Genealogy: FamilyInsight-- A Software Review

I am 48 years old and I always thought that I would get started on my genealogy "sometime in my retirement years". But I also had a lot of other ideas about what I wanted to do in my retirement years and in reality, I don't think I ever planned to retire since I enjoyed doing therapy and probably could have done that way past the age of retirement. Anyway, "The Fall" (check my profile if you are not familiar with what I am referring to)changed all that and I ended up with a lot of time on my hands that could hardly move. To make a long story short (actually, I want to save those comments for another Hubpage), genealogy started as a way to pass some time for me.

I downloaded PAF 5.0 and began to load in some names. Once I had a few names hanging on the family tree, I had gone as far as I could. I then discovered that I could cross check those names using a simple lookup tool called "Family Search" provided as a free service by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I quickly discovered that while doing a search on each name provided results, the work was tedious and slow going for me as a quadriplegic.

I did a Internet search for genealogy software which resulted in the pages of responses. One company caught my eye, a company based in Hawaii called Ohana Software. If you go to their website, http://www.ohanasoftware.com you will see their newest genealogies software called "FamilyInsight". You can even give it a try out for 60 days if you would like to see how it works. But let me just tell you, from my experience, you will absolutely love this genealogy software package.

I saved the work I had done in PAF as a GEDCOM file which FamilyInsight imported and then gave me the option of comparing the names and dates that I already had with records that are included in the FamilySearch database that I mentioned above. The comparison search took about two minutes and it pulled up all of the names that they found which duplicated my names and dates. They then created a list of these names side-by-side and I could then go through and synchronize the names and information. At first glance, I did not think this would be of much use. But as I began to go through and synchronize the names and information, I found that the software search performed by the FamilyInsight software had discovered at least 10 times more information than I had discovered on my own! Talk about excitement -- now I wake up each morning and can't wait to synchronize another 10 names or so and find out all the new information. Not only did this software substantially increase the names and information on my family tree, it has given rise to the hope that I may have a role still yet to perform in this life. Thank you Ohana!

Follow the link that I have provided below, watch one of their videos, and take their software for spin. Happy hunting!