Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Getting the Most out of RootsMagic Version 5 by Bruce Buzbee

Title: Getting the Most out of RootsMagic Version 5
Author: Bruce Buzbee
Publication Date: 2012
Length: 345 pages

This book came with the software when I bought RootsMagic Version 5 at a genealogy conference last year. I still haven't had a chance to really dig into the software itself, but I did try some things out along the way while I was reading.

The main issue I had with this book is that it's clearly aimed at someone WAY less computer literate than me. That's not entirely a fault in the book; technical writing is always hard when you have such a mixed audience. But it meant that I spent a lot of the time reading stuff that was painfully obvious to me, just as someone who uses computers a lot.

The other, more minor issue, was just one of editing. I think this book has been edited and rereleased with each version of RootsMagic, and it shows. Sometimes the same bit of text is repeated in several chapters. My guess is that's a result of content being reorganised, but no thorough edit being done afterwards before publication.

Overall, though, it was a good guide to the software. For someone who's not really computer-savvy, it would probably be really helpful. I just felt that personally, I could have figured most of it out just from using the software and poking around.

3 stars.

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