FREEWARE AND SHAREWARE
PROGRAMS FOR FAMILY HISTORY
Copyright 2008 by Donald
R. Snow
Sections of the Notes
This page was last updated
2008-02-18.
Return to the Hyde
Park Family History Centre Home Page or the Events Page or the Utah Valley PAF Users Group Home
Page or Don's Class Listings Page .
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION TO CLASS
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Instructors are Elder and Sister Donald R. and Diane
M. Snow of the England London Mission, Hyde Park Family History Centre
(snowd@math.byu.edu , dms34@juno.com )
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These notes with active Internet links are posted on
the Utah Valley PAF Users Group website http://uvpafug.org under
Class Outlines , Don's Listings , and
are linked on the Hyde Park Family History Centre website http://www.hydeparkfhc.org under Events. Many other class
notes for family history are linked on both sites also.
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This class will discuss and demonstrate
some programs that are freeware or inexpensive shareware for
genealogy.
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Freeware means completely free
with no "nag" screens; can use and give them freely to others
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Shareware means that if you like it and want to use
it regularly, you should send a specified donation (usually small)
to the author at the address given in the program.
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OpenSource means freeware including the source
code so you can edit and distribute the program, if you know
programming
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Nearly all of the following programs are
freeware.
GENEALOGY DATABASE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS
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PAF 5.2 -- http://www.familysearch.org/
-- Genealogy program from LDS Church; can get help from any Family History
Centre for it
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PAF Companion 5.2 -- http://www.familysearch.org/ -- Free trial
version, helps with printing and publishing from PAF 5.2; gives additional
reports such as other styles of ancestor and descendant charts and fan
charts
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Legacy 6 -- http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/
-- Standard version is freeware, many good features
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RootsMagic -- http://www.rootsmagic.com/ --
Trial version, many good features
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Ancestral Quest -- http://www.ancquest.com/ -- Trial
version, many good features
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Smart Genealogy -- http://freewareapp.com/smartgenealogy_download/
-- Some different report forms
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PhpGedView -- http://www.phpgedview.net/
-- On- and offline genealogy program to generate web pages from
your data; requires PHP (which is also free)
OTHER
GENEALOGY PROGRAMS AND DATABASES
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Addnote -- http://www.rootsweb.com/~gumby/ged.html
-- utility to add a note to every record in a GEDCOM
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Addsour
-- http://www.rootsweb.com/~gumby/ged.html
-- utility to add a source to every record in a GEDCOM
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GENViewer
Lite
-- http://mudcreeksoftware.com/genviewer.htm
-- utility to read and analyze GEDCOM's or databases from several other
programs
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OnePageGenealogy
-- http://roots.cs.byu.edu/pedigree/
-- Makes pdf pedigree and/or descendant files of large
GEDCOM's
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Parish
Locater
-- http://www.parloc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
-- Program and database of 15,000 parishes in the United
Kingdom
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Parish Locater for Windows -- http://web.onetel.net.uk/~gdlawson/parfind.htm
-- Program and database of 25,000 parishes in the United
Kingdom
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FamilySearcher
-- http://myweb.cableone.net/kevinowen3/FamilySearcher.htm
-- Searches IIGI and several other web sites for names in a GEDCOM
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GEDCOM Viewer -- http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=90339 --
OpenSource program for GEDCOM
files
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OurTimelines --
http://ourtimelines.com/
--Makes timeline of world
events and up to 10 events of your own ancestor's life
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WinTree -- http://pagesperso-orange.fr/herve.decrock/m1a.html
-- Show large pedigree and descendant charts
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Pedigee
Viewer -- http://labs.familysearch.org/ --
Trial release of new FamilySearch program by LDS Church to view large pedigree
and descendant charts
GRAPHICS PROGRAMS
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Adobe Reader 8 -- http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/
--
Reader for pdf files
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FastStone Capture -- http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/mmedia/FastStoneCapture.html
-- Screen capture utility, including captures of entire scrolling windows;
5.3 is the last freeware version
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FastStone Image Viewer -- http://www.faststone.org/download.htm
-- Good
image viewer
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Irfanview -- http://www.irfanview.com/ -- Photo editor and
slideshower, many features including batch conversions
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PhotoFiltre -- http://photofiltre.free.fr/frames_en.htm
-- Photo editor
with many features
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Shutterfly Studio -- http://www.shutterfly.com/studio/overviews.jsp
-- Photo editor with many features
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WinGIMP -- http://www.wingimp.org/about.php -- Windows
interface for
GIMP photo editing software, like PhotoShop, but free
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Picasa -- http://picasa.google.com/#utm_source=en-us-more&utm_campaign=en-pic&utm_medium=et
-- Google's free photo editor and organizer
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Namexif -- http://www.digicamsoft.com/ -- Extracts date and
time the digital photo was taken and puts it at the front of the file name; sorting then
puts them in chronological order
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Rename-It! -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/renameit/
-- Batch
renamer, particularly helpful for renaming photos
SOUND PROGRAMS
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Audacity -- http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
-- Sound recorder and editor
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WavePad -- http://wavepad.en.softonic.com/
-- Sound
recorder and editor
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Skype -- http://www.skype.com/download/ -- Program to talk for
free with other Skype users worldwide, small charge to call land and mobile
phones worldwide; requires broadband connection and calls are made
through your computer
TEXT PROGRAMS
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OpenOffice 2.3 -- http://www.openoffice.org/
-- OpenSource
office programs compatible with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and others
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PDF995 -- http://www.pdf995.com/ -- Installs as another
"printer" in your print menu, select it to print anything to pdf format
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Free PDF to Word Converter -- http://www.hellopdf.com/download.php
-- Converts pdf to text files to copy, edit, or use in
genealogy
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TextPad -- http://www.textpad.com/ -- Text editor
for text, rtf's, and other types
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Transcript -- http://www.jacobboerema.nl/en/Freeware.htm
--
Helpful
in transcribing from images of handwritten documents, keeps image and your
typed text in sync
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Eudora Email -- http://www.eudora.com/ -- Email reader
with many features; working on OpenSource version
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Thunderbird Email -- http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/thunderbird/
-- Email reader with many helpful add-ons
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Pegasus Mail -- http://www.pmail.com/
-- Email program with many features
COMPUTER UTILITIES
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BelArc Advisor -- http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
-- Utility to analyze and list your computer's hardware and software
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Clipboard Magic -- http://www.cybermatrix.com/clipboard_magic.html
-- Allows saving multiple items on clipboard
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BurnAwareFree -- http://www.glorylogic.com/ -- Good CD
burner
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DupKiller -- http://www.dupkiller.net/index_en.html
-- Fast
program to find all the duplicate files on your computer
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Power Defragmenter -- http://vistarewired.com/2007/02/15/defragment/ -- Food and fast defragger for your
hard drives
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Double Explorer -- http://www.insmart.com/freesw/index.html -- Opens two copies of Windows Explorer for
ease in checking, copying, moving, and deleting files
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JustZipIt -- http://free-backup.info/justzipit.html
--
Simple zip/unzip file compression program
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TreePad Lite -- http://www.treepad.com/treepadfreeware/
-- Personal information manager (PIM) and organizer in tree
format
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Cathy -- http://www.mtg.sk/rva/ -- Extremely fast, simple,
file cataloguer and searcher for your computer
CONCLUSION
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There
are many other helpful freeware or shareware programs that are useful in
family history -- see for example
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Many
of the freeware programs are better than the corresponding commercial
programs
Return to the Hyde
Park Family History Centre Home Page or the Events Page or the Utah Valley PAF Users Group Home
Page or Don's Class Listings Page .