About genealogical programs.

Why is it needed?

1. Storage of information. If everyone
stored on paper - may burn, divide, etc. In electronic form if you regularly backup less
2. Organizing information. Quickly find all the people who died in the war. all second cousins ​​of this person, all who were born in Kiev before the revolution. Such tasks often arise during work. To get all such slices is very difficult if everything is stored in one file or on paper.
3. Work with sources. It is often important to know from which source the information came. Often it is necessary to find everything that is known from this source.
4. Work with photos. Store all pictures related to one person together. If there are several people in the photo, do not store it several times Attach photos not only to people but also to specific events.
5. Work with geographic places. Description, photos, previous name, a list of all who were born there.
6. Sharing information with other people
7. Automatic tree building and much more.
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Now about specific programs.

Types of programs:

1. Ordinary. Install and use.

2. Web programs. You install on your hosting and
use. There are not enough, they usually require for installation and configuration
minimum knowledge of what database you have on your hosting and how to get it
access. Gradually expelled by the third type:

3. Web sites with the ability to maintain the tree. Those. You
register, enter a tree manually or upload ready-made (to
format GEDCOM) and update it there.
And look for "their" names among other trees uploaded to the site. There are now
many, but I will note the most famous (which means those on which there are many trees and there are
chance to find someone) - Ancestry , Geni , MyHeritage

Now let's talk about GEDCOM - the format of genealogical data.

GEDCOM

Each genealogical program has its own data storage format.
Therefore, to transfer data from one program to another, in order to send someone their own tree or subtree, use the standard format - GEDCOM.

The format is text. Current standard 5.5
Describes a hierarchical data structure (like XML). Person section, family section, source, multimedia ...

In all normal programs there is an import / export in GEDCOM - do it, open it in a text editor - look.
It is instructive :)

What are the pitfalls?

1. set of tags
   (i.e. event types, properties) in the standard is limited. For example - not in
   standard nothing describing army service or participation in war. therefore
   Each program adds its own tags. And, as a rule, adding an event to
   a description of a person or a field about him (an alternative name, for example), you do not
   you know - this field is from the standard or not. In addition, many programs
   allow you to add your own types of events. As soon as you exported your
   database in GEDCOM and trying to import it into another program - that
   starts shouting: "I don’t know such an event!"
   There are different options - the program will make all unfamiliar events notes (Notes) - you are in the import log all
   you will find them and do something with them (leave in notes, replace with
   standard tags), the program makes all unfamiliar events custom events, you see which types of events are suitable for you in this program and do an import / search in the GEDCOM file before importing
2. Encoding.
   If you have sources or, even worse, names in Russian or Hebrew, then
   so that the program can correctly export non-Latin encoding skillfully
   import it correctly.
   And there may play a role which on a specific computer default codepage (default encoding). In general, I would advise, if it is supposed to exchange data with foreign countries, the names are initially entered in Latin letters. And maybe the names of cities. And then at the request of a relative in America to send a tree, you will be scratching a turnip for a long time.
3. Ways to pictures and other multimedia objects. The path can be stored in
   the program (and recorded in the GEDCOM file) either absolute or relative.
   If the path is recorded as absolute, even when transferring the database from one
   computer on another, on the same program, there may be problems

In short - the conclusions:

• If you need to share your tree with someone, use Export to GEDCOM
• Without a special need not to switch from program to program, because the transfer
  A large database can be quite painful.

What are the most famous
normal (ie, not web) programs?

Free
1. PAF - made by the Mormon Church. Allows you to manage sources. I started it myself. Beautiful trees do not build, but reports prints
2. GenoPro - builds genograms instead of trees - such pictures that can be seen on conventional icons who is a woman, who is a man, and who is adopted son. I can’t say much about her - I don’t like her, so I don’t know much
3. GenealogyJ - GEDCOM oriented. Those. even by adding an event you see that you are actually adding GEDCOM tags. Interesting because it allows you to write your own plugins
4. FamilyTreeBuilder, which appeared several years ago
- program site MyHeritage , the best of the free, with a solid set of features and uploading the tree to the site.
5. Gramps is also a very solid program, originally written on Linux, but ported to Windows.

For money
1. RootsMagic - I use it (honestly bought). Comfortable. Allows you to add photos not only to people but also to families. In the latest versions you can build trees
2. Ages - really like it. developed management of sources, photos, places, professions, etc. Many beautiful types of trees
3. GenBox - really like it. developed management of sources, photos, places, professions, etc. Many beautiful types of trees, including the tree of ALL
4. The Tree of Life - the Russian program. He knows what patronymic is. The built trees are very good in it. But weak in features
5. Master Genealogist
6 AncestralQuest
7. Family Historian
8. Many others ...

Comparison

Now let's compare a few popular paid genealogical programs, but not for the whole set of possibilities (such comparisons exist without me: http://genealogy-software-review.toptenreviews.com/ ), but solely by the “features” of managing and organizing information sources , photos, geographic locations.

Such a review, or rather opportunities tested in it, shows what can be expected from genealogical programs, how they can differ.

List of tested programs:

Title	Version	Site
Roosmagic	4.04	www.rootsmagic.com
Ages	1.52	www.daubnet.com/en/ages
Master genealogist	7	www.whollygenes.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?screen=TMG
Genbox Family History	3.71	www.genbox.com
AncestralQuest	12.1	www.ancquest.com
Family historian	four	www.family-historian.co.uk
Tree of Life	3	www.genery.com/ru

Programs were compared by the following
opportunities:

1. After importing GEDCOM, you can see the text of the sources in Russian. Used GEDCOMh with Russian text sources encoded in UTF-8), Windows XP with Russian as default text. GEDCOM obtained by export from RootsMagic
2. The ability to add photos to the family (and not to one person)
3. After importing, you can see photos added to the family.
4. The organization of geographical locations. You can add notes, photos, coordinates to the “place”.
5. The organization of sources of information. You can add notes to the source, photos
6. Organization of multimedia files. You can contain a list of photos and add a photo from the list to a person, and not search for a file on disk again for each image shown in the photo
7. Event-> Place-> Event List. You can jump from the event to the “place”, from there to the list of events (or people) in this place and from the list to another event
8. Event -> Source -> Event List. you can jump to the source from the event, from there to the list of events (or people) with links to this source and from the list to another event
9. ability to add DNA test results

In my opinion, these features are very important both for ease of analysis (and what else happened in this place?) And for ease of management (how difficult it is to add a photo in which 10 people - 3 generations of a family, to all
relevant people?).

Results:

Program	one	2	3	four	five	6	7	eight	9
Roosmagic	+	+	+	+ (a)	+	+	- (b)	-	-
Ages	+	+	+	+	+	+	± (s)	+	-
Master genealogist	-	+	+	+	+	-	-	-	+
Genbox Family History	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	-
AncestralQuest	+	-	-	-	+	-	-	-	-
Family historian	-	-	-	±	+	+	+	-	-
Tree of Life	(d)	-	-	-	-	+	-	-	-

a) There is a database of geographical names, You can find a place on the map on the Internet and
check spelling, set geographic coordinates

b) There is a report - what events were in what places, but there is no interactive opportunity

c) From the spot you can jump to the list of people who had events at this place.

d) Import failed. Maybe because the free version supports up to 40 people.