Genealogy researchers need tools for recording names, dates, places, relationships, sources, family stories and photos. You might want to mine records and family trees on genealogy websites, and share your family unit history online. In the by, the most robust option for these tasks was traditional desktop software. Sure, online trees were great for finding cousins and getting record hints, but software offered the best tools for recording information on your ancestors, documenting sources and creating charts.

Only engineering science has blurred the line betwixt desktop programs and online trees. Software now embraces online features such as automated searching and syncing with websites, and online trees are more robust with fastened media, record sources and more. Nowadays, you might find that a combination of the two methods—or even an online tree alone—best suits your needs.

To brand an informed decision on what pick is all-time for y'all, you'll need to know the basics on the best family unit history software and online family unit trees. In this article, we'll become over your tree-keeping options and help you choose what's right for you.

Either genealogy software or an online tree tin help you accomplish essential enquiry tasks, and a combo of the ii adds flexibility. Consider the benefits of each pick.

Option 1: Genealogy Software

Genealogy software lets you tape names, dates, places and relationships and add photos, records and stories. Y'all tin can navigate effectually your family tree, cite your sources and create reports and wall charts to print or share as PDF files. Most of these programs are cheap and don't require any ongoing fees, except for optional upgrades. Your files reside on your hard drive, where you lot have complete command over them.

The most pop programs have been effectually for years and include many features and friendly user interfaces. Utilise this comparing chart to aid you pick the best family tree software for you.

Note: Features and pricing data may have changed since this article'due south publishing. Please consult individual software providers for updated pricing.

Desktop Genealogy Software

Proper name Manufacturer Price Mac Windows Mobile App Syncs with Hints from
Ancestral Quest xvi Incline Software $34.95 for Windows, $44.95 for Mac; (upgrade, $24.95 for Windows, $29.95 for Mac); Basics version, gratuitous ✓ ✓ FamilySearch Family Tree FamilySearch, Findmypast
Family Historian 7 Calico Pie Ltd $64.95 ✓ Findmypast, MyHeritage
Family Tree Builder 8 MyHeritage complimentary ✓ ✓ MyHeritage for iOS and Android (costless) MyHeritage FamilySearch, Geni, MyHeritage, WikiTree & others
Family Tree Maker 2019 Software MacKiev $79.95; (upgrade, $59.95) Family Tree Maker Connect for iOS and Android (free; no editing capabilities) Ancestry Ancestry, FamilySearch
Legacy Family Tree 9 MyHeritage $34.95 Deluxe Edition; (upgrade, $26.95) ✓ Families for iOS and Android ($fourteen.99) FamilySearch Family Tree FamilySearch, Findmypast, GenealogyBank, MyHeritage
Reunion 13 Leister Productions $99; (upgrade, $49.95) ✓ ReunionTouch for iOS ($nine.99)
RootsMagic 8 RootsMagic $39.95 (upgrade, $29.95); Essentials version, free ✓ ✓ RootsMagic for iOS and Android (free; no editing capabilities) Ancestry, FamilySearch Family unit Tree Ancestry, FamilySearch, Findmypast, MyHeritage
Desktop genealogy software comparison.

Now, almost all genealogy software offers online features. Nigh programs automatically search genealogy websites such as FamilySearch and give you hints to records or family trees that may match your ancestors. Genealogy software can also automate your enquiry on an ancestor past filling in search forms on genealogy websites with a single click. Hints usually cover only certain databases on a website, and then y'all'll yet want to experiment with dissimilar search criteria and search specific databases, but these features tin can save you a lot of time.

Most genealogy software can create reports for you to put on your own website, where they'll be easily accessible to anyone. Or, you lot tin publish your family tree on a large genealogy site like Beginnings or MyHeritage. That's a lot easier than creating your own website, just y'all might have to pay a fee and your online family tree might be accessible only to other paying members and to people you invite.

Option two: Online Tree(s)

Note: Pricing information may have changed since this article'southward publishing. Please consult individual providers for updated pricing.

Online family tree sites fall into 2 broad categories: On some, everybody has their own tree, while on others, everybody works together on a collaborative tree.

