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
GENEALOGY DATABASE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS

  1. PAF 5.2 -- http://www.familysearch.org/ -- Genealogy program from LDS Church; can get help from any Family History Centre for it
  2. 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 
  3. Legacy 6 -- http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/ -- Standard version is freeware, many good features
  4. RootsMagic -- http://www.rootsmagic.com/ -- Trial version, many good features
  5. Ancestral Quest -- http://www.ancquest.com/  -- Trial version, many good features
  6. Smart Genealogy -- http://freewareapp.com/smartgenealogy_download/  -- Some different report forms
  7. 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

  1. Addnote -- http://www.rootsweb.com/~gumby/ged.html -- utility to add a note to every record in a GEDCOM
  2. Addsour -- http://www.rootsweb.com/~gumby/ged.html -- utility to add a source to every record in a GEDCOM
  3. GENViewer Lite -- http://mudcreeksoftware.com/genviewer.htm -- utility to read and analyze GEDCOM's or databases from several other programs
  4. OnePageGenealogy -- http://roots.cs.byu.edu/pedigree/ -- Makes pdf pedigree and/or descendant files of large GEDCOM's
  5. Parish Locater -- http://www.parloc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ -- Program and database of 15,000 parishes in the United Kingdom
  6. Parish Locater for Windows -- http://web.onetel.net.uk/~gdlawson/parfind.htm -- Program and database of 25,000 parishes in the United Kingdom
  7. FamilySearcher -- http://myweb.cableone.net/kevinowen3/FamilySearcher.htm -- Searches IIGI and several other web sites for names in a GEDCOM
  8. GEDCOM Viewer -- http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=90339 -- OpenSource program for GEDCOM files
  9. OurTimelines -- http://ourtimelines.com/  --Makes timeline of world events and up to 10 events of your own ancestor's life
  10. WinTree -- http://pagesperso-orange.fr/herve.decrock/m1a.html  -- Show large pedigree and descendant charts
  11. Pedigee Viewer -- http://labs.familysearch.org/ -- Trial release of new FamilySearch program by LDS Church to view large pedigree and descendant charts

GRAPHICS PROGRAMS

  1. Adobe Reader 8 -- http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/ -- Reader for pdf files
  2. 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 
  3. FastStone Image Viewer -- http://www.faststone.org/download.htm -- Good image viewer
  4. Irfanview -- http://www.irfanview.com/ -- Photo editor and slideshower, many features including batch conversions
  5. PhotoFiltre -- http://photofiltre.free.fr/frames_en.htm  -- Photo editor with many features
  6. Shutterfly Studio -- http://www.shutterfly.com/studio/overviews.jsp -- Photo editor with many features
  7. WinGIMP -- http://www.wingimp.org/about.php -- Windows interface for GIMP photo editing software, like PhotoShop, but free
  8. Picasa -- http://picasa.google.com/#utm_source=en-us-more&utm_campaign=en-pic&utm_medium=et -- Google's free photo editor and organizer
  9. 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 
  10. Rename-It! -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/renameit/ -- Batch renamer, particularly helpful for renaming photos 

SOUND PROGRAMS

  1. Audacity -- http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ -- Sound recorder and editor  
  2. WavePad -- http://wavepad.en.softonic.com/ -- Sound recorder and editor
  3. 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

  1. OpenOffice 2.3 -- http://www.openoffice.org/ -- OpenSource office programs compatible with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and others
  2. PDF995 -- http://www.pdf995.com/ -- Installs as another "printer" in your print menu, select it to print anything to pdf format
  3. Free PDF to Word Converter -- http://www.hellopdf.com/download.php  -- Converts pdf to text files to copy, edit, or use in genealogy  
  4. TextPad -- http://www.textpad.com/ -- Text editor for text, rtf's, and other types 
  5. Transcript -- http://www.jacobboerema.nl/en/Freeware.htm -- Helpful in transcribing from images of handwritten documents, keeps image and your typed text in sync
  6. Eudora Email -- http://www.eudora.com/ -- Email reader with many features; working on OpenSource version 
  7. Thunderbird Email -- http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/thunderbird/  -- Email reader with many helpful add-ons 
  8. Pegasus Mail -- http://www.pmail.com/ -- Email program with many features

COMPUTER UTILITIES

  1. BelArc Advisor -- http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html -- Utility to analyze and list your computer's hardware and software
  2. Clipboard Magic -- http://www.cybermatrix.com/clipboard_magic.html -- Allows saving multiple items on clipboard
  3. BurnAwareFree -- http://www.glorylogic.com/ -- Good CD burner
  4. DupKiller -- http://www.dupkiller.net/index_en.html -- Fast program to find all the duplicate files on your computer
  5. Power Defragmenter -- http://vistarewired.com/2007/02/15/defragment/  -- Food and fast defragger for your hard drives
  6. Double Explorer -- http://www.insmart.com/freesw/index.html  -- Opens two copies of Windows Explorer for ease in checking, copying, moving, and deleting files
  7. JustZipIt -- http://free-backup.info/justzipit.html -- Simple zip/unzip file compression program
  8. TreePad Lite -- http://www.treepad.com/treepadfreeware/ -- Personal information manager (PIM) and organizer in tree format 
  9. Cathy -- http://www.mtg.sk/rva/ -- Extremely fast, simple, file cataloguer and searcher for your computer

CONCLUSION
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 .