21 August 2021

I recommend you have a copy of your genealogy research that only you can edit. Ancestry will allow you to create a GEDCOM file which is a generic file that can be imported into most genealogy programs. FamilySearch will not. Yesterday I was working on a client project and wanted to include a pedigree chart. I didn’t like the one I created with the free version of Legacy Family Tree, but Legacy Family Tree will allow you to import directly from FamilySearch. The free version of RootsMagic does not support downloading from FamilySearch.

When I imported the GEDCOM file from Ancestry to RootsMagic, all the sources were there. That’s a really import feature for me. The first time I tried to import from FamilySearch to Legacy Family Tree I said to do 99 generations – I stopped it somewhere in the 20th generation because I had over 200,000 individuals and most of them I knew did not have sources and were probably not correct. The second try I asked for six generations, but the sources just pointed to FamilySearch, not the actual sources. Finally I imported the Ancestry GEDCOM to Legacy Family Tree and all the sources were there.

Picking your program will probably be a personal choice of what is most important to you. The sources and pedigree charts with RootsMagic was more important to me than linking to FamilySearch so I chose it over Legacy. But there may be Legacy Family Tree features that are more important to you, I recommend you try them both out. And there are more free programs available so there will probably be a Part 2 to this blog.