In preparation for delivering some help sessions at my local genealogical society, I am working to become proficient in three genealogy applications:  Family Tree Maker (FTM), RootsMagic  (RM) and Legacy Family Tree (LFT).   I used an early version of FTM in the late 90’s and I’ve been a user of LFT since 2008.  RM is completely new to me.   RootsMagic and Legacy FamilyTree offer a free version of their software with a limited set of features.  Since FTM does not have a similar free option, I decided to use the paid versions of each software package. This series of blogs will document my impressions of and experiences with these three software packages.

This post will review creating a family tree file and entering a bit of data in RootsMagic.  Subsequent posts will review the same process in Family Tree Maker and Legacy Family Tree.  I entered a snippet of the maternal side of my family tree:  my grandmother, her husband and her parents.  For each person, I entered dates and places for birth, marriage, death and burial.

RootsMagic, version 5.0.4.1 – www.rootsmagic.com

I started the RootsMagic application and chose the option to create a new file.  I enter file name (RM-test) and choose the location on my hard drive for the data file.  I started tree with Ida Theresa Huber , my maternal grandmother.  I entered her birth date and then her birth place as “Cincinnati, Hamilton Co., Ohio, USA.  I am in the habit of putting “Co.” after the name of the county.  Experienced genealogists would recognize the leading comma in “, Hamilton, Ohio, USA” as a placeholder for the missing city name.  Others may mistake the comma as a typo and interpret the location to be the city of Hamilton, Ohio.  Thus, my preference is to put the “Co.” after the county name.

However, this practice triggered County Check in RM.

I decided that I would like the benefit of county check so I gave up “Co.” after the county name and accepted the alternative offered.  I also clicked on “More Info” and saw some historical information on the Hamilton County.  I was also offered “Online Info” button which took me to the FamilySearch Wiki page for Hamilton County, Ohio, and “Online Map” which took me to a historical map where I could enter the date and see the configuration of Ohio counties on that date.  This is a site that will be very useful in determining the correct locations for ancestral events.

Locations are remembered in the software.  The user only needs to begin typing and then select the proper location from the list of previously entered locations.  As there are usually many events that take place in each location, this saves typing and helps eliminate typos – provided one is careful the first time.

I added my grandmother and her parents.  The workflow was very intuitive.  I added her father, then her mother, then their marriage information.  I then entered a marriage event for my grandmother.  I was prompted to enter a new person or select an existing person as her spouse.

When I entered the burial location for each individual, there was just a single text entry field.  I typed the name of the cemetery in parentheses after the city name.

I reviewed the person’s information and noticed that there is a field called “Place details” that might more appropriately contain the name of the cemetery.

I changed the entry for the burial location, separating the cemetery name from city, county, state and country information.  I think the resulting sentence reads more naturally now.

Overall, the initial data entry experience with RM was very intuitive and logical.  I especially liked that I could easily navigate to historical county information in just a couple of “clicks.”

Summary

RootsMagic was relatively easy to use for basic data entry.  The program led me through the input process for the four family members in a way that was logical and intuitive.

Next time:  Data entry in Family Tree Maker