Free genealogy software

[avedis]

OK, I'll kick this one off with a few suggestions for software.

I tried one called PHPGedView, and I didn't like it very much. I forget what I didn't like about it. Now, I mostly use GeneWeb, and I sometimes use Lifelines, because it has a wide variety of report formats. Rather than enter data into two programs, I export a gedcom file from GeneWeb then import it into Lifelines to generate the reports.

All of the software I mentioned is free and is open source, and I think they all have versions for windows, macintosh and linux. You can download them from sourceforge.net.

Open source means that the program code is available, and if you are inclined to do so, you can write code to alter the programs. If you're not the kind of person to write code, you can just join the mailing lists and tell the developers what features you'd like to see, and maybe they or someone else will write the code for it.

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[Design_team]

Hi Avedis

One of the areas that we are working on the main site is the ability to make your own family tree and have relatives log in and input their data.
I looked at the PHPGedView you mentioned I think that will work. We might need to modify it a little bit.
any ideas or suggestions on what kind of features we can include.
thanks for your suggestions.

Design_team

[avedis]

That sounds like a good plan. Modifying the program is beyond my knowledge, but if you can do it, that would be great. I looked around at sourceforge, and I couldn't find anything that was designed for multiple databases with multiple groups of users.

I re-installed PGV to play with it. If you're thinking of adding features that it doesn't have, one thing that seems to be missing is a pdf report that shows all descendants of an individual, similar to the one that exists for showing ancestors.

[liz chater]

Hi All

I would have to recommend to all this fantastic package called Family Historian, details can be found at http://www.family-historian.co.uk/. This is such a versatile and brilliant piece of software, all the others that I used have now been binned!

I have no personal connection with the makers of this software, just that I am a converted happy user of it.

best wishes
Liz Chater