Choosing between Legacy and RootsMagic - advice.
I must decide between Legacy and RootsMagic and would appreciate the advice of those with Legacy experience. Why have you opted for Legacy over RM? Also, I posted a similar question on a RM site. Several said that Legacy is built on an obsolete infrastructure, which spooked me. Can anyone speak to that charge? I really want to make the best choice. Thanks!
Donna Baker you as the user needs to be comfortable with the interface and features of whatever program you choose and what is best for you might not be best for someone else. I used RM for 9 months after moving from PAF. It was "ok" to me, but wasn't really intuitive to my brain. I tried Legacy and I was hooked! How to move around in the program made much more sense to me. It was actually a joy instead of a chore to work in a genealogical software program again.
ReplyDeleteI do like the Research Guidance in Legacy (something extra that RM doesn't have) and how you can customize EVERYTHING in Legacy (more than colors or fonts), making it "my own" program, once again, how my brain works. I love the Source Writer and Source Clipboard. I love the customized searches and how one can use them with the Tagging feature.
The Help section is fantastic and I can get almost all my questions answered by searching there. I struggled in RM's help.
I don't know if that helps, but I would download both RM and Legacy's free versions and add people and play around and compare. That's what I did. Unfortunately, you cannot test either programs deluxe features unless you buy the programs. I think the full feature programs are well worth the $.
I could go on and on, but ultimately you will need to make your own decision and what features are a priority for you.
I switched from Family Origins & went across to Roots Magic. The importation was easy & I am used to the set up & use.
ReplyDeleteI was inspired by Tessa Keough' s videos & this user group. I now use RM for my own ancestry & Legacy for my One-Name Study data
Donna Baker you really need to play with both (they have free versions) and see which is most intuitive. And since this is a Legacy users' group (unaffiliated) I think you will find that we have chosen Legacy. The RootsMagic folks are going to like theirs and the Legacy folks are going to like ours - both a good software, backup up by companies that do a good job of listening to their customer base and updating on a regular basis. For each company, this is their business (unlike Ancestry with FTM) As far as obsolete infrastructure - I heard that originally as well and I haven't seen that. Legacy has excellent features and works well with all my other programs. You might want to ask Legacy directly if you have questions - they can respond to their "behind the curtains" work. Here we are happy campers using Legacy for our family history.
ReplyDeleteMonique Riley Thanks, so much, Monique. I do have both programs up and running with the same GEDCOM imported, so I can compare item by item. But I haven't been doing this long enough to know what options I'm going to wish I had down the road. So this is VERY helpful.
ReplyDeleteDonna Baker It's true (we don't know what we want until we have some knowledge and experience under our belt.) This relates to anything in life. And then when we know a bit more, we create our "wish list" and change and tweak things, wishing we knew that stuff from the beginning. But we couldn't because we didn't have the experience to base it on. Unfortunately, there is no easy way around it. We just have to jump in the water if we want to learn to swim, then perfect our strokes as we go :) I guess that's why it took me over a year to settle on what I wanted, studying and using different programs. Hopefully that doesn't discourage you. You are probably a faster learner than I am!
ReplyDeleteIt is quite simple for anyone to state that a program is using obsolete infrastructure. What you should be asking is a detailed explanation of what they consider to be obsolete. And even more important, a real desctiption of what the infrastructure is with the competing system. You may be very surprised. Legacy is using a world known database structure behind the scenes called Microsoft Access. That means that the underlying tables and structures can be opened by MS Access and other programs which allows for third party application development. I for one would really like to know what is obsolete about MS Access. Has it been proven over many years? Yes. Does a long proven product make it obsolete? No. Has the competition clearly disclosed what they are using? Not that I can find.
ReplyDeleteAs for free updates, Legacy has released 533 to version 8. Ask how many updates the competition has released.
Customization...no comparison as you may have already read from other comments.