RootsMagic, Version 7 ; Published: 2015; Software; CD; Platform: Windows 10/ 8 / 7 / Vista / XP / 2000; Item: RM16

RootsMagic is the award-winning genealogy software which makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history easy! Whether you're a beginner or an experienced professional, RootsMagic is the perfect tool for you!

Compare the features with any other genealogy software. See for yourself why Family Tree Magazine called RootsMagic, “Probably the best all-around genealogy program, RootsMagic offers a winning combination of features for both casual and serious genealogists."

• The Main Screen
• RootsMagic has six main views, plus a sidebar for easier navigation. You switch between the views by simply clicking on the tab for the desired view. All views are fully navigatible using either the mouse or arrow keys. Double clicking on a person's name brings up the data entry screen for that person. You can even open multiple databases side by side.
• The Edit Screen
• The RootsMagic edit screen lets you add an unlimited number of facts for every person (i.e. birth, death, marriage, occupation, religion, description, etc). If you want to add a fact type that isn't in RootsMagic's predefined list, you can simply create your own fact types. RootsMagic also allows notes and unlimited source citations for every fact.
• Every piece of information on a person is available from this one screen... name, parent and spouse info, personal and family facts, DNA test results, alternate names, or LDS information. You can directly access the notes, sources, media, and more for every item.
• The RootsMagic Explorer
• The RootsMagic Explorer is the heart of RootsMagic' search system. The Explorer makes it easy to find and edit anyone in your file. Quickly search by surname or given names, genetic lines, or perform sophisticated searches easily. Even find women by their married names.
• And you can easily edit any person in the search list with the click of a single button.
• Let RootsMagic Find Your Family Online
• With WebHints, RootsMagic automatically searches your favorite genealogy records sites including FamilySearch and MyHeritage for possible matches to your data. Clicking on the light bulb opens up a web browser with the matching records (some records may require a subscription). The powerful WebSearch allows you to quickly search the internet for more matches.
• Sources - Documenting Your Family History
• RootsMagic provides a powerful source list which lets you add, edit, delete, and print the sources of your information. Simply add the source once, then when you add a fact to a person and want to document where that information came from, you simply point to the source in the source list.
• And best of all, the RootsMagic SourceWizard will help you write properly formatted sources regardless of your expertise. Quickly and easily create sources as defined by Evidence!, Evidence Explained, or Cite Your Sources. You can even create your own source types.
• Printing Reports
• RootsMagic offers a large selection of printouts, all available from a single report dialog. Pedigree charts, family group sheets, wall charts, 7 styles of narrative reports (where RootsMagic writes the sentences for you), numerous lists, mailing labels, calendars, relationship charts, individual summaries, and photo trees. And if that isn't enough, RootsMagic even provides a custom report generator, so you can create your own specialized lists.
• Publish Your Family History
• Publishing your family history has never been easier. The RootsMagic Publisher lets you combine multiple reports and charts into a single document, and will automatically create a table of contents and full index for the book. You can include photos, notes, sources and other text in your book. You can even add cover and title pages, copyright page, dedication, and more.
• Send your book directly to your printer, or save it to a PDF file to burn on a CD or email to family members.
• Create Spectacular Wall Charts
• RootsMagic lets you create beautiful full color ancestor, descendant, and hourglass wall charts. You have full control over the positioning, size, colors, fonts, and other aspects of every object in the chart. With simple mouse control you can resize an individual’s box, or drag it to another location on the canvas without breaking the family links. You can change colors of individual boxes, or change the font or color of the text in the boxes. You can even customize your chart by adding additional text, pictures, or shapes to the chart, and you can change the background image or color.
• Publish Online
• Looking for a free and easy way to share your family history with the world? RootsMagic can create beautiful, dynamic websites with pedigree, family and individual views as well as supporting notes, sources, and media. And with our free My.RootsMagic.com hosting service, your genealogy has an online home with the click of a mouse.
• Make Shareable CDs
• You've worked hard to collect and organize your family history, and now RootsMagic makes it easy to share that history with your family and friends. Your Shareable CD™ will feature a custom home page with your own title, photo, description, and contact information, and will include a read-only version of RootsMagic to show off your data and multimedia items.
• Map Your Family
• RootsMagic lets you view your family on a map. Simply select a family member from the list and RootsMagic will display the map (anywhere in the world), with pins where that person's events (birth, marriage, death, burial, etc) occurred.
• Merging Duplicate Records
• RootsMagic provides the most powerful and easy to use merge capabilities available. RootsMagic will automatically look for duplicate individuals and display them in a list with the most likely matches listed first. Simply click a button to merge the duplicate pair, or mark them as "not a match" so that they won't show up in any future merge sessions. Plus, RootsMagic features SmartMerge technology to let you quickly merge all those "for certain" duplicates.
• RootsMagic To-Go
• Take RootsMagic with you wherever you go! RootsMagic To-Go allows you to copy the RootsMagic program and your data onto any simple USB flash drive or removable drive. Take the drive to a computer, plug it in, and run RootsMagic directly from it.

