Update: Family Tree Analyzer is now available for Mac.
In 2012 I had an idea for a genealogy program. I created a simple program called Census Taker to analyze your tree and produce a list of every person likely to be found in the newly released 1940 census.
It worked great for me, but it was limited. I studied Java programming, hoping to make the program better. I began rewriting my program, but time after time I ran into problems.
Then, suddenly, I found something in a Google search. A free program called Family Tree Analyzer that does everything I wanted my program to do—and a million times more. Goodbye, my fledgling programming career!
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| Programmer and genealogist Alexander Bisset makes it easy to analyze your family tree. |
Family Tree Analyzer analyzed my 18,946-person tree without blinking. It provides a detailed table of each individual's facts in a flawless format that looks eerily like what I was struggling to do with my program.
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| The "Individuals" table helps you see what you're missing and plan your genealogy research accordingly. |
It found every possible data error in my file. It found potential duplicate people. It let me export everything to a spreadsheet so I can fix the problems.
One small piece of what it does is like my Census Taker, but way better.
The Treetops button shows you the eldest person (or people) in your tree with a given surname. I entered my maiden name of "Iamarino". The Iamarinos at the top of 2 branches were born in 1640 and 1710. Awesome.
The Locations, Occupations and Sources tabs show how many people are associated with a particular source, place or job. I'll use it to find typos or places where I want to make the wording more consistent.
I've barely scratched the surface, but I strongly recommend you try this program. Family Tree Analyzer can provide you with all kinds of analysis to help you fortify your family tree.
Find out what else you can do with this free software: