|
Our Review Costs & Features User Reviews |
|
Editor's Star Ratings:
Features: | |
Photo and File Management: | |
Web Integration: | |
Ease of Use: | |
Ease of Installation: | |
Customer Support: | |
Value for Money: | |
Overall Star Rating: |
Editor's Review:
GenoPro is a family tree building program primarily aimed at professionals from a wide range of sectors. In fact, more than half of GenoPro users use the software as a tool in their work. These include historians, anthropologists, social workers, and public health professionals amongst many others. GenoPro helps them map out complicated social relations allowing an improved understanding of complex social phenomena.
This makes GenoPro an especially powerful tool; one almost unbeatable for in-depth analysis. However, many amateur genealogists may find this a bit overwhelming. In this review we’ll take you through the key features of GenoPro so that you can make an informed decision on whether this is the right genealogy software for you.
All genealogy research begins with the somewhat arduous task of inputting the data you have been able to amass to date. GenoPro makes this reasonably simple, although they do lack tools that help speed up the task. While those with existing data to input directly will not find this problematic (you can simply import this as a GEDCOM file) those starting from scratch will have to invest a lot of time and effort in laying the foundations for their research.
We were also a bit disappointed to discover that GenoPro doesn’t offer any tools for facilitating online genealogy research. While much of the information you’ll need is available online, accessing it is not always simple. Many genealogy software packages have tools which automatically sift through these databases for useful links and potential matches.
While the human touch cannot be replaced, these tools make a beginner’s research far easier and are noticeably absent from GenoPro. The same can be said for referencing tools which are vital for ensuring beginners accurately reference their research; something of second nature to professionals yet highly important for the validity of your finished work.
This said, for those who don’t mind doing this research themselves, GenoPro offers unrivalled options for documenting and analysing this information. They achieve this through the use of Genograms which are similar to your basic family tree but with the ability to capture and present far more complex and intricate information.
For starters, 33 different types of relationships can be inputted and mapped. This allows users to go far beyond the simple “bloodline” of their family and dive into the history and context underpinning their genealogical past.
We, however, found the results of such complex Genograms to be an unintelligible mass of squiggly coloured lines which could only be understood with constant reference to the legend. Clearly, with time one will begin to recognize and interpret this information more easily, which reflects GenoPro’s positioning as a tool for professionals.
Along these same lines, while amateurs will find the Genograms produced with GenoPro too complex to present to family and friends, professionals will certainly be able to wow their colleagues with the ability to illustrate a web of complex social relations. We appreciated the possibility, for example, of exporting information to Powerpoint.
GenoPro also offers HTML conversion and online hosting of your project which is fantastic for long distance collaboration. However, we did find the way they do this to be very basic; you almost need to be able to code to do it effectively! Those without decent knowledge of computers will simply find this option too difficult to be of any use.
In comparison, many other products offer this service with easy “what you see is what you get” and drag and drop website editor tools which make GenoPro look pretty dated.
Overall, GenoPro will be exactly what you’re looking for, or not at all. Professionals will be pressed to find such in-depth genealogy software elsewhere, while amateurs will be unable to make the most of GenoPro’s complexity. As such, we’d recommend those with big genealogy or historical projects to check out GenoPro as most other programmes in this category will be insufficient for your needs.
The 30 day free trial is a great way to ensure the product is for you before making a purchase. To amateur genealogists we would recommend you check out an alternative product from our Top10 which will be more suited to your needs.
Click on the button below to check out GenoPro.com for yourself...
» Click here to visit GenoPro.com
or
« Back to our Top 10 Genealogy Software Reviews
Genealogy Software from Amazon (US)
» More Genealogy Software from Amazon