Disclaimer: This post contains opinions based on my understanding of events and my experiences. Others may have different interpretations of these events.Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been a secret heretic for almost a year now. At least, according to my genealogy software buddies. I’m switching to RootsMagic as my main genealogy software.
My software of choice changed in the beginning years of my research, but I’ve used one program for over sixteen years now. For a few months I used PAF which was limited in source citation implementation and other ways. I tried FTM and quickly decided it was only good for pretty charts as far as I was concerned. I found Everyone’s Family Tree (EFT) by Bill Dollarhide and happily used it for many years. By 1995 EFT wasn’t being updated and I had been reading about The Master Genealogist (TMG) and its advanced features. As a techie, being able to customize my software appealed to me in a big way. I’ve been a user of TMG since 1995—way back in the DOS days.
At the time TMG was the most sophisticated, advanced, user-customizable genealogy software of all the applications I tested. But in the last sixteen years several other programs have caught up with TMG. Some even surpass TMG in certain areas. I started using RootsMagic when a client wanted the research I performed to be entered into a database they could get at the end of the project. I didn’t want to have to teach a non-techie how to use TMG. While I really liked TMG, too many had trouble understanding it when I tried to teach it to my local society members.
I found features in RootsMagic that I really liked. RootsMagic version 4 has most of the advanced features I use in TMG. RootsMagic version 5 has even more. And both versions have some features that aren’t in TMG—some that are important to me.
Switching from one genealogical software program to another can be an excruciating ordeal. What convinced me to endure the pain of converting my data? Two big things and a few small ones:
- Twice in the last ten years there have been long delays for new releases of TMG.
- TMGv5 was delayed for over a year, in part, while features were added to entice customers of another software program that had folded (UFT). My personal research was at a point where I really needed one of the new features in TMGv5. I can’t blame the company for making a decision that brings them many new customers and more income. But it did impact my use of the program.
- Since Microsoft 64-bit operating systems became widely available and the default installed on new computers, about 2006 or 2007, TMG users with a 64-bit OS have not been able to export genealogy reports to a word processor file. Suggested workarounds included exporting to a PDF or plain text file or keeping an old computer running Windows XP 32-bit version. As a techie I had a 32-bit XP laptop so this worked for me, until it died and had to be replaced with a Windows 7 system. But you can’t tell Grandma she has to keep an old computer when she just got her first computer and it has 64-bit Windows Vista on it. TMGv8 was finally released a few months ago, four years after TMGv7 and two-plus years after TMGv7.04. TMGv8 supports word processor output on a 64-bit operating system, but it comes months and months after I decided to convert.
- TMGv5 was delayed for over a year, in part, while features were added to entice customers of another software program that had folded (UFT). My personal research was at a point where I really needed one of the new features in TMGv5. I can’t blame the company for making a decision that brings them many new customers and more income. But it did impact my use of the program.
- TMG is based on a database application that Microsoft is dropping support for. At some point a complete rewrite of TMG will be needed to port it to a modern database engine. My programming experience tells me this is likely to result in another long delay before a usable product is available for users. For all I know this port has been in the works for years and could be released tomorrow. But I have to make my decisions based on what I know, not what I hope has been happening behind the scenes.
- Some TMG users are so loyal to the TMG way that they don’t seem to see better options offered by other programs. There was a TMG-list discussion a while back about the new “Research Notes” report in RootsMagic. What some call a complicated process was documented to create a similar report in TMG. This demonstrated that the customization features of TMG can allow almost anything to be done. It also demonstrated how hard it is for a less-experienced user to do some things. In my opinion.
- By switching to RootsMagic for my personal research, I only have to know how to use one program, not two, for myself and my clients.
As with TMG, techie RootsMagic users can write their own database queries (using SQL tools) to access the database. This should allow me to implement my own add-on to pull DNA data and lineage from my database to help with analysis of DNA results. I don’t want to spend all of my time programming instead of performing research, but it is nice to be able to access the underlying database when I need something not yet provided by a software program.
In the future I will post some of the details of modifications to the TMG output GEDCOM so I got the cleanest import to RootsMagic. I’ll also post with other information that may be of interest to RootsMagic users and those converting from other programs.
As an aside, one of the things I will miss the most about moving from TMG is the loss of Second Site by John Cardinal. It is an add-on product that creates a website from a TMG database, better than the website that either TMG or RootsMagic create. Second Site includes some of the best DNA charting tools I have seen for comparing DNA data stored in a genealogy database. I don't put my database online, but made frequent use of Second Site files to access my data without having to start the database program.
© 2012, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, All Rights Reserved
