Whether your smartphone of choice is an IPhone or an Android, there are genealogy apps available that enable you to do genealogical research anywhere. This is not surprising news. There seems to be an app for just about everything under the sun.
If your phone is an Android, FamilyBee lets you take your family trees with you wherever you go. You can store an unlimited amount of family trees (that you create on your computer) on your cell phone, and you can search quickly through the stored trees for information. One especially neat feature of FamilyBee is that the family tree data is stored in GEDCOM format, which is the standard format that professional genealogists use. Also, there is an app called Gedstar Pro that enables you to convert genealogical research data from your PC into a format that can then be viewed on your Android smartphone while you are out and about.
IPhone users can access their Ancestry.com family trees with their smartphone. The Ancestry.com Tree to Go IPhone app lets you search your family tree wherever you are. While you cannot start a new tree in the application, you can add information to the trees that you have stored in the app. This is a great tool for collecting information like gravestone photos and bits of information that you pick up while talking to family members. If you enjoy apps that give you access to audio and video content while you are on the go, you can download the Genealogy Gems podcast app that lets you stream Lisa Louise Cook’s Genealogy Gems podcast episodes right to your IPhone.
For those of you that don’t have an IPhone or a phone with an Android operating system, if you love genealogy and these apps sound like something that you want to be able to use, keep your eyes open while you are doing your holiday shopping – there are often great deals on smartphones around this time of year.