1. Free Genealogy Programs:
What’s Good & What’s Not
Dick Eastman
Jan. 14, 2013

2. Today’s Discussions
• Today’s slides are available at:
• http://www.eogn.com/handouts/free

3. Today’s Discussions
• Products for Discussion Today:
– PAWriter for Macintosh
– GRAMPS for Macintosh
– Windows:
• AncestralQuest
• Legacy Family Tree
• RootsMagic
• GRAMPS
• Personal Ancestral File
• These are believed to be the most popular free
genealogy products today.

4. Today’s Discussions
• First, a discussion of GEDCOM
• GEnealogyData COMmunications

5. Macintosh
A discussion of free genealogy programs
for the Mac should be very brief: only
two are available.

6. PAWriter
for Macintosh
A very simple genealogy program
that performs the basics
No multimedia scrapbook
Does not build web pages
Few “bells and whistles”
Easy to install

7. PAWriter
for Macintosh

8. GRAMPS
for Macintosh (and Windows)
•Open Source Software
•Moderately sophisticated application
•A summary of the active person’s
parents, siblings, spouses and children.
•An interactive map view highlighting places
associated with one person, a group of people
or all people in your records.
•Good recording of source citations

9. GRAMPS
for Macintosh (and Windows)
•Downside: a bit complex to install

10. GRAMPS
for Macintosh (and Windows)

11. GRAMPS
for Macintosh (and Windows)

12. GRAMPS
for Macintosh (and Windows)

13. GRAMPS
for Macintosh (and Windows)

14. Windows
More programs to choose from

15. Ancestral Quest

16. AncestralQuest
• Free trial version that stores a limited number of
records
• Full version costs $29.95
• Written by Incline Software (Gaylon Findlay, the
developer of Personal Ancestral File (PAF) for
Windows)
• This is an excellent replacement for the aging
Personal Ancestral File
• Like Personal Ancestral File except that it has
added a better database, multimedia
scrapbooks, genealogy books, fan charts, and
much more.

17. AncestralQuest

18. AncestralQuest
• Super easy to use!
• Excellent use of LDS-specific fields
• Works with new.familysearch.org

20. Legacy Family Tree

21. Legacy Family Tree
• Two versions:
– FREE (that is very powerful)
– Full version for $29.95
– Several “bundles” are also available
• Easy to use
• Excellent support!
• Excellent source citations, modeled on Elizabeth
Shown Mills’ citation styles
• Works with new.familysearch.org
• Excellent maps
• Excellent wall charts

22. Legacy Family Tree

23. Legacy Family Tree

24. Legacy Family Tree

25. Legacy Family Tree

26. Legacy Family Tree

27. RootsMagic

28. RootsMagic
• Two versions:
– FREE RootsMagic Essentials
– $29.95 for RootsMagic
• by RootsMagic, Inc. (Bruce Buzbee), former
developer of Family Origins
• Excellent support!
• RootsMagic To-Go lets you run RootsMagic
(program AND data) directly off your flash drive
• Works with new.familysearch.org
• Very easy to use

29. RootsMagic

30. RootsMagic

31. RootsMagic

32. RootsMagic

33. RootsMagic

34. GRAMPS
for Windows

40. Personal Ancestral File
An old program that has not been
updated in years. Very old-
fashioned. However, it remains
popular with thousands of users.

41. Summation
High-quality genealogy software is
available for both Windows and
Macintosh at no cost.
You can go home and download any of
these programs this evening and start
using them immediately!

42. Today’s Discussions
• Products Discussed Today:
– PAWriter for Macintosh
– GRAMPS for Macintosh
– Windows:
• AncestralQuest
• Legacy Family Tree
• RootsMagic
• GRAMPS
• Personal Ancestral File
• These are believed to be the most popular free
genealogy products today.

43. Where to obtain these
programs?
All of these may be downloaded online:
• AncestralQuest – www.AncQuest.com
• Legacy Family Tree – www.LegacyFamilyTree.com
• RootsMagic–www.RootsMagic.com
• GRAMPS – www.gramps-project.org/
• Personal Ancestral File – www.FamilySearch.org
• PAWriter for Macintosh – www.lanopalera.net/

44. To learn more about new products or
updated versions of existing
products, go to:
www.eogn.com

45. Today’s Discussions
• Today’s slides are available at:
• http://www.eogn.com/handouts/free