During the Genealogy Committee meeting on May 1, the question of choosing genealogy software came up and got a lively response.
There are a number of options, one of which is PhpGedView web-based Open Source software which I demonstrated last year and discussed further here.
Factors to consider include:
- budget
- internet access
- computer resources
- computer skills
- work style
- single user or group access
If you have internet access, probably the best way to start is to fire up your favorite search engine and look for genealogy software. Genealogy is quite popular and a number of groups have posted information including comparison charts. Some have even created their own software.
Most genealogy programs are databases with a front end for entering and editing the data. The database itself may be stored on your home computer, a local network, or on a web server. While entering information is important, equally important is how you get to it, often this is in the form of reports. Reports can be a computer image of a family tree you can view on the screen up to printing detailed family books for relatives.
Databases are highly organized collections of information, which makes them powerful, but some individuals find the regimentation required extremely annoying.
If you belong to a genealogy club or have friends or family members interested in genealogy, see if they will show you how theirs works. Some questions to ask are:
- How do you enter a new individual?
- How do you link an individual to an existing family?
- How does it handle adoption, single parent families, intermarriage?
- How to you back up your information?
- What kind of reports can you generate?
- Can you also store information about your data sources (research information)?
- Can you add multimedia objects (photos, scans, etc.)?
- Are there ways to transfer your data to other software or other computers without re-entering it?
- What kind of support is available?
- Is the software easy to install and upgrade?
- What are the hardware and operating system requirements?
Most software will let you generate a GEDCOM file, a universal plain text format. Even if you don’t get what you like on your first try, most of the time you may switch to another program without having to type in all the information again.
Bottom line is that you should choose something that you will actually use regularly which includes pen and paper.
