First look at RootsMagic
Sept 10, 2010 9:02:57 GMT -5
Post by kerry on Sept 10, 2010 9:02:57 GMT -5
I've had a look at the free version of RootsMagic (RM for short) just to see if there's any great features I'm missing out on. For those new to the forum, I'm a bit of a fanboy for phpGedView. But there's no harm in looking.
I won't really comment on the other features used by non-Chinese geologists - there are plenty of other places that discuss and compare different genie packages. I want to particularly look at some features relevant to Chinese study.
The downloadable version is free. The basic functionality is there but there are some nice bits that you may want to pay for. That said, the price seems reasonable.
This runs directly and exclusively on your PC. It isn't a web served, multi user application like PGV. This could be a good point for those who are beginners and don't want the added challenges. It does have some internet integration with services like FamilySearch, but this mainly is limited to the paid version.
To test it, I loaded up a copy of my GEDCOM. Has about 1600 individuals in it, about a third of whom are Chinese. Most of these have Chinese characters in the name fields. For some other individuals, I record two names, one in English, the other in Chinese.
While it is able to handle the basic first name and family name fields being set up as Chinese, but there are some extension fields that I use that will be lost. I added "traditional" names in Chinese characters to places in China. Also added "traditional" names to some people. All these names can't show in RM.
Name structure is fixed so it can't be overriden to a "Surname Fistname" structure which is important for Chinese names.
I wasn't able to fully use the place name and geo location features. While the basic place name data was shown, there's some added good ness around web mapping integration. I'm not sure how well this would work for me since my place names don't necessarily follow the GEDCOM standard of "town, county, state, country". Some of my Chinese places extend to 6 levels.
That said - if was starting from scratch, I could work with this software since it is able to hold names in UTF-8 characters and on this basis alone can be commended above some of the other "big hitters" out there. (At last check Legacy doesn't work. Not sure about FTM) Give it a try.
I won't really comment on the other features used by non-Chinese geologists - there are plenty of other places that discuss and compare different genie packages. I want to particularly look at some features relevant to Chinese study.
The downloadable version is free. The basic functionality is there but there are some nice bits that you may want to pay for. That said, the price seems reasonable.
This runs directly and exclusively on your PC. It isn't a web served, multi user application like PGV. This could be a good point for those who are beginners and don't want the added challenges. It does have some internet integration with services like FamilySearch, but this mainly is limited to the paid version.
To test it, I loaded up a copy of my GEDCOM. Has about 1600 individuals in it, about a third of whom are Chinese. Most of these have Chinese characters in the name fields. For some other individuals, I record two names, one in English, the other in Chinese.
While it is able to handle the basic first name and family name fields being set up as Chinese, but there are some extension fields that I use that will be lost. I added "traditional" names in Chinese characters to places in China. Also added "traditional" names to some people. All these names can't show in RM.
Name structure is fixed so it can't be overriden to a "Surname Fistname" structure which is important for Chinese names.
I wasn't able to fully use the place name and geo location features. While the basic place name data was shown, there's some added good ness around web mapping integration. I'm not sure how well this would work for me since my place names don't necessarily follow the GEDCOM standard of "town, county, state, country". Some of my Chinese places extend to 6 levels.
That said - if was starting from scratch, I could work with this software since it is able to hold names in UTF-8 characters and on this basis alone can be commended above some of the other "big hitters" out there. (At last check Legacy doesn't work. Not sure about FTM) Give it a try.
