Top 9 Reasons Family Tree Maker users are now Legacy Users!

Two of the most common questions we at MyHeritage Ltd. get asked at trade shows and conferences are, “why should I change to Legacy,” or “what does Legacy do that FTM doesn’t?”  Instead of coming up with our own biased answers, we decided to ask our users.  The following comments come from Legacy users who converted from Family Tree Maker.

 1. Company-user relationship, support

• "Legacy Family Tree offers free, timely, helpful, courteous customer support. That's my number one reason for switching from Family Tree Maker to Legacy! I also hate how Family Tree Maker buys up the competition and then 'kills them off' leaving them without support."

• “They have frequent free upgrades and listen to what the users needs/wants are whereas with FTM you are constantly putting out money for very minor upgrades of the program and they do not seem interested in what the users want/need.”

• “The MyHeritage Ltd. policy of frequent, free updates to fix reported problems; listening to the end users and offering a forum for users to voice their opinions; having a “visible” presence by the developers in the news list inspire confidence that the end users matter.”

• “The LUG [Legacy User Group] is mostly wonderful and the support from MyHeritage Ltd. is unbelievable!”

• “You seem to be very responsive to user’s needs.”

• “Most of all is the fact that you are available to the people that use your product.  That is so unusual in this day and time.  Keep up the good work.”

• “Legacy owners and staff truly care about their product and what their customers desire.”

• “We love your approach to marketing and customer support.  The frequent free updates make us feel that you want your customers to have the most up to date program in their hands at all times.  Your pricing policy has always been somewhere between outrageously cheap and fair.  Thanks.  It seems to us that you enjoy developing the best genealogy software in the world as much as we enjoy using it.”

• “MyHeritage Ltd. is interested in making a really good genealogy program, and is willing to listen to what the people want (and they end up supplying it).”

 2. Reasonable pricing and free updates

• “Even though there is nothing with FTM forcing you to upgrade, there is the feeling that you’re going to miss out on some feature or bug fix if you don’t.  Legacy’s pricing is much more reasonable.”

• “There were many reason for my changing software, but the fact that I purchased the full version of 3.0 and then the deluxe version, which was still less than what I had paid for one full version of FTM or TMG, plus the countless FREE updates I have received!  I am disabled now and on a limited income so money is important.”

• “Best of all is the price.  I could go on and on with more features.”

• “With Legacy I feel I have a guarantee of a quality product, with excellent support, at a reasonable cost.”

 3. Navigation and data entry

• “Legacy's data entry is much easier to navigate (most data entry for an individual can be done on one screen), whereas FTM forces you to continually go to new pages.  With FTM you can’t see the major information for an individual from one screen.”

• “Legacy was so easy to navigate that I found that I kept returning to Legacywhen I wanted to add any research.”

• “I loved the screen for data entry, the ease of navigation.”

• “It displays up to 15 children without having to scroll down, while FTM only allows 4.”

• “Family view and Pedigree view screens tell me more about the parents and children at a glance.”

• “I love the family view with the option of having up to fifteen children showing.  Much easier to use than FTM format with only 4 children showing at a time and having to switch back and forth to enter the information.”

• “I appreciate the ability to look at the entire family, all at once, without having to click on the tabs to see the parents.”

 4. Sourcing capabilities

• “I like the fact, that in Legacy, you have Master Sources and individual citations that are linked to that main source, a lot less typing on my end.”

• “Sources for an individual can be viewed all at once on screen.”

• “What is very appealing to me is the source clipboard and the useful examples provided on the web site.”

• “I noticed that Legacy had a much better handle on entering sources.”

• “The ease of the sourcing (and the clipboard!) are well above average.”

 5. User-friendly

• “I like Legacy's user-friendliness and ease of use. Gedcoms import beautifully.”

• “I like your Family View design and the ease of inputting names.”

• “It is very intuitive.”

6. Reports 

• “You can preview reports on screen, and they are rated higher in comparison with FTM reports.”

• “I love the RTF so I can move my reports to Word and edit from there.”

7. Name list 

• “What I like best about Legacy is the “mini” genealogy program that is available when you go to the list of individuals.  It is WONDERFUL to be able to see so much information in one spot.”

• “Being able to edit and enter info from the name list is a huge time-saver!”

• “I like being able to see everyone on one page and I dearly love the name list with all the info on the right!”

• “The name list, showing the information on the right side is wonderful, and even better is the ability to edit from there.”

 8. View multiple databases side-by-side/drag-drop 

• “You can have more than one family file open on the screen at a time and up to 8 different views of the same file open at the same time - easy to move info about this way.”

• “I like the side by side feature of having two files open, or the same file open twice.”

• “I love the ability to have the split screen.  Also to drag and drop, I find this very important.”

 9. Web pages 

• “I wanted to put my family history online, but didn't want to be tied to using the FTM web site and I wanted to be able to customize the pages to reflect my interests.”

• “In January of 2000, I decided to create a web site.  FTM would only allow me to upload to their web site and their way.  Only Legacy allowed the control I wanted.  Thank you.”

• “I love the HTML option.  Yours is great with the clickable links to individuals with more information.  And it can be uploaded anywhere.”

• “Probably my all time favorite feature of Legacy vs. FTM is the way it allows me to create web pages.  I get compliments on them all of the time and mostly from complete strangers.”