Genealogy Online

by Elizabeth Crowe

  • Fourth, look at the software package’s support, and ask friends what their experience was when they needed support. Read the manual to see how much support is included with the purchase price and for how long. Understand that within a year, the software (any software) will be upgraded. Find out whether upgrades are free or available for a minimal charge. A really good program may cost from $25 to $50 a year to keep it current; some shareware gives you upgrades for $5 or less. Also, ask at the next meeting of your local genealogy club whether anyone has the program you are interested in and is willing to help you with the learning curve.

  • Which brings us to the final consideration: the cost. When you find the program you want, can you afford it? If not, see whether the program comes in different versions—some less powerful but also less expensive than others. Sometimes, the cost includes CD-ROMs of secondary or primary material, but perhaps some of this material is available at your local library and you need not buy it.

  An important development in the world of genealogy software since the last edition of this book is that Personal Ancestral File (PAF) is no more. As of July 2013, the popular and newbie-friendly program was discontinued by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), both in download and support. For several years up to that, as the online FamilySearch became more sophisticated, the software team at FamilySearch focused on building relationships with partner software companies to meet the needs of the twenty-first-century family historian. When most of those products both integrated with FamilySearch and have free versions, after a good, long run, PAF was retired.

  The following sections provide a quick roundup of some popular programs that you can at least try for free, and these particular ones will sync your data with one or more online sites such as FamilySearch and Ancestry.com.

  RootsMagic 6

  This $30 program has worldwide fans: It has a function to create CDs to share with your family, to run the software and data directly from a portable flash drive, and to integrate a feature called WebSearch to help you pursue your genealogy online, especially with FamilySearch.

  RootsMagic has five main views, plus a sidebar for easier navigation. You switch between the views by clicking the tab for the view you want. You can navigate using either the mouse or arrow keys. Double-clicking a person’s name brings up the data entry screen for that person. You can even open multiple databases side by side.

  The RootsMagic edit screen lets you add an unlimited number of facts for every person (such as birth, death, marriage, occupation, religion, description, etc). The edit screen is shown in Figure 2-2. If you want to add a fact type that isn’t in RootsMagic’s predefined list, you create your own fact types. RootsMagic also allows notes and unlimited source citations for every fact, and you can attach more than one person to a source and more than one source to a fact. You can add, edit, delete, merge, and print the sources of your information.

  FIGURE 2-2. RootsMagic’s edit screen lets you see facts about one person and include sources and proof.

  Every piece of information on a person is available from the main screen: name, parent and spouse info, personal and family facts, DNA test results, alternate names, or LDS information. You can directly access the notes, sources, media, and more for every item.

  Output format includes pedigree charts, family group sheets, four types of box charts, six styles of books, 27 different lists, mailing labels, calendars, hourglass trees, graphical timelines, relationship charts, letter-writing templates, individual summaries, five types of photo charts, and seven types of blank charts. Your database can be output into a pedigree chart with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) links among the individuals in the genealogy.

  If you import a GEDCOM and find it has some mistakes, you can correct them, but it can be tricky.

  For example: I imported a GEDCOM with my grandmother’s family, BEEMAN. In my grandmother’s generation, some of her siblings were duplicated because of nicknames. This fix was easy: Simply click the merge sign in the toolbar, bring up both entries, and merge them into one.

  But further back, there was a more complicated problem. My great-great-grandfather James Ivy Beeman had what today would be called a melded family: After the Civil War, he was widowed with two children. He married a woman named Sarah or Savannah Cross who was widowed with two children. This resulted in a mistake in which the two Cross children, John Wesley Cross, Jr. and Ransom Patrick Cross, were listed as the sons of James Ivy Beeman. Adding to the confusion is that John Wesley Cross, Sr., the father of these two, was not yet in the database. Then, Sarah and James Ivy had several children of their own.

  The fix: First, click each of the children, then click Edit, and then click Unlink. Then add the person who is their father, John Wesley Cross, Sr. Then add the two children as his and Sarah’s. Simple!

  I also like that when certain the family was correct, I was able to share the good data to FamilySearch with one click of the tree icon in the toolbar. Very handy!

  Family Tree Maker

  Family Tree Maker (www.familytreemaker.com) is Ancestry.com’s product now, and it is closely integrated with the website. You can use Ancestry.com and Family Tree Maker together to get the most out of both by importing your family tree and attached images from the website to the program or vice versa. From the Family Tree Maker program, you can search Ancestry.com and merge what you find into your tree. It also uses the Ancestry.com hints feature to suggest records that might match your data. I included this program in this brief list because Ancestry.com is so important to online genealogy, but this is the one program that does not have a try-before-you-buy policy as of this writing. You have to buy it to try it, which puts it at a real disadvantage in my mind; however, you probably can find a genealogy buddy or library that has a copy of the program you can test-drive.

