If you have stored extended family names and relationships in your database, you’ll be able to quickly see how you’re connected. If you’ve tested your DNA at any of the large companies, you now have matches with hundreds of cousins.
You have to create a record for your living parents and grandparents to connect to your deceased ancestors, but you don’t need to add every living aunt, uncle, cousin, 2nd cousin, etc.Ī personal genealogical database is a much better option for keeping track of extended family. The reason? When a living person dies, all of the individual records created by family members will need to be merged. The collaborative online tree on FamilySearch lets you add living family members, but I don’t recommend using it for this purpose. Reason #1 Store Information for Living Family Members Where are you storing your valuable genealogical data? Is it safely under your control and backed up or is it on a third party website like Ancestry or FamilySearch? Have you considered using genealogical software to store your database but are unsure what would be best for you? Today I’ll be sharing my top three reasons to keep your own genealogical information safe in a personal software database and give you some ideas for choosing one from the many options available.
