Jim Wrote: I am unfamiliar with Master Genealogist, but MUCH prefer PAF (from Church of Latter Day Saints) over Family Tree Maker (FTM). PAF does not have many of the weaknesses that Teresa pointed out in her mail below about FTM, plus it is a free download from their website. As others have pointed out, each program has strengths and weaknesses, so there will be positives and negatives with each one. The main thing I dislike about FTM is the difficulty (described below) is the difficulty in merging data from FTM in an easy way to other programs because of the (IMHO) insufficient tags in FTM. ************************************************************************** Because I am an incurably curious person, I went and downloaded PAF5. I had not used this version and it is greatly improved from the previous versions. I would recommend it, even for beginners. I went through the lessons and it was very easy to use. It has many more tags than previous versions and more than FTM. But The Master Genealogist has many more tags to allow better separation and retrieval of data. And TMG is MUCH more difficult to use and requires real dedication to learn. However, I find the results well worth the effort. I can retrieve any data I have entered almost immediately and in great detail with all sources, etc. [Of course, this is assuming that I entered it in the first place. I still have some information I found in early research that I did not document well and have no idea which book and library it came from. I learned the hard way: always write sources on EVERY page of your data.] PAF5's price is right--free! I recommend you try it and see if it meets your needs. If not, try TMG. Teresa