The Observation Deck

My mother has passed on to me some notes on our family tree. I will be making a first time effort at recording and storing information for a family tree.

Has anyone used genealogy software they would recommend?

Steve,

I used Family Tree Maker from 1997. I really liked it - but there may be much better more advanced versions out. It did a great job of being a great place to hold everything including pictures and link relationships every which way. It printed calendars (birthdays and anniversaries) address lists etc.

I made books for our families for Christmas one year. After spending days in Mansfield going through microfiche with my son until we were dizzy, I found out that Fairview Park library has quite the geneology collection. (and a much shorter drive). I sure in the 10 years since I have worked on it - more and more came on line.

Good luck. Let me know what you select and other resources.

I'd advise using the free version of Family Search Personal Ancestral File. The Mormons - for some reason - made this, but I put my non-Mormon family tree in the software.

http://www.familysearch.org/

Follow the free link on the lower right of the page.

It lets you save it in formats recognized by Genealogists. I also use RootsWeb http://www.rootsweb.com

Also free, you can upload family trees, and also download files (this is where the file formats of the program I mentioned above come in handy) and link them to your own family tree. A friend of mine has 30,000 people in her database from research on Rootsweb

One caveat - it's generally considered unethical to release information like full names, birth dates etc on living persons.

Jerry Ritcey wrote:I'd advise using the free version of Family Search Personal Ancestral File. The Mormons - for some reason - made this, but I put my non-Mormon family tree in the software.

http://www.familysearch.org/

Follow the free link on the lower right of the page.

It lets you save it in formats recognized by Genealogists. I also use RootsWeb http://www.rootsweb.com

Also free, you can upload family trees, and also download files (this is where the file formats of the program I mentioned above come in handy) and link them to your own family tree. A friend of mine has 30,000 people in her database from research on Rootsweb

One caveat - it's generally considered unethical to release information like full names, birth dates etc on living persons.

Just giving a quick response on the whole Mormon genealogy thing, our church is really big in genealogy, it's a very important thing to us. Family Search is a really good resource. Enjoy exploring your family roots it really is a lot of fun.

My husband and I are seeking our Italian citizenship, and we needed to get information on his grandfather. We went to a Mormon church in I think North Olmsted (or was is Westlake), and the people there were very helpful. There is a little research library there where people volunteer to help you do your search. They have subscriptions to a few of the on-line genealogy sites that require membership, and plenty of computers to use. This is all for free!

We found my husband's grandfather's ship manifesto and the 1930 census he appears on. It was very, very cool.

Danielle, do you happen to know the name of the church and where it is?

It just happens that my hometown of Fort Wayne Indiana is a big research site for genelology. It is one of the satelites for information from the Morman Library. Here is the site:http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/. People come from everywhere to do research there and you can acess online.

Rhonda

Amy thanks for the kind words, yes the library staff at the church are fabulous and very helpful, they love giving assistance especially to beginners. The church is in Westlake and the address is 25000 Westwood, between Columbia and Clague.

Thanks for insights and opinions in response to my question. In addition to the information here I looked at some reviews of software on Amazon.com. Some of the software now seems to be tied to purchase of a monthly membership -- I will be avoiding those.

However, I am interested in some programs I found that provide templates for presentations that can be shared with family and friends. The references from Jerry to the free sites look like great opportunities for further research.

I look forward to beginning this project and I appreciate the help received here!

One of the things I eventually found was that software always has to be upgraded and it always changes.

I was happier using a regular database that I had already made a commitment to through soft and hardware upgrades. Looking at Genealogy software gave me the ideas for the structure. So the info I have may not be pretty, but I can always lay out the info. that I can easily access in a pleasing manner at a later time.

I've played around with a program called Legacy. You can download a demo of it.

http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/