Hi It seems like Windows 7 has a lot to answer for! My tale is somewhat different....first I had to update the old version of Family Tree Maker which I had been running for years and therefore very familiar and easy to use (version 6).. to use on my new computer. I was informed by a helpful supplier that the best version of Family Tree maker for me was version 16 - which would still run on the new computer ( and it's new operating programme Vista) - which would be still compatible with Vista- and be OK to run my old data (on version 6) - with a "patch". Still with me? Apparently the newer versions of Family Tree Maker - now up to version 20!? and very different from the older ones......so I bought version 16 and found it worked and all my data was there....but I'm still struggling with the new gizmos to add in and update new information This problem of familiarisation has not gone away with the updating of the new computer to Windows 7 from that dreadful Vista...just makes life more complicated. The outcome is that my Family Tree maker programme is rather on the back-burner now whilst I store facts about family history in Word and Excel files. Consequently I'm not updating any family trees for the time being - which rather makes the genealogy programme redundant. One of my ancestral cousins uses Excel to produce outline family trees - that is the links between key individuals in each of several families - with separate colour coding of the names of the families, and also a box showing the abbreviations for the coding of individuals with the same name (ie John = J1 J2 J3). Using this format - including diagonal lines - it's possible to get all the main branches of a family tree including names of individuals and their brief bmd's , all on one A4 sheet. Mine is complicated on a conventional family tree using Family Tree Maker, covering lots of sheets of paper...but because one can be selective using Excel - it shows key information in a comprehensive and understandable way Hope this is of interest! Richard

Worth a read: http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/10/its-2015-do-you-know-where-your-data-is.html Alison