GenealogyClassBlog

Dick Eastman has come through for those of us with Macs. See his June 21 listing of thirteen genealogy software programs for Macintosh, as well as comments from his readers.

Each of the listings include a brief description, the producer, distinctive features or attributes, the selling price, and the link to the producer’s website, just as he did in his June 17 listing of twelve genealogy software programs for Windows (see my earlier post).

The list of Macintosh programs includes:

• Family Tree Maker Mac 2010
• GEDitCOM II
• GenealogyPro
• GenScribe
• GRAMPS
• Heredis
• iFamily for Leopard
• MacFamilyTree
• MyBlood
• ohmiGene
• Osk
• Personal Ancestry Writer II
• Reunion

Dick also describes how Macintosh owners can install Windows onto their Macs, using Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or VirtualBox, and run Windows genealogy software programs on Macs, too.

As in his June 17 blog post, each of the listings includes a brief description, the producer, distinctive features or attributes, the selling price, and the link to the producer’s website. Prices range from free to $90, but the price for the not-yet-released Family Tree Maker for Mac is not yet known.

Most of my students know that I don’t use Windows at home. Mine is primarily a Macintosh household. To keep track of various genealogy research, from personal to client work, I use Reunion, which is only available for the Macintosh. I do have a dream to be able to spend hours trying out various genealogy software packages so that I can answer questions and possibly make recommendations about particular genealogy software packages. But, the amount of time spent on each different software program would be considerable and I just do not have that kind of time.

There aren’t too many people that would have that opportunity, or who would bother to take the time, but Richard Eastman does. He keeps his eye out for new developments and reviews new products and upgraded versions in his online newsletter. In his June 17 Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, he provided a list of twelve genealogy software programs for Windows. Each of the listings includes a brief description, the producer, distinctive features or attributes, the selling price, and the link to the producer’s website. To introduce the list, Dick says,

“The following is a list of all the more popular genealogy programs that I know of that are actively being marketed for Windows users in North Americas. In fact, more than one hundred genealogy programs have been offered to Windows users over the years and a handful of them are still available for purchase today. However, not all of them are being actively developed and supported. For this list, I will focus only on the products that are current and still have developers writing updates, bug fixes, and new releases.”

The list includes, in alphabetical order:

Ancestral Quest
Branches
Brothers Keeper
Family Historian
Family Tree Builder
Family Tree Maker
GRAMPS
Legacy Family Tree
The Master Genealogist
My Blood
Osk
Roots Magic and Roots Magic Essentials

Dick also writes,

“The above is NOT a complete list of all Windows genealogy programs. A complete list would fill perhaps 30 or 40 pages! Instead, the above is a list of the more popular Windows genealogy programs sold in North America. Several of them are produced in other countries, however.”

In a few cases, Dick has provided links to interviews with the developers of the programs. A few of the above programs are also available for Macintosh and/or Linux.

Dick is a great source of this kind of information, because he actually buys and tests out genealogy programs on his PCs and on his Macs. Visit, or better yet subscribe to http://blog.eogn.com to receive a daily email newsletter. Read what Dick has to say about genealogy software, websites, events, television shows, or about related equipment (from cameras to the iPad). To find earlier articles, use the search box on his site (search for the word, “Macintosh,” for example), or click one of the category links in the list on the right-hand side of any of his web pages.

Dick Eastman, in his Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter blog on Saturday, Dec. 5, highlights an article by genealogist Beau Sharbrough, an expert at online and computer genealogy, on his Unofficial Footnote Blog. On Saturday Beau wrote, updating the unofficial list of online census images and indexes available and in the works. He mentions the four major resources and compares what they have to offer:  Ancestry.com; HeritageQuest Online; Footnote; and FamilySearch. We discussed each of these in class, but a brief review might be helpful.

Ancestry.com requires a subscription, but offers thousands and thousands of databases beyond the U.S. Federal Census. Some are indexes only, but many are linked to scanned images of the census pages. You may subscribe directly to Ancestry.com, but you may also use it for no charge, on-site at many libraries, including all branches of the Tulsa City-County Library, and at the Tulsa Genealogical Society.

You may use HeritageQuest Online onsite at the Genealogy Center, a part of the Tulsa City-County Library. Private subscriptions are not available. Of the four resources mentioned, HeritageQuest offers the fewest databases, but I like its census index searching functionality and the quality of its scanned images.

Footnote.com offers millions of records, but not nearly as many databases as those found at Ancestry.com. It is also available by personal subscription, for a much lower cost than that of Ancestry.This subscription is also provided by the Tulsa City-County Library, for use on-site at the Genealogy Center.

FamilySearch is the online resource of the Family History Library and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As Beau explains, FamilySearch has partnered with Footnote to enable users access to some of the images, but they have also digitized many of the images themselves, and have a very large body of images and databases. Their indexing project is being accomplished through the use of volunteers. Access to their information is free. The section of their site which offers the U.S. Federal Census images is called Record Search, currently found at this url:  http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#start.

For specifics, I would recommend reading both posts, both by Dick and by Beau, as well as the comments that follow each.