RootsMagic Features

• RootsMagic is the award-winning genealogy software that makes family history easy.

• General Features
• Runs under Windows 8, 7, Vista, XP, and 2000
• Single-file database format
• Support for international character sets through Unicode integration
• Integrated backup and restore help safeguard your data
• New Backup and restore your precious media files along with your data
• Back up directly to CD
• Customize the tool bar to include the functions you use most, or create your own toolbar
• Database tools let you test the file integrity, rebuild indexes, and compress database to remove deleted records
• Free technical support

• Easily switch between navigation views using tabs
• New WebHints automatically search online and for records that match your people
• Pedigree View (5 or 6 generations)
• Family View
• Descendant View (2-7 generations)
• New Problem Alerts warn you of errors and inconsistencies in your data
• People List View (Customizable)
• WebSearch
• Editable Timeline View puts a person’s life in context with events from their own life and from the lives of family members

• RootsMagic To-Go lets you run RootsMagic (program AND data) directly off your flash drive

• Easy file management
• Family members are automatically linked as you add them
• Automatically checks for duplicates as you add people
• Click in an empty parent or child slot on screen to add parents or children
• Just double click on a person's name to edit that person
• Better All information for a person is shown on a single streamlined 'Edit person' window
• Sidebar on main screen makes navigation easy
• Resize edit and search dialogs to see as much information as you want
• Easy to use Explorer-like help system

• Open multiple databases on screen at the same time
• Open multiple copies (and views) of the same database
• Alternate names in lists makes it easy to find a person by their other names
• Display relationships to root person on status bar
• Drag and drop people between databases
• Automatically link dragged people into the other database
• Better Named Groups of People lets you create groups you can use in reports or other areas
• WebTags let you add links to websites attached to people, sources, places, etc.

• Better Add unlimited people, facts/events, notes, sources, and more
• 60 predefined fact types (birth, marriage, death, occupation, religion, etc)
• Easily track multiple relationships, such as adoptions, foster parents, etc
• See a person's age at every event on their edit page
• Enter place history, latitude and longitude for each place
• Create your own user defined fact types, and add any number of roles
• Sharing events among multiple people lets you assign witnesses or other people involved in an event
• Craft your own customized sentence for each fact or role from the live-edit pane in "Edit person" window
• DNA test recording
• Add private events that you can suppress from printing or exporting
• CountyCheck analyzes places as you enter them to let you know if you enter a county or state that didn't exist on the date you entered

• RootsMagic Explorer lets you easily find and edit anyone in your family tree
• Better Search by name, record number, dates, places, notes, and many other types of data
• New Find Everywhere lets you find text in any record in your file: people, families, notes, sources, media, places, to-do items, research logs, and more
• NameFind lets you easily find people by married name or nickname
• Search and replace for notes, names, places, media items, etc.
• Search for people based on genetic lines (mtDNA, Y-Str)

• Print to any printer connected to your computer
• Customize headers, footers, margins, fonts for any printout
• Save reports to PDF (Adobe Acrobat)
• Save reports to your word processor (RTF)
• E-mail reports directly from the print preview
• Print color coding in pedigree charts, group sheets, box charts, narrative reports, wall charts, ahnentafel, descendant list, and timelines
• Include pictures in narrative reports printed to rich text (RTF) files

