If you're doing genealogy, use a genealogy program.
You can do genealogy on paper.
That is how it used to be done until only a few decades ago.
I remember more than one genealogist who dutifully visited the archive to copy data from birth, marriage and death books onto their own index cards,
and then used these index cards to construct genealogies on large sheets of paper.
You can still do it that way if you really want to...
I recommend, nay strongly recommend, using a genealogy program.
If you're doing genealogy, use a genealogy program.
That may seem painfully obvious advice, but if you start asking around, you may find that you know some genealogists who are still not using a genealogy program...
In fact, you may even find a few why tried a few genealogy programs, found that none of them works exactly as they liked, and therefore decided to not use any.
The few obstinate genealogists who do not use genealogy program are not using paper index cards, but other computer programs; a spreadsheet or a word processor.
Using a spreadsheet is only one step up from using paper index cards.
When you use a spreadsheet as your genealogy database, your data is electronic,
but you still have to build all genealogy functionality yourself.
One day, you'll find yourself wondering how to transfer all your data into a genealogy program.
There actually are some conversion tools to help you with that, but good luck finding someone who has experience with those tools.
The genealogists using a word processor have one semi-convincing argument: it is the only way to get reports just the way they like it.
Many genealogy programs let you export a report for final editing in a word processor.
It may take some effort to get things just the way you like them, but it combines the best of both worlds;
the genealogy power of the genealogy application, and the word processing power of the word processor.
Always pick the right tool for the job. The right tool for maintaining your genealogy data is a genealogy program. No genealogy program is perfect, but genealogy programs are way better at genealogy than any other computer program.
Genealogy programs offer many genealogical features, that you'd be crazy to do without.
Genealogy programs know about genealogy, and offer genealogical features. You need to enter your data only once. Once entered, genealogy programs let you view your data in multiple ways. They let you search by name or place, to easily and quickly find data of interest. They provide ready-made genealogy reports, charts and list, often with many customisation options. They offer privacy filters, to prevent publishing about the living.
Genealogy programs are the logical place to manage your record scans and transcriptions. Many genealogy programs help you keep track of your research by including a To-Do list and research log. Genealogy programs may provide bookmarks to help you find the key persons. They may include templates for easy citation entry, even offer some word processing features, such as spellcheck of your notes and stories.
Genealogy programs support complex relationships
; don't worry about that means exactly (nobody knows), just know that real genealogy software can handle it.
Genealogy programs offer checks for common and not-so common errors.
They let you merge duplicates to avoid duplicate and contradictory profiles.
They offer genealogical checks, such as consistency checks, place names checks, and county checks.
Genealogy programs make it easy to share some your research with an another research (just create a report), and may even offer collaboration features.
They may offer a built-in upload feature, to publish your research to your own website or some genealogy hosting site.
Some programs can even match your database against third-party research and online genealogy records.
Last but not least, genealogy programs can import data from and export data to other genealogy programs, either directly or through so-called GEDCOM files.
Etcetera. Genealogy programs offer many genealogical features, that you'd be crazy to do without.
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.