Should You Buy Legacy Family Tree?

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The reason why family historians buy genealogy software is to make tracing their ancestry easier. Legacy Family Tree can make it easier for you than by drawing out your family tree with a pen and paper.

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But why should you purchase this software?

In this article, I will give explore 20 reasons why you should. So, let’s get on with it, shall we?

Why are you researching your ancestry?

There are maybe several reasons why you have chosen to research your family tree.

Not only does ancestry interest you, but you also want to preserve the memories and stories for years to come.

You want to pass on this knowledge to your children and your children’s children.

To research your family history can be an exciting and rewarding hobby.

However, I must point out that it can be quite stressful if you cannot find a relative or the information that you are looking for.

Why choose Legacy?

Here in this post, I want to discuss why you should consider and buy the number one genealogy software program, Legacy Family Tree.

After all, it has become the most popular choice out of all the genealogy software programs that are on the market today.

Before I explore the 20 reasons let me first show you this short video that showcases a few of the features that you can benefit from.

Credit: Legacy Family Tree

20 Reasons To Buy Legacy Family Tree:

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1. Completely Customizable

If you want a computer program that is easy to use then Legacy is the one to use.

However, if you feel that you are not satisfied with the layout of the interface then you can change this.

So, you could change for example the location of the button bar, the window appearance, and the colors and fonts that are used.

You can also change the functioning of the program as well.

So, every time that you exit the Legacy Family Tree you can ask it to automatically backup your work.

No matter what you change with this program all of these settings will be saved and will be used for your subsequent settings.

2. Huge Capacity

Whenever you add information to a computer you do not want to be constrained by how much that you are allowed to enter into the program.

With Legacy, you can add as much as you want to.

So, you can virtually add an unlimited number of people and families to this genealogy software program.

With each family, you are allowed to add up to 60 children. I am sure that this is more than enough for any family.

Each person that you enter into the program can have an unlimited number of parents and spouses.

So, this is great flexibility with this program.

You can also add an unlimited number of sources, events, and media such as pictures and sounds for each individual.

3. Powerful and Intelligent Merging of Duplicate Information

There is always new information that you can learn from fellow genealogists. With that, you can get new family trees sent to us by our relatives that you can add to our tree.

The merging function of this program allows you to see all of the duplication information.

From this, you can make intelligent decisions as to whether you want to keep the information or discard it.

Any extra information is added to either notes or events for each individual.

Usually whenever you work with more than one family tree file there will bound to be variances with the spellings of family names.

The advantage of Legacy is that these names can be sent alternate names list.

4. Multiple Parents

As I mentioned earlier in the second reason for why you should buy Legacy Family Tree software you can also add an unlimited number of parents for an individual.

This makes tracing a person’s birth parents and adoptive parents’ family trees possible.

5. Powerful Searching Capabilities

With any genealogy software program, you want to be able to use and add a family tree easily.

You will also want to search for individuals or groups of individuals with the same amount of ease as well.

This is possible with Legacy by either the simple fill-in-the-blanks forms or by using powerful detailed searching.

You can view individual records one by one with this kind of search function.

Or, you can view the results as a list if you wish.

Further searches can subsequently add more people to the list or replace the list entirely.

The possibility of wildcard searches is also supported with Legacy.

6. QuickFill Fields

The advantage of this genealogy software is the capability of QuickFill Fields.

So, when you enter information into your family tree the program will automatically fill in the remainder for you.

The advantages of this are twofold.

Firstly, you don’t have to type in the entire name or location.

So, this will save you time when you are adding to your family tree.

Secondly, if you forget how a name or location is spelled you just start with what you know.

The program will then fill in the rest for you. This will save you from entering miss-spelled information.

7. Date Calculator

The great thing about Legacy is that it can calculate important events in our ancestors’ lives.

So, for example, if you have a death date and an age at death it can then calculate for you when your ancestor died.

If our ancestor died on 26 January 1763 at the age of 67 years and 10 months then it will show you that he/she was born in March 1695.

8. Bookmarks and History List

If you want to retrieve information on a certain individual you can easily use the search function.

However, you can also place a bookmark on a record or a certain number of records.

This will be advantageous for you when are currently working on an individual or a particular family.

A history of bookmarks is also stored within Legacy.

So, you can view the history of the last 20 to 160 individuals that you have searched for. This can help you whenever you are backtracking through your research.

9. Complete Source Documentation

Part of becoming a genealogist or a family historian is to properly cite our sources of information. This is possible with Legacy with the use of the master source citation system.

Whenever you add new information you can cite it through the Source Clipboard feature.

So, when you enter all of your ancestor’s information you just click a button and cite the source effortlessly.

There is also an AutoSource feature that can allow you to assign a source to all imported records. This will help you tell where they came from in the future.

10. Alternate Names and Events

I touched upon this at an earlier point. During the lifetime of your ancestors, they may have been known with different names by different people.

