Software Review of:
Ancestral Quest 
3.0 

Executive decision?
AQ was developed by Incline Software, LC in 1994. >From the fall of 1998 to the spring of 2001, Incline Software attempted a merger with The Hope Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded to further the cause of genealogy (9547 S. 700 E., Sandy, UT 84070). This merger failed, but sales materials dealing with AQ 3.0 were previously printed with the name of The Hope Foundation. (Whoever thought the deal was a "slam dunk" is probably regretting that decision!)

The program
The AQ software offers intuitive tools for recording your genealogy data. You can navigate, browse and edit multiple family databases faster than before, and build families easily (add parents, spouses and children in an intuitive screen). Breakthrough technologies allow you to cite sources in ways not possible before (organize by category, attach events to sources, etc.). You can attach unlimited (up to HD capacity) photos, audio and video for each family member. These can be combined into interactive scrapbooks and choreographed slide shows with narration and music, if you desire. All this can be output in presentation quality reports: Wall Charts - LARGE (up to 320 x 320 inches) and titled on standard letter size or plotter pages; Standard and Specialized Pedigree Charts & Family Group Sheets - Print blank, single or cascading sheets suitable for framing or placing in a research binder; Family Books - Publish your family using Descendant (Modified Register) or Ancestor (Ahnentafel) format; Family Events Calendar - Birthdays and anniversaries; plus Scrapbook Pages, Family Reunion Contact Lists, Wall Charts, Individual summaries, Latter Day Saints (LDS) Reports, Duplicates Lists, End-of-Line Lists and Problem Reports. You can also design your own custom reports and export your data to other applications.

Other genealogical features in the program are: Personal Ancestral File (PAF) 3.x-4.0 compatible - Directly reads PAF. No import, export, conversion, or GFDCOM (GEnealogical Data COMmunications) format is needed. (Due to their unique beliefs regarding eternal families, the LDS church, sometimes called Mormons, has established publicly-available Family History Centers throughout the world, and created PAF, an early and a very popular DOS PC genealogy program.) For PAF users who do not wish to upgrade to PAF 3.0, the CD includes AQ 2.2 which is compatible with older PAF; Advanced Filtering - FOCUS to PAF users: Powerful tool for searching, examining data, and splitting databases and exporting branches of your family tree without missing any "twigs" or "leaves"; Relationship Identifiers - Shows how others are related to you; Relationship, Date and Soundex Calculators - Powerful tool for serious family tree research (exact spelling of a name may not be known); Powerful Match/Merge - Identify possible matches or duplicates; Unlimited Databases; LDS options - Temple Names Preparation and LDS reporting and selecting.

Documentation for AQ is provided through a professionally written and easily understood User's Guide (about 140 pages with lots of "screen" helps) which covers about every phase of the program's capability. There are also numerous online "Help" screens (available at any time)."

Installation
Installation instructions are printed on the CD for the "No Need To Read The Book" crowd. During the setup process you will be able to select one or more of the software products included in the Suite to install now or later. Each item is described in "CD Contents," found in your program group after installation. (After installation, go directly to the Web site for a free download of new features added to AQ 3.0 since the CD was produced.)

The install was auto-run and installed smoothly and quickly. (The license agreement, printed on the sealed CD envelope, essentially says, "Accept it or return the software.") I would recommend starting with "Line Upon Line" (addressed below) if you are new to genealogy. It will be very helpful and let you know why you should always start your genealogy with yourself as number one. Between the online "helps," the User's Guide and the input of information you have available, you will quickly master the program. You will also appreciate a number of the features that are not in other genealogy programs. For example, in the family view window it is very simple to click "add child" or "add spouse." Then a pop-up window appears and you simply type in the vital statistics for that person. Another example is the ability to type in limited information, and later go back to fill in the gaps, or make corrections or add entirely new information about an individual. This would be important to someone who has not acquired a lot of information initially. Also, you can add pictures of a person at different stages of their lives, as you may find them or the person grows.

I believe you will find this software easy to use. Many of the features make it so. AQ 3.0 is available for download at $37.95, but minus the User's Guide. I would recommend a trip to a local store, and $2 more, to get the Guide with the helpful "screen shots" throughout.

