Quality Family Tree Software Recommendations

[paul253]

My wife and I are looking to have a family tree made for my parents for Christmas but I’m having a hard time getting my ideas down in the way that I have in mind.

 

Essentially the chart would flow from top down with my parents in the middle. There’d be three generations above them and two below. I used Family Echo to make the chart the way I want but I’m struggling to figure out how to import it to a better program (or find a program where I can just remake it) where I can add a background picture. I’d like a nice big tree (preferably a picture of a real tree vs generic clip art) behind the chart along with random pictures of people in the family. I’d then like to take that whole thing and have in put on a nice print.

 

Does anyone have any ideas? Any family tree software recommendations, free or paid?

[BrewersSuperCollector]

There really are not any good options, and I have been working on my genealogy for years now. On some of the sports collectibles sites such as freedomcardboard.com or sportscollectors.net there are collectors that make custom cards. They have the skill set to make or at least design what your looking to do.

[Invader3K]

I have used Family Tree Maker in the past, and it's a good program, but not sure it has the capability of doing something like you are describing.

[hawing]

*Disclaimer: I'm going to promote my employer with this post.*

 

My library at the Wisconsin Historical Society has a nationally known genealogy collection and the reference librarians here might have a suggestion for you. Send an inquiry to asklibrary (at) wisconsinhistory.org. We get a ton of email from all over the world, so you will likely not get an instantaneous answer.

 

I work in a different department, so for this kind of inquiry I'd defer to my colleagues who field more genealogy questions. Good luck. (And thanks for giving me a work-related reason to use Brewerfan today!)

[nate82]

My wife and I are looking to have a family tree made for my parents for Christmas but I’m having a hard time getting my ideas down in the way that I have in mind.

 

Essentially the chart would flow from top down with my parents in the middle. There’d be three generations above them and two below. I used Family Echo to make the chart the way I want but I’m struggling to figure out how to import it to a better program (or find a program where I can just remake it) where I can add a background picture. I’d like a nice big tree (preferably a picture of a real tree vs generic clip art) behind the chart along with random pictures of people in the family. I’d then like to take that whole thing and have in put on a nice print.

 

Does anyone have any ideas? Any family tree software recommendations, free or paid?

 

You could just do the flow chart in Word and then import that into PowerPoint.

 

 

For the other pictures you could just use Paint to copy the pictures into the image of the tree you want. If you want to get more creative you can use GIMP (free) or PhotoShop to edit the images into the tree image.