Hi all,
Bought this software and am playing around with it. Kind of "clunky" like all Genealogy software seems to be (someday they'll put someone besides a software engineer in charge of these products to direct the software writing types and we'll get something user friendly:) but I think I will like it as I get more familiar with it.
But.....big thing I was looking for help with was to direct me to people in my tree that I have not yet added any documentation info for -- it seems to focus on people I am missing dates and events for mostly. I'd love for it to be able to say to me "hey john Billybob Lunkhead that you have complete birth, death and marriage dates for has no evidence for any of this- start here with his birth date and tell me you did not come up with this from One World Tree?" type thing in a lot less words of course:) Is there a way to have this program focus on missing evidence as opposed to dates and events?
Help appreicated if anyone has tamed this beast yet.\
Best regards,
John R. Fisher
www.allaboutnhre.com/familytree

I dont think GenSmarts looks for sources in your file, but looks for entered facts. I see what you mean thought ---

Well I've been playing around with this software for a few months and except for giving me clues to site I may look for missing data on (and that has not given me anything I did not already have) I don't really see what this software does that a basic error report from FTM does??
If I'm missing something would love to know it but if not just count this as my 2 cents:)

Hi There Fisherjohnr,
Have you found GenSmarts to be any good? I want to buy Family Tree Maker and wonder if I should bother buying it with GenSmarts bundled in for free. I'd also like to get a free Ancestry subscription with FTM but I don't think it and GenSmarts are bundled with FTM together. Basically i think I have to choose between FTM+GenSmarts or FTM +Free Subscription.

Well I tried Gensmart a few times and have not used it since.
I can't even remember exactly what I didn't like about it but I guess I had more expectations of it guiding me thru the empty spots with missing dates etc. I probably should have done more research on it before buying.
Not sure about your choice but my guess is your "free subscription" may be limited in usefulness. Hopefully someone else can chime in about that but with all these genealogy subscription sites they are worth paying for but they all seem to do a fair amount of teasing and baiting you into subscribing. I've got a complete subscription but I was annoyed when I upgraded because it kept showing me things like a Bazaillion hits for newpapers and stuff that I was missing but now that I have access I have never actually found one to be useful. Its because newspaper stuff uses an "OR" search criteria so if I search "John Fisher" I get a ton of hits but its including any mention of "John".
Anyway I'm getting of subject. Perhaps someone else can comment in Gensmart.
Good luck and enjoy your searching.
John R. Fisher
www.allaboutnhre.com/familytree

I purchased Gensmarts quite a while ago. I have found that it gives me very little I can really use. What I thought it would do and the reason I bought it, was to give me a simple listing of what needed verifying, (if that was what I requested) or missing information (I some times miss putting something in when I should)Instead, all I can say is that it is the pits. I really don't find any viable use for it.

Hi John,
Yes, the newspapers are potentially fascinating but you'd need a lot of time on your hands to find anything relevant from teh search results.

I've barely used GenSmarts yet, just haven't had the time. Thanks for the reply,
John

Oh dear - bit of a con then. I ended up buying FTM from ancestry in the end with the free GenSmarts simply because I was fed up trying to work out which version of FTM to go for, and from who: I decided in that Ancestry.co.uk was probably pointing me to the versin that suited me in Ireland.
Thanks for the reply,
John