• Pedigree Charts (standard and cascading)
• Family Group Sheets
• Box chart reports (both ancestor and descendant)
• Box charts - Select box style
• Narrative reports (modified register and ancestor)
• Individual summary prints everything you know about a person
• Scrapbook of pictures for people, families, sources, and places
• Blank reports (pedigree chart, group sheet, research log, etc)
• Ahnentafel - A list of ancestors
• Birthday List - A list of birthdays and anniversaries in the database
• Descendant List - An indented list of the descendants for a person
• Duplicate List - A list of potential duplicate individuals in the database
• Individual List - A list of the people in the database
• Individual List - Include the facts, parents, spouses, and children of each person
• LDS Ordinance List - A list of LDS ordinances in the database
• Marriage List - A list of the couples in the database
• Place List - A list of the places in the database
• Place List - Print the events which happened in each place
• Place List - Include latitude, longitude, and notes for each place
• Repository List - A list of the repositories in the database
• Repository List - Include the sources, to-do items, and correspondence with each repository
• Source List - A list of the sources in the database (sorted and grouped)
• Narrative reports (register (NEHGS), indented descendancy, Henry descendancy, and D'Aboville descendancy)
• Calendars with birthdays and anniversaries
• Relationship chart shows exactly how two people are related
• Address labels for mailings
• Better CountyCheck lists events and places in your file where a county or state didn't exist on the date of the event
• "On This Day" List - bring your family history to life and view family events along with famous births, deaths, and historical events for any given day of the year.
• New "Who Was There" Report shows you which people in your file may have been in a given location on a given date.
• Timeline (or chronology) list that can include events of other people
• Custom report designer, with fields that can span columns or rows and even include notes
• Photo Tree - Tree with 3 generations of pictures
• Address List - A list of the addresses in the database
• Correspondence List - A list of the correspondence in the database
• Fact List - A list of people with or without a particular fact
• Kinship List - A list of everyone related to an individual
• Missing Information List - A list of people missing selected information
• Multimedia List - A list of the media in the database
• Statistics List - Statistics for any group of people
• Surname List - Statistics on the surnames in the database
• Timeline (Chronology) List - A chronological timeline of events for a person or group of people
• To-Do List - A list of the to-do items in the database
• New WebTags List - A list of all websites associates with a person, place, source, or research log

• New Publish your family history and pictures online with the free My RootsMagic online service
• Make Shareable CDs to give to others, with custom menu and a read-only version of RootsMagic
• RootsMagic Publisher lets you create complete books with narrative, notes, charts, photos, source bibliography, index, and more.
• Include cover and title pages, copyright, dedication, acknowledgement, preface pages
• Include table of contents
• Include free form text pages
• Customize your index format and number of columns
• Place index in reports

• Ancestor Wall Charts in any orientation (left to right, bottom to top, etc)
• Descendant Wall Charts in any orientation (top to bottom, left to right, etc)
• Hourglass Charts (combined ancestors and descendants) in any orientation (top to bottom, left to right, etc)
• Timeline Charts
• Drag and drop to resize and move individual boxes
• Add a background image or color
• Print charts up to 100 feet wide
• Print charts on regular size paper and tape together, or print on large format printer
• Export charts to JPG, EMF, and other graphic formats
• Add freeform text, photos, and shapes to your charts

• Attach photographs, sound clips, and video clips to any person, family, place, source, or event
• Include photos in your books, group sheets, and other printouts
• Attach documents (Word, PDF, etc) to any person, family, place, source, or event
• Scan photos directly into RootsMagic
• Photo editor lets you adjust sharpness, brightness, contrast, and rotate and zoom images
• Media Tagging - tag your media with people, families, sources, or places. For example, tag an image of a census record with the people, families, and places mentioned in the record as well as the census’ source citation

• Add source documentation to any person, fact, or family
• SourceWizard automatically writes proper sources for you
• Almost 400 SourceWizard templates based on Evidence Explained, Evidence!, and Cite Your Sources
• Hints in the Source fields guide you in entering your sources
• Assign industry-standard quality terminology (for sources, information and evidence) to your master sources
• Easy to use source list tracks all your documentation (certificates, census, books, etc)
• Enter each source only once, then reuse it elsewhere
• Add a global source to each person when importing a GEDCOM file.
• Record repositories where the sources are found
• Create your own source templates using the powerful built-in template language
• Easily merge duplicate sources from the master source list
• Add a source to multiple people at once
• Easily make a copy of a source
• Copy (memorize) sources to reuse (paste) elsewhere

• Add notes and stories/notes to any fact, person, couple (family), or shared role, place, place details
• Notes print in books, group sheets, and other reports
• Print your documentation (notes and sources) in your reports, summaries, and forms
• Note formatting (bold, italics, underlining)
• Search and replace in notes
• Spell checking
• Live spell checking
• Thesaurus
• Add private notes that you can suppress from printing or exporting

• New Create dynamic websites with pedigree, family, and individual views and supporting notes, sources, and media
• New Publish your family history and pictures online with the free My RootsMagic online service
• FamilySearch Family Tree certified synchronization
• Automatically check for updates to your software
• Family Reunion Planner
• Better WebSearch searches the web using a variety of search engines or search specific genealogy sites, or add your own sites to search
• Create a website including photos, notes, sources, index, surname list, GEDCOM file, email, etc
• Six types of websites: pedigree charts, group sheets, combo pedigree chart / group sheet, descendant narrative, ancestor narrative, alphabetical narrative
• CSS-styled websites
• Add your own links to your home page
• "Privatize" living persons when creating your website
• Create outputs in Adobe Acrobat (PDF), or web files (HTML) to upload to a web site

