Personal Life Media

Transcript

In each episode I’m going to give you the tools you need to uncover your family tree in QUICK and EASY ways. And that’s really what this show is all about: Discovering your family history. You don’t have to be a Phd, be retired or even have more than an hour here and there to uncover the stories and the people that in amazing ways have shaped your life.

Stay tuned to each episode and I will make genealogy easy for you by bringing you inspiring stories from those who’ve already taken the first steps into uncovering their family tree, and then arming you with the tools to get the job done and have a lot of fun doing it.

Everyone has a family, which means everyone has a family history, and that history is part of World History. Isn’t it time to claim your place in history?

In our first segment in this episode my guest is Margery Bell, Assistant Director of the Oakland Regional Family History Center, and she is the author of Line Upon Line: A Beginner’s Guide to Genealogy. I talk with her about how she first got started in researching her family history, some amazing and inspiring stories of genealogy serendipity, and her advice for those who want to get started.

Then in our second segment we jump right in and get you started on your own personal family history journey. There’s no time like the present to get started!

Genealogy Made Easy - Getting a Database

Whether you want to build an elaborate family tree, or just want to know who your direct ancestors were and some of the stories about them, the place to start is to get yourself a family history database. You don’t have to be highly computer savvy to use one. They are VERY intuitive and user friendly. Basic data entry skills is all you need.

Now I know you’re anxious to get started finding out about the folks who came before you and contributed to putting you on this planet. But this step is key to long term success and enjoyment.

Having a family history database will keep all of your findings organized, with proper background information on where you found the data, as well provide a place to pull together photographs, documents and everything else you discover along the way. It’s like painting a piece of furniture. A little prep work goes along way to a really nice finish.

Now there are lots of family history software programs out there, but you only need ONE, and all of them will serve your basic needs. So I’m going to give you my top choices. It’s you’re decision how much you want to spend and how sophisticated you want your database to be.

If FREE is your price range, and you’re looking for a place to stay organized with streamlined screens to work in without a lot of start up time, then Family Tree Legends Online is perfect for you. But don’t let FREE fool you into thinking it won’t do the job. Legends offers lots of family history charts; custom reports; helps you share your data and pictures on a CD or DVD; allows you to back up your files to CD or DVD; and includes genealogy programs for Palm handheld devices and the Pocket PC. I’ve used it and it’s great. You can download the software FREE from http://www.familytreelegends.com/downloads.

If you’re a PC user and are willing to spend $30-40 dollars, there are several really good and easy to use options available. You can order the product or purchase a digital download which will save you some money. And frankly, I really don’t think you need to the physical boxed product. All the help you need is online. And all of these products offer a free demo that you can download to try it out before you buy.

The top seller is Family Tree Maker which is from the folks at Ancestry.com which is the largest online records website which we’ll be talking a lot more about in future episodes. Family Tree Maker runs $39.95 and can be purchased at http://www.familytreemaker.com/ This is probably the most commonly used database out there.

If you’re looking for great printed reports that you can share then RootsMagic 3 is a great choice. It’s available as a digital download for $29.95 from their website at http://www.rootsmagic.com/

Some of the differences you’ll find between these products is the types of reports and charts they produce. So if that’s important to you you can try the demos and see which you like. But again, I really don’t think you can go wrong with any of these products. They are all well established and fully supported.

And I want to stress, it’s just important that you take the steps and get started. Don’t get bogged down in analyzing software forever. If you really want to change to a different program down the road you can always do that.

Now if you’re a Mac user I have two solid programs you could use. Again, both of these programs offer free demos if you want to test drive them.

iFamily for Leopard is the most affordable at $29.95 and is available at http://www.ifamilyforleopard.com/

Reunion 9 is fairly pricey at $99.95 and it’s available at http://www.leisterpro.com/ If you’re interested in Reunion 9, I highly recommend that you listen to Episode 51 of my more advanced Family History show called The Genealogy Gems Podcast. In that episode you can listen to a review of Reunion 9 by my contributing partner Ben Sayer, the MacGenealogist, who’s an expert on everything Mac for family historians. And if you want to compare iFamily against Reunion to see what you’re getting for your money, you can also listen to Ben’s review of iFamily in Genealogy Gems Episode 53.

Now when you fire up your new software database it’s going to ask you to fill in information about yourself, then your parents and so on. In family history we always start with ourselves, and then work our way backward. So enter everything you know. By just enter data on you and your parents, you’ll very quickly get a feel for how the program works. And once you get everything in there that you know, go ahead and try and print out a pedigree chart.

And there’s our first family history term Pedigree chart. You’ve probably heard the term used for pure bred dogs, but Pedigree just means lineage or ancestral line. It shows your parents, grand parents, great grandparents, etc. No aunts, uncles or siblings. Just the folks you directly descend from. I’ll keep a glossary of terms going in the show notes as we go along to help you out.

Another type of chart your database can print is a Descendant Chart, which shows all the people who descend from one person. So if you had two kids, your descendant chart would show you at the top, and two children directly under you.

So enter what you know, and once you’ve got all that in there, play around with your new database by printing out a pedigree chart and a descendant chart. And next week we’ll start uncovering more clues to your family history.