Alan
E. Mann, AG
alan.familyhistory@gmail.com
Accredited
Genealogist
ICAPGEN Annual Conference
Picking the Right Family
History Software for You
OVERVIEW of Major Genealogy Programs
Major genealogy programs are
those which store individuals’ names, dates, places, events, sources, and
images and which record and display the relationships between the individuals
in the database. There are many programs which do this (over a hundred), and
each has unique features. One unfamiliar with genealogy software will be
surprised at the numerous and significant differences between the programs.
Thus, one should carefully examine WHY they want to do genealogy research and
determine what their end objective is – how they will use the information
gathered, and whether they want to share that information. There have been
several attempts to create web sites which compare the various genealogy
software packages.
Major genealogy programs differ from
auxiliary or utility genealogy programs in that they do all of these basic
functions. Auxiliary programs perform specific functions which may compliment,
expand, or correct shortcomings in major programs. There are utility programs
to make research suggestions, create books or web pages from a genealogy
database, draw maps, draw various charts, examine databases for
inconsistencies, and much more. What distinguishes the utility program is that
it does not do all of the basic functions of a genealogy database program. Many
major genealogy programs add the features of popular utility programs into
later releases of their basic program. Thus, major programs like Legacy do most
of the things that utility programs do.
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Free
demo (120 names) a great program, originally PAF was this program, but
much has been added. Strength: Collaboration online |
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FamilyTreeMaker
www.familytreemaker.com |
Not
recommended Severe flaws include GEDCOM import & export, Christening
& Burial overlooked, abysmal web page index. Strength: Printing options |
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Free
(less functional) MAC-like look and feel. Powerful, robust. Poor web
pages created. Strengths: tagging, research guidance |
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Free
download. Lacking in special features, but handles basics well even
multimedia. Ancestral web pages done poorly. Strengths: widely used, well
known. |
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Free
demo (50 new names). Good features, well-rounded program with many bells and whistles. Strength: Mapping
interface. |
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Free
trial (30 days). Most powerful program. Event-based rather than
individual based. Good web page. Strength: Documentation Weakness:
complexity, high learning curve. |
Most lists of major
genealogy programs only list these six. Some might add Brother’s Keeper, a longstanding
mainstay genealogy database program. However, the program is shareware and not
as robust as the other major programs.
A New Type of Genealogy
Software
Traditionally, genealogists
have looked to store their genealogy on their computer’s hard drive, with
backups on some sort of removable media. Recent developments are moving away
from this concept. Some software products, including Ancestral Quest and
Legacy, attempt to allow members of the same family to collaborate by
“synching” their databases with each other over the Internet. One product
worthy of note is FamilyTreeLegends, which is a genealogy software which also publishes automatically to
the Internet (to gencircles.com). As you make changes to your database, the web
pages are updated automatically. This product sells between $30 and $80,
depending on the options chosen, and is available at www.familytreelegends.com.
A new extension of this idea
is to store your data on the Internet and be able to work collaboratively with
other family members. There are a variety of products with various ways to
handle security, control the collaboration (or not), view the data, etc.
One could argue this concept
is behind Ancestry’s World Tree, OneGreatFamily.com, MyTrees.com, and even the
Ancestral File. However, these products take control away from the family and
transfer the control to a company. The newest type of programs keep the control
with the family, but use a web-based program to maintain the family’s data. One
key issue is the level of control. Some offer a totally open database, where
anyone can make changes and one has to rely on the ability of people to come to
a consensus. Some allow an individual to control the database, but open it to
others. In some cases, only certain individuals pre-approved by the database creator
can make changes (either with or without approval required from the database
owner/creator). In some cases, anyone can make changes, but the creator has to
approve the changes before they are incorporated into the database.
Products which store your data
on the web include www.ages-online.com,
pHpGedView (http://phpgedview.sourceforge.net),
www.zooof.com, and www.geni.com. The one which allows the most
control to the user/creator is pHpGedView, which is a
surprisingly robust program. I suggest you give this concept serious
consideration, as it has several advantages.
A new product which takes a
hybrid approach is newFamilySearch (nFS). In nFS, all data is stored
in one place and differing opinions can be stored on each individual in the
database. In the case of differing opinions about some of the data, each user
can select their own view. All of the data is preserved, but you select the
version you want to see and then try to convince others so they will delete any
incorrect data. This is in limited use now, being rolled out gradually by
geographic area. The rollout is due to be completed in 2008. This gives rise to
yet another type of program, one which interfaces with newFamilySearch.
The first two such products are Family Insight (www.ohanasoftware.com) and Ancestral
Quest for PAF (www.ancquest.com).
Comparing Genealogy Software
One great way to get to know
genealogy software is to use it. Many have demo versions available. Another way
is reading what other’s have to say (reviews)
Before getting in to
reviews, I want to caution you. I spent a lot of time trying to be a genealogy
software reviewer. I thought it would be so useful to create a comparison chart
showing the capabilities of various software packages and doing screen captures
or sample pages to demonstrate how they do things. I spent years working on
this, and discovered several things. Comparisons are highly opinionated,
slanted to the writer’s perspective, and are often misleading.
One might expect a checkmark
columnar comparison chart. The problem with this type of chart is a checkmark
is inadequate. For example, many early comparison charts listed numerous
programs and had a feature listed as creates index for web page.
However, a checkmark indicating the program had that feature is not sufficient.
At the time of that review chart,
- FamilyTreeMaker created an index to
the whole web page, but each entry in the index gave only the person’s
name and birthdate. The index gave neither a
page number nor a link to the person in the web page. You only knew the
person was in there somewhere, but had no way to find it!
- PAF created an index to the whole web page,
with links to the spot in the web page. However, the index gave only the
name and the birth & death year (e.g., John Smith, 1812-1891).
- Legacy gave you the option to create a name
index with or without full dates and place information (e.g., John Smith,
b. 12 Nov 1812, Wheeler, Steuben, New York, d. 21 Feb 1891, Logan, Cache,
Utah) as well as a separate place index.
In a comparison chart, all
three had a checkmark for feature creates index for web page, but that
checkmark completely failed to reflect a major difference between the three
programs.
A possible solution
would be to have a numerical rating for each program feature. In the above
example, I might have given a 0 to a program with no index creation, a 1 to
FTM, a 5 to PAF, and a 10 to Legacy. But if someone was perfectly happy with an
index like PAF creates, the difference between a rating of 5 and 10 would be
totally inappropriate for them. The rating is just too subjective. Another
feature is attractiveness of books generated, but isn’t attractiveness totally
subjective?
Yet others tried to create
sample pages showing what certain things looked like so you could compare. A
useful example (as long as you understand the limitations) is The WebTree Project at http://htmlhelp.rootsweb.com/webtree/index.htm.
The problem there is the sample pages are the result of many options selected.
If you didn’t like the sample was the fault with the program or the person who
chose the options?
My conclusion was the best
way to compare genealogy software is to talk about the strengths and weaknesses
of the various programs, and give people references to the various reviewers’
comments. Thus, reviews are listed in the following paragraphs.
1. About.com has a lot of good material
about family history. Kimberley Powell has written some guides to genealogy
software, how to choose genealogy software, and reviews. See http://genealogy.about.com/cs/genealogysoftware/a/software.htm.
2. TopTen Reviews. Nice side by side
comparison chart with features at http://genealogy-software-review.toptenreviews.com/.
This review was done last year. It ranks the major software packages as
