Beginning Lesson #2 CHOOSING A GENEALOGY PROGRAM I hope you made a lot of progress getting your vital records together from last week's lesson. Now, we'll tackle what to do with the information you collected as you climb your family tree. I would like to know what the best software program (preferably shareware) is to track family histories. I am just beginning, and want to start right. -- Thanks. I receive letters from lots of people who have been working on their own for a few months, making custom databases with Excel or DBase IV. I hope to save you similar heartache by telling you there are lots of good genealogy programs on the market today! The advantage of using one of the main stream genealogy programs is that they adhere (sometimes loosley) to a set of guidelines called GEDCOM for transfering data between different genealogy programs. You simply MUST use a program with this file transfer capability. Without it, you'll just have to type all those names in again, when you realize what wonderful programs are actually out there. Here's a list of the ones I here the most about! MAC favorite - Reunion (Leister Pro), PAF-Personal Ancestral File (LDS Church) WINDOWS - Family Tree Maker (Broderbund), Family Origins (Parson's Technology), Ancestral Quest (Infobase), Roots IV(Comsoft), Reunion (Leister Pro), Family Roots (Quinsept), Brother's Keeper (Shareware) DOS - PAF-Personal Ancestral File(LDS Church) Make it your goal this week to find out about genealogy programs and begin to make plan to purchase and install one to organize your family history early on!