Hints and Tips
Family History Programs
If you are looking into buying or downloading an application you will notice that it will have references to a programming code called gedcom, since its creation by the Latter Day Saint Church it has become a adopted by most organisations and companies as the universal way of exporting and importing files between applications which have their own ways of storing the information. If you wish to change the coded file it is also one of the easiest languages to learn how to manipulate, through any text editor. For more information on the gedcom coding language please click on this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDCOM . The following programs are shareware except where stated and are downloadable on the web through Google searches and www.downloads.com
- Behold - HTML reporting.
- MyHeritage - Printing direct ancestors and excellent book reporting, photos but rubbish search engine though it just American advertising and slow relys to much on graphics.
- LDS - PAF 5 My personal favourite good for merging, managing trees and finding errors. This one tends to be the best for merging trees together. No good for printing pedigrees. To register for the online tree manager go to https://www.familysearch.org/register/,
- LDS - PAF 6 - I suspect the $7 for the new version is worth the money and is good for printing. But I haven’t used the demo much yet.
- GreatFamily 2.2 (demo version) - For efficient viewing of whole tree very quick compared to genes reunited on large trees.
- Genbox Family History 3.7 - for viewing and adding data to files. These are all available from Google searches or downloads.com I hope this helps but I'm still looking for that really good one too that does it all, it also depends what you want out of it.
Now your in a postion to find names you can upload your family tree charts to the web good programs like ancestry.com and genes reunited are the best to use but to contact members wo may be your relatives you may need to pay a fee every few months. This can be a highly responsive and quick way on uncovering parts of your family tree. You should also get in contact with your local family history centre of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) they are the best place to go and its free. They offer comprehensive training and help in tracking hard to find member so f the family.