If you are also working with other researchers then it is possible that their spelling may differ from yours.

This is not a problem with Legacy as all of these variations can be placed in the Alternate Names field for an individual.

This will help you see these names easily rather than them being hidden away in the Notes section of an individual.

11. Pictures and Sounds

One of the major advantages of Legacy is the capability to add a virtually unlimited number of people to our family tree.

The same can also be said about adding media such as pictures and sounds.

A self-running photo album can be displayed as well for members of our family.

A narration can be added to this photo album if you wish.

12. Blank Reports and Forms

We collect information about our ancestors through various sources, and this is a major part of family history research.

A particular advantage of Legacy Family Tree is the various blank forms that you can print off and fill in.

These include census forms, questionnaires, relationship diagrams, and research logs.

13. Wide Variety of Reports

Not only do you want to easily add individuals and their details to our family tree but you also want to display it as well.

This can be done effortlessly with the wide range of reports that are available to you.

All of these professional reports are high quality and can be customized.

Available reports:

Family Group Sheet
Descendant Report
Ancestor Report
Timeline Report
Pedigree Chart
Lineage Report
Individual Reports

Source Citation Report
Potential Problems Report
Surname Summary
Relationship Report
LDS Ordinance Report
Ages Report
Name List Report

Legacy Family Tree offers an impressive 25 different chart types, which is the second most number of charts available out of all the genealogy programs on the market today.

14. View Relationships

Whenever I add a new family member to my tree it always facinates me with the connection that they are to me.

This is particularly true whenever I make contact with a distant relation. I have printed many relationship charts to show both my parents how a cousin is related to us.

Relationships such as this can be viewed within the Family View of the Legacy program.

15. Publish Books

Printing reports are helpful for us family historians. Through these reports, you can work out all the information that you have on an individual or a particular family.

It can help us make sense of it all.

With this genealogy software program, you are also able to publish books on our family tree.

So, you could either print out ancestor or descendant books.

These books will feature a title page, and both a table of contents and an index for easy reference.

You can also include pictures that you have added to our ancestors.

16. Birthday and Anniversary Calendars

Another thing that I like about researching my family tree is the important dates.

So, whenever a particular date comes up I know that that was when my grandparents married or that was the date that my grandfather died for example.

Legacy Family Tree allows you to produce calendars for groups of people or couples. These can show birthdays, anniversaries and so on.

With this genealogy software program, the contents are completely customizable.

17. Import Personal Ancestral File and GEDCOM Files

While working on your family history you may also be working with other members of our family. Genealogy is a hobby that you can share your research with your relatives.

Software programs such as Legacy allow you to save our family tree as a GEDCOM file.

You can also import trees into Legacy as a GEDCOM file and see what work other relatives have done on the family tree.

This file type is supported with Legacy as well as other non-standard ones as well. Personal Ancestral Files or PAF can also be imported into Legacy as well.

18. Export Files for Other Genealogy Programs and Ancestral File

Not only can you import GEDCOM files but you can export these as well.

These types of files include PAF, Ancestral File submission, generic, basic, and other types as well.

19. View Multiple Family Trees at the Same Time

Sometimes while working on your ancestry you may want to view several parts of your family tree. This is possible with the Legacy Family Tree software.

The program will allow you to view up to seven different Family/Pedigree views at the same time.

Not only can you open one file and see different parts of your tree at the same time but you can also do the same with two files.

The advantage of this approach is that you can compare two family trees side-by-side.

20. Extensive Context-Sensitive Help While You Work

Although the Legacy Family Tree software is pretty intuitive to use there may come a time when you may want some help.

No matter where you are within the software you are just a click away from help.

There are 100s of help topics available to you online.

There is a Help button included on each window and form and this will give you specific help with what you are working on.

My Final Thoughts!

I have covered many reasons in this post why you should buy Legacy Family Tree.

You may though be thinking, “What’s up with the user interface?”

I must admit that it does look a bit outdated.

Legacy hasn’t changed their design in quite a while but they have kept to the formula that has worked for them.

And why not, they are still number one when it comes to being the best genealogy software program today.

Sure the design is like it’s from the 90s but it’s what’s under the hood that counts.

Legacy does outperform other programs. And that’s what matters.

Why not check out my What’s New With Legacy 9? post that will show you what the latest version has to offer.

Further Information!

If you would like more information regarding Legacy Family Tree then please head on over to Wikipedia.

There you will find a discussion on the included features, what languages the software is available in and the history of each version thus far.

What do you think?

If you decide to buy this software program then please come back and let me know what you think of it. I would love to hear how it is working for you.

All Round Software!

Setting a new standard in genealogy software!

Thank You and Please Leave A Comment

I hope you enjoyed this article discussing the 20 reasons why you should buy Legacy Family Tree software. If you have any questions or comments then please leave a comment below.

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