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  1. #1
    Site Moderator Magian's Avatar
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    Help Me Find A Free Genealogy Program (Please)

    I thought I had posted this question on these forums before, but after looking through my posts I couldn't find it. Perhaps I did on a pbem years earlier.

    What I'd like to do is track multiple families from the Birthright setting maybe eventually filling up a data-base with all of the Cerilian scions and nobility tracking.

    The ability to make a wall chart seems like it would be essential.

    Website interactivity may be nice I am unsure what those functions would include. Other than being able to post a wall chart of a family to a personal campaign website I am not sure what I'd like. If any of you know something more any inputs are appreciated.

    I would like to be able to add events to the data like birth, death, marriages and the like. Most of which I'd suspect as common for such programs. Also it would be nice to be able to add notes for characters stats and backgrounds per character added. Maybe just a field like this forum has to allow for text and not necessarily fields specified for each thing.

    I am kinda in the dark here with these programs as I haven't used one before so I am not asking all the educated questions that I probably could.

    I suppose tracking years would be nice too.

    Any help is much appreciated.
    One law, One court, One allied people, One coin, and one tax, is what I shall bring to Cerilia.

  2. #2
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    I was recommended a free download program for making a family tree from the Mormon website:

    http://www.ancestry-and-genealogy.co...daysaints.html

    I wasn't able to download the program due to a connection problem, but maybe you will have better luck.

  3. #3
    Moo! Are you happy now? Arjan's Avatar
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    http://www.myheritage.com looks pretty nice

    in the past i helped translating Legacy Family
    http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/Index.asp

    both have a free standard version

    cheers
    arjan

    2011/5/2 www-data <system@athas.org>

    > This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
    > You can view the entire thread at:
    > http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=5547
    >
    > AndrewTall wrote:
    > I was recommended a free download program for making a family tree from the
    > Mormon website:
    >
    > http://www.ancestry-and-genealogy.com/ChurchRecords/latterdaysaints.html
    >
    > I wasn`t able to download the program due to a connection problem, but
    > maybe you will have better luck.
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > Birthright-l Archives:
    > http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
    >
    >
    >

  4. #4
    Site Moderator Magian's Avatar
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    I think the link is bad. Thanks.

    This is what I've found so far.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...alogy_software

    It has comparisons of different programs showing what ones are free, what the free versions offer compared to the paid version and what operating systems on which they require. I've played around with a few and the one I like the best is Family Tree Builder. I like the user interface, it has alot of options, allows portraits, descendant and ancestry wall charts, allows different options to be put on the wall charts. Wall charts are basically the family tree display.

    I copied the tree from the Tuornen PS. I found it was kind of tricky to figure out the title of Duke for Dalton and the name of Flaertes with his wife since her name was what was passed on and his title or title claim. By default it is patriarchal but seemed to allow me to force in the new names as I liked. Also when using an unmarried couple its a little tricky especially when there was a marriage in the mix before or after that. I am even using the MR dates for birth, deaths and marriages. Kinda funny when I come to the characters still alive it asks me if am I sure they are cause they'd be 1500 years old. (Cause of it using the Roman calendar)

    It allows for notes and the like so a person could use that to enter the character info if wanted. Mostly the pedigree of bloodlines would be the most important for tracking. There is a field for title and occupation. Only the occupation allows to be put on the chart output. So I use occupation for the title of address like Duke of Alamie. I think the title field could be useful along with the notes for tracking other titles and claims. Things like that would be good for tracking I think especially if a person wanted to bring in the minor families that are married to greater families and succession if the line ends of the latter.

    Something that comes to mind is how are titles handled when it comes to being married to a duke. Does the spouse become the duchess? If so, then the brothers of the Alam line pose another question cause when Jerem died his wife was still alive and his brother took the throne with his wife. Does that leave us with a duke, duchess, and duchess dowager? Then if she (the dowager) retains some title does her lineage have a title as well? They being the 2 cousins of the current heir to the Duchy of Alamie. Yeah a simple thing like that shows me how more complicated this succession can be. As I said before its a weak spot with me, being an American and all. We mere provincials are ignorant of the ways of the old world. (smiley face)

    At first I figured I could make a project database for each family, but after playing around it seems I'd only need one project for all of Cerilia cause I can add new families and track them which would be the only way to track intermarrying cause I think different projects don't crossover.

