RootsMagic is a genealogy software program designed and written by RootsMagic, Inc, an American software design and development company founded by Bruce Buzbee in 1987.^[4] Bruce originally wrote the program Family Origins.^[5][6][7]

RootsMagic is a genealogy program that assists family historians in tracking, organizing, printing, and sharing family history.^[8][9]

• The software was originally developed as Windows-only, but is now available in Mac OS X.
• It is designed as a single-file database
• It is set up to import or export data from or to the Ancestry.com website.
• It allows backup to a hard drive, flash drive, or DropBox.
• It has four navigation views:
  • Standard pedigree view, with five or six generations visible;
  • Family view (allows to look at the family unit, and navigate back and forth between generations;
  • Descendants view (two to seven generations);
  • People list view (display a customizable set of facts for the people in database);
  • Couple list view (display a list of couples in database)
• "Drag and Drop" feature to allow copying individuals, families, and entire extended families from one database to another.
• It has a function to create user website files, and maintains its own free website (MyRootsMagic.com) for customers to publish their own genealogies.
• In 2022 there were three versions of RootsMagic 10 sold in the UK - Basic (£29.95), Standard (£39.95) and Platinum (£49.95)^[10] while the U.S. version sold by RootsMagic, Inc cost $39.95 for new users and $29.95 for registered users of previous versions.

Retail Version

• RootsMagic version 1.0 was released 2003-02-04^[11][12]
• RootsMagic version 2.0 was released 2004-05-24^[1][12]
• RootsMagic version 3.0 was released 2005-09-08^[11][12]
• RootsMagic version 4.0 was released 2009-03-25^[1][12]
• RootsMagic version 5.0 was released 2011-11-28^[9][13]
• RootsMagic version 6.0 was released 2012-11-19^[13][14]
• RootsMagic version 7.0 was released 2014-11-25^[15]
• RootsMagic version 8.0 was released 2021-09-30^[16]
• RootsMagic version 9.0 was released 2023-02-27^[17]
• RootsMagic version 10.0 was released 2024-06-19^[18]

Free Version

• RootsMagic Essentials was released 2009-11-18^[1][12]
• RootsMagic Essentials was updated with the version 5 release 2011-11-28^[9]
• RootsMagic Essentials was updated with the version 6 release 2012-11-19^[14]
• RootsMagic Essentials was updated with the version 7 release 2014-11-25^[15]
• RootsMagic Essentials 8 was released 2021-09-30^[16]
• RootsMagic Essentials 9 was released 2023-02-27^[17]
• RootsMagic Essentials 10 was released 2024-06-19^[18]

RootsMagic 4-9 database design uses SQLite 3 as its database engine so the .rmgc and .rmtree database files it creates are readable using third party SQLite management and development tools.^[19]

RootsMagic was designed to run on the Windows and Mac platform, however some users run RootsMagic on Linux machines using Wine.^[20][21]

As of RootsMagic 10, the program can be run on Windows 8, 10, and 11, as well as MacOS High Sierra (10.13) through Sonoma (14).^[22] tags which will then appear here automatically -->

• Official website