Genealogy Utility Programs
Some handy little software programs to help your research
There are all kinds of genealogy programs, and not just the ones to house your growing collection of relatives and their information. Utilities can be helpful too.
Genealogy software tends to make you think of programs for storing and organizing your ongoing family tree of ancestors and relations. But there are other kinds of programs that you might find helpful as well.
If you do your research or record-keeping on a computer, you should think about adding a few more programs to your system besides the usual family tree software.
These types of programs are usually quite specific in their tasks, so you might not really have much need for their services. It will depend on what you are researching and how you are doing it.
Some of these programs are available for free by download, but some others will require you buy them. Even so, they likely offer a free trial version that you can test before you fork over any money.
Clooz - This is a versatile and general program that you use to keep track of all those bits of information you find. You won't likely always have time to track down every lead, so you can enter the names and documents in Clooz so you can record the "clue" and follow-up on it later. Clooz is particular helpful if you are going through records that may contain information on various people or places at the same time (like census records or newspaper archives).
GedHTree - Your family tree software may be able to turn your pedigree charts into HTML coded web pages, but not all programs have this function. Or you just may not like the design of the output. Having a separate utility that can take your GEDCOM files and convert them into a navigable system of web pages can be very handy if you plan on putting your tree online. There are actually many different programs that can do this, but I've chosen one good one to illustrate this type of utility. (read my review of GedHTree)
Family Atlas - Plot your family history in a geographical way, and see how your ancestors migrated over the decades. A particularly helpful tool if your family is spread out all over the globe.
Foto Tagger - A very neat program that I have just discovered for working with photo images. You can use this program to add notes and captions to your scanned photos, without actually making changes to the photo image itself. Put name tags on family photos, that you can display or hide. Very helpful if you don't want to make changes to the original photo file.
Bygones - Why get bogged down with endless paper notes? Bygones can help you organize your ongoing research with a collection of templates, databases and folders. You can keep track of the sources you've found and researched, sources you need to locate, ongoing correspondence and much more.
