Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Overview of Four Genealogy programs for the Mac

Dick Eastman has just published a newsletter about Overview of Genealogy Software for the Mac at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/09/genealogy-progr.html

Extracts from the Eastman article . . .
"I would contend that Macintosh has MORE genealogy programs available than does Windows. There are four well-known genealogy programs well-known genealogy programs written for the Macintosh:

Reunion 9 appears to be the most popular Macintosh genealogy program in North America. It works on both Intel and PowerPC Macs. It will also export data to an iPod so that you can carry your database with you in a shirt pocket. Reunion focuses on couples, or "family units".

iFamily for Leopard (formally for Tiger) is an excellent genealogy program developed by Keith Wilson in Australia. As Keith wrote on the program's web site, the program "is a family tree program with a difference because Apple users think differently." Unlike most other Macintosh genealogy programs, iFamily for Leopard focuses on individuals, not couples.

MacFamilyTree 5 is perhaps the most popular Macintosh genealogy program in Europe and has a growing customer base in North America as well. Developed in Germany, this program is available in German, English, French, Spanish, Norwegian, Dutch Swedish, Dansk, and Italian. MacFamilyTree includes a 3D Virtual Tree that has to be seen to be appreciated.

Personal Ancestry Writer II is a very popular, free genealogy program that does the basics. However, it lacks many of the more sophisticated features found in today's commercial programs. However, you certainly cannot argue with the price. Free is good! Personal Ancestry Writer II is an excellent selection if you only want the basic record keeping functions and can skip all the multimedia scrapbooks, mapping programs and other whiz-bang features of commercial programs. MacWorld reviewed this program last year.

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