Choose a research workspace, not only a chart
Useful genealogy software should connect people, relationships, events, places, sources, citations, notes, media and research tasks. A visual family tree is important, but it must lead back to the exact evidence and uncertainty behind every displayed name, date and relationship.
Require privacy and controlled collaboration
Living people should be private by default. Shared work should use explicit owner, editor, contributor and reader roles, object-level discussion and review instead of shared passwords or a global tree that anyone can overwrite. Access and wider research matching must remain separate choices.
Keep an exit route through GEDCOM and complete exports
Before committing to an online genealogy service, verify that it can import and export common GEDCOM versions and provide a complete backup of sources, notes, media references and audit history. Portability reduces lock-in and lets you compare the workspace with the original material after migration.