What's the best free/cheap + quality/comprehensive genealogy software?
February 12, 2019 5:48 PM Subscribe
I've got more than two feet stacked up of notebooks, note cards, photocopies, maps, and god knows what all of genealogy I've been working on for more than 30 years. It needs to get computerized.
Other relatives have asked me about it recently, and it's been on my to-do list for years to get it all digitized. My budget is currently miniscule, but I also need to be able to attach copies of census records, photos, draft cards, passports, y'know, all the detritus a family accumulates through the years.
I saw this question, but none of it excited me, and it'a a year and a half old. I'm hoping you might have some better ideas.
I also saw this one, but there's so much there the asker needed, and I got overwhelmed by the results of the Wikipedia page referenced for comparison of genealogy software.
I use Windows 10, some relatives use Mac, some I don't know what they use. My ancestry is almost entirely European, with a teeny bit of Powhatan thrown in about four generations back from me.
What say you, genealogists of MeFi?
Other relatives have asked me about it recently, and it's been on my to-do list for years to get it all digitized. My budget is currently miniscule, but I also need to be able to attach copies of census records, photos, draft cards, passports, y'know, all the detritus a family accumulates through the years.
I saw this question, but none of it excited me, and it'a a year and a half old. I'm hoping you might have some better ideas.
I also saw this one, but there's so much there the asker needed, and I got overwhelmed by the results of the Wikipedia page referenced for comparison of genealogy software.
I use Windows 10, some relatives use Mac, some I don't know what they use. My ancestry is almost entirely European, with a teeny bit of Powhatan thrown in about four generations back from me.
What say you, genealogists of MeFi?
I've been getting into Gramps, but the learning curve has been a little steep for my newly-genealogical computer skills and there are a lot of concepts and conventions I still need to sort out. Until then I've been cleaning up my data with an old version of Brøderbund's Family Tree Maker, which is what it was created in.
Gramps is the future for me though, and there's a pretty big support community on Reddit.
posted by rhizome at 6:26 PM on February 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
Gramps is the future for me though, and there's a pretty big support community on Reddit.
posted by rhizome at 6:26 PM on February 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
Have you looked at familysearch.org? Free, online, plenty of online resources and you can add your own source material, and since they strive to create a single database without duplicated records, you may stumble across work others have already done for extend family members. Pretty low barrier to entry to try it out.
posted by hankscorpio83 at 9:28 PM on February 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by hankscorpio83 at 9:28 PM on February 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
I've been using Gramps for years now, and though there's a learning curve to it, it's so powerful that it's worth it.
Attaching digital copies of anything is trivially easy: you just create a Media object, add an address on your hard drive for it, and add as much information you want to it.
You can add notes and sources to absolutely everything. You can define any event you want, and attach a date and place to it. Gramps has a number of calendars built in, with easy switching between them.
If you have any particular questions, feel free to MeMail Me.
posted by snakeling at 1:14 AM on February 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
Attaching digital copies of anything is trivially easy: you just create a Media object, add an address on your hard drive for it, and add as much information you want to it.
You can add notes and sources to absolutely everything. You can define any event you want, and attach a date and place to it. Gramps has a number of calendars built in, with easy switching between them.
If you have any particular questions, feel free to MeMail Me.
posted by snakeling at 1:14 AM on February 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
My Mom used Family Tree Maker for years, and I took a dump of her data into Gramps last year.
The GUI of Gramps is pretty daunting (though admittedly I know nothing about genealogy, so some if that is just due to conventions of the field), but it's under active development and has a lot of passionate users.
Gramps also keeps your data local, unlike many of the big, hosted platforms (e.g., Ancestry, Family Search, et al.), which I really do like not just for privacy, but because you are less likely to get locked out of it by forgetting a password or letting a paid account lapse (as happened with the work my uncle did *sigh*).
posted by wenestvedt at 8:14 AM on February 13, 2019
The GUI of Gramps is pretty daunting (though admittedly I know nothing about genealogy, so some if that is just due to conventions of the field), but it's under active development and has a lot of passionate users.
Gramps also keeps your data local, unlike many of the big, hosted platforms (e.g., Ancestry, Family Search, et al.), which I really do like not just for privacy, but because you are less likely to get locked out of it by forgetting a password or letting a paid account lapse (as happened with the work my uncle did *sigh*).
posted by wenestvedt at 8:14 AM on February 13, 2019
If you've already done a lot of the research what about just using WikiTree? You can choose different privacy settings for living members while allowing more access for those who are deceased, and it allows you to upload images as sources. I personally love the idea that anything I put up will be easily accessible to future researchers or family members but recognize it might not be everyone's cup of tea. You also have to be OK with the idea that other members in good standing could add to your work.
posted by Cuke at 8:25 AM on February 13, 2019
posted by Cuke at 8:25 AM on February 13, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by clone boulevard at 5:55 PM on February 12, 2019