Here are the select set of resources you’ll need to explore your family’s history.
Free Mac Genealogy Software Ancestral Quest Basics for Mac Gramps PAWriter II. This page contains information about actively developed Mac OS X genealogy software (apps, applications) for Apple’s Macintosh Computers – iMac, MacBooks, MacBook Airs, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro. RootsMagic Essentials is a free genealogy program that contains many core features from the award-winning RootsMagic family tree software. Downloading RootsMagic Essentials is absolutely free and is the easiest way to start tracing your family tree! 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.
Genealogy Software For Mac Free Downloads
Start with Software
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.
Already Have Software?
Handy indexes of articles and videos by application are linked below for your convenience:
Still Looking for Software?
Genealogy Software For Mac Free Download
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.
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.
- 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.