  You can scan documents and photographs and then organize your photos, document images, and other graphics into slideshows, books, and other formats as well (such as sound and movies). The source function has standard source templates to help you save the right information about a source and rate each source on how useful you found it.

  Once you have your data in, you can view relationships within the context of your entire family tree, with timelines and interactive maps highlighting events and places in the lives of your family.

  The user interface lets you quickly switch between important features and import data from any program that can produce a GEDCOM. It has tools for merging duplicate individuals, calculating dates, creating to-do lists, and more. It retails for $39.95 and requires at least Windows XP or Vista to run.

  The Master Genealogist

  The Master Genealogist (TMG) (www.whollygenes.com) does everything the previously mentioned programs will do, but more—it helps you organize your search. Cheryl Rothwell, who writes three genealogy blogs, said, “I have used TMG since before it was officially released. I don’t know how to do everything and I never will. There are some features I will just never need. But it is flexible enough to do what you want the way you want.” A screen shot is in Figure 2-3.

  FIGURE 2-3. The Master Genealogist is the favorite of many long-time genealogists.

  You can tie many more facts and historical context to your ancestors with TMG, as it is affectionately known, as well as output in almost any format you like. Mind you, it has a learning curve, and the program is written with professional genealogical standards in mind. That should not deter you, however. It comes with a tutorial and has much more flexibility than its easy-to-use competitors. It is designed to let the novice get started quickly and grow into the more advanced features. Wizards, “cue cards,” data-entry templates, ditto keys, macros, and other features make TMG easy to learn and use.

  It is this flexibility that makes people feel that TMG is worth the effort to use. The program allows for an unlimited number of people, events per person, names per person, relationships, user-defined events, freeform text, photographs, citations, and repositories.
You control the data. It also has features to help you track what you need to find and a to-do list of genealogy chores.

  Referencing source data is TMG’s strongest point for the serious genealogist. Each entry provides space for documenting an unlimited number of citations, including a rating scale for their reliability, which is an important point. Newspaper articles, family bibles, and interviews with your relatives all have different reliability, which can be recorded with TMG.

  For $40 for the Silver edition and $80 for the Gold, TMG is a popular program with experts in family history.

  Heredis

  Available for desktops, tablets, and smart phones, Heredis is fully revamped for 2014, and it is impressive. Very popular in Europe, it has versions for Mac, Windows, iPad, and iPhone. At about $50, it is a feature-full program with a great user interface. You can download a trial version at http://heredis.com.

  What I like most about Heredis are the different views of a family. The Immediate Family tab displays all the members of the immediate family (parents, spouses, children, grandparents). One click, and you access the quick entry screen to add members (see Figure 2-4).

  FIGURE 2-4. Heredis has an Immediate Family tab that makes it easy to enter and modify data.

  New to this version is the Melded Family view: siblings, remarriage, stepchildren, stepbrothers and stepsisters, children from other unions of the different spouses, noting whether or not when they belong to the direct lineage. This makes situations such as I described earlier much clearer.

  The Migrations Map is fascinating: Taking the location data, it displays a family’s movements on an interactive map, with numbered pins that display dates and events on mouse-over.

  The Search Assistant shows the progress of the life a person, displays known or missing information, and highlights certain unexplored tracks. At a glance, you will know if a date or place is missing and what associated source, witnesses, media, or notes go with an event.

  Finally, with this version, Heredis has launched an online presence to upload and backup your data, much along the lines of FamilySearch. You can search the trees uploaded there when you register for a free membership.

  Consider the Surface Scratched

  The short list presented thus far merely scratches the surface of available genealogy programs by presenting those that are arguably the most popular. For more options, consider these that are certified to work with the new LDS FamilySearch site:

  • Ancestral Quest

  • FamilyInsight

  • Gaia Family Tree

  • Get My Ancestors

  • Legacy Family Tree 8

  • MagiKey Family Tree

  • Ordinance Tracker

  Also, go to Cyndi’s List (www.cyndislist.com/software.htm) and poke around a few websites. Go to local meetings of your genealogy club and ask for recommendations. Finally, use a search engine to find matches for “genealogy software” and your computer. Download some trial versions and check them out. Then you’ll be ready to choose.

  Smart Phones and Tablets

  Handheld web-enabled devices, netbook computers, and cell phones with e-mail access are becoming the standard. They all can offer you convenience when traveling, but cost will be a big factor. Sometimes, you might have issues with connectivity, depending on your data plan, and for those with far-sightedness, those tiny screens can be hard to see. Still, you might find some of these useful.

  Tablets

  Tablet computers have thoroughly replaced the old personal digital assistants of old. From Asus to Google to Apple, every company you ever heard of, and several you have not, now have taken over the small digital world.

