Does anyone have advise for a complete beginner on using a Mac to generate a family tree and start to dabble in genealogy? Do you start with subscribing to the likes of Ancestry and later use a Family Tree programme to show the tree in various ways or vice-versa?
My advice is likely to be out of date but, whilst Ancestry is great for finding information (start with birth, marriage and death registrations & censuses), I would recommend recording your findings in a good family history program from the outset. When I did my research, Reunion was the only really good program for the Mac. There are others now, but I’ve always been very happy with Reunion and, of course can’t really comment on the others.
Thank you Trevor and Douglas. I've spent ages looking at YouTube videos. Ancestry is definitely the place for research and I shall follow your advice re getting a Family Tree app. Ancestry are pushing Family Tree Maker and Roots Magic because of the high level of integration using a GEDCOM file. Thanks for your help. I am about to dive in!
You can download your Ancestry information to, for example, Macfamily Tree using a gedcom file. We did this when we took a break from Ancestry and now our information is saved in case we want to return to Ancestry at some time in the future. Just for information, we were not unhappy with Ancestry, it is just that we had found out as much as we wanted at that particular time.
David Parnell 