At one time there was a genealogy forum on GardenWeb. I don't know why it was removed unless there were not many interested in it and not a lot of posts.

Old Fixer, although I use the FamilySearch.org web site, and have also used the LDS Family History Library as well as a local Family History Center, I do not have a tree uploaded to their web site. So, I cannot say whether or not "just anyone" can edit information on a tree that is on their site. I will look into that, though. I do know with certainty, however, that if you have a tree on Ancestry.com, you can mark it as Private. No one can see info that is on the tree unless you send them an invitation to see it. If you add photos or images of documents, etc., to a Private tree, small thumbnails will show up when other people do a search on a name, but if anyone clicks on the thumbnail to see a larger version, they will get an error message that the tree is private. You can also have a tree on Ancestry.com that is marked as Public. When a tree is Public, anyone can see information/photos, etc., for anyone who is deceased, or presumed to be deceased (e.g., they were born in 1884 and you don't have a death date, but it's easy to see that the person would not still be alive - they'd be 130 years old this year). If the person is still living, or presumed to still be living, all anyone can see is a shadow profile of either a male's head or a female's head. For the name it would say Living Fixer, so no one can even tell what the person's first name is (this example uses "Fixer" as the surname). And, even if a tree is marked Public, no one can change anything on it, unless you invite the person to be an editor. You can invite people to just view the tree (they would be invited with a "Guest" designation); or you can give them the ability to add to the tree (they would be invited with a "Contributor" designation); or you can invite them as an "Editor" with full ability to add/change/remove information/people. People who are invited as Guests and/or Contributors can be given the ability to view living persons, but that's not the default setting. You have to deliberately give them that ability. Anyone invited as an Editor automatically can see everything.

Yep been using it for years, it's been a wealth of information. Especially if you are looking at cities to relocate to. I love looking at real estate online and that site is a good resource for the searching. We are considering retirement areas or additional home /away places. Using zillow, har, realtor, and a few of the other search sites along with city data can give you a pretty good snapshot of the area.

There are many different genealogy software programs, but Family Tree Maker is by far the most widely used. I've been using it forever and I love it. If you get it, and then ever decide that you want to use a different program, or send your info to a relative who uses a different software, all you'd have to do is export your database in GEDCOM (an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication) format. There are very easy steps to follow to do this -- basically it's about three or four mouse clicks! One "word of caution" about Family Tree Maker -- they come out with an "upgraded" version virtually every year. You do NOT need to buy every upgrade. Just pay attention to what they say is "new and improved" in the newer version and only buy the upgrades that you think are worth it. Ancestry.com does offer each new version at a nice discount to folks who already own it and/or folks who subscribe to Ancestry.com. You can create "scrapbooks" within Family Tree Maker -- by adding photos. You can print out family history books that contain stories that you enter into the software. You can print out descendant trees, ancestor trees, pedigrees, etc. You can save them into .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) format so that you can send them to relatives who don't have the software, so they can at least see what you've got. And, you can upload a GEDCOM of your Family Tree Maker database to Ancestry.com, to have the tree online. You can keep it totally private, so no one but you or your invited guests can see it; or you can make it public, so anyone can see it. Even when it's public, no one can see any info on folks who are, or may be, still living. They'd see "Living Smith" instead of "John Smith," etc. When you have your tree online, Ancestry is always searching in the background, to find possible matches - to historical records as well as other folk's online trees. You'd be surprised at how many genealogical sites are now part of Ancestry.com. Genealogy.com used to be a totally separate entity - and they owned Family Tree Maker, too. Now, they're both part of Ancestry.com. RootsWeb is also part of Ancestry.com. And I'm fairly certain that Ancestry.com is now owned by the LDS.