FREEWARE FOR FAMILY HISTORY:  SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

©2015 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Notes This page was last updated 2015-01-02.
Go to  Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page , Don's Class Notes Page , Don's Supplementary Class Notes Page .
  1. Instructor is Donald R. Snow (snowd@math.byu.edu) of Provo and St. George, Utah. 
  2. These Freeware Supplementary Notes are an annotated list of 50-60 free programs that help with family history.  The Freeware For Family History class notes page has more detailed information on 5 or 6 of them.  Both sets of notes are posted on Don's Family History Notes Page -- http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html -- with active Internet links. 
  3. Tips:  (1)  To have an icon on your desktop to open your browser and go directly to these notes drag the icon from in front of the address in your browser onto your desktop.  (2)  To open a link from here in another tab, but keep your place in these notes, hold down the Control key while clicking the link.
  4. Terms used
    1. "Freeware" refers to computer programs that you can use freely and give copies to anyone else; there are usually no "nag" screens.
    2. "Shareware" refers to programs that you can try out and use; if you like them and plan to use them regularly, you should send a specified donation (usually small) to the author at the address given in the program.
    3. "Portable" means the program can be run from a flashdrive and doesn't have to be installed on the computer, so you can use it at home or at a FHC or anywhere else 
    4. "App" means application, i.e. software; the term is used more often with mobile devices
    5. "Open Source" refers to freeware which includes the source code, so you can edit it, if you know programming.
  5. Most of the programs on the list below are freeware and many could be listed in two or more categories -- Information and the websites are given.

    6. COMMENTS AND CAVEATS ABOUT FREEWARE

  6. Be careful when downloading and installing freeware -- Read before clicking -- Some companies try to trick you into downloading and installing programs you don't think you are getting (bloatware) -- I seldom use the "express", "standard", or "recommended" installation feature since those usually add bloatware or tool bars and make that program the default program for that type of file 
  7. Programs that will install collections of free programs that you select from their large lists 
    1. Ninite -- https://ninite.com/ -- it sets up an installer for the whole collection at once and will update your programs, too
    2. Free Apps -- http://www.freenew.net/ -- it installs them all for you; also checks for updates 
  8. Many freeware programs are better than the corresponding commercial programs.
    1. For free alternatives to commercial programs try  http://alternativeto.net/
    2. For open source alternatives to commercial programs try  http://www.osalt.com/
  9. Portable Apps -- http://portableapps.com/ -- contains several good freeware apps and allows them to run from your flash drive so you can take them with you to a FHC, for example 
  10. Many additional freeware and shareware programs
    1. http://www.softpedia.com/ -- Categories of freeware
    2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source -- Article and list of open source freeware
    3. http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/index.html -- List of freeware
    4. http://www.fsf.org/ -- The Free Software Foundation
    5. http://sourceforge.net/ -- The largest open source software (freeware) development site
    6. http://www.oldversion.com/ -- Old Versions of software
    7. http://www.oldapps.com/ -- Old Apps - older versions of freeware and some commercial apps
  11. To find many more such websites do a Google search for terms like "genealogy freeware" or "free software for family history" without the quotes)

    RECORD MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS

  1. PAF 5.2 -- http://www.familysearch.org/ -- No longer available to download from FamilySearch.org, but is available for free from http://personal-ancestral-file.software.informer.com/5.2/ -- Also, all versions of PAF, including old versions and up to 5.2, are on the CD from the LDS Church Distribution Centers; many FHCs have copies; all these old programs now install in Windows 7 so you can use them to convert old PAF files to GEDCOM to import into other newer software
  2. Ancestral Quest -- http://www.ancquest.com/ -- Free version  is Ancestral Quest Basics and can use the full version for 60-day free trial; can use it to link to and download from Family Tree; full version is also free in FHC's
  3. RootsMagic -- http://www.rootsmagic.com/ -- Free version is RootsMagic Essentials; can link to and download from Family Tree; full version is free in FHC's
  4. Legacy -- http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/ -- Free version is Standard version; full version is free in FHC's
  5. Family Tree Builder -- http://www.myheritage.com/family-tree-builder -- MyHeritage is now a FamiylSearch Partner and have good search capabilities; program is free and LDS can sign up with MyHeritage for free 
  6. Smart Genealogy -- http://freewareapp.com/smartgenealogy_download/ -- Free genealogy program; can import/export Excel and GEDCOM files

