Family Tree - Tidy Button is a Windows genealogy programme whose official description emphasises local storage, import and sources. A tree is kept in a file on the PC, without an account or automatic sharing described. The audience is someone who wants to maintain family-history research rather than simply view a decorative chart. This is a first look from the Microsoft Store listing, not a test of a large tree or a genealogy audit.
The important distinction is between recording a relationship and establishing that it is supported. A programme can display an ancestor, connect relatives and flag an impossible combination, but it cannot turn an unsupported family story into evidence. The useful workflow preserves where a fact came from and what remains uncertain.
Based on official store information. We have not tested this app hands-on.
What it does
The listing describes GEDCOM import and export, including recognised versions, an import report and preservation of lines the app does not edit. A tool for locating moved pictures addresses another common migration problem: the tree may survive while links to photographs no longer point to the right place. We have not tested that preservation or a particular source programme's export.
Places are described as records with a hierarchy, alternative historical names and coordinates, rather than unrelated text repeated at each event. That could make a correction more consistent when many events refer to the same place. It also requires care when two similarly named locations should remain separate.
Chart views include relatives, ancestors and descendants, with PDF or PNG output. Sources and citations can be attached to events with page information, reliability and notes. The checker looks for certain unavoidable chronological problems and possible duplicate people, according to the developer. Undo and a tree-and-pictures backup are part of the stated editing workflow. Those are useful safeguards to investigate, not results we have independently established.
Before you install
Begin a migration with a copy of the original tree and images. Import a representative sample containing a source, a photograph and a relationship you understand. Read the warnings, inspect the citations and compare an exported copy before moving your only working record. A successful file opening does not establish that every custom field survived.
Duplicate detection is a prompt for review, not permission to merge every similar name. Family research regularly contains people with matching names, uncertain ages or incomplete places. Preserve the reason for a decision so a later correction does not require reconstructing your whole thought process. A place hierarchy has the same limitation: tidy structure is only useful when it reflects the actual evidence.
Privacy also remains relevant in a local programme. Information about living people can be sensitive even when the app does not upload it. A chart exported for a reunion may have a different audience from the full research file. Decide what should be included before sharing it. Local storage still requires independent backups, especially when the file and its photographs are otherwise on the same computer.
A good citation makes a future researcher able to return to the source, not just recognise a familiar title. Record the relevant page or entry and explain any inference rather than treating all information as equally certain. The programme provides places for evidence, but the quality of that evidence remains a research decision.
For a merged person or place, keep enough context to understand why the records were considered identical. A cleaner chart is not by itself a reason to remove an apparent duplicate. Undo can help with an editing mistake, while an independent backup protects against a different kind of loss. Keep those two protections separate when deciding how to recover from a questionable merge or an unavailable computer.
Price and access
The free version is described as providing the features for trees up to 250 people. Larger trees can still be opened for read-only browsing, searching, charting and export. The listing describes a planned Pro add-on, but planned capabilities should not be counted as available features or a purchase promise.
Confirm the current store terms before adopting it for a tree beyond the editing limit. The relevant question is whether the available version can support your actual research now, not whether a future upgrade sounds likely to cover it later.
Our take
Family Tree's strongest case is a source-aware local workflow: import carefully, keep evidence attached to events and export something understandable. The chart is a way to explore the research, not a substitute for it. Place records and warnings could make maintenance easier when used with judgement rather than as automatic corrections.
We have not tested import fidelity, checker accuracy, crash recovery or large-tree performance. Our take is to choose it after a reversible trial with a well-understood branch. If the evidence, images and relationships remain clear in both the working file and an export, you have a better basis for adoption than a claim about the number of people a programme can display.
Sources
App icon from the official store listing.