  • GedStar for Android and iPad phones and tablets. The Windows version takes your data from Master Genealogist, Family Tree, RootsMagic or a GEDCOM and puts it on your smaller device or on an SD card to be inserted into your phone or tablet computer. This app has a nice interface. This program also lets you browse a GEDCOM (see the Glossary) and could be useful for trips to the library.

  • FamilyBee for Android was favorably reviewed by Dick Eastman. It stores your data on an SD card, which your desktop computer can probably also read.

  • Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.com, MyHeritage.com, and Genealogy.com all have a smart phone app as well as a tablet app. Genedroid is the app for Geni.com.

  • BillionGraves is an app for tombstone/cemetery transcription projects. Take a picture, upload it to the website, and help preserve cemetery data.

  Additional Programs

  There are other programs that are not, strictly speaking, genealogy programs. These include databases, journaling programs, and other, more mundane software, such as word-processing programs, that can be used to make your quest for family history easier. You may want to consider any combination of these.

  Add-On Programs

  A subset of genealogy programs work with your main database program such as Legacy or RootsMagic. Some help you search, some help you organize, some help you notate. Some to consider are

  • Catch is an app for keeping a diary of your research and posting it to the cloud with tags. It can be used for text, sound, and images, which all can be shared or protected by password as you choose.

  • Evernote can be used much as Catch, with the added ability to save the picture of a piece of paper as a searchable PDF document. Think of it as photocopying to your computer. With Evernote, you can upload to the cloud or keep it only on your device. If you search for “using Evernote for genealogy,” you will come up with several good articles on that topic by leading genealogists. The key is to use tags, not “notebooks,” to organize your gleanings. Evernote has a free version and a paid version with more storage space on the cloud.

  • Clooz is a $40 program to consolidate, index, analyze, and report document and image data. This Windows desktop program can help you gather, analyze, and validate clues and evidence about potential or suspected ancestors. It can export data to Legacy Family Tree software. At clooz.com, you can download a trial version.

  • GenSmarts (www.gensmarts.com) analyzes the data you have and develops a profile of your ancestors based on where and when they lived. This $25 program uses artificial intelligence to analyze your existing genealogy file and give you research recommendations. GenSmarts reads popular genealogy software file formats directly; no need to create a GEDCOM.

  Database CD-ROMs

  You’ll find that many records have been indexed and transcribed or scanned onto CD-ROMs. Some of these you can access at a local library; some you can order with software or by themselves; some are available from the Family History Centers. Census records available on CD-ROM include the U.S. federal census, various census records from Canada and the UK, Cherokee and African American census records, and a few local censuses. Cemetery records and death records from all over North America and the UK are available on CD-ROMs; so are parish records. Check out www.cyndislist.com/cd-roms.htm#Vendors for sources of these CD-ROMs.

  Word-Processing Programs

  Don’t overlook the lowly word processor as one of your genealogy tools. You can use it for journaling your genealogy quest, creating custom write-ups of your results, and even creating a book. You can use a word processor to create and track your to-do lists, write letters for vital records, and more.

  As with your genealogy program, you need a word processor that can handle all of your chores, yet isn’t more trouble to use than it’s worth.

  Maps

  Sooner or later in tracing your genealogy, you’re going to need maps, and not just your handy 2014 road atlas. The boundary lines of cities, counties, states, and even countries have changed over the years; Kentucky used to be part of Virginia after all! A dictionary or index of place names is called a gazetteer. As I mentioned in Chapter 1, a hard copy is a handy thing to have, but you can use software and Internet versions, too.

  E-mail

  Reading mail is the biggest part of online life. Some of the best information, and even frie
ndships, come through e-mail. Personally, I prefer to have all my e-mail in the cloud, and for that I use Gmail. But if you want to use Outlook, Thunderbird, or Eudora, they are all fine choices. Whichever way you go, use the features they all have to make your life easier.

  Filters

  A filter is an action you want the mail program to take when a message matches certain conditions. It can have your e-mail program reply to, copy, move, or destroy a message based on such things as the sender, the subject line, or the words found in the text. You can have the e-mail program do all that before you read your mail, or even before the e-mail is downloaded from the mail server. When you start getting involved in active mail lists, you’ll want to sort your mail by geography, surname, and time period, at least. Most e-mail programs and sites also come with built-in detectors for the unsolicited advertising e-mail and scams that circulate regularly.

  Audio Resources

  The Internet has become a broadcast medium, and shows originating thousands of miles from you can stream right down to your computer over the Internet. To listen, you need a good media player, whether it is Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, RealAudio, iTunes, or some other program. Most such programs have a free version and are usually easy to set up and use.

  Viruses and Worms

  No journey is without risk. Whenever you enter the wilds of cyberspace, that dreaded microorganism, the computer virus, might be lurking about. Not only that, but your activities could attract Trojan horses and worms, too, so keep a sharp eye out.