    OTHER GENEALOGY PROGRAMS AND DATABASES

  7. RecordSeek (TreeConnect) -- http://recordseek.com -- Very helpful to save sources in your FamilySearch Family Tree account
  8. TreeSeek -- http://www.treeseek.com -- Many helpful charts from your FamilySearch Family Tree data; also has electronic card games played with cards with your ancestors' pictures on them
  9. RootsMapper -- https://rootsmapper.com/ -- shows migration of your ancestors using data from Family Tree
  10. Puzzilla Descendant Viewer -- https://puzzilla.org/ -- helpful way to visualize your cousins (descendants of your ancestors)
  11. GENViewer Lite -- http://mudcreeksoftware.com/genviewer.htm -- free and commercial versions; very fast and helpful to read and analyze GEDCOM's and databases; searches for information in all genealogy databases on your computer, regardless of program
  12. OurTimelines -- http://ourtimelines.com/ -- Free website that makes timelines of world events during your ancestor's life; can be personalized with up to 10 events of your own ancestor's life; can save as pdf or html file and link it into your genealogy program; events are 1000 AD to current year 
  13. OnePageGenealogy -- http://roots.cs.byu.edu/pedigree/ -- freeware to make large pedigree/descendant pdf charts from GEDCOM's; website has the password needed so a print shop can print it for you
  14. Maps of United Kingdom parishes
    1. http://maps.familysearch.org/ -- maps, parishes, jurisdictions, helps
    2. Parish Locator -- http://www.parloc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ -- Program and database of 15,000 parishes in the United Kingdom; draws maps with nearby parishes
    3. Parish Locator for Windows -- http://web.onetel.net.uk/~gdlawson/parfind.htm -- Program and database of 25,000 parishes in the United Kingdom
  15. Maps of US country boundary changes (like AniMap) -- http://www.mapofus.org/
  16. Addnote -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gumby/ged.html -- free utility to add a note to every record in a GEDCOM
  17. Addsour -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gumby/ged.html -- free utility to add a source to every record in a GEDCOM

    18. COMPUTER UTILITIES

  18. Everything -- http://www.voidtools.com/ -- Very fast desktop search program for files on your computer; very helpful to search, launch, and organize files on your computer
  19. Windows Explorer -- in all versions of Windows - icon is the file folder -- helpful in many ways, but especially in renaming files since you can see what's in the file without opening it -- just click to show the Preview Panel (upper right corner) 
  20. Q-Dir -- http://www.softwareok.com/ -- Freeware two or more panel Windows Explorer-type program for file maintenance such as checking, copying, moving, and deleting files
  21. Bulk Rename Utility -- http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php -- Very good batch file renamer; shows the new file names before actually changing them; lots of renaming features so it takes getting used to
  22. Namexif -- http://www.digicamsoft.com/ -- Simple renamer for digital photos that puts date and time from metadata at start of file name, so alphabetizing arranges photos in chronological order; can add other descriptive terms after the date and time
  23. Glary Utilities --  http://www.glaryutilities.com/  -- Cmputer utilities to keep your computer running smoothly; free for home use; will check for updates and install them for all programs on your computer without fear of viruses or bloatware 
  24. BelArc Advisor -- http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html -- Goes through your entire computer and lists all hardware, software, and license keys
  25. Dropbox -- http://www.getdropbox.com/ -- Synchronizes whatever you put in your Dropbox folder to your other computers via the Internet
  26. Ninite -- https://ninite.com/ -- You select what you want from many free programs and it sets up an installation file for all of them for you
  27. FileSeek -- http://www.fileseek.ca/Download/ -- Free and fast search engine for text inside files on your computer
  28. DupKiller -- http://www.snapfiles.com/get/dupkiller.html -- Fast program to find all the duplicate files on your computer
  29. Piriform Defragler -- http://www.piriform.com/defraggler -- Good defragger for your hard drives
  30. Advanced SystemCare Free -- http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html?Str=download  -- Helpful computer utilities
  31. JustZipIt -- http://free-backup.info/justzipit.html -- Simple zip/unzip file compression program
  32. WinHTTrack -- http://www.httrack.com/ -- Will download all or part of an entire website for backing up and offline browsing 
  33. PageNest Free -- http://dailyfreeware.net/2009/08/20/pagenest-free-edition-321/ -- Website copier for offline reading and backing up
  34. Ditto -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/ditto-cp/ -- OpenSource freeware clipboard extender to have more than one item on the clipboard; highly rated
  35. Resoph Notes -- http://www.resoph.com/ResophNotes/Welcome.html -- Freeware notes program that acts like a clipboard extender
  36. Clipboard Magic -- http://www.cybermatrix.com/clipboard_magic.html -- Clipboard extender; saves multiple clip items and can save to various clip lists
  37. PhraseExpress -- http://www.phraseexpress.com/ -- Freeware program that expands phrases when you type the first few letters
  38. Karen's Replicator -- http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp -- Freeware to backup your data from one location to another
  39. ImgBurn -- http://ask-leo.com/imgburn_free_cddvd_burning_tool.html -- Freeware CD/DVD image burner with instructions
  40. LogMeIn Free -- http://www.logmein.com (listed under Products) -- Allows you to control one computer through another over the Internet

