Genealogy.com, publishers of Family Tree Maker and Family Origins, now sells still another genealogy program. The company recently announced that Genealogy.com’s parent company, A&E Television Networks, has purchased the rights to Generations Family Tree software from Sierra Home.

Generations Family Tree has had an interesting heritage. It started out with a title of Reunion for Windows, produced by Leister Productions, Inc. In the 28 July 1997 edition of this newsletter, I reported that Leister Productions sold their Windows program to Sierra Online. Leister Productions continued to develop and sell their Macintosh version of the same program.

Sierra Online, later to be called Sierra Home, renamed the Windows program to Generations and started a lengthy campaign to improve it. Several new versions were released, each with significant new features added. I reviewed Generations Grand Suite Version 6.0 in the 13 November 1999 edition of this newsletter and then reviewed the Generations Family Tree Millennium Collection in the 8 March 2000 edition, still available at www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/eastman/590.asp.

In the 29 August 2001 edition of this newsletter at www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/eastman/4487.asp, I reported, "SierraHome has dropped their genealogy program, Generations 8.0. The company’s announcement said, ‘The Sierra Home division, which produces a range of cooking, gardening, genealogy, and publishing titles, will concentrate on the development of its print business. All other product categories will be divested.’"

Now Genealogy.com, a company formerly known as Broderbund and now a subsidiary of A&E Television Networks recently acquired the Generations software product line. Genealogy.com will distribute Generations Family Tree and Generations Family Tree Plus at retail stores nationwide and online through www.broderbund.com. You can read the entire announcement at www.genealogy.com/press-062502.html

It is great to see new life for this excellent genealogy program. Genealogy.com has always had a lot of marketing muscle and hopefully will heavily promote Generations Family Tree and even improve the program further. Present users of Generations Family Tree will also be glad to know that they do not own an obsolete product.

Genealogy.com has had a long and interesting corporate life. The company itself has been bought and sold several times, often changing names after each new change in ownership. During this time, the company has also purchased other genealogy programs. The company first purchased Ultimate Family Tree from Palladium Interactive, which had purchased it under the name of Roots V from CommSoft, Inc. Genealogy.com later dropped Ultimate Family Tree and terminated support for it.

Genealogy.com, under previous ownership and company name, also purchased Family Origins from Parsons Technology. That program is still being sold and supported by Genealogy.com, although it is rarely mentioned in their advertising. In fact, the new press release at www.genealogy.com/press-062502.html only mentions that "Genealogy.com continues to be the leader in the genealogy technology space, producing the #1 selling family tree software — Family Tree Maker — for more than a decade." There is no mention of their second genealogy program, Family Origins.

It will be interesting to see if Generations Family Tree is to be heavily promoted and improved in the future or if it is to suffer the same fate as Genealogy.com’s other "secondary genealogy programs."

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