GENEALOGY SOFTWARE PROGRAMS

As the introductory quotation suggested, we do not have all the time in the world. We truly want to finish things in our lifetime. This chapter demonstrates the effectiveness and ultimate savings in time in using a good genealogy computer software program to accomplish the above tasks.

Since you may already own and use different programs, or no program at all, this lesson will allow you to experiment with your own program as you go along, or to consider various options in other programs. Specific responses to your questions for using the various programs will be made available at the discussion boxes on our class home page if you feel you cannot find a way to accomplish a specific task on your own program.

These "genealogy computer program aids" have become necessary since genealogy computer programs are constantly being changed. It will allow program features to be updated as we are notified of them.

You may find it interesting to learn how to use Ancestral Quest. The programmer who produced the Personal Ancestral File (PAF) donated his program to FamilySearch. Therefore, you will see that Ancestral Quest (AQ) is very similar in its core features to PAF, but has many more options to offer. Whereas PAF will be discounted in a few years, AQ is constantly being updated. You may reach that home page by entering www.ancquest.com where you will see the image below. Notice you can download a limited free version as well.