Free Genealogy Software
Now that we have new.familysearch.org, why would we still want genealogy software? Good reasons include:
- Because of the need to protect the privacy of living people, new.familysearch.org is great for deceased relatives, but not for living relatives. Genealogy software is excellent for keeping track of the living as well as the dead.
- Software does a much better job of keeping track of notes and sources of information.
- Software allows you to create electric and printed versions of books and charts for displaying data.
- Software can have photos, documents, sound tracks and videos linked to individuals.
- Software can often generate personal websites.
- Software can display a list of possible data problems. (e.g. child is born to mother aged 3)
The following software versions (for Microsoft Windows) do all of these things and are free, although there is often a commercial version as well that has additional features. All of the following can open or import PAF files. AncestralQuest can replace PAF or be used to synchronize PAF data with new.familysearch.org. RootsMagic4 Essentials and Legacy Standard Edition can replace PAF and both of them can synchronize their data with new.familysearch.org.
| Personal Ancestral File (PAF) is a free genealogy and family history program from FamilySearch. PAF allows you to quickly and easily collect, organize and share your family history and genealogy information. http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp?page=home/welcome/simplePAFRegistration.asp |
Ancestral Quest Basics is FREE family tree software which allows users to sync with New FamilySearch, yet looks and feels like an upgrade to PAF 5. “AQ Basics provides all the essential features of Ancestral Quest, ... the perfect program with which to get started, or with which to replace PAF. AQ Basics is PAF Add-in certified, which means you can directly work with your PAF data. It includes everything you need to sync your data with and import family lines from New FamilySearch and reserve and track temple ordinances.” http://www.ancquest.com/AQBasicsFS.htm
RootsMagic4 Essentials is the free version of RootsMagic4 and contains most of the basic features. “RootsMagic Essentials includes tools which make it a snap to clean up your data. Potential problem lists, sophisticated merge techniques, date and soundex calculators are just the start. Our unique SourceWizard writes and manages sources and citations for you. Built-in templates based on Evidence Explained make citing your sources as easy as "filling in the blanks".”
“• Map Your Ancestors Around the World - Using Microsoft® Virtual Earth™, Legacy will automatically pinpoint and plot important locations in ancestors’ lives from within Legacy. See 3‐D, satellite and bird’s eye images of where your ancestors lived.
• Create Beautiful Wall Charts - Create stunning graphical charts – ancestor, descendant, fan, hourglass, bow tie, and even DNA charts.
• Cite Your Sources With New Templates - The new Legacy SourceWriter™ will help you prepare properly formatted sources regardless of your expertise. Simply fill in the fields and Legacy creates the footnotes, endnotes, and bibliography for you, following industry standards.
• Interview Center - Legacy has the perfect questions to interview your family.”
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A totally different kind of free genealogy program does none of these things, but has just one function, to download a basic family tree from new.familysearch.org as a PAF data file. It does not download temple ordinance information. Get My Ancestors http://www.ohanasoftware.com/?sec=GetMyAncestors
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