On sites, such as Ancestry and MyHeritage, each user has a separate tree and there's a lot of duplication between the trees. You lot tin can usually build a tree from scratch or start it with a GEDCOM file generated from your genealogy software or some other online tree. You may exist able to make your tree public or private and, either manner, invite relatives to collaborate on information technology with you. If you take a public family tree, keep in mind that other users might copy your data, family unit photos and tape images and add them to their own family copse without consulting with you offset.

On FamilySearch, Geni (owned by MyHeritage), WeRelate and WikiTree, users collaborate on a unified tree and merge duplicates. Other users might make changes to profiles that you lot take added.

Online copse offering several advantages over traditional software: Yous never have to pay for a software update. You tin can admission your tree from whatsoever calculator or mobile device, and you don't have to worry about bankroll it up.

Online Tree Sites

Website Cost Mobile App Syncs with software Hints from
American Ancestors AncesTREES 2 GB of media storage, free; 10 GB, $19.95/twelvemonth; 100 GB, DNA tools and private copse, $34.95; membership required to admission nigh records ($34.95/3 months, $94.95/year) American Ancestors, FamilySearch, Findmypast, & others
Ancestry complimentary trees; records: U.s. ($24.99/month or $99/6 months; Globe ($39.99/calendar month or $149/6-month; All-Access ($49.99/month, $199/six months) Ancestry, iOS and Android (free) Family Tree Maker 2019, RootsMagic 8 Ancestry.com
FamilySearch Family Tree gratis FamilySearch Tree and FamilySearch Memories; both iOS and Android (free) Ancestral Quest 16, Legacy Family Tree 9, RootsMagic 8 FamilySearch
Findmypast free copse; records: Essential British and Irish ($14.95/month or $129/year); Ultimate British and Irish gaelic ($19.95/month or $179/year) Findmypast App for iOS and Android (free) Findmypast
Geneanet tree with up to ane GB of media storage, free; tree with upward to 10 GB of media storage, plus advanced search options, $12.fifty/3 months Geneanet
Genes Reunited free trees; credits or subscription required for records admission (see www.genesreunited.co.united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland/payments/subscription) Genes Reunited
Geni free bones tree, $119.xl annual Pro subscription adds features World Family Tree past TelGen, IOS and Android, ($6.99, no editing capabilities) MyHeritage
MyHeritage free bones tree; annual Premium ($129) or Premium Plus ($209) subscription required for larger trees; Data subscription ($129, outset year; $189/year thereafter); Consummate ($199, first year; $299/yr thereafter) MyHeritage, iOS and Android (free) Family Tree Architect FamilySearch, Geni, MyHeritage, WikiTree & others
RootsFinder free, up to 2 GB media storage; $34.95/twelvemonth, up to 100 GB media storage American Ancestors, FamilySearch, Findmypast, Geni, MyHeritage, WikiTree & others
Tribal Pages tree with up to l photos, free; tree matching and upwardly to 1000 photos, $36/twelvemonth; tree matching and up to 10,000 photos, $48/twelvemonth
WeRelate gratis MyHeritage
WikiTree free
Nautical chart comparing online tree websites.

Our favorite family unit tree sites (encounter the chart above), give you tape hints and one-click searching on genealogy websites (though you lot should still exercise carve up searches with unlike combinations of terms to get the most comprehensive matches). Some sites even create source citations and automatically attach tape images. Ancestry Fellow member Trees and the FamilySearch Family unit Tree have by far the best systems for maintaining an online family tree.

Protecting the privacy of living people is a key consequence when you put your family unit tree online. But the tree possessor and anyone authorized past the possessor can come across living people in an Ancestry Member Tree. People without death data and born fewer than 125 years agone are considered to be living. In the FamilySearch Family Tree, you can encounter data on a living person only if you created the record. A person with no death information and who was born 110 or fewer years ago, married 95 or fewer years agone or had a child born 95 or fewer years agone is considered living.

Selection 3: Software-Tree Combo

While the general tendency in genealogy land is away from software and toward online copse and mobile apps, a combination of them all the same gives you the most flexibility.

