I must organise my past!

February 21, 2007 4:19 PM

Help me organize my family history info on my mac

I'm just getting started in documenting my family history and plan to use various types of media to do so - including photos, video, recorded discussions (probably mp3s), scanned documents, etc. I found some information on askmefi about what to do once the information is collected, but I want some help on how to organise the actual data. I plan to use Memory Miner for the photos and probably the videos, but I am not sure how to organise the mp3 files (which might end up as typed up conversations, with no photos to go with them and therefore not really useful for Memory Miner) and scanned documents.

Recommendations of Mac software to help do this would be gratefully received!

posted by ndaguiar to technology (8 comments total)

Not sure on software, but maybe the interface at Geni.com can help you envision a file structure that you could then build on your local drive.
posted by allkindsoftime at 4:40 PM on February 21, 2007

Take a look at Supercard, a clone of Hypercard. Demo here.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:04 PM on February 21, 2007

Devonthink or Yojimbo?
posted by Happy Dave at 5:16 PM on February 21, 2007

Journaler, Scrivener, Mori...
posted by dhruva at 5:21 PM on February 21, 2007

Reunion?

FileMaker Pro?

You can dump all that stuff into a FileMaker Pro database easy enough. Audio, video, PDF. Up to 8 terabytes per file.
posted by drstein at 6:09 PM on February 21, 2007

Reunion can be useful for this, because not only does it keep track of the genealogy, but you can attach media files to a given record. So you might have your grandfather's information listed, but that record will also link to photos, audio, etc. if you have it. It's excellent software, too. I've been using it for a long time.
posted by litlnemo at 12:29 AM on February 22, 2007

MacFamilyTree

has some of the features you seek. it's an ok application, updated on a regular basis. Tends to be a little buggy, so I discipline myself to save frequently (the auto save doesn't work, or at least I've never seen it work) lest I lose a whole family i've just entered. I do not use it for multimedia, so I can't vouch for that. It does have features allowing you to burn your work onto CD or to publish html, but again, I use this program more as just a raw database than anything.
posted by kuppajava at 8:53 AM on February 22, 2007

For any family tree portion, you should definitely check out Geni.com. It's in Beta but I'm liking it a lot so far. Guessing that they will add features over time that will allow for files to be attached, as you noted.
posted by scottso17 at 6:44 PM on February 22, 2007