Here are the select set of resources you’ll need to explore your family’s history.
Start with Software
- IFamily for Mac is a genealogy application for people who think differently. Whereas other genealogy software tends to emphasize the family unit, this software's focus is on each individual person.
- About iFamily for Mac. IFamily for Mac is a richly featured Genealogy application with a healthy community of users. This is the genealogy application that Mac users have been waiting for! Whereas other genealogy software tends to emphasize the family unit, this software's focus is on each individual person.
Your genealogy software is the repository for all the information you discover. It’s the main tool in your genealogy toolbox. Which one you choose will likely depend primarily on whether you use a Windows PC or a Mac.
Free Family History Software For Mac Desktop
MacFamilyTree 9 - Genealogy for Mac. Discover and experience your personal family history, explore your origins, your ancestors, and how your family has evolved over the course of time. MacFamilyTree 9 offers you a wide range of options to capture and visualize your family history. Search the free FamilySearch archive, which contains billions.
Already Have Software?
Handy indexes of articles and videos by application are linked below for your convenience:
Still Looking for Software?
I’ve also created a couple of buyer’s guides to help you make a choice between software:
See my recommendations in the following sections.
Genealogy Software for Windows
I recommend RootsMagic 7 and Family Historian. There are many good alternatives though.
- Family Historian
- Family Tree Maker 2017
- Legacy Family Tree
- RootsMagic 7
Genealogy Software for Mac
- Family Tree Maker 2017 for Mac
- GEDitCOM II
- iFamily for Leopard
- MacFamilyTree 8 by Synium
- Reunion 12 by Leister Productions
Get Good Books
Setup Folders on Your Computer
You’ll need places to put archival copies of scanned documents, photos, and other files on your computer. This series of video screencasts will walk you, step-by-step, through setting up a folder system and putting files into it. They’re created on a Mac and take advantage of the powerful alias feature in Mac OS X, but most of the system will work well on Windows too.
Free Family History Software For Mac 2020
Get Information About Your Ancestors
Not all of the information about your relatives is online, so you’ll need to do some sleuthing in the real world. But, there is a wealth of information available online. My advice to you is to consider everything, but only trust it after you prove it. That said, these online databases provide a great source of leads! There’s some overlap between the records on these sites and they each have treasured family history that the others won’t. You can search for free to get an idea which holds the most (and most interesting) genealogy data for your ancestors.
Free Family History Software For Mac Download
- Fold3.com (Military Records)
- Newspapers.com
- NewspaperARCHIVES.com
- Find out how you are related to the rest of humanity at OneGreatFamily
There are tons more sites, but I want to keep this concise so that it’s most useful for you.