For one thing, software helps yous go on multiple online trees upwardly to engagement. Many genealogists put their family tree on several websites to take advantage of hints from the sites' databases, and to connect with other researchers interested in those families. It'south worthwhile to accept your family tree on whatsoever site where you've had a DNA exam, so you and your matches tin see how y'all're related. (You tin can upload a GEDCOM file to Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch. Both Ancestry and MyHeritage also have robust tools to build an online tree.) You lot might want to put your family tree on sites with connections to nationalities you're researching. Findmypast and Genes Reunited, for instance, have stiff British and Irish collections. Finally, having your tree on a site with a mobile app lets y'all admission information technology on your phone or tablet.

What Syncs with What?

How do you keep your family tree up-to-appointment on all those sites and devices? Several programs now allow you synchronize ("sync") the family file on your computer with trees online and on mobile devices. That copies non just names, dates and places, but besides photos and record images, so everything is up-to-date on every device you apply.

Ancestry Fellow member Trees FamilySearch Family unit Tree MyHeritage Trees
Ancestral Quest sixteen ✓
Family Tree Builder ✓
Family Tree Maker 2019 ✓
Legacy Family Tree 9 ✓
RootsMagic viii ✓ ✓
Nautical chart of genealogy software and online tree syncing compatibility.

This chart notes which sites each software syncs with, such equally:

  • If you use MyHeritage, y'all can use the Family Tree Builder software on your computer and sync information technology with your trees on the MyHeritage site and the MyHeritage App.
  • Both Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic synchronize with Beginnings Member Copse. Just call back, an Beginnings Member Tree tin can't handle to-do lists or research logs, so they aren't copied to your Ancestry Member Tree.
  • Three software programs—Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree and RootsMagic—sync with the FamilySearch Family Tree, a collaborative family tree.

Syncing software with an online tree offers another advantage: If you ever let your subscription to Beginnings.com or MyHeritage lapse, y'all might lose admission to the site'south historical records that y'all attached to your tree. (Records uploaded from your computer volition still be attainable.) If you've synchronized your trees, you'll still accept access to all the records on your figurer.

No unmarried software syncs with every family tree website. To make it easier to update them all, you might keep a main file in one desktop programme, such as Family unit Tree Maker, Legacy Family Tree or RootsMagic. Then sync the software with whatever websites you tin. Whenever you've made significant updates to your software master file, export a GEDCOM to supervene upon your tree on non-syncing sites. Go along in heed that a GEDCOM file includes simply links to fastened media files such as photos and document images; it doesn't include the media files themselves.

How to Choose Which Option is Right for You

To help you choose which platforms are right for your research needs, we've listed details such every bit the main features of each option, its strengths and drawbacks, the cost (if any), and what it syncs with. Then it will exist up to you to make up one's mind which pick best fits your current genealogy goals, and how you'd similar to continue edifice your tree in the time to come.

Ancestry Member Trees

  • Host website: Ancestry.com
  • Works best on: the most electric current versions of Google Chrome (desktop and mobile), Mozilla Firefox (desktop) and Apple tree Safari (mobile)
  • Price: Registered guests can create, edit and share family copse for costless. They can also reply to messages from other members and access free records, but viewing most records requires a subscription (US: $24.99/month or $99/vi-month. Earth $39.99/month or $149/half-dozen-month. All-Access $49.99/month, $199/6-calendar month)
  • Try information technology offset: Cancel a new subscription inside 14 days and you won't be billed.
  • Mobile app: Ancestry for iOS and Android
  • Syncs with: Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic software
  • Chief features: Hints from Ancestry.com records and family trees. Easily add together information from Ancestry.com to your Tree. Connect with Ancestry Members researching the same families. Make your tree public, private and searchable (so people in your tree are found in searches) or private and not searchable. Link your tree to your AncestryDNA test.
  • Strengths: Easy to use. Hints consolidate duplication in Member Tree matches. Sources are visually linked to the facts they support.
  • Drawbacks: No family unit group sheets or full-blooded charts. Access to "public" trees still requires an Ancestry.com subscription or invitation from a tree owner. Because it's easy to copy data from a tree, that results in massive duplication with dozens or more copies of the aforementioned profiles and trees. That makes it difficult to find differences between the trees and to determine where the data originated.
  • Best for: All users

