RootsMagic Reviews

(based on 6 reviews)

27 of 46 people found this review helpful

Firstly this review site is well out of date, quoting 2022 and stating Family Historian 6 is "just released" when it was released 6 years ago and Family Historian 7 18 months ago. Still to the subject of Rootsmagic, I agree there is no MAGIC, just problems. This site lists V7 for Version 8 was released in 2021, still have many missing features and never ending problems with features that are present. I have found far superior software in Family Historian which you rate badly, think you need to get out more before advising others.

In summary, I would not recommend RootsMagic to a friend.

30 of 58 people found this review helpful

The free version is extremely limited in scope. All the good features are unavailable to those not willing or able to shell out however much they want for the software package. One example is that you cannot even check your relationship to others, which is kinda the whole point of doing genealogy.

Another big issue is that it takes at least three or four minutes to load my database, admittedly a rather large file of over 230,000 individual names. To be fair, some of their competitors will not even load the GEDCOM due to the file size.

There are a number of issues with the GUI that I do not like and the means of searching for individuals is less far worse than with PAF. One would expect the interface and functionality would improve over time, not de-evolve.

Hard to say what else to say about this because since it takes so long to download and will not even calculate your relationships, there seems little point in pursuing it. I will probably end up uninstalling it. I have no idea what magic they are talking about, but I don't see it.

In summary, I would not recommend RootsMagic to a friend.

206 of 365 people found this review helpful

If so, this software would definitely get one from me! I cannot afford an expensive program and began using RM6's free version. However, I soon found out it was a "teaser" and anything useful was only available in the purchased version so I finally saved up and bought it. I had already entered over 2,000 records and wanted to utilize some of the reports not available for free. While the existing records transferred just fine (thank goodness!) the "paid" parts of the program didn't even come close to what was promised. After entering about another 500 records, I wanted to run their "facts" report. As the majority of my ancestry is European nobility, and I was entering in the era before surnames were required, I would enter Otto IV with Otto in the first name field and IV in the suffix field. Well I ran my fact report using the "title" field (9 pages) only to discover that it SOMETIMES picks up the suffix but USUALLY it doesn't so I ended up with a report with 22 Henrys, 6 Richards, 4 Ottos, etc and now do not know who's who! I have to go back and forth to the screen... (Read the full review)

In summary, I would not recommend RootsMagic to a friend.