Put Your Family Tree Into Your Mac And Grow.

It isn’t often you get to know in advance the next branch on the family tree. Baby is still on board after nearly nine months and two weeks.

That means we’ll have a new addition to our family tree in two days. I’ll weigh less, too.

My personal family project to create a family tree is officially under way. For Mac users, family tree software is thin, but attractive.

What I found is enough software to keep you busy constructing a family tree until you’re no longer the trunk of the tree.

The most intuitive and Mac-like of the genealogy applications is Family.

You’ll get it right away. Start with a couple. Add a photo and details, such as birth date, name, maiden name, birth location, and so on; even a photograph.

The small rectangular box links to a new spouse, new children, and keeps growing as you add new and old family members.

Adding is easy. Click Add, double click to add information, click on a handle and drag to link. By far, this is the easiest and simplest of the Mac genealogy applications.

It’s attractive, simple, straightforward, and does a nice job presenting your family. Until your family starts to grow beyond a few generations.

Then you’ll need a 30-inch Apple Cinema Display (at least, that’s what my husband says he needs to view the tree).

Family is $40 and will keep you busy for years tracking down old relatives and personal details.

MacFamilyTree offers more family details, more features, and much more complexity to the same process of tracking down details on relatives and creating a family tree.

$50 gets you a Universal Binary application (runs on PPC Macs and new Intel Macs) that’s also intuitive, though not as simple to set up as Family.

If Family looks too easy, MacFamilyTree is the next step. The layout is similar with a true tree structure to the right, details to the left.

They say the devil is in the details and MacFamilyTree won’t disappoint if you want a more in depth approach to constructing a family tree.

You can create and link family members easily enough, but also view a Heritage Chart, a Descendant Chart, a full family Timeline, a Family Chart, family statistics, a Genogram.

There’s even a World Map view which plots where your family members are or were located. In true Mac-like style, there’s a slider bar to let you zoom in on the location of your choice in a topgraphical map. Cool.

If Family is a bit simplistic, MacFamilyTree will be more of a challenge as there’s more features. Prepare to create a fabulously detailed family tree.

I looked at two other Mac genealogy applications, both of which have a similar point-and-click approach, though neither were as attractive or straightforward as Family or MacFamilyTree.

GEDitCOM is a customizable genealogy application which edits and views GEDCOM genealogy files.

GEDCOM stands for GEnealogy Data COMmunication files, a genealogy standard for importing and exporting genealogy data.

Genealogy Pro is another popular Mac application for tracing and tracking your roots. Neither GEDitCOM or Genealogy Pro are as straightforward and intuitive as Family or MacFamilyTree.

All the genealogy applications get good reviews from MacUpdate, and all let you download and try out the features before purchase.

My first view of Family was highly positive, as it takes no time to set up a nice family tree and trace relatives back a few generations. If you’ve never done a family tree, Family is easy, simple, attractive.

After spreading the tree’s branches a few generations and realizing that some family members created far too many cousins, the detail of MacFamilyTree began to look attractive.

The problem, of course, is that what looks attractive also becomes a huge family project that may never end.

Still, with any of the Mac applications for creating a genealogy record, a family tree, you’ll have a project on your hands. The end result is a graphical look at your family members, family history, and perhaps a greater understanding of family roots.

Family is a good start for the casual family tree maker. MacFamilyTree adds more features and more complexity.

For me, I’m two days away from adding another branch on our family tree. Click Here for an even easier family tree application for much less expense. You won’t even need a Mac.