MacFamilyTree
OnlyMac Software
Price: $49 (demo available)
Pros: Nice aqua GUI, attractive visualizations, competitive price for quality.
Cons: Interface shortcomings, no rapid data entry, integration with other apps is present but limited.
by Gerrit Dalman
It is often said that nothing is more important than family, but how much family can most Americans account for? Many never take the time to consider their roots farther back than grandparents. For those up to the challenge of tracing their family tree, a wide selection of genealogy software is available for organizing and sharing that family lineage.
MacFamilyTree (MFT) is one of few such apps for Mac OS X. It has a fairly robust feature set with a decent Mac-friendly interface and a great price tag. It performs all the functions you would expect from such a program, including input and management of person data, events, relationships, media, and research sources.
Multiple family trees can be open at once and each centers on a main window with an optional floater for navigation and a detachable drawer for browsing persons. The use of unique Mac interface components like drawers, tabs, and live search fields will make Mac users comfortable right away even though the layout and some editing conventions could benefit from a little refinement. This is particularly obvious when starting from scratch since the interface doesn't offer rapid data entry or relationship assignment.
Editing may require too many clicks and keystrokes, but is just the beginning of MFTs functions. Selecting the "View" tab provides access to several different visualizations of family data. These include attractive heritage charts, genograms, timelines, and even annotated world maps. Unfortunately customization and export options are limited, but the graphics do print nicely and can be saved at screen resolution for any purpose.
A "Publish" tab offers options for sharing more of a database. These include burning a cross-platform disc, exporting to interactive HTML for sharing over the web, or performing a backup of the database to an iDisk. As an added bonus, large databases will benefit from database cleanup commands and timed backups.
If you would like to pass on your work, MFT also plays well with other genealogy tools through the use of the universal GED file format. That makes it possible to merge or add data from other programs and a plethora of online sources.
MFT also makes use of iPhoto too. With a few clicks you can attach photos from your library to persons in your database. The album list in the dialog can't be scrolled, however, which can be a problem if you have a large photo collection. The lack of a cropping function as in Address Book or iChat is noticeably absent.
Ultimately this app works as advertised, but has a lot of potential that hasn't been fully realized. With some interface improvements, Address Book integration, and Spotlight support it could be fantastic. And with a history of regular updates, that's not an unreasonable expectation.
MacFamilyTree stands out from the competition with a very aqua interface and the most reasonable price point of any full-featured genealogy software for the Mac.
If you are in the market for a lineage-tracking app, this one is your best choice so long as you don't intend to work with a database over a few thousand persons. Anyone who is curious what this type of program can offer should download the demo that includes a rich sample database so you can preview the programs full functionality.
System Requirements:
* Mac OS X 10.3.9
* G3
* 1024x768 resolution display