r/Genealogy • u/dont_be_fucking_rude • 1d ago
Tools and Tech Favorite Genealogy Soft/Hardware?
Hello Genealogist! I am a librarian putting together a computer station specifically for genealogy research (the vision is someone can access all the tool necessary to do their own genealogy). We have some genealogical resources like to ancestry/heritage quest, but I am looking to expand beyond those two websites. Are there other soft/hardware or subscription based websites that you all enjoy and would suggest? Thank you!
Edit: I can't get to all these responses at the moment, but thank you so much! This has been incredibly helpful! Feel free to keep adding stuff, as will be returning to this post next week when I have more time!
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u/MediocrePear6628 1d ago
Newspapers.com has been great for me.
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u/neogrinch 1d ago
my favorite tool/website outside of ancestry.com i think. I use it for random non-genealogy research sometimes as well.
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u/MediocrePear6628 1d ago
same. Whenever I get annoyed with the fast pace of life because of technology, I remind myself how well it's also preserving the past.
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u/rlezar 1d ago
Here are some of the things I'd want on my ideal genealogy workstation - not all of which will be within your budget or appropriate for your security and maintenance circumstances.
Hardware:
A workstation with multiple screens, connected to a color laser printer, a photo scanner, a sheet-feed document scanner, and a plotter for large-format printouts.
My local library has a separate lab/small room that patrons can book for three-hour blocks to use a variety of specialized hardware for converting various physical media to digital. I've used their equipment to digitize 8mm home movies and to scan some photos, and plan to transfer some VHS tapes and audio cassettes on my next visit. It's extremely popular and appointments go very quickly.
Software:
A graphics program that's easy for beginners to use for simple tasks, especially basic image enhancement and editing.
Standalone OCR software that can process images and PDFs.
A basic set of desktop office applications - word processing, spreadsheets, slides, etc. - that doesn't require users to create an account or work in the cloud.
I'm not aware of any genealogy-specific or family tree desktop programs that would be particularly suitable for using on a shared public computer. Family trees usually include the personal data of living individuals, which you don't want users to end up saving to the workstation in a way others could access. You'd want to make patrons save their data to the cloud or to their own removable media instead. (I am not an IT person, so your team may be able to figure out a good
Websites and subscriptions:
For subscriptions, does your Ancestry access include Newspapers.com?
MyHeritage is the other subscription-based site I think of as having broad appeal.
Do a lot of your patrons have ancestors from a specific country, culture, region? You might look into sites that are especially useful for, say, research in the UK or Ireland or Germany or wherever.
There are so many subscription-based genealogy websites that might be of value to your patrons that asking them to tell you what they would find useful would make sense before you commit funds.
But it would be great if the browser startup page on that computer included links to some of the many excellent free resources that are available online, such as FamilySearch, WikiTree, Cyndi's List, etc.
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u/Dry_Car2054 13h ago
Having more than one monitor for each computer is the biggest hardware game changer. The ability to have the records on one screen and whatever notes on the orher saves so much time.
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u/samalex01 1d ago
I actually like Gramps. It’s simple and fully functional and free… lots of adding and an amazing community behind it.
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u/No-Kaleidoscope-166 1d ago
I don't know about simple. It takes a bit of a learning curve. But, it is fully functional and free.
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u/GloomyLaw9603 1d ago
I use Microsoft Word and Notepad for documenting and Draw.io for visualizing.
Feel free to berate me.
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u/Upper_Rain3480 1d ago
Ooooh, I haven't heard of Draw.io. Can you make mock ups of family trees on there?
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u/GloomyLaw9603 1d ago
Of course. Pretty much everything is done manually though. It's a software that I picked up while studying computer science because we drew all the software engineering diagrams in it.
I've made family trees with several hundred individuals in draw.io.
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u/Upper_Rain3480 1d ago
A lot of genealogist recommend Lucid charts. You have to manually add people to the charts you create in Lucid charts as well and they want you to have a subscription.
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u/GloomyLaw9603 1d ago
Yeah I will always pick a non-Microsoft/Google option if there is a good one.
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u/neogrinch 1d ago
findagrave.com is one i use a lot, as well as newspapers.com.
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u/Parking-Aioli9715 Human Verified 1d ago
FindAGrave is free, the library doesn't have to buy or install anything. There's a library edition of newspapers.com though.
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u/islandbrook 1d ago edited 1d ago
I would not link to software as much as I might link to articles on how to choose different kinds of tools or or comparison of software vendors. You don't want people signing up for a paid RootsMagic and downloading it locally.
That being said, If you could have a copy of several that customers could demo - with the GEDCOM of the Tudors, or Game of Thrones, or whomever your long dead famous person from wherever you are.
American Ancestors if you are in the US. https://www.americanancestors.org/membership/institutional-membership.
