hcj@lzsc.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) (03/06/90)
I recently requested from the net information on Geneology Programs.
I have and Atari, but also emulate MAC and PC. So I was interested with
all three as sources. This started when My Uncle sent me a data base on
FHS (Family History System, IBM). It worked, but seemed clutzy. (see
other comments below). I downloaded both GEN_PLUS and RELTREE (both ST)
from Genie. GEN_PLUS is build on a data base program and kept crashing.
RELTREE also screwed up quickly on my entries. It seemed very confused
about establishing families.
All three were much more interested in index numbers rather than names
as keys to the system. I did not like this.
The Major responses were that The Mormon Church underwrites a program
Personal Ancestral File (PAF). This is availiable for IBM and MAC.
($35 and THEY pay the shipping). I bought the MAC version. Its very
nice.
Below are comments from the many responders. I thank you all for writing.
Howard C. Johnson
ATT Bell Labs
att!lzsc!hcj
hcj@lzsc.att.com
=======COMMENTS from WRITERS ====
The best genealogy program on the market is
FAMILY ROOTS
Quinsept, Inc.
P.O. Box 216
Lexington, MA 02173
1-800-637-ROOT or (617) 641-2930
I have it and it's a pleasure to use and it'll do anything you'd
ever want to do in terms of genealogy. The support is also
great and there is even a Quinsept User Group to help out. Give'em
a call and they'll send you information on their line of genealogy
software (which runs on everything from IBM PC, Macintosh, Apple ][,
Commodore 64/128, TRS-80, etc. all optimized to their platform, but
with exchangable databases)
I recently downloaded (from CompuServe; GO ROOTS), a shareware program called
"Brother's Keeper." I have tried several "free" genealogy packages, and until
now, have found them cumbersome to use and unable to handle "special"
situations (e.g. multiple spouses).
There are many genealogy packages available. There are several tolerable
PD packages out there, but for $35 you can buy a first-rate package called
Personal Ancestral File (PAF) that the Mormon Church publishes. You can
order by phone - call the Latter Day Saints' Family History Library in
Salt Lake City and they can probably direct you to the right people.
(The Mormons are heavy into genealogy for religious reasons, but they are
remarkably nice about helping all us J. Random family historians, too...)
COMMSOFT up in the Bay Area somewhere publishes Roots III, which is arguably
the cadillac of genealogy packages. If you buy it from them it will cost
around $300 (depending on what utilities you order), but you can save $50
by ordering from one of the mail order catalogues.
I used PAF until I had about 2500 people on file, then switched to Roots
because I wanted the fancy footnoting and book-generating features it has.
(That's right - Roots III will turn your data into a formatted, publishable
family history...)
MAC & IBM PC:
There are two good ones. One is Personal Ancestral File from
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (The Mormons)
GEnealogical Cept
Ancestral File Operations Unit
50 East North Temple St
Salt Lake City, UT 87150
Costs $35 for which you get a reasonable manual, 3 or 4 program disks and
extra disks and labels for your data and backups. It's a great bargain for
the money. Quite a competent program, easy to use, well developed with no
tremendous bugs in it.
The other one that's really excellent--much more flexible and adaptable is
Roots III. However, it costs $300.
MAC:
I have written a genealogy stack for people who do much research. It will keep
track of family, individual, and pedigree records, as well as having
templates for raw data, such as marriage, birth, census, etc. It is called
Genealogy 1.1 and is available on any of the main online services. For
keeping record of formal data in family record and pedigree form, as well
as some research notes, I recommend the Personal Ancestral File program
put out by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I haven't used the stack, but there is a geneology hypercard stack
in the info-mac/hypercard directory at sumex-aim.stanford.edu. If
you don't already know, you can do anonymous ftp to that site. Hope
this helps. You may want to seek out someone who has used it, though.
I recently posted this same query to the net and was inundated with replies.
99% said use "PAF- Personal Ancestor File" from the Church of the Latter Day
Saints (the mormons).
It is only 35 dollars (plus shipping) and is really great. Though it
is a port of a PC program it is very well done. Very Mac'ish. Entry
and editing are extremely good. There are lots of output options.
It is oriented towards printing Pedigree charts (ie show me a tree
of my ancestors). It can print descendant charts (more like
traditional family trees) but thse are printed as nested text, not as
a tree.
On the PC there is a shareware program called Brothers Keeper that
will take the files generated by PAF (these files have aparently become
the standard genealogy interchange format) and print a traditional
family tree.
THe only drwaback is that the database entries are weighted towards Mormons.
Their are entries for baptism, bonding-to-spouse, and other christian/mormon
rituals. THere is a commercial product (name escapes me at the moment but it
is advertised in the back of all the usual Mac Magazines) that is supposedly
a liscenced version of PAF that has been extended to better support non-mormons.
The problem is they want more than $150 for it, which seems a bit out of line
given the price of PAF.
IBM PC PROGRAM:
I am using a shareware program called Family History. The entry is
simple.
Editing is no problem, just reference the record number assigned by
the program which corresponds to the individual. To make your own
life easier, print out a list of names and record numbers so you do
not have to constantly refer back to the screen which provides that
The software package I have is PAF 2.2 from the LDS church. It doesn't have
any fancy pull-down menus and stuff like that but it sure does the job.