Software: The Argument for it 
by John Cardiff
This page last updated: 03 Sep 2008
  
Genealogy is easier, faster and cheaper by computer. Genealogy programs simplify data entry, data storage, organization and publishing. From input to output, software also provides a virtual mentor looking over your shoulder.

Genealogy programs record the data for you, displaying fields and buttons for all the information about each individual, making it easy for you to recall and edit your entries for anyone in your database, making it easy for you to jump from one person's record to another.

Genealogy programs print your charts in minutes, generate your web site in seconds, and print your books in just hours (depending how much data you have and choose to include). Without a genealogy program, charts take hours, web sites and books take so long you may never finish. (How long would it take you to manually index the 10,000 people in a 12-generation genealogy?)

Even if you perversely decided against using a genealogy program, using the Internet to research tonnes of resources isn't possible without a PC. (Cyndi's List currently has links to approximately a quarter million genealogy web sites.) Without a PC you can not email cousins for their data, or attract previously unknown cousins to your web site.

Genealogy is largely a huge fill-in-the-blanks exercise -- exactly the type of task computers do well. Imagine data on 12,000 people perfectly filed, always accessible in seconds, and always easy to change as new info come in -- all without a computer. I estimate it would take 2.5 people to replace my computer. Their annual salaries are an expense I can't afford. The computer's productivity is something I'd rather not live without.

Without a PC, Mary Middleton's two decades of McCall family research filled six big boxes, collectively weighing over 100 lbs. It cost over $100(US) to mail it to me from New Jersey. Today it eats up about five megabytes of hard drive space.