Bygones

I quit using Bygones years ago, and I’m still looking for a replacement for it.

Bygones is a freeware software program designed to enter and keep genealogical research notes on a laptop or desktop computer.

Though the program hasn’t been updated since 2002, it works on Windows 7.  I haven’t tried it on Windows 8 — I do as little as possible on Windows 8.  *ick*  I understand it doesn’t work on Mac anymore, but I don’t have any way to test that.  The manual was never finished and I don’t think it’s available anymore, but the program is intuitive enough you can manage without it.

I still fire it up when I have time to work on my own things because all my research through 2009 is recorded there.  I stopped using it then because new extract records weren’t being saved and it was just generally acting up.  At the time, there were still remnants of the user community on the Rootsweb mailing list, and it was theorized that the database was too big because photos and document scans had been saved in the database itself, rather than just being linked — which I now know is problematic for any database, even today, but didn’t know it then.  Unfortunately, by then the developer was long gone so there was no way to find out exactly what the storage limitations were.

I often think I’ll start from scratch with Bygones and link to documents and photos instead of attaching them to the database simply because I’m still looking for a program that does what Bygones does.  But the thought of such a massive task always stops me.  How ironic is it, though, that if I had gone ahead and just rebuilt my research log years ago when I first started having problems, I’d probably be nicely organized by now instead of having bits and pieces of my research recorded all over the place.  I can eventually find everything I’m looking for, but the only stuff that’s located quickly and easily is the stuff that was recorded in Bygones.

The information page for the program is still available at this writing, but the download link is dead.  I think that’s unfortunate,  and since the license agreement says it’s okay, you can download the Windows version here.