Our ancestors fled the Old World to leave history behind, becoming new people in a new land. As a child of immigrants, I've been seeking to reclaim my lost past by searching library archives for obscure faded photographs, names scrambled at Ellis Island, and birth sites. The Family Tree Maker Deluxe II CD-ROM makes this digging a much more manageable task.
Family Tree Maker consists of preformatted pages you fill in, and an archival database of historical records. It streamlines the work of constructing a family tree and figuring out intricate interconnections. You can start with any member of your family, entering all of their statistical particulars into a form - such as where and when they were born, died, and married, and the names of their children. Once you've made an entry, the program remembers the information. Type the first letter of a word in corresponding boxes and your first saved reply is automatically entered. As you enter the same last names and locales over and over, this well-designed time-saver makes the process zip right along.
One of the most valuable features for genealogy researchers is the Social Security archives, listing US death benefits records from 1937 to 1993. Find the right match and click on it to transfer all of the data to your tree, including dates for birth and death, last known state of residence, and zip code. I found many of my relatives whom no one in the family had any specific information for, and easily popped their records into my file to build up my tree.
I was disappointed Family Tree couldn't help me find relatives who weren't in the Social Security archive. But a built-in link to a Web site led me to genealogy sites all over the Net. These got me pointed in the right direction to find relatives further back on my lineage. Still, technology hasn't caught up with genealogy research: to get most historical data you'll need to write for information or visit genealogy libraries and read dusty, old-fashioned microfilm.
Family Tree Maker Deluxe Edition II CD-ROM. US$89.99.Broderbund Software: (800) 474 8696, +1 (415) 382 4770, fax +1 (415) 382 4419, on the Web at www.familytreemaker.com/.
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