Free Genealogy Programs:What’s Good & What’s NotFree Genealogy Programs:What’s Good & What’s Not

Dick Eastman

Jan. 14, 2013

Dick Eastman

Jan. 14, 2013

Today’s Discussions

• Today’s slides are available at:

• http://www.eogn.com/handouts/free

Today’s Discussions

• Products for Discussion Today:

– PAWriter for Macintosh– GRAMPS for Macintosh

– Windows:• AncestralQuest

• Legacy Family Tree

• RootsMagic

• GRAMPS

• Personal Ancestral File

• These are believed to be the most popular free genealogy products today.

Today’s Discussions

• First, a discussion of GEDCOM

• GEnealogy Data COMmunications

Macintosh

A discussion of free genealogy programs for the Mac should be very brief: only two are available.

PAWriterfor Macintosh

A very simple genealogy program that performs the basics

No multimedia scrapbook

Does not build web pages

Few “bells and whistles”

Easy to install

PAWriterfor Macintosh

GRAMPSfor Macintosh (and Windows)

•Open Source Software•Moderately sophisticated application•A summary of the active person’s parents, siblings, spouses and children.•An interactive map view highlighting places associated with one person, a group of people or all people in your records.•Good recording of source citations

GRAMPSfor Macintosh (and Windows)

•Downside: a bit complex to install

GRAMPSfor Macintosh (and Windows)

GRAMPSfor Macintosh (and Windows)

GRAMPSfor Macintosh (and Windows)

GRAMPSfor Macintosh (and Windows)

Windows

More programs to choose from

Ancestral Quest

AncestralQuest

• Free trial version that stores a limited number of records

• Full version costs $29.95

• Written by Incline Software (Gaylon Findlay, the developer of Personal Ancestral File (PAF) for Windows)

• This is an excellent replacement for the aging Personal Ancestral File

• Like Personal Ancestral File except that it has added a better database, multimedia scrapbooks, genealogy books, fan charts, and much more.

AncestralQuest

AncestralQuest

• Super easy to use!

• Excellent use of LDS-specific fields

• Works with new.familysearch.org

Legacy Family Tree

Legacy Family Tree

• Two versions:– FREE (that is very powerful)– Full version for $29.95– Several “bundles” are also available

• Easy to use

• Excellent support!

• Excellent source citations, modeled on Elizabeth Shown Mills’ citation styles

• Works with new.familysearch.org

• Excellent maps

• Excellent wall charts

Legacy Family Tree

Legacy Family Tree

Legacy Family Tree

Legacy Family Tree

Legacy Family Tree

RootsMagic

RootsMagic

• Two versions:– FREE RootsMagic Essentials– $29.95 for RootsMagic

• by RootsMagic, Inc. (Bruce Buzbee), former developer of Family Origins

• Excellent support!

• RootsMagic To-Go lets you run RootsMagic (program AND data) directly off your flash drive

• Works with new.familysearch.org

• Very easy to use

RootsMagic

RootsMagic

RootsMagic

RootsMagic

RootsMagic

GRAMPSfor Windows

Personal Ancestral File

An old program that has not been updated in years. Very old-fashioned. However, it remains popular with thousands of users.

Summation

High-quality genealogy software is available for both Windows and Macintosh at no cost.

You can go home and download any of these programs this evening and start using them immediately!

Today’s Discussions

• Products Discussed Today:

– PAWriter for Macintosh– GRAMPS for Macintosh

– Windows:• AncestralQuest

• Legacy Family Tree

• RootsMagic

• GRAMPS

• Personal Ancestral File

• These are believed to be the most popular free genealogy products today.

Where to obtain these programs?

All of these may be downloaded online:

• AncestralQuest – www.AncQuest.com

• Legacy Family Tree – www.LegacyFamilyTree.com

• RootsMagic –www.RootsMagic.com

• GRAMPS – www.gramps-project.org/

• Personal Ancestral File – www.FamilySearch.org

• PAWriter for Macintosh – www.lanopalera.net/

To learn more about new products or updated versions of existing products, go to:

www.eogn.com

Today’s Discussions

• Today’s slides are available at:

• http://www.eogn.com/handouts/free