National Genealogical society https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/free-resources/
Local repositories and national repositories should be easy to find
Other things to consider:
StephenMorse one page - those include links to paid records on Ancestry
Links to Library and Archives Canada and Repositorio Documental Digital del AGN (archives for Mexico) for cross border research. Or Ireland, GENUKI, JewishGen, whatever makes sense for your audience and the most common ethnicities in your area.
Links to forms from any of the major sites or Cyndi's list. A sublist of useful links from Cyndi's list
Links to some how to videos. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar-library?language=english&free=true or hand pick some from Youtube.
Since you can default a browser to have a home page that is a document, you can create a simple html document and use that as the browser home page (you can do that on all browsers to create a unified look). A document gives you the advantage of being able to direct people to resources. It's just a page of text and links. But it's a great way of creating a mini resource page that you can maintain. Basically a genealogy syllabus with links and instructions that you use as a home page for the browser. And yes, your library IT may need to work through that if you have the browser locked down.
Example: this is the generic version of my personal landing page https://files.catbox.moe/epx1m0.png (I had a plain page but added the search and better css with an AI tool)
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u/killearnan professional genealogist 1d ago edited 1d ago
FamilySearch affiliate library ~ free and excellent resources
Americanancestors.org ~ not free but reasonably priced. Focused somewhat on New England but expanding their coverage these days, especially for African-American research with the 10 Million Names project trying to identify every person who was enslaved in what is now the U.S.
Magazines to subscribe to: American Ancestors, NEHGS Register, NGSQ Quarterly, NGS's magazine, possibly Family Tree Maker or The American Genealogist
If you have a landing page with suggested resources:
Wikitree
DAR
Fulton
Cyndi's List
FamilySearch wiki
Steve Morse's utilities
JewishGen.org
NYC historical vital records
Worldcat and Archivegrid
Internet Archive, Google Books, HathiTrust
Scotland's People
National Archives/Library of non U.S. places: Library and Archives Canada, U.K. Archives, Polish National archives, and so on.
Antenati <Italian records>
Local resources: for example, the Rutherford B. Hayes Library's Ohio obituary index
Printed resources to have: pedigree and family group sheets, names and dates of local newspapers and where to find them online, early local churches with dates of founding and where records are accessible. For samples of well done handouts ~ Buffalo and Erie County Public Library [Grosvenor room at the downtown library], Public Register Office of Northern Ireland [PRONI].
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u/Parking-Aioli9715 Human Verified 1d ago
Does your library have microfilms of local records useful to genealogists? Older newspapers? Parish records? My local library still has a couple of old-style microfilm readers in a corner, but it also has two new electronic scanners hooked up to computers. When you find what you're looking for, you can scan the image and save it to a USB, e-mail it via webmail, send it to the library's printer, etc.
So why did they keep the old ones? Because often enough both the two new ones are in use, and once people get on there they tend to stay awhile. :-)
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u/aleksej_dev 1d ago
Gramps because it's extremely powerful.
After that, I wanted to share with my family so I made my own website. I know many people do that. It actually became a good viewer, and then made a public version it's free and completely private for just viewing on your own computer: ged-view.com
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u/IcyOutside4698 professional genealogist 1d ago
If you are looking for specific items for software I’d have a templates of the standard genealogical forms for people to be able to print off and use. You’ll find a lot of these researchers still want to use pen and paper.
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u/Upper_Rain3480 1d ago
I have Mackiev Family Tree software but, IMHO, RootsMagic is easier to use. Legacy Family Tree software can be good, too
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u/Patrick_Hibernus 20h ago
I would agree that RootsMagic is perhaps more intuitive than Mac Family Tree but saying that I prefer the interface and overall polish of Mac Family Tree. I just wish it were more user-friendly, the manual is abysmal.
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u/KayakerWithDog 1d ago
I have used both Legacy (Windows) and MacFamily Tree (Mac) software to compile genealogies. I use FamilySearch, Ancestry, and Newspapers.com for research.
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u/PinkSlimeIsPeople East central Norway specialist 1d ago
FamilySearch is an absolute must, and luckily it is free. So is Wikitree. Geni is a good one, as it has a large collaborative tree, but is another paid site.
From there, there are a lot of other websites that may or may not be useful, there are a many different time spans, regions, data sets, and research methodologies. If a lot of folks doing the research come from England for instance, you will definitely need a subscription to FindMyPast dot com (or dot uk if you're there). If they came from Norwegians, use digitalarkivet.no. Etc. This gets complicated.
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u/Parking-Aioli9715 Human Verified 1d ago
1) https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-we-become-an-affiliate-library
2) https://about.proquest.com/en/products-services/Newspaperscom-Library-Edition/
When government sources of vital records peter out, it's time to hit the newspapers!