>From another list--informative, timely, worthwhile.. so sharing with fellow genealogists on other lists.. Glory Bee This is long, but I think worthwhile to have in the archives for anyone looking shopping for a genealogy program. Before you pay out money for a genealogy program, be sure to thoroughly check them all out, based on _your_ wants and needs. The information through the links below can help. It includes a very detailed report card cited by PC Magazine, giving the rating for each program rated in each of the various areas considered. A genealogy program can and should be chosen based on the features a particular buyer feels are most important to him/her. You'll also see that these programs are becoming truly competitive and that the reviews of the latest versions of any given program (including the leading competitors) may not have been published yet. You should be sure to click on the Reviews button found at the first link below to access the actual full reviews and see what is yet to come. You should also be sure to click on all the buttons across the top of the page of the second link below, in order to see the ratings for each and every detail of the ratings. By the time you're done, you'll see that the first link is actually the home page for the second, but I didn't want people to miss the actual report card. http://www.mumford.ca/reportcard/index.htm http://www.mumford.ca/reportcard/rcardfrm.htm To me, it's noteworthy that in the evaluation cited by PC Magazine, that TMG still outshines Legacy overall by a total of 7.84, and it outshines Ultimate Family Tree by 6.65% overall (UFT outscoring Legacy). In particular, Legacy scored almost a full 2% higher than TMG and 1.1% lower than UFT in Source Documentation... something that is (or should be) very important to most researchers. On analytical functions and on convenience, TMG respectively scored 1.4% and only 0.9% higher than Legacy and 1.7% and 2.2% higher than UFT; while on the merge function (found under "Additional Tools"), TMG and Legacy were an equal 1.0% while UFT scored 0.0.% All three programs were judged the same regarding Experience Level (presumably including level of difficulty). As for price comparisons, although at first Legacy appears to be much less than TMG, Earl has confirmed that the biggest difference is, apparently, the fact that you purchase Legacy's manual separately, while TMG includes it in the cost. I know TMG's manual is pretty hefty and very useful, but I can't comment on Legacy's. My personal spending rule for everything important to me in life has always been to get the best quality and completeness I can afford at the outset, thereby eliminating the overall greater expense and trouble associated with later dissatisfaction and replacement, or difficulties from not having everything necessary. Others may prefer a different approach. For me, the $100 I spent when I first bought my TMG in 1996 (the price has gone down a lot) has saved me a great deal in the long run. TMG was rated the best then, and it still is; and I haven't had the extra expense of time, bad experiences, and money of starting with lesser programs and working my way up over the years to reach that conclusion. As for it's difficulty in use (an issue brought up by some for both TMG and Legacy), I honestly don't think anyone capable of handling the analysis we do for genealogical research would have much difficulty understanding how to use TMG (or Legacy, since reviews say their book is as good). My observations tell me that the only real use problems come from our over-enthusiasm and lack of patience leading us to jump in too quickly without wanting to take time to carefully read the directions. The two best things today are: (1) Both Legacy and TMG have sample programs available to try before putting out the money, in combination with the ratings information available. You have the Legacy link. Information and a trial TMG program can be downloaded at http://www.whollygenes.com/ (2) TMG (and I'm told Legacy, too) has great, free, technical support and updates, not only through mailing lists, but direct from the company technical people, even after many years of ownership. I once developed some corruption problems in my TMG program after years of use. (I never was sure of the cause because my computer was hit by a power surge and a virus was going around at about the same time, resulting in a new computer.) Anyway, I couldn't readily diagnose or resolve my problem through email with tech support myself or with my son, the house computer science major talking to them; so Wholly Genes simply had me email my entire program as an email attachment to them, and they diagnosed, fixed and returned it within 24 hours without losing a single tidbit of info for any of my 4000+ names. All that having been said, and despite my complete satisfaction with my TMG experiences, keep in mind that there may have been updates to some of the programs and even updated evaluations to find since the date of evaluation given on the link above. TMG was originally created specifically for the use of professional genealogists, long before genealogy became such a popular pasttime. It's features and price were developed with professional needs in mind; and it was so far above the rest for so long that it wasn't difficult for Family Tree to do very well with aggressive marketing in the non-professional market when compared to the limited free and other programs. Family Tree Maker came into the market with a much lower starting price ideal for beginners, but users then found out they had to constantly buy updates, etc., in order to make it do what they wanted and what TMG did all along. (Granted Family Tree developed it's "SuperTools", which Wholly Genes now also sells for some of the advantageous features that will work with TMG, rather than develop their own.) Anyway, with the tremendous increase in the popularity of genealogy as a hobby, the education of the masses regarding good research standards, and the appearance of Legacy on the market now filling the gap between TMG and UFT, the marketplace has apparently, _finally,_ made the companies truly competitive, both in terms of price and quality. The bottom line is that you'll find staunch supporters of all three programs. It pays to do all the homework and test trials of the latest versions available yourself, in order to choose _the right program for you_. If you compare the dates of evaluation and scores of the industry leaders, and then look to see what's been done with the versions since then, you'll probably end up as happy as almost anyone else now recommending either TMG, Legacy, UFT. or any other program carefully chosen by doing all the homework. Diane