Genealogy Software for the Novice

[Gail Z]

I am looking for a program that allows me to record basic information
about each person and offers many varieties of reports & trees. At
this time, I'm not interested in researching my family's genealogy,
I'm just trying to get it all my family members recorded.

I own a very old copy of Ultimate Family tree and find it terrible to
use and produces awful trees. Family Tree Maker is currently on the
top of my list but they have so many flavors, I have no idea which one
would be right for me. I've also looked at Family Trees Quick and
Easy and Heritage Family Tree Deluxe.

I appreciate any feedback.

gail

[the Wiz]

[email protected] (Gail Z) wrote:

I am looking for a program that allows me to record basic information
about each person and offers many varieties of reports & trees. At
this time, I'm not interested in researching my family's genealogy,
I'm just trying to get it all my family members recorded.

I own a very old copy of Ultimate Family tree and find it terrible to
use and produces awful trees. Family Tree Maker is currently on the
top of my list but they have so many flavors, I have no idea which one
would be right for me. I've also looked at Family Trees Quick and
Easy and Heritage Family Tree Deluxe.

I appreciate any feedback.

gail

There are two camps on genealogy software:

1. Those who think recording the data is the most important item

2. Those who want to argue relative merits

I think you'll find most of the people here are in group 1, as many of them have
more than one "favorite" program. They use X for ease of entry, Y for
generating charts, and Z for generating narrative reports or web pages.

The most frequently mentioned beginner programs seem to be PAF (Personal
Ancestral File) and Legacy - both have free versions.
PAF is available here: http://www.familysearch.org/ click on Oder/Download
Products, then Software Downloads - Free
Legacy is available here: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/DownloadLegacy.asp

As long as the program you choose can export data to standard GEDCOM files, you
can change to a different program later without having to re-enter all the data.
Depending on whether the program has any "extended GEDCOM" features, you could
lose some program-specific items but the basic names, dates, places, events
information is almost totally transferable.


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