52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week #4 - Free Offline Genealogy Tools

For this week's challenge Amy asks:

Week 4 – Free Offline Genealogy Tools: For which free offline genealogy tool are you most grateful?  How did you find this tool and how has it benefited your genealogy?  Describe to others how to access this tool and spread the genealogy love.


When this post appears I will be in a jet plane en route to Salt Lake City, Utah for the Rootstech Conference where I'll meet up with several thousand two-legged free offline genealogy tools: PEOPLE.


For this post I am recycling a post, 10 things I can’t live without to support my genealogy addiction
 from, June 2010.  These are the people for whom I am most grateful:


1. My Ancestors  who provide the Births, Deaths and Marriages that provide the scaffold for my research and the juicy stories, faded old photos and interesting anecdotes that add interest to that scaffold.


2. My Family and Descendants who provide a purpose for my research. I am trying to record our history for future generations.


3. My Patient Husband who turns a blind to the dust on the furniture and pile of ironing that waits for me as I ignore these for my genealogy habit.


There is no particular order to the remainder of this list - as my needs change so does the importance of the persons detailed from here on.


3. The many Distant Cousins who have contacted me via online forums and the Geniaus website to say hello, offer corrections to my sometimes inaccurate date and generously share photos, certificates and stories.


4. Generous Volunteers who over the years have done lookups for me and given guidance when I have visited genealogical societies throughout the world.


5. Staff of Libraries and Archives Offices who have patiently assisted me with my research.


6. People who read and comment on my blog and website and send compliments via email and Twitter give me positive reinfocement that encourages me to keep solving my genealogical jigsaw.


7. Volunteer Indexers eg those who do work for Ryerson and FamilySearch and those who index  cemeteries and photograph headstones provide me with  the means to access to many valuable and appropriate resources.


8. My Online Genie Friends who, through a range of tools such as blogs, twitter, wave, provide blogging ideas, encouragement, links to great new resources,great stories and encouragement.


9. Decision Makers at The National Library of Australia who have a commitment to providing important Australian Resources in an online format. Trove is the most amazing free online resource for genealogical research. 


10. The many Registered Members of Trove who are making corrections to the scanned text to better improve access by other users. Whilst I have only corrected 890 rows of text there are  4 volunteers who have done over 4000,000 rows each and are headling for the half million.