Family Tree Maker Version Question

I started a Family Tree in Family Tree Maker 2005 Starter Edition as a
trial. I want to now purchase but the identification of the product is
so confusing. Is FTM v16 the upgrade path from this trial? Is that the
same as FTM 2006? Are these newer products backward compatible with the
2005 trial?

Fred McKenzie...

Billy-

You can almost certainly read or transfer your existing data into a
newer program.

If your Starter Edition has the capability to export or save-as the
Gedcom format, you will have a relatively universal file. The Gedcom
file can be imported into most genealogy programs.

I started with Brothers Keeper on an old IBM computer. Later I found
Family Tree Maker (probably version 1) for the Macintosh. By exporting
Gedcom from BK and importing it into FTM, all my data was available.

I'm now using Reunion. Some features of Reunion such as photographs,
may not be included in an exported Gedcom file. However, it has an
option to convert older-version files to the current format.

You would expect newer FTM versions to be able to read (or convert) data
from older versions. I think it would be unusual for them not to
provide such an upgrade path.

Who makes FTM, is it Encore or myfamily.com?

The help/about in the starter edition trial says it's made by
myfamily.com but takes me to ancestry.com to purchase, where the image
of the box appears completely differant than that of any box image on
Amazon.com, and is more expensive.

I want to be sure that I can have access to my 2005 file, yet have the
latest s/w of the product. I dont need the bells and whistles yet, so I
thought I'd buy the essentials version.

Please help!

Hugh Watkins...

get the single cd 2006 which has a freebie update on line to FTM 16

som packages have freebie subscriptions too

Hugh W