Steve I think Custodian can be adapted to your requirements ... see how it can be used by looking at the way it catalogues Probate records and by blocking names you can send them to the main names index. It can be any document not just Probate records there are plenty of empty fields you can use for your specific info. Email Phil Smith whose Prog it is and ask the question ... If it can't go to the depths you want I know from the Custodian Forum he is always open to a wish list ! He can be reached at his wifes email address which is [email protected] Regards Bill NB I have no ties to this programme except being a user for a considerable time. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve Hayes Sent: 01 June 2011 10:50 To: [email protected] Subject: Document-based programs: Clooz, Custodian, Bygones and ... In recent discussions on soc.genealogy.computing there have been some discussions about recording sources, event-based programs and the like. I mentioned the lack of a decent event-based program, and someone suggested Custodian, which is not actually an event-based program at all. But the discussion prompted me to have another look at Custodian, which I had tried about 2004/5, along with Clooz and Bygones, but never really used. The main kinds of programs used (or desired) by genealogists seem to me to be in four classes: 1. person-based programs (including lineage-linked) 2. document-based programs 3. event-based programs 4. miscellaneous programs, such as note-taking programs, word-processors The first two classes are specialised for genealogists, the last two would have wider uses. The difference between document-based programs and event-based programs perhaps needs to be clarified, because it was not clear to at least one person in the recent discussion. An event-based program is one where you begin by entering events, and can later link people and documents to the event. The minimum reporting requirement would be a chronologically-sorted list of events. A document-based program is one where you enter the information found in source documents, one document at a time. There is no single event record, or list of events. An example of this is a person's death. There can be several sources: a death certificate, an obituary, a newspaper death announcement, an obituary, a gravestone inscription, a church burial record, probate documents. In a document-based program each docuyment is entered as a separate record, even if they all relate to the same event. The event as such does not have its own record. On looking again at Clooz and Custodian in particular (I haven't been looking at Bygones again) it seems to me that Clooz might be better for keeping track of source documents, and Custodian might be better for analysing the data from source documents. Clooz is also oriented more to records from the USA. Custodian is oriented more towards records from the UK. I'll need to play with them quite a bit more before I can give a more detailed review, but I'd be interested in knowing what other people who have used them think. What do they do that you like? And what are the things that you wish they could do, but they don't? T -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message