RootsMagic 8 consolidated and simplified its charting tools, and RootsMagic 9 leaves the new-look tools completely untouched. While you lose access to the old RootsMagic Chart tool, a standalone app with almost unlimited customisability, you gain a simple user interface, choice of over 40 charts and reports and the ability to make changes to your existing charts without starting again from scratch. RootsMagic 9 adds two extra reports, centred around its new Associations feature that allows you to link individuals to friends and peers and other influential figures as well as immediate family. The Places tool remains unchanged in RootsMagic 9, but it still neatly consolidates all your locations and maps in one place. Viewing, managing, and editing places is easy thanks to the fact the Edit Place dialog sits within the main interface as opposed to requiring a separate pop-up window, plus you can now edit place links to people and events from here too.

Version 10 focuses its attention on improvements to the Virtual Globe view, delivering snappier performance, a cleaner look and new timeline control to filter what events are shown within a specified date range. Reports can be viewed in the redesigned Report Window. This feature also supports a bibliography to document your sources. Reports available in Family Historian 7 include the Calendar, the Individual Scrapbook and Timeline, Research Notes, and Sources and Citations. You can also generate detailed reports on specific records. Historical MapsThis is traditionally a weak point in Family Tree Maker, but recent improvements have included a Photo Darkroom tool that’s designed to improve pictures that have faded with age. You can now also select a primary photo for a person, then choose a headshot from it to use as a thumbnail, improving the overall look of your tree. Heredis offers several charts, each of which comes with multiple variations and styles. The major highlight of Heredis 2024 is a brand-new Family Chronology chart, which allows you to view a selected person’s family as a series of timelines, making it possible to see which family members’ lives overlapped with each other. Heredis 2024 also adds a mixed ancestor and descendant wheel to its list of charts and reports. New standard queries and enhancements to the Query Window. Queries can now be accessed directly from the main toolbar, and organised by subject matter. Enhancements to Internet Data Matching. The MyHeritage hints service has been extensively reworked to bring it into line with the latest service requirements. You can now also easily access a summary of accepted, rejected and pending hints, for each person. Family Historian 7 also includes a transcription feature using word processing tools. Using templates for source types across regions, you can create word-for-word transcripts of documents. Notes

In Family Historian reports it says that person X has died when they haven’t. Why is this and what can I do about it? Undo/Redo buttons on the Note Window toolbar, allow multi-level changes to be undone or redone. This is over and above the usual multi-level undo/redo on the main Edit menu. Heredis boasts a decent set of tools for managing your media, from photos to scanned documents. Media can be attached to a wide range of elements, from people and families to places and sources. There are some basic photo correction tools built-in, and you can easily attach photos to individuals and families, plus link people to headshots that can be selected as their profile picture. New in 2024 is the ability to rename a picture’s filename from within the program. In addition, there are plenty of reports, plus a Books feature with patronymic and genealogical dictionaries along with an intriguing ‘Families from my Village’ option, which lets you write about family in a specific place. All documents can be edited in your word processor too.

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This remains RootsMagic’s major shortcoming. The central Media index makes your images easy to browse, link to multiple elements (including people, places, sources and events), and furnish with extra descriptive details like dates and captions. However, there are no editing tools and no means of extracting headshots. RootsMagic 9 adds a personal media view to a person’s edit screen, but that’s it. A missed opportunity. The navigation pane on the left consolidates all the program’s features into distinct sections – version 9 adds one new area called Tools, where you’ll find existing tools rubbing shoulders with new additions to help manage your data more effectively. Yes, but we recommend that you use the direct import if you can, as this is more comprehensive. Is it possible to try out the import before buying the program?

Recording associates of individuals and sources of data is also important to genealogists. Using the Witnesses feature, you are able to add other persons to a fact or event. You can assign them roles in this event, and, in doing so, make cluster and collateral research easier. Timelines This is the name of the world-wide standard for sharing genealogical data. The latest version is 5.5. Family Historian was designed from the ground up to be 100% GEDCOM-compatible and 100% GEDCOM-complete – that is, it can load all GEDCOM 5.5 fields and can save all of its data to the GEDCOM format. In fact, Family Historian uses GEDCOM as its own ‘native’ file format. So unlike other applications, you do not have to convert Family Historian files to the GEDCOM format. They already are in the GEDCOM format. In Family Historian reports it says that person X has died when they haven’t. Why is this and what can I do about it? Another bonus with Family Historian 7 is that there's more scope to make your family tree look amazing. Not only are the layouts generally more attractive and consistent, but you also get improved designing tools and a wider range of graphics options. Family Historian 7 review: How much does it cost? Verdict: RootsMagic 9 offers refinement over game-changing new features, but despite some annoyances remains excellent value for money. Heredis: The pros and cons Using the How Related tool, you can view how individuals are linked using diagrams and a variety of facts. MediaFTM’s Publish tool contains a wide range of charting and reporting options, along with tools for writing and publishing your own books. They’re easy to use, but also extremely customisable, and you’re able to make changes and see their effects in real time instead of having to regenerate the chart or report. One highlight is Smart Stories, which encourages you to write your own reports while making it easy to insert elements of a person’s life from your research into the text, which you’re then free to edit or rewrite. Improvements to the Property Box (main data entry window), to make it even easier to use, especially when space is limited. Fonts and text styles (bold, italic, underline and strike-out), text and highlight colouring, paragraph styles (bullets, indentation, alignment)

Family Historian 7 supports several traditional genealogical charts. These charts include the Everyone Diagram, which was updated for the new version. Additionally, you can view a tree with all relatives and indirect relatives. Traditional pedigree and waterfall views are also available. Another very helpful feature are the four new DNA Diagrams.Out of all the platforms we tested, Family Historian 7 was the easiest to get to grips with. Although its interface might seem a little dated, its simple layout makes it easy to navigate around. New version released every year, necessitating regular paid-for upgrades to take advantage of any new features. More YouTube videos, covering different versions of Family Historian, can be found in this YouTube playlist. User Group Videos