    41. GRAPHICS PROGRAMS

  41. FastStone Capture -- version 5.3 is last freeware version (later versions are shareware) -- http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/mmedia/FastStoneCapture.html -- Excellent screen capture utility that allows saving in jpg, pdf, tif, and other formats; also captures entire scrolling screens
  42. FastStone Image Viewer -- http://www.faststone.org/download.htm -- Good image viewer that also has screen capture features, but not scrolling screen captures
  43. Irfanview -- http://www.irfanview.com/ -- Photo editor, converter, and slide shower; many features, including batch conversions
  44. Picasa 3 -- http://picasa.google.com/#utm_source=en-us-more&utm_campaign=en-pic&utm_medium=et -- Google's free photo organizer and editor; has facial recognition feature to help you organize and name people in photos
  45. GIMP -- http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html -- Open source photo editor -- GIMPShop is an interface that makes GIMP menus look and act like PhotoShop
  46. Awesome Duplicate Photo Finder -- http://www.duplicate-finder.com/photo.html -- checks through folders you tell it and finds possible duplicate photos; shows you the ones that are similar and percent they are alike so you can decide if you want to delete one

    47. SOUND AND VIDEO PROGRAMS

  47. Audacity -- http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ -- Excellent sound recorder and editor; complicated program, but basics are easy to use
  48. WavePad -- http://wavepad.en.softonic.com/ -- Sound recorder and editor
  49. PhotoFilmStrip -- http://www.photofilmstrip.org -- Click on the "en" (upper right-hand side) for English; very good free program to make "Ken Burns" style videos of your photos; can include a soundtrack
  50. VLC -- http://www.videolan.org/ -- Good media player, has adjustments to synchronize sound and video when they don't match
  51. Skype -- http://www.skype.com/download/ -- Free program to talk through your computer and the Internet - free to talk to other Skype users worldwide, small charge to talk to any land or cell phone worldwide; requires a broadband connection
  52. Listen N Write Free -- http://elefantsoftware-en.weebly.com/ -- plays audio, starts, stops, backs up, or goes forward with key strokes to help in transcribing

    53. TEXT AND OFFICE PROGRAMS

  53. Evernote -- http://evernote.com/ -- Freeware note program; synchronizes your notes between computers and stores your notes online so you can get to them anywhere you can get to the Internet; notes can be text, images, URL's, or webpages; has OCR indexing for pdf's; has apps for mobile devices
  54. Essential PIM --  http://www.essentialpim.com/?r=download -- Freeware personal information manager (PIM); good for appointments, calendars, To Do lists, etc.
  55. TreePad Lite -- http://www.treepad.com/treepadfreeware/ -- Freeware note and personal information manager (PIM), uses tree-format
  56. Notetab Lite -- http://www.notetab.com/ -- Freeware note program
  57. Jarte -- http://www.jarte.com/ -- Small, very fast, free text editor that handles txt and rtf
  58. LibreOffice -- http://www.libreoffice.org -- Powerful open source freeware office suite compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; updated more often than Apache OpenOffice -- http://www.openoffice.org/ -- which is similar 
  59. IBM Lotus Symphony office suite -- http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/lotusymp -- Free and compatible with MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
  60. Gnumeric spreadsheet -- https://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/  -- Open source spreadsheet compatible with Excel and many others
  61. NotePad++ -- http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm -- Very good open source text editor; useful for many formats
  62. Transcript -- http://www.jacobboerema.nl/en/Freeware.htm -- Helps in transcribing digitized handwritten documents, keeps image and your typed text in sync as you move down the page
  63. Adobe Reader X -- http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/ -- Free reader for pdf files
  64. PDF X-Change Viewer -- http://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-viewer -- free for private use, very helpful to edit and annotate pdf's; can fill in pdf forms; has OCR for pdf's (Optical Character Recognition) built in 
  65. PDF Split and Merge -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfsam/ -- Open source program to split or combine pdf files
  66. Sumatra PDF reader -- http://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html -- Good pdf reader, fast, easy to use
  67. Nitro PDF Reader -- http://www.nitroreader.com -- Good pdf reader with lots of features
  68. JOCR -- http://download.cnet.com/JOCR/3000-2192_4-10768898.html -- Freeware optical character recognition program for images of text on screen - small, fast, and works well, but requires that MS Word 2003 or later be installed (doesn't work with OpenOffice)
  69. Tinyspell -- http://tinyspell.m6.net/ -- Spell checker that works even in genealogy program notes
  70. Thunderbird Email -- http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/ -- Free open source email reader with many helpful features
    71.
Go to  Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page , Don's Class Notes Page , Don's Supplementary Class Notes Page .