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I never met my grandmother or grandfather on my dad's side. My dad died when I was 12 and my grandfather on my mom's side died about a year later. I've been thinking of creating a family tree via software or sites like ancestry.com. has anyone ever used anything along these lines?
My friend Jesse has a lot of experience with this, he's really into the family tree stuff. I'll ask him over the weekend.
My wife was able to get a bunch of stuff and match it up woth some things she already had from family when she was looking into her family history. I think ancestry.com gives you something like 12 days to try and I think she got more from one of her many points earning sites. I'll talk to her if she's still awake when I get home tonight.
My mom uses Family Tree Maker. The only things I have done with it is help her move the data files from one computer to another. It is probably pretty easy to use because she is very far from being a computer geek.
Yes, I've used FTM in the past, although its really only useful for documenting your results. Parts of the online database is good but they re-sell the stuff that you can source through other places. You can't see the quality of the info until you buy it.
Alot of information is available through http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp. It's the web arm of the genealogy library in salt lake city, Mecca for genealogy researchers in the US.
The challenge is getting details after 1930 to present. You'll mostly have to get it from family interviews. Before 1930, it's fairly easy to track down family on the census through a visit to a local library. Once you have 1 or 2 census connections then most lines will connect with other people's research via family search, genealogy forums (rootsweb used to be good), and paid services.