individuals and family. If you wish to post your research on the internet, the entire tree can be saved in html format and posted.

The Generations Liberty edition has 20+ CDs including Immigration records and Civil War Muster records while the Grande Suite has 30+ CDs that include all 1800 U.S. Census records, the Social Security Death Index, a Generations World Name Index of over 350 million names, and a large range of U.S. Military records.

This product is not without its faults or shortcomings however

The significant limitation is that Generations does not handle complexities such as verification of source data very well. Even for a beginner, this feature is important for maintaining the integrity of your research.
The Generation World Name will only show you if the person exists and what the last town or city they were registered in. If you want any further information, this will come from the ancestry.com site and you will be required to pay for that information.

Each individual in your project has their own card to which photographs, sound files and video clips can be imported. However, the imports do not automatically appear in some of the generated charts, and the handling of graphics is somewhat awkward. Nor can the images be imported directly into the charts, they need to be copied and pasted from a graphics program and are not easy to resize.

The feature that provides a Virtual 3D view of your tree, photos and notations is a nice idea for viewing on your screen, but it cannot be printed in 3D.

The most significant downside to this product is the fact that Generations is now owned by genealogy.com and like Family Origins, their other second tier genealogy program, it will always come second to their main product, Family Tree Maker, and you will not even find it on their website.

So is Generations Family Tree a good choice?

For the beginner, Generations Family Tree will provide entry level software but the intermediate and advanced Genealogists will find that features they require are not included or poorly catered for. Users running this on XP will have to ensure that they have the latest fixes to minimize the problems associated with compatibility. Earlier windows versions do not appear to have the same level of bugs.

Even though this product is now owned by genealogy.com, the long term future is questionable and many vendors are discounting the product to reduce their stocks. If a heavily discounted version can be acquired, then the CDs of digital records are likely to make the purchase worth it on their own.

Once you have gone beyond the beginner stage, you will be looking for a replacement software product so a more ready available alternative is recommended and will save the duplicate expense, and the issue of importing your exiting Generations project into the new software.

If I were to rate this program I would give it 4 out of 10.