I'm planning on tracing relatives that I may have. I'm wondering if there is a program that will help me do it easier.

Thanks for the help.

There are genealogy programs that help organize your research. They are to genealogy what "Word" is to creative writing.

PAF, from the Mormons, is free.

Family Tree Maker ($39 and up, depending on what you buy bundled with it) is the market leader in the USA.

Roots Magic ($29) is better than either, in my opinion. I was a computer programmer for 34 years. I have helped design data bases. RM's data base design is top-notch.

Reunion is the only one I know of that runs on a Mac.

You still have to do the research. You enter names, dates, places, relationships. The program records them. Every once in a while you run a problem report, just like you spell check in Word after you finish each chapter of your novel. The program will tell you what errors it finds; for instance, someone born after they died. That is an easy mistake to make. I have muffed the century on someone born in 1870 and died in 1945. I have had two people and put #1's date in for #2. I have made typos; "1045" for the death instead of "1945".

You can Google "Genealogy software comparisons" to get professioanl reviewer's ratings on programs.

Just as "Word" makes it easier to revise one paragraph without having to re-type the whole chapter, a genealogy program makes it easy to revise a family tree when you discover the Michael Jablonski you thought was Joseph's brother is really his uncle.