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Archiver > SOUTH-AFRICA > 1998-07 > 0899337596


From: "Barend J Venter" <>
Subject: Re: Which Genealogy Prog for SA
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 01:59:56 +0200


Jenni Leighton wrote:

>This might not be the right forum to pose this question - but I
have a
>lot of my Leighton tree on Kith & Kin - but want to purchase /
shareware
>a programme which is best suited for the SA scene. Any comments
please.

To ask a question like this is almost to walk on a mine-field
<Grin> Earlier I tried on this list to promote the set of
standards that are officially accepted and endorsed by the GSSA.
I tried to evaluate some programmes against the set of standards.
Unfortunately this is a very emotional issue to most people each
using their own particular programme. I even got called a Basher
of a certain programme by one of our list members <grin>.

A condensed version of the Standards document was recently
published in Familia.

My personal view is that there is no single programme that meets
all the requirements. Consequently one is sometimes forced to use
more than one depending on your own personal requirements.

The main programme that I use for my genealogical database is
Family Origins for windows. This is the programme that in my
humble opinion, meets the majority of the criteria of the set of
standards. Following this in order of compliance with the
standards are Personal Ancestral File version 3 and then Brothers
Keeper ver 5.2F.

With any one of the above programmes you can create a Gedcom file
and then process this file with an invaluable little programme
Gen2SA that will convert your data almost automatically to the
South African genealogical format in a print ready format.

Family Origins ver 6 and Brothers Keeper ver 5.2F are both
windows programmes, whereas PAF ver 3 is a Dos programme that
runs easily under windows.

I trust that this info will be of some assistance.

Regards and keep well

Barend J Venter
20 Ray Street
Annlin
0182

Tel/Fax (012) 543-1437.

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