Re: FTM: Benefits?

My opinion is that if you use Ancestry.com for a tree, you're crazy not to have FTM. It gives the ability to do so much more with the same tree, and it automatically downloads all the citation media.

I would point out that many of the features in that comparison table are not important things to serious genealogists. Some of the things I would have put in there are...

- ability to create and manage name styles/templates
- ability to create and manage place jurisdiction styles/templates
- ability to manage places used
- ability to import and export external events (e.g. historical events)
- ability to include specific categories of historical events
- ability to control how information is indexed (particularly names and places)
- ability to manage the role of people in an event (minister at a wedding, ring bearer, witness, best man, etc.)
- ability to assign tasks to people and places
- ability to share place data across trees
- all raw data 100% accessible
- ability to control text used in reports, i.e., highly customizable sentences
- ability to create and manage custom flags/tags
- scalability (e.g., can handle 20,000 people and media items)

and then I'd include some stuff that none of them do

- 100% GEDCOM support
- tie historical locations to modern place names
- patronymics

I'll stop myself there.