Legacy Family Tree has the upper hand on a lot of programs: it includes a radio button for deceased family members for which you don't know a date of death (Living? Yes or no), and you can easily enter pseudonyms, prior names, and nicknames which will show up in your reports. There are also fields for cause of death and genetic information, which is important for some users researching hereditary diseases or afflictions. Although if you're looking for a program that will specifically help you make genograms, try ($49, with a free 14-day trial, GenoPro focuses on tracking medical history and personalities within a family).

Although included in menus, many featuresincluding Calendar Creator, Event Report, Family Picture Tree, Forms Center, Geolocations, and Publishingare not included in the free version of Legacy Family Tree. For these and other features, you'll need to upgrade to the $30 Deluxe Edition. But there are still some interesting reports you can pull, including written reports of ancestral information, Timeline, and Pedigree Charts. Plus, Legacy Family Tree doesn't just focus on past history: You can create a calendar that lists your relative'showever distantbirthdays, and name tags that include parentage (great for family reunions).

To create family tree charts with Legacy, you need to use the included (free version) of Legacy Charting. It's a separate program that's part of the Legacy download, and opens with the click of a button. It's a great, modern-looking (especially compared to Legacy Family Tree) program that will create charts in multiple formats: Tree, Bow Tie, Fan, Hourglass, or DNA chartsbut not a complete family tree. Unfortunately, the free version will only chart four generations, so it's pretty limited. To get a full version, you need to (you guessed it) upgrade to Legacy Family Tree Deluxe. (Note: the Deluxe version also will not display a full family tree.)

Unless you have somewhat limited goals and expectations, Legacy Family Tree standard edition is really a trial of the $30 Deluxe version. But that's okay, because as a trial it's very complete. Plus there are no limitations to saving your work (even as GEDCOM files), so if and when you decide to upgrade, all your databases are all there in their entirely.

Some users may be bothered by the close connection to any given religion, and the controversy surrounding LDS Ordinances. For anyone starting out on the daunting task of retaining and cataloging information about an extended family, though, Legacy Family Tree is a useful free tool, whatever your religion.