Reference tools and helps
The Suite also contains other tools to help you research your roots. These consist of a beginners guide to doing family tree research, geographical tools to help you locate U.S. towns and vital records, and a visual and historical tool to put the lives of your Old World ancestors into their historical context, plus a video tour of AQ itself. You will want to read through the CD Contents for information on tools not highlighted below:

1. Line Upon Line

A Beginner's Guide to Genealogy. You will find this to be a fun-to-read, informative guide to get you organized and tutored in the basics of how to conduct your research and find your family roots. It is important to start right and the writer shows you how.
2. Ancestral Quest Quick Tour 

The AQ Quick Tour provides a stunning overview of this top-rated Windows genealogy product. It was designed to run best on a Pentium 100 or faster PC with a 2X CD player. But, the Tour will run on a 486 or even a 386 system. Since it contains narrated video requiring a Windows compatible sound board, you may notice that the young woman speaking will fall behind the words you hear on these slower systems. Also, some screen transitions may cause your video to flicker momentarily.
3. Centennia Genealogy Edition 

An exciting, dynamic historical atlas of Europe and the Middle East, licensed from Clockwork Software, Inc. specifically for inclusion in the AQ Suite. The atlas depicts the history of 1654-1914, the period of time of most interest to genealogists with European heritage. A couple of user tips: 1) Historical country boundaries often differ dramatically from those with which you are familiar. To have points of reference, turn on the display of cities (under Preferences). 2) Use the Question menu to look up historical places, people and events. Note that items outside the range of 1654 to 1914 will be listed, but proper historical maps and narrative will only show for this period. (The retail version of Centennia contains the period of history from 1000 AD to 1995.)
4. SiteFinder Demo (Full 48-State Gazetteer) 

A compilation of places of interest to family historians across the 48 contiguous states. The full version of SiteFinder, available as part of AniMap Plus (SiteFinder and AniMap together on a CD for about $79), contains a gazetteer of nearly all cities and towns across America - almost 150,000 of them - of which some 20,000 no longer exist. It also has approximately 100,000 other places such as camps and landmarks and 100,000 cemeteries. (Note: The "demo" version contained in this Suite is a fully functional copy with the 150,000 cities.) You can use this tool in conjunction with either AniMap or The Hammond Complete Maps of the World (both discussed below) to pinpoint virtually any place in the U.S. where an ancestor might have been. Each listing shows the city/town, county, state, location (latitude and longitude), and markers indicating the source of the information, or whether the site is a county seat ('C') or extinct ('X').
5. AniMap Demo 

A historical atlas of the 48 contiguous United States showing accurate county boundaries for each state for any time in its history. In combination with SiteFinder it can help solve the problem of finding an old town that has long-since disappeared from the map, or of locating the historical county seat where older vital records are kept. The AniMap demo included in this Suite shows only the state of New York, with historical maps from 1673-1800 and the current map, as established in 1915. Certain aspects of using SiteFinder and AniMap together are not obvious, so you will want to read the online help for each of them.
6. The Hammond Complete Maps of the World 

A wonderful worldwide resource for researching your family as well as for general reference and educational use. While highly useful the product has a few quirks. Be aware that in major metropolitan areas the high density may prevent inclusion of cities as large as 100,000 people. Only those cities physically shown on the map reside in the database. Map files are huge and, as may be expected with the large data images underlying these maps, slower PCs and CD-ROM drives will normally hesitate in responding to map or data requests and may come up slowly. Using Hammond, there are four ways to find a locality: 
• Choose a country or geographical area from the MAP menu item.
• You can zoom into a detailed map by double-clicking with your mouse on the location desired. [If you double-click and get no more detail, then this is the most detailed map available for that area, however the map will re-center on the point on which you double-clicked.]
• Use the INDEX menu item to find one of over 38,000 towns or places. You can select a country or list of countries, click on REQUERY, then scroll through the list of places, or type a place name in the NAME field. Combine these techniques to find only places that match a name in a country or set of countries. By highlighting a locality and clicking on OK, the appropriate map will be brought on screen and the mouse cursor will point to the locality on the map. This is a unique and powerful feature. You may feel that the "typomatic" lookup of a name is too slow. Turn off the AUTO REQUERY option to speed this up, then do a REQUERY after you have finished entering the name or partial name of a place.
• For localities in the U.S., select the U.S. map in the MAP menu or zoom in to North America from the world map, then to the U.S. Then use SiteFinder to locate one of the 150,000 towns and record the latitude/longitude (lat/long) values for the town or PLUCK it. (Tip: one method for switching between programs is to use <Ctrl+Esc>.) Next come back to the US map and watch the status bar on the bottom of the Hammond Map screen for lat/long while moving your mouse. When you are close to the location of the selected town, double-click to zoom into that area. Now you can move your mouse until it rests exactly on the lat/long for the selected town to see its position. You can even locate one of 20,000 extinct towns this way! 

Note:

A few countries such as Turkey do not contain the lat/long and population for towns. Also, some countries do not show topography such as mountains.

Company information and pricing

Incline Software, LC
PO Box 95543
South Jordan, UT 84095-0543
sales and Customer Service: (800) 825-8864
Tech Support: (801) 280-4434
Fax: (801) 254-1147
Web Sites: <www.ancquest.com> <www.ancestralquest.com>