New to genealogy, considering Reunion..

[William Baetz]

Greetings all.

My brother and I just recently started researching our family history. While we have utilized various research options, much of what we have compiled is from Ancestry.com, and we are also using Ancestry as a database manager for our family tree. I don't have any major beefs with Ancestry.com, however I would prefer to have our data captured in a form that we have more control over (Reunion, for example).

I would expect that the membership of this forum has a decided pro-Reunion bent, but I would nevertheless appreciate hearing from you regarding your thoughts on Reunion. Any comments are welcome and appreciated; switching from other apps to Reunion, pros and cons of Reunion, using Reunion along with Ancestry.com, issues with importing/exporting GEDCOM files, et-cetera.

For the sake of discussion, I use Macintosh exclusively, so PC/Macintosh issues aren't really relevant to me..

Thanks in advance for your thoughts, and I welcome all replies.

Regards,
Bill Baetz

[Bob White]

Here's a good starting point to do some comparisons of your own regarding genealogy programs for the Mac. This gentleman reviews and comments on all of the programs. More important is that one sees a full list in one spot including links to their sites.

http://www.macgenealogy.org/

Of course, as a very long time user of Reunion, I highly recommend it. But you may want to download demo versions of Reunion and a few others to see what is best for you.

[William Baetz]

Hi Bob. Thanks for the link, what a great website! I would never have guessed that there would be that much Mac specific genealogy software and information available, not to mention a great web related resource such as that. I will spend some quality time there.

Best regards,
Bill Baetz

[mwphelps]

Originally Posted by William Baetz

I would expect that the membership of this forum has a decided pro-Reunion bent, but I would nevertheless appreciate hearing from you regarding your thoughts on Reunion. Any comments are welcome and appreciated; switching from other apps to Reunion, pros and cons of Reunion, using Reunion along with Ancestry.com, issues with importing/exporting GEDCOM files, et-cetera.

Bill,

You're probably right about getting a biased opinion on this forum, but for all the right reasons. A lot of folks here date back to the time when the ONLY real genealogy program for the Mac, other than the old incarnation of PAF, was Reunion. I have been with it for so long, I tend to look at all the new programs out there (see the link provided by Bob White) and judge them relative to my experience with Reunion. For what it's worth, I have not found one yet that would cause me to change applications.

One thing stands out in the possible reasons why this is so. It is the different approaches taken by Reunion and the apps of more recent vintage for the "organization of data," especially in terms of display on the screen. I look at some of these new apps and their way of displaying data on the screen, such as for family structure, is just so “cluttered.” They pack a lot of data into a small space, and in odd arrangements. Maybe I’m just used to the Reunion approach to family display (grandparents, parents, children – top to bottom on each card). Many of the others make it hard to get a handle on how a family is organized, making me look around for the data I want.

Some of them also remind me of Family Tree Maker style of family card display, with a rigid subset of fields shown, and other information buried where you have to dig for it. At least Reunion lets me create custom views for different sets of data.

The other characteristic that bugs me about some other programs is that they tend to oversimplify their interface and make it too “hip.” Too much open space, comic book icons, and so forth. In this case, their interface looks like it was designed for the lowest experience level of user, with no accommodation for folks who do know what they’re doing. Reunion is very adaptable for users of all experience levels.

This is not to say that the other programs might not have some new features I wish Reunion had. But I figure that the Leister folks will get around to adding such things in the future. Having a link to maps from inside the program is high on my list, for example. On the other hand, the one I hope they don’t add is the “3-D tree chart” from MacFamilyTree (I think). That looks like a classic case of a feature created for “gee-whiz” reactions and not serious research.

In terms of using Ancestry, I have never felt hamstrung just because my program did not provide a direct link to Ancestry. I use Ancestry all the time, but I never wanted or expected to have my app do that connection for me. I’ll transfer data on my own, and put it where I want it, thank you very much.