Family Tree Maker 2019

  • Manufacturer: Software MacKiev acquired the program from Ancestry.com in 2016
  • Works best on: Macintosh Bone X 10.ten or later, Windows vii or later
  • Cost: $79.95 download, $59.95 upgrade
  • Try it first: Free trial not available
  • Mobile app: Family Tree Maker Connect for iOS and Android (free; no editing capabilities)
  • Syncs with: Ancestry.com trees
  • Principal features: Build your family tree with fastened photos and documents. Create charts, reports, timelines and interactive maps. Become hints to records on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch and search those sites from within the program. Synchronize your tree with an Ancestry Member Tree. Download an entire branch from a FamilySearch Family Tree into your Family Tree Maker file. Restore faded photos and color-code people in your tree.
  • Strengths: You can copy and paste facts, along with related source citations, media items and notes, from ane person to some other. Source templates are organized past grouping and category. Cull from many bonny nautical chart options. Easily publish your family tree on Ancestry.com, where it's accessible to subscribers and people you invite. FTM 2019 keeps track of your final thousand changes, and so you can disengage mistakes. With TreeVault, the program creates an online fill-in of your tree and lets you view the latest version of your tree on your smartphone or tablet.
  • Drawbacks: More expensive than other programs, just even so a practiced buy
  • Best for: All users and Ancestry.com users in particular

FamilySearch Family Tree

  • Host website: FamilySearch
  • Works best on: recent versions of nigh popular Web browsers
  • Toll: Gratuitous
  • Mobile app: FamilySearch Tree and FamilySearch Memories, both for iOS and Android
  • Syncs with: Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree and RootsMagic software
  • Principal features: This collaborative family tree aims to avoid duplication and have just one profile for each person. Get hints from FamilySearch records. Search Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, Findmypast, MyHeritage and other sites. It has an excellent arrangement for displaying photos, labeling them, organizing them in albums and sharing a link to an album with relatives.
  • Strengths: The FamilySearch Family Tree is like shooting fish in a barrel to use and an ideal way to preserve your family history for posterity. If yous have an account and you're in the tree, the View My Relationship link shows how you're related to someone else in the tree. Employ a person's Discussions expanse nether the Collaborate tab to share comments with other researchers.
  • Drawbacks: Instead of helping you create complete source citations, the site merely asks yous to provide the "reason this information is correct." Y'all might feel uncomfortable using a collaborative tree, in which other researchers can change your ancestors' profiles, as your simply tree.
  • Best for: All users, especially every bit a 2nd tree.

Findmypast

  • Host website: Findmypast
  • Works best on: Recent versions of all major web browsers
  • Price: You can build your online tree for free and adhere some Findmypast records, including Us census records, for costless. Access to other records requires a subscription. Findmypast offers two subscriptions: Essential British and Irish ($14.95/month or $129/12 months) or Ultimate British and Irish gaelic ($nineteen.95/month or $179/12 months). Alternatively, y'all can pay as you become by purchasing "credits" that are valid for a certain menstruation of time.
  • Effort it get-go: Gratis 14-day trial
  • Mobile app: Yes, for Android and iOS
  • Syncs with: Not available
  • Primary features: This UK-based genealogy site focuses on United kingdom and Irish records, including newspapers, Irish Roman Catholic parish records, and the National Burial Index for England and Wales. It likewise has big United states and Canadian collections, including marriages, the census, and the Periodical Source Alphabetize (PERSI) to articles in genealogy and history magazines. Online copse here go hints to Findmypast records.
  • Strengths: Large British and Irish gaelic record collections. Automatic record hints.
  • Drawbacks: Yous can't search all the trees on the site. No charts and reports.
  • Best for: Using as a second tree, especially for Findmypast subscribers

Legacy Family Tree 9.0

  • Manufacturer: MyHeritage acquired the program from Millennia software
  • Works all-time on: Windows 7 or higher
  • Price: $34.95 download; $26.95 upgrade
  • Try it first: costless Standard Edition
  • Mobile app: Families, $14.99, by TelGen Ltd.
  • Syncs with: FamilySearch; version x will sync with MyHeritage
  • Main features: Enable hints to get them from FamilySearch, Findmypast, GenealogyBank and MyHeritage. Search Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, Detect a Grave, Findmypast, GenealogyBank, MyHeritage, Newspapers.com and other sites from within the program. Display up to seven views of the aforementioned family unit file or ii dissimilar family files at the same time, and elevate and drib people between files. It'southward easy to find and merge duplicate people. Choose from many charting options and use powerful tools to search for people in your file.
  • Strengths: Excellent reports, including reports for your website. Print reports in multiple languages.
  • Drawbacks: The screen is cluttered and the clipboard tool for adding sources uses unintuitive icons.
  • Best for: Users who desire to create a well-documented family unit history and create outstanding reports.

MyHeritage/Family Tree Architect viii.0

  • Manufacturer and host website: MyHeritage
  • Works best on: Windows XP and later, or Mac OS X
  • Cost: It's gratuitous to download Family Tree Builder software and build basic copse (an unlimited offline family unit file plus upwards to 250 people on MyHeritage). To build larger trees on MyHeritage and view many Record Matches, you'll demand a MyHeritage subscription (Premium with upward to 2,500 people: $129/year (kickoff yr, $89); Premium Plus with unlimited tree and enhanced Smart Matching: $209/year (offset year, $149); Data with access to MyHeritage premium records and Record Matches: $189/year (first yr, $129); Complete Plan of PremiumPlus and Data: $299/year (first year, $199))
  • Attempt it beginning: Download Family Tree Architect for free.
  • Mobile app: MyHeritage for iOS and Android
  • Syncs with: MyHeritage.com
  • Main features: Brand your online tree public or limit admission to MyHeritage members you lot invite; optionally, let family members edit it. Get hints from MyHeritage records and trees. Search MyHeritage record collections and record examination results from MyHeritage DNA.
  • Strengths: Yous can mark people, facts and notes as individual in your Family Tree Builder file, and then they don't synchronize to your online tree. Family Tree Builder software and the MyHeritage site is available in more than 40 languages.
  • Drawbacks: The online tree and Family Tree Builder offer a no-frills source documentation organization.
  • All-time for: Users who want hints to records and family trees from effectually the world.

RootsMagic 8

  • Manufacturer: RootsMagic
  • Works best on: Windows 7 SP1 and above or Mac OS 10.12 and above
  • Cost: $39.95 download, $29.95 upgrade
  • Endeavor it first: The complimentary RootsMagic Essentials includes the full version'due south cadre features.
  • Mobile app: RootsMagic App for iOS and Android lets you view (but not edit) your RootsMagic files, and convert files from other genealogy software to RootsMagic files.
  • Syncs with: Beginnings.com, FamilySearch
  • Main features: The latest version offers a more mod, streamlined look with simpler navigation, easier editing, reusable source citations, fan charts and native support for MacOS. You tin can create many colorful reports and wallcharts. Publish your family tree and pictures on your ain private website with the free My RootsMagic hosting service.
  • Strengths: One time you match a person in your RootsMagic file with someone in the FamilySearch Family Tree, you can copy information dorsum and along between those profiles. A feature called TreeShare lets you synchronize the RootsMagic file on your reckoner with your Ancestry Member Tree online.
  • Drawbacks: Different the FamilySearch Family Tree, RootsMagic and other programs can't display an album with large thumbnails of all of a person's pictures.
  • All-time for: All users, especially those who have family unit trees on both Beginnings and FamilySearch.

A version of this article originally appeared in the October/November 2017 issue of Family Tree Magazine.

Updated: Dec 2021

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Writer

Rick Crume

A contributing editor for Family Tree Magazine, Rick Crume specializes in online inquiry, genealogy software, DNA testing and British genealogy.