Ellen, Exactly how I feel....I still use FTM, but will not upgrade to 2012, because of the sync ability. Just am not confortable with that part. Jan S - Orlando, FL -----Original Message----- From: Ellen Barnett Cleary Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2012 4:41 PM To: Orleans list Subject: [LAORLEAN] Genealogy programs I use Family Tree Maker. I used PAF many years ago. There was an adjunct program to it that would include your notes in the family tree. But at some point when PAF upgraded, that adjunct program stopped working and it was never upgraded. That got me to looking around for another program. One of the essential features for a program for me is the reports it will do. I have many cousins who could care less about Ancestry. But they do want family trees. And I want to be able to specify what information I put in my trees. Family Tree Maker fit that bill for me better than any other program I looked at. They have dropped one feature that I loved...in a marriage, you used to be able to specify the names of the spouse's parents. I really like that feature and so wish they would put it back in. So one of my utmost requirements for any program is what reports they allow me to do. The other issue for me is my control of my data. In early years of electronic family trees, I watched as people uploaded their trees to a site then the site sold CD's with the info. there was no way to update that info and the people who accessed it had no way to contact the person who did the research. I knew I did not want someone selling the info I had worked so hard to collect. So I thought long and hard about where I wanted to post my data. I am Jewish and decided to put my information on JewishGen because I kept control of it. If I wanted to take it off I could. When I made corrections and additions, I could submit them and they would be updated. And people had to register with JewishGen to see it and to contact me. I liked that because it meant that no one could just go fishing for info and use it for whatever purpose without at least going through the hurdle of registering. I believe that JewishGen info is now accessible through Ancestry. I don't know how that affects these things. I know that I looked once at Legacy and liked many of its features, but for some reason decided to stay with FTM. Are you saying that now you have no choice, that with the 2012 version of FTM, you cannot stop the program from sharing your info with Ancestry? If that is the case it is indeed disturbing to me. And I definitely will begin looking for another program to work with. I feel very strongly that my data belongs to me. If I want to share it, that is my prerogative. AND one thing that always concerns me about this is errors. One person can make a wrong assumption and share their info with 3 other people, all of whom assume that the information shared is correct. Some people are just much more scrupulous researchers than others. I would hate to see my data corrupted by someone who does not know how I ascertained the correctness of what I record. Ellen Barnett Cleary San Francisco CA ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message