Genealogy Software Review

Comparing genealogy software

We found the best reviews of genealogy software at Family Tree Magazine and it's website. Fifteen titles for Windows and Mac are reviewed in depth, and readers are invited to add comments to an active user forum. TopTenReviews.com also posts reviews of genealogy software, though some reviews are of outdated versions. The discussion is not particularly detailed, but is appropriately critical and does a good job of summing up pluses and minuses.

About.com's latest software roundup dates from October 2007, but most of the covered titles are still current and site guide Kimberly Powell does a good job of covering newer titles in single-product reviews. Choice, a consumer testing organization in Australia, provides a dated, yet thorough, comparison of several programs in their 2006 test of family tree software. Consumer Reports does not cover genealogy software at all.

Genealogy software helps you start tracing your family line with electronic help. Software can be basic or full featured, but all titles have basic features to create a visual family tree, fill in data about relatives and ancestors, and tools to help you track down leads on your family history. Software makes the daunting tasks of organizing hundreds of bits of data more manageable. Sharing tools help you send and trade information with others, and compatibility with GEDCOM (a standard genealogy information format) can help you incorporate data from online sources.