• Research Manager - avoid “reinventing the wheel” by keeping track of research goals, sources, and results that you have collected on a person, family, or place
• GenSmarts integration to get research suggestions from inside RootsMagic
• Add GenSmarts suggestions to your RootsMagic to-do list with one click
• "To-do" list lets you keep track of research you still need to do for any person or family
• Correspondence Log keeps track of all your incoming and outgoing correspondence
• Better WebSearch searches the web using a variety of search engines or search specific genealogy sites, or add your own sites to search

• Date calculator
• Pop up calendar when entering dates
• Soundex calculator (including alternate methods)
• Bookmark any individuals in your database
• History list lets you backtrack through last 200 people visited
• Back button moves back to previously visited people
• Potential problem list
• Problem list is interactive (edit problem person or family directly from problem list)
• Mark possible problems as "not a problem"
• Place name standardization and geocoding
• Mapping people and places
• Spell Checker checks the current notes, or all notes.
• Create groups of people that you can name and select by that name
• Color coding to highlight groups of people's names in color so they are easy to spot
• Counts the number of separate trees in your database.
• Relationship calculator shows you the relationship between any two people
• Better CountyCheck analyzes places as you enter them to let you know if you enter a county or state that didn't exist on the date you entered
• New CountyCheck Explorer lets you look up US, UK, Canadian, and Australian counties, states, etc. to view information and interactive maps

• Powerful merge capabilities
• Prioritized merge list
• Color-coded record comparisons makes it easy to spot differences
• Mark possible duplicates as "not a match"
• SmartMerge automatically handles the "obvious" duplicates
• ShareMerge helps when collaborating with other RootsMagic users

• Direct Family Tree Maker import (version 16 and earlier)
• Direct PAF import (versions 2.x and later)
• Direct Family Origins import (versions 4 and later)
• Direct Legacy import (versions 2 and later)
• Full GEDCOM 5.5 support so you can exchange data with other programs
• New FamilySearch import
• Full LDS support. LDS support can be turned on or off.

• Access Certified
• Update Certified
• Share Certified
• Print Certified
• Ordinance Reservation Certified
• Ordinance Request (FOR) Certified
• PAF Import Certified
• Discussion Certified

What's New in RootsMagic 7

• These are the highlights of some of the great new features in RootsMagic 7:
• WebHints
• RootsMagic automatically searches your favorite genealogy records sites including FamilySearch and MyHeritage for possible matches to your data
As matches are found, a light bulb appears next to each person's name.
• Clicking on the light bulb opens up a web browser with the matching records (some records may require a subscription)
• DataClean
• NameClean finds and corrects many common problems in personal names in your file
• PlaceClean finds and corrects many common problems in place names in your file
• Compare Files
• Compare any two RootsMagic files and display their differences
• Share data between the compared files with the click of a button
• Publish Online
• Publish your family information to MyRootsMagic.com
• Dynamic, database-driven sites with pedigree, family and individual views for each person
• Can include notes, sources, and media for each person
• Password protect your site to control access to your family data
• Import Lists
• Like to customize your files? Import lists of fact types, media, places, and more from another RootsMagic file to save time and effort
• Backup and Restore with Media
• Optionally include your media when you backup or restore your database
• QuickGroups
• See which groups a person belongs to with the click of a mouse
• Check and uncheck a person's groups from a single screen

You'll also enjoy these features added in RootsMagic 6:

• Problem Alerts
• An icon next to a person's name on the main screen warns you of a potential error in their data
• Find and fix problems with incorrect dates, unusual ages, and missing information
• Enhanced Timeline View
• Shows a full timeline of the current person's events and those of their parents, siblings, spouses, and children
• Shows a graphical timeline of the person's events
• Edit events, names, directly from the timeline view (without having to open the edit screen)
• CountyCheck Explorer
• Lets you look up counties and states (US, Canada, UK, Australia) to view information about them
• Access the FamilySearch Wiki page for counties and states
• Access an interactive state map showing historical county boundaries
• WebTags
• Attach links to websites to any person, source, citation, place, or research log item
• Instantly jump to a web page tagged to a record
• Print a list of WebTags you have added to your database
• Find Everywhere
• Find every record containing text you enter
• Find people, families, events, notes, sources, places, to-do items, research logs, media items, and more
• Edit any found record directly from the results screen
• Enhanced searching and selecting
• Search for people by the number of spouses, children, parents, or siblings that they have
• Select people based on genetic lines (Y-STR and Mitochondrial)
• Enhanced WebSearch
• Create a WebTag directly from your search results
• Optionally use an external browser for search results
• Enhanced Place List
• View place detail information directly from the place list
• Edit place detail notes, media, etc. directly from the place list