    Of course this post is more for when you get into the program and check it out. For personal ease I'd think that starting out with current era characters would be nice and just create the minor noble families and any scions wanted to track. Then just work with the events that happen in game and add them to the database as you go.

    Having a good historical database would be nice as well so I am still planning out what I'll do with it. So now enters the question about what materials are used for the database. I do have all the cannon which I'll likely start with. Cannon being the TSR products from boxed sets, PS, supplements, adventures and novels. After reading the thread on the issue of the Brwiki and its use of cannon and home brew I am unsure what I'll do with this. A simple idea comes to mind of using citations, but I don't know if I"ll want to add that extra work or not. I want to be purist friendly mostly for the fact that I am unsure where I stand on that issue. Either way a person looks at it they'll have to do work redoing what has been done to home brew stuff or filling in the gaps from the cannon.

    I still await anyone to read this thread who has actually done some work on genealogy software and can maybe point me in the direction of one that is even better suited for what I want. A nice feature of most of the software they allow you to export your database to a file type that can be imported to other software. I suppose its essential for all the projects being done in the world from different sources. Having a universal exchange format seems like a good idea. So knowing this the program isn't all important if you find it workable for you its probably the best one for you. Still if someone suggests one I'll definitely check it out.
    One law, One court, One allied people, One coin, and one tax, is what I shall bring to Cerilia.

  5. #5
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Magian View Post
    Something that comes to mind is how are titles handled when it comes to being married to a duke. Does the spouse become the duchess? If so, then the brothers of the Alam line pose another question cause when Jerem died his wife was still alive and his brother took the throne with his wife. Does that leave us with a duke, duchess, and duchess dowager? Then if she (the dowager) retains some title does her lineage have a title as well? They being the 2 cousins of the current heir to the Duchy of Alamie. Yeah a simple thing like that shows me how more complicated this succession can be. As I said before its a weak spot with me, being an American and all. We mere provincials are ignorant of the ways of the old world. (smiley face)
    Well europe isn't very consistent in terms of titles and so on - not between different countries, different times, and sometimes with the rules bent or broken when someone powerful didn't like the 'expected' result...

    So for example does only the inheriting child of Duke Alam get to be a duke, all of them or only the males? What titles - if any - do the other children have? Do they drop one rank, need to have a title granted, or drop to minimum rank of lord?

    Canon isn't definitive allowing multiple interpretations - possibly to allow DM's flexibility.

    Personally I tend to go with the inheriting child taking on the old rank, and other children having minimal noble rank unless a title is granted to them by the inheriting child - it avoids the clutter of thousands of penniless dukes, and gives the inheriting child significant power over their siblings thus promoting misfortune, discord and feuds as adventure opportunities. I never quite decided what happens with bloodline inheritance that doesn't go to the 'official' heir but lean towards the views of the local power-brokers being key.

  6. #6
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    This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
    You can view the entire thread at:
    http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=5547

    AndrewTall wrote:
    ------------ QUOTE ----------
    Something that comes to mind is how are titles handled when it comes to being married to a duke. Does the spouse become the duchess? If so, then the brothers of the Alam line pose another question cause when Jerem died his wife was still alive and his brother took the throne with his wife. Does that leave us with a duke, duchess, and duchess dowager? Then if she (the dowager) retains some title does her lineage have a title as well? They being the 2 cousins of the current heir to the Duchy of Alamie. Yeah a simple thing like that shows me how more complicated this succession can be. As I said before its a weak spot with me, being an American and all. We mere provincials are ignorant of the ways of the old world. (smiley face)
    -----------------------------



    Well europe isn`t very consistent in terms of titles and so on - not between different countries, different times, and sometimes with the rules bent or broken when someone powerful didn`t like the `expected` result...

    So for example does only the inheriting child of Duke Alam get to be a duke, all of them or only the males? What titles - if any - do the other children have? Do they drop one rank, need to have a title granted, or drop to minimum rank of lord?

    Canon isn`t definitive allowing multiple interpretations - possibly to allow DM`s flexibility.

    Personally I tend to go with the inheriting child taking on the old rank, and other children having minimal noble rank unless a title is granted to them by the inheriting child - it avoids the clutter of thousands of penniless dukes, and gives the inheriting child significant power over their siblings thus promoting misfortune, discord and feuds as adventure opportunities. I never quite decided what happens with bloodline inheritance that doesn`t go to the `official` heir but lean towards the views of the local power-brokers being key.

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