CommSoft president Howard Nurse and chief programmer Herb Drake then released more and more genealogy programs, including: ROOTS/M for the CP/M operating system, ROOTS II for MS-DOS, followed by ROOTS III and ROOTS IV. The company also released ROOTS V for Windows along with Visual ROOTS for Windows and Family Gathering for Windows. Roots III, ROOTS IV, and ROOTS V were advertised as "the Cadillac of genealogy programs." Indeed, for a number of years CommSoft produced the most powerful genealogy software available. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they received serious competition for that title.

Palladium Interactive purchased the ROOTS product line in May 1997 and chose the name Ultimate Family Tree for its new product. Palladium assumed technical support for the ROOTS products. Palladium was later purchased by Broderbund, which in turn was purchased by The Learning Company, which was purchased by Mattel, which later spun the genealogy division off as a separate company, called Genealogy.com, which later was acquired by A&E Networks. Are we confused yet?

Along the way, the company dropped the Ultimate Family Tree and all other software products based upon CommSoft’s former products. You can no longer purchase ROOTS or any program based upon ROOTS.

Many genealogists do not realize that CommSoft’s genealogy products were their second line of business, although the largest. In fact, CommSoft was originally formed as a company to sell ham radio software. Howard Nurse and Herb Drake were active ham radio operators, and together they developed some of the leading ham radio software of the early-1980s. Both men were also active genealogists and soon realized they had a potential for a second product line for genealogists. The genealogy products soon sold better than the original ham radio products. The company then dropped the ham radio programs and focused on the money-making genealogy products.

While CommSoft sold its genealogy products to Palladium Interactive in 1997, the corporate name of CommSoft was not included in the sale. Howard Nurse apparently retained ownership of the remaining company, although the corporation appears to be a one-person operation. However, a Web site indicates that the company is still alive and is now returning to its "roots" in ham radio.

The CommSoft Web site now proclaims "CommCat Is Coming!" Apparently, this is a reference to a new ham radio program, to be called The DX Advantage. ("DX" is a ham radio term for long-distance, or international, communications.) There isn’t much information given on the Web site, but you look for yourself if you're interested.