Re GEDCOM, there isn’t enough space here to get into all the issues that raises. No program, either Mac or Windows, does GEDCOM perfectly. Most of that is because the GEDCOM standard is hardly comprehensive in what it covers, or on how each program implements it. For a long time, I was frustrated with how Reunion handled special source types for GEDCOM transfers, causing my files to generate many errors when my online cousins tried to load my data. There is a solution to that issue now, and it is no longer a problem for me. (Thank you, Leister!) Moral: Don’t get wrapped around the axle over GEDCOM. Any program you get will probably deal with it adequately.

Finally, don’t overlook the strong support that Leister provides. This forum has been a daily place to visit for me, ever since Rev 9 came out. We all voiced concerns and suggestions about quirky behaviors. The Leister team listened to us all and responded to many of these items. Net result, in a very short period of time, updated versions came out and now 9.05 is very stable and productive. In short, the Leister team is great to have around for questions and concerns. You don’t see that in many companies nowadays.

Get back to us when you’ve made your choice, and let us know how it goes.

[William Baetz]

Mike, thanks for your thoughtful reply. I'm still digesting all of the variables involved, but I'm definitely considering Reunion to be the front runner. I think the support that accompanies Reunion, as you have pointed out, will be a big factor. I did note that there seems to be alot of support over at macgenealogy.org for the program ********, but I noticed that the main release hasn't been updated in 2 and a half years. Compare that to 6 updates for Reunion over the last 6 months, and I think you have a telling story.

I will nevertheless spend some more time evaluating my options, but I very much appreciate your input.

Edit: Btw, the reference to ******** above isn't what I wrote. Very bizarre.

[ByronSpoon]

Originally Posted by William Baetz

Btw, the reference to ******** above isn't what I wrote. Very bizarre.

Bizarre? Not really. To quote a line from the ReulionTalk Guidelines: "ReunionTalk is a free service that we [i.e., Leister Productions] established for the benefit of our users. We provide the server and the staff to monitor forums."

So one can't expect to use this monitored users forum to promote or make referrals to the competition. This is understandable since Leister Productions owns this forum and provides the resources for its operation. Refer to the ReunionTalk Guidelines link at the top of the page for more information.

Now back to your topic... oftentimes the software one chooses is a matter of one's personal objectives. I will simply recommend you try Reunion by downloading the demo version and giving it a thorough workout, along with any other program you might be considering. Once you've done a thorough comparison, I will wager you will end up becoming a Reunion user.

[Frank]

Originally Posted by ByronSpoon

...So one can't expect to use this monitored users forum to promote or make referrals to the competition. This is understandable since Leister Productions owns this forum and provides the resources for its operation....

This case is unusual. The author of that particular program was openly critical of our software and, worse, attempted to provide a "skin" to his software, suggesting that one could use the "Reunion Skin" and get the look and feel and experience of Reunion. We deemed this to be disingenuous (at best) and decided that mention of the product name would not be permitted on ReunionTalk. Thus the asterisks.

But, in general, if somebody says, "hey I like the way program xyz handles this or that..." -- i.e., in a constructive fashion they are trying to bring something to our attention -- that's fine.

[ByronSpoon]

Frank...thanks for filling in a little history and providing clarification.

[William Baetz]

Originally Posted by Frank

This case is unusual. The author of that particular program was openly critical of our software and, worse, attempted to provide a "skin" to his software, suggesting that one could use the "Reunion Skin" and get the look and feel and experience of Reunion. We deemed this to be disingenuous (at best) and decided that mention of the product name would not be permitted on ReunionTalk. Thus the asterisks.

But, in general, if somebody says, "hey I like the way program xyz handles this or that..." -- i.e., in a constructive fashion they are trying to bring something to our attention -- that's fine.

Frank, muchas gracias for the clarification. I was feeling like I had committed a cardinal sin, which, I guess I did, but at least now I know what that sin was.

LOL

Best regards, and feeling somewhat better now,
Bill Baetz

[Bob White]

Bill: This is one of the real wonderful features of Reunion. One gets to exchange thoughts, ideas and get help from the owner/author of the program.