I recently made a breakthrough in my genealogical study of my ancestors, which was one of the catalysts for creating this site, to give me a fixed place to document it. I finally saw a book that other family members had, which traced my Norwegian ancestry back to the year 740. When I saw that, I paired it with some other genealogical research online and was able to trace it back to before the Common Era (ie, before the birth of Christ).
As a result of documenting this, I am exploring various software options to do it. One is to simply create a webpage that lists the ancestry back, generation by generation. Another is to use specialized genealogy software, which looks like a good option at the moment.
I’m a big fan of free software and use it whenever possible. There is a free program called Gramps, and it looks very promising. It’s basically a large database tweaked specifically for geneology, and it can generate all sorts of charts and reports.
In addition, I am in the process of scanning the book that was sent to me. The original was self-published in limited runs, so this will make the information more accessible to family members.
I’ll be keeping things updated as I go, but this is a good initial entry.