Why should you have a personal software program?





The discussion continues regarding the use and need for a personal software program verses an online tree or pedigree chart.  I for one vote not only yes---but definitely YES!

Maintaining a personal software program allows the user to have control over what information is “freely” made available.  This is not only for living individuals, but also for current and on-going research as it develops and until it is well documented and proven.  It is through the documentation and sourcing process that facts are either proven or disproven.  If the tentative information is entered into a public tree, and it is later disproven, you cannot contact everyone who now has used that information in their research—because you don’t know who has the flawed information.  Once the information is given out, you cannot logically request it back.

Family history research is not a one way street—it goes both directions backward (ancestors) and forward (descendants).  While searching for ancestors, you may also want to do some descendant research which usually involves living people.  Although the information on living people is available, you don’t want to circulate and produce that information needlessly in this day and age of identity theft and privacy.  A personal software program is a great place to store your information and keep it private and yet functional and organized.

Finally, personal software programs allow users to run various reports, including custom reports that help and assist in the process of research.  Regularly running consistent checks allows software users to see errors, misinformation, and impossibilities.  For example, most software programs allow the user to run a “possible problems report”.  This report will automatically flag items the program deems “usual” or as a possible problem.   This is a great way to clean up, or re-check your research. 

Maintaining a personal software program makes sense for:  organizing descendant’s and ancestor’s information; confidential and sensitive information; personal notes, research logs, to-do lists, contacts, and correspondence logs; unproven and questionable facts; and to run computer generated reports, lists, and forms.  



See also:  Top 10 Genealogy Software Tricks here:
 http://robertsrootsandbranches.blogspot.com/2013/12/top-10-genealogy-software-tricks.html

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