Free Genealogy Software

I have been doing my family research off and on for the past 25 to 30 years. It all began when I was given copies of letters written by one of my many great-uncles (my grandfather had 5 brothers) and these letters were all about various parts of the family. But I needed to have a decent means of putting all these names into a family tree, and back in the 1980s, I simply did not have the means or the finances to make a decent family tree.

Then in 1998 I finally got online, got onto the internet and thats when my genealogy obsession began. Because with the internet came the resources - the software and the archives. Fortunately some family tree software was available for free so I downloaded some and tried them out.

It didn't take me long to find a favourite free genealogy program - one that was easy to use, was being updated regularly and had great product backup. I have never had major problems using this software and have been using it for the last 10 years. I personally think it is the best genealogy program around.

Image source - Personal Photo - Copyright to Serenia - A screenshot of my family tree. My great great grandparents on the left and going back one generation for each column moving toward the right. These names come from Milverton in Somerset and from various places in Devon, England. UNK = Unknown

This is a sample Image from Brothers Keeper. Specifically, this is a 3 generation Box Chart with pictures.

Brother's Keeper is a shareware program that is compatible only with Windows

Published by My Heritage dot Com, this is a free genealogy program and claims to be the most popular genealogy program in use today since it has been downloaded from the internet more than 6 million times and currently supports 35 languages.

The My Heritage team is based in Israel.

GRAMPS is an open source (and therefore free) genealogy software program, designed to be used on UNIX and LINUX based computers. Above is a sample screenshot for a family pedigree. GRAMPS stands for Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming System.

Legacy has been around since the 1990s and in 2001 when I discovered it, the Legacy software in use at that time was version 3. Today in 2011, the latest software version is Legacy 7.5.

The company has had a policy right from the start to have a basic or standard download available for free and a deluxe version available for purchase.

This is the software I have been using since I discovered it in 2001 - and yes I have always used the FREE (standard) version. I personally think it is the best genealogy software around. It is available for both Windows and Mac as well as UNIX and LINUX under a Windows shell.

So far Legacy has been translated into 7 European languages with 8 other languages currently in development.

The above screenshot is a personal screenshot of my BUSSON family line from Somerset in England - dated to the 1600's.

While there seems to be no screenshots available of the PAF software - after all it is a free download from the Family Search website - this is a screen capture of the Family Search entry page - the first page where everyone starts looking for family records.

All information on this website, comes in long long lists - indexed to surnames and then alphabetized. It is not uncommon to have to go through 10, 15 or 20 pages (with 100 names to each page) looking for your specific ancestor. And the less information you have on your ancestor, the harder it is to find them.

PAF is compatible with both Windows and Mac computers.