Genealogy software
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Genealogy software is computer software used to collect, visualize, and publish genealogical data. At a minimum, genealogy software collects the date and place of an individual's birth, marriage, and death, and stores the relationships of individuals to their parents, spouses, and children. Additionally, most genealogy programs handle source citations, additional events in an individual's life, free-form notes, and photographs and other multimedia. Genealogy software programs can produce a variety of graphical charts and text reports, such as a pedigree chart, ahnentafel report, or Register report. Some desktop applications generate HTML pages for web publishing, and there are stand-alone web applications as well. Most genealogy programs can import and export using the GEDCOM industry standard.
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[edit] Features
Certain programs are geared towards specific religions, and will include additional fields relevant to that religion. Other programs focus on certain geographical regions. For example, having a field for the family's coat of arms is only relevant if the family comes from a part of the world that uses them.
Some programs allow for the import of digital photographs. Others focus on the ability to generate kinship charts. Some programs are more flexible than others in allowing for the input of children born out of wedlock.
There is currently a move to incorporate fields for the input of genealogical DNA test results, though this information can be added into the "Notes" field of almost all genealogy software.
While most programs and applications are "desktop-based", there are a number of new entries into the genealogy software market that are web-based. This allows for easier collaboration between multiple users as well as more flexible access.
Most genealogy applications focus on "fact management", meaning they allow you to enter and manage individuals, families, and events. But there are other tools available to the genealogist, including web-publishing programs, blogs, and research management tools like Clooz and FAMWISE.
[edit] Sharing
Most genealogy software will allow for the export of data in the GEDCOM format, which can then be shared with people using different genealogy software. Some genealogy applications (for example GEDitCOM for Macintosh and Family Historian for Windows) use GEDCOM internally and therefore work directly on GEDCOM data. Certain programs allow the user to restrict what information is shared, usually by removing information about living people for privacy purposes.
[edit] Types
Below is a short alphabetical list of programs, selected from the huge range of genealogy software.
[edit] Windows
[edit] Macintosh
[edit] Linux[edit] Java (cross-platform)[edit] Web-based Research Applications and Tools[edit] Web-based utilities allowing GEDCOM input
[edit] Webserving (available for multiple operating systems)
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