Managing your family tree with genealogy software and between online family trees is a bit of a
nightmare. However, of the two programs that I have discussed earlier on this channel, Family
Tree Maker and RootsMagic, which one is better at keeping one part of your family tree cleaned up?
Howdy! Welcome to Family History Fanatics. If you are new here, my name is Devon, and I love helping
people find meaning and connections through their family trees. It’s not always easy or quick,
but it’s always worth the effort. Check out the helpful links in the description box for more
ways to learn how to climb your family tree. So, should you even bother cleaning up place names
in your family tree? Whether to clean-up place names depends on how you do genealogy research.
I strive for accuracy, consistency, and shareability. Consistent place names help
future researchers and me know a specific location for an event in my ancestor's life.
It also allows for a deeper analysis, such as how many ancestors married in the same location.
This could lead to more genealogy clues. And who doesn't want that? For that reason,
I do work to clean up my family tree and migrate a master copy to my relatives on FamilySearch
and to my research tree on Ancestry. To compare the tools on Family Tree
Maker and RootsMagic, I used the same initial family tree in both programs.
I calculated the time spent cleaning up my trees and then syncing them to FamilySearch
and Ancestry. Here are the results I found. Set aside the fact that syncing our tree
with FamilySearch is a time-consuming problem that neither Family Tree Maker nor RootsMagic
can resolve. But, RootsMagic wins with writing to FamilySearch because Family Tree Maker can only
read data from the free website, not write to it. With Family Tree Maker, you can turn on an auto
sync feature. Then Family Tree Maker will update Ancestryafter you make each change.
If you turn off the auto sync feature, you can batch process all your changes simultaneously.
The process is quick and easy. By contrast, RootsMagic does
not seem to have a rapid sync feature with Ancestry, Their tree update feature requires
manually reviewing the changes for each person. Unlike their tree update feature for FamilySearch,
you can select multiple changes to one person at a time and update Ancestryin small batches.
Therefore, syncing our trees with Ancestryis better done with Family Tree Maker.
In genealogy research, knowing when locations came into existence
and monitoring boundary changes is a major skill to manage. In previous versions of RootsMagic,
you received prompts when you entered a location and an associated date.
For instance, when I typed in a location such as Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio. RootsMagic will
tell me that Hamilton in 1790 if I attempted to link an event happening in Cincinnati in 1785.
But meanwhile, Family Tree Maker has no prompts when entering place names into your
database. Therefore, learning about historical place names is better with RootsMagic.
Given there is no standard for place names in the genealogy industry, genealogy software companies
have a decision to make. Either they use the standard of the platform they primarily work with.
Or they allow users to decide country preferences.
While RootsMagic may have historical place name prompts, they do not force you to use either
historic or modern location names in your tree. For instance, you can have a place name of
Baden without the addition of Germany tacked on the end. This typically reflects the
Duchy of Baden before German Unification in 1871. However, when you run a place cleanup on
Family Tree Maker, it attempts to force you into using modern place names into your family tree.
If you attempt to use British North America, Upper Canada, or Baden without Germany,
you will see prompts telling you the place name needs standardizing. Additionally, the
place name sorting feature does not nest smaller political locales under the country of Baden.
So you're not going to have Baden and then smaller units, smaller units, smaller unit.
Or Upper Canada- smaller unit, smaller unit. It has to be Canada and then it can be Ontario. It
has to be Germany and then it can be Baden and then the smaller locations. While I understand
Family Tree Maker is using the Ancestryplatform standard for member trees, it's frustrating for
users who wish to have historically accurate place names. Since they do not force you to use one
place name practice over the other, RootsMagic is better for your country naming preferences
If you wrote a paper in Google Docs, Apple Pages, or MS Word,
you could quickly change all instances of "Co, " to "County, " or "OH, " to "Ohio, " using
a find and replace tool. Wouldn't it be nice if we could do this using a genealogy software program?
Well, we can! RootsMagic has this feature, and I haven't found it on Family Tree Maker.
The rapid Find and Replace feature was super helpful in converting twp to township
or vice versa and TX to Texas. It's also helpful if you're trying to standardize county. So you can
take county out. You can add county in. And then you can standardize Co to County and so forth.
fFind and Replace is a timing-saving place name feature only available on RootsMagic.
While typing in new place names into your database, another helpful feature involves
being able to update place names as you work without having to go to the place name list.
Family Tree Maker has this feature, and it doesn't appear that RootsMagic has it, at least in my
trials. While cleaning up thousands of place names in my family tree, I looked at a profile in Family
Tree Maker and noticed inconsistent locations for one ancestor in all the events in their life.I
could edit the place name on the specific relative's profile. And as I changed each
one Family Tree Maker would ask, "Do you want to change only this instance or all instances of that
previous place name at the same time?" fFamily Tree Maker rocks with this feature. I used it
often to ensure each profile had a consistent flow for individual profiles. And this helped
me improve place names while actively researching rather than taking time to clean up place names.
Now with that comparison you're probably asking, “okay, so which program is most
effective and efficient in cleaning up places?”The answer depends on your goals, your standards,
and what you are trying to achieve. If you are only working with Ancestry,
then your best bet is Family Tree Maker even though RootsMagic has a lot of bonus features
that trump Family Tree Maker. The fact that you can sync your changes to Ancestry without any real
extra effort is the deal breaker. It's what puts them over the top.
But if you plan on sharing your family tree between FamilySearch and Ancestry,
neither program handles the process effectively on its own. You actually need to kind of combine
the two. After spending two weeks cleaning up the places in a 1,000-person family tree,
I found a system that combines both programs, if you can afford them. And I've saved that
step-by-step tutorial for our FHF channel members. Check out the description for the link
in the description box. And if you're not a member consider joining today. So what other comparisons
would you like me to do between Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic? Let me know in the comments
below. And if you missed the tutorials on how to clean a place names in either program,
check out this playlist here that has all of the tools and all of the tips on place name cleanup.