Family tree software for Windows that keeps your research on your PC
Most family tree software for Windows asks you to choose between a desktop database that looks like a spreadsheet and a website that keeps your research behind a login. Family Tree Gallery is a desktop program, and each tree you make is a single .familytree file in a folder you choose, saved as you work.
The main view is a gallery wall. Every person has a framed portrait with a picture light above it, and the person you are looking at sits in the middle with their parents above and children below. Click any frame to walk to that relative. The Generations button sets how far the wall reaches: from Parents up to several greats of grandparents, and down from None to Great-grandchildren.
Starting from nothing is as quick as typing a name. Select someone and use Add father, Add mother, Add partner, Add child or Add brother or sister, and the new frame appears in its place on the wall. Each person carries a name, a surname at birth, a married name, dates and places of birth and death, an occupation, a photo and a free-text Story.
How to open a GEDCOM file and keep working from it
GEDCOM is the plain-text format every genealogy program and website can export. If you already have research somewhere else, export a .ged file there, then choose Import a GEDCOM file under Your trees. The whole family lands on the wall at once, with births, deaths, marriages, occupations, notes and life events such as Emigrated, Naturalized, Military service and Census.
Going the other way, Export this tree as GEDCOM writes a file any other family tree program can open, so a tree you build here is never locked to this app. Several trees can be open side by side in tabs, and Undo and Redo cover your edits.
A cousin calculator built into the tree
Working out what to call a parent's cousin's grandchild is the kind of problem that sends people searching for a relationship chart. Here you choose How are we related?, click a second person, and the app names the link in words: a great-aunt, a half-brother, a second cousin once removed, or an in-law by marriage. It also highlights, on the wall, the chain of relatives that joins the two.
Pick This is me on your own portrait and the whole tree reads from your point of view. The People list gains a Relationship to you column, and the wall is labeled Centered on you.
Genealogy fan chart, timeline and family statistics
Beyond the wall, four more views answer different questions. Switch with the bar at the top or Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+5.
- Fan: every direct ancestor on a single half-circle, from 3 to 7 generations, so gaps in your research show up as empty wedges.
- Timeline: each life drawn as a bar across the years, set against eras and events from the Victorian era and both World Wars to the Moon landing. Hover a year to see who was alive and how old they were.
- People: a sortable table of everyone in the tree that filters as you type.
- Insights: where your roots lie, who settled far from their birthplace, average lifespan by century of birth, the most common surnames, first names that recur across generations, and the occupations on record.
