XY Family Tree

If you find information about your ancestry, it is definitely worth writing it down, especially if you can find a suitable software application to help you. A good example is XY Family Tree. Though it looks a bit rough around the edges, it places everything you need at your disposal, to build a large family tree. It is capable of making all connections between family members and it lets you link all sorts of resources to individual members.

XY Family Tree is free, but only if you intend to limit yourself to two families, with a maximum of 50 members. It works on all modern Windows platforms and it supports both 32 and 64-bit versions. Downloading and installing the application shouldn't take more than a minute, even on slower machines, and there is no need to meet any special requirements.

The user interface looks a bit crowded, but it shouldn't take long to figure out its controls. You basically need to fill in all the information you can about each family member, including yourself, if you are creating your own family tree. You can set an individual as the default member, so if you get lost among all the relatives, you can always return to your starting place.

With your database populated, you will be able to see a selected person's parents, siblings and other relatives in different boxes, on the same user interface. When you've added a new person, you can select them and click different options, to add their parents, siblings, spouse and other relatives to the database. Additionally, you can add photos, which will be displayed on the same window.

XY Family Tree lets you attach all sorts of resources to single family members. You can write your own notes, specify sources, add maps and you can also upload your data and access various online resources. It is also possible to print out a pedigree-style family tree.

Whether you wish to create a historical family tree for a school project or wish to create your own family tree, XY Family Tree is definitely worth trying out.