You'll also enjoy these features added in RootsMagic 5:

• Research Manager
• Create unlimited research logs to document your work and aid your research
• Quickly search for any text in any research log
• CountyCheck
• Automatically checks every county you enter (US, Canada, UK, Australia) to verify that it actually existed at the time of the event
• Report gives you a list of all events in counties which didn't exist at the time
• Lets you access maps and county histories for the US, Canada, UK, and Australia
• Database Tools
• Test the integrity of the database file
• Re-index the database
• Compress deleted records from the database
• "On This Day" List
• Includes all family events on a date, as well as famous births and deaths and historical events for the day
• "Who Was There" List
• Shows who in your file was possibly in a given location on a given date
• Enhanced People View
• Filter to show any group of people
• Enhanced Multimedia
• Allows easy tagging of images with the people, families, events, places, or sources
• Enter comments on any media tag
• Enhanced To-Do list
• See type, status, priority and description in a single list
• Sort by type, status, priority, or task description
• Filter by type, status, or priority
• Enhanced Edit Screen
• Hover tips for notes and sources for every fact
• Easily view all to-do items for a person and their families
• Easily view all media items for a person, their events, and families
• Enhanced Source Entry
• New tabbed source edit screen streamlines source entry
• Enhanced Descendant List Report
• Direct descendant list shows the direct line from an ancestor to a descendant
• Henry, D'Aboville, and outline numbering
• Wordwrap option conserves space
• Enhanced Place List Report
• Print all events which occurred within a certain distance of any place
• Mapping
• Include markers for events of family members of the selected person
• Enhanced Place List
• Displays the primary image for the highlighted place
• Displays the place details for the highlighted place
• Fonts and Screens
• Select the font / size for the lists on the edit person, Explorer, and select person screens
• Much, much more!

RootsMagic Quotes and Reviews

"My favorite for the best all-around program, RootsMagic 2.0 does an outstanding job of covering all of the genealogy bases. Sophisticated and powerful, RootsMagic is also the easiest to use genealogy program that I have ever tested." - Kimberly Powell, About.com Genealogy Guide

"RootsMagic is arguably the best genealogy program we’ve seen. Had we tested this program a month earlier, it would likely have won last month’s head-to-head review." - Smart Computing Magazine

"Editor's Choice. The new program is called RootsMagic and I've immediately fallen in love with it." - Heritage Quest Magazine

"For the money, RootsMagic is, by far, the most comprehensive, yet easy to use genealogy software available anywhere." - Bill Dollarhide, Genealogy Bulletin

"As a tool for organizing your family history, RootsMagic beats Family Tree Maker hands down. RootsMagic remains one of the most well-rounded genealogy programs and earns our highest recommendation." - Family Tree Magazine (Rick Crume)

"There's no better genealogy package for the money." - PC Format Magazine (March 2005)

"Roots Magic won't leave you disappointed... It's still the top of the genealogy tree." - Computer Active Magazine (March 2005)

"All in all, RootsMagic is a winner. It is a very powerful genealogy program with all the features found in most competitive programs, plus it is very easy to use and has a modest price. I suspect that I will be recommending it to many people." - Dick Eastman, Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

"If your present software isn't doing everything you had hoped, you may find RootsMagic has what you were looking for. All in all, it is a powerful, easy-to-use program that can greatly aid researchers in family history." - NEHGS New England Ancestors magazine (Rhonda McClure)

"In our opinion, FormalSoft has another winner. RootsMagic has a good balance of intuitive navigation and simple functions with powerful features." - Genealogical Computing magazine (Gary and Diana Smith)

"For many users this is the ideal program for recording your family history." - Your Family Tree Magazine (UK)

"Altogether I found the program really easy to use with an impressive range of facilities, suitable for all users." - Family Tree Magazine (UK)

"Widely regarded as one of the easiest pieces of software to get to grips with. It is ideal for beginners, with enough features to satisfy the experts. Highly recommended." - Family History Monthly Magazine

"The price tag for Family Tree Maker is high, especially when there are less expensive programs, such as RootsMagic, that have better source-citation and record-comparison tools." - Smart Computing Magazine

"This is an impressive upgrade to a program which was already a pleasure to use." - Family History Monthly