Not to beat a dead horse, but has anyone seen PC Magazine’s review of Family Tree Maker 2008?

The reviewer, Lisa Reufenacht, gave it four out of five stars (or circles, or whatever those are). You can kinda tell she doesn’t do a lot of genealogy research. The word GEDCOM is nowhere to be found, and she makes no mention of genealogists' uproar over the software’s functionality problems and missing reports. She also notes Family Tree Maker 2008 is the only genealogy program she knows of offering automatic Ancestry.com searching, apparently unaware that’s because both products come from the same company.

Of course the PC Magazine review is intended for a general audience, one not necessarily composed of genealogical enthusiasts. “Within 10 minutes, I had a family history … going back to my great-grandparents on my dad's side,” Reufenacht says. “I didn't have to search for any of the information—Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com did everything for me.”

Makes us a little sad to think about users who’ll be at a loss for what to do when Ancestry.com runs out of records (or doesn’t have any) on their ancestors.

Though her review focused heavily on the auto-searching, Reufenacht did hit the nail on the head with this one: Used without a $155.40-per-year Ancestry.com subscription, Family Tree Maker loses some its shine.

Look for Family Tree Magazine contributing editor Rick Crume’s Family Tree Maker 2008 review—from a genealogist’s perspective—in our March 2008 issue, on newsstands mid-January (note our magazine is not affiliated with the software).

You can join the Family Tree Maker 2008 discussion in our Product News and Reviews Forum.