Back to Software

Custodian 3
Now only £29.25 with free delivery!

Buy  View Basket

The new Custodian version 3 has a new look, faster navigation and lots more features. There are Civil Registration Forms for Scotland and Ireland as well as England & Wales, and new forms in the Parish Chest and Services databases and others. Every form has lots of new fields, such as a calculated year of birth field and ones for recording when and where you saw your source document. There is also a new facility for entering a personal reference and family reference for every individual in every record. These references are now included in the Master Index, along with all the names from the source records and you will be able to identify the individual's 'role' in the record i.e. bride, witness, beneficiary etc. The Master Index also includes the place, as well as the county and is now even more valuable to the researcher.

 
What's in Custodian?

Custodian is not a family tree program, but a series of databases with pre-defined forms, specially designed to store genealogical information. Custodian consists of a series of data-entry forms in which you can enter your information from lots of different sources (UK based). All the principal names from these forms are automatically included in a Master Index which you can browse, search and then access any record from. Import and Export of CSV files and Import of GEDCOM files is supported.

The limit for the number of records which can be stored in Custodian is in excess of 2 billion!!

Below is a list of all the data-entry forms currently available.

  • Correspondents - including an Activity Log for each person
  • Certificates - for births, marriages and deaths (English)
  • Civil Registration Indexes - as above
  • Parish Registers- baptisms, burials, banns, marriages (pre-1754, 1754-1837, 1837+)
  • Parish Chest - ie for Overseers of the Poor accounts
  • Census Returns - 1841-1901 and pre-1841
  • Monumental Inscriptions - from churchyards, chapels etc
  • Probate - 1858+ and pre-1858 indexes and corresponding wills (and administrations)
  • International Genealogical Index (IGI) - keep all counties in one list which can be searched/sorted
  • School Records - Admission registers and Log books etc
  