Buying the right software that suits you is an important thing when starting your Family Tree.

My personal recommendation is The Family Tree Maker by Broderbund.
The set up is basicly like a book, On the first page you add the details about yourself, Name, when born and where, also add any marraige and children details, on the right hand side of page are tabs, there you will see your name your husbands name and any children if applicable, by clicking on your name it will lead you to page 2, where you will notice that your position has moved from the Wife to the child, underneath where your new position is add the names of any brothers and sisters you may have, in the place labeled Husband add your fathers name and relevant information, and in the place labeled Wife add the relevant information about your mother, once again look on the tabs at the right hand side and choose the next person you wish to add information about, thats all there is to adding information to your program.

What else does Family Tree Maker have to offer?
Next to the relative name on the main page, there are three buttons to choose from, More (meaning more information), Scrap book and other spouses,
What the buttons do?

More:
By clicking on the More button, you will find your self with 5 options to choose from.
1, Facts, Facts offers you the chance to add information that you regard as important dates, and comments and locations, so if you know that in 1900 your past relative faught in the Boer War, then you can add the relevant information, it doesn't have to be about an event, if you know that between 1900 and 1910 your past relative lived at a certain address, then you can add the relevant information there.
2, Address, Addresses is really designed for living relative, here you can add the Address and Phone Number of the relative you have selected.
3, Medical, Here is where you can add the height and weight and the cause of death (usually found on the death certificate) about the relative selected, you can alos add medical information, so if your relative was prone to fits, or was a diabetic or had any other medical ailments then you can add these comments, or if you like you like me add who was present at the death and where the death took place, or another choise is, if the person died under tragic or weird curcumstances, like my GGrandfather on my motherside being a person with an unstable mind he went wandering late at night in winter and was found dead in a trench of water, I found a cutting in a local paper relating to this so I added copied down what the newspaper wrote in the medical information part, in the end it is up to you.
4, Lineage, Here you add any titles that the chosen relative may have had, ie, Dr, Rev, Col, also if the person chose himself an aka, my G Uncle born John later became known as Jack. Here there is also a place to add if the selected person was adopted.
5, Notes, Here you can either jot down notes about the selected person, ie, what his known occupation was, or if you know more details about your relatives life then you can jot down a small biography about that person and make it an interesting read for future generations.

Scrap Book:
Here you can add as many or few pictures as you wish concerning the selected relative, you can have many picture showing them from birth through till their death, or selected picture showing important events christening, wedding, or in full uniform if they where played an roll in one of the many wars.

Other Spouses:
Here you can add if applicable any other spouse that the selected relative had due to being a widow or divorsed, also with each spouse you can add the children to right spouse, so when viewing your decendants tree it will show up that your selected relative did marry more that once and will show the children with their correct Mothers/Fathers.

Other Option buttons
Once your Family Tree starts growing, you can highlight your name click on Ancestors and you will bring up a page starting from yourself, it will show your mother/father, you fathers mother/father, your mothers mother/father and so on. Or you can go to the earliest relative, click on the decendants button and you will bring up a page of your earliest relative his wife and thier children, thier childrens children and so on till you have a full page of relative relating to the chosen one, you can print out your Family Tree in an attrctive manner and frame it for all to see.
Aunt and Uncle button.
With this option you can highlight your name click on the Aunt and Uncle button and you will come up with a list of everybody on your Family Tree, from your Mother/Father, Brother/Sister right down to your 10 times great Grandfather or Second Cousin even the wife of the Cousin 3 times removed, here you can figure out exactly what relationship that person is to you.

Calender
With the Calender you can keep a date of who Birthday it is, or aniversary and who old they will be, or how long they have been married, you can even figure out how old your 3 time GGrandfather would have been if he was still alive, well that is if you want to the choice is yours after all.
There are many more options on Family Tree Maker, too many for me to list, so its up to you to try it out, below I have given the web sire address so you can download a free demo.

I personally use Family Tree Maker by Broderbund, I find it easy to use, and Family Tree Maker is online, so if there is a time that you do get stuck then you can always check it up at the homepage at Family Tree Maker Online, there are also hints, tips and plenty of people with the Broderbund Family Tree Maker software searching for their lost relatives, maybe you can find your lost relatives?

Before you decide to rush out and buy your software, try going to Family Tree Maker Download Site and download a Free Demo of the Broderbund software so that you know if it is the right software for you, you can add up to 20 family names on the Demo, try it, what have you to lose?


If you have any information, Just E-mail me, and I'll check it out.

This Page is always under Construction
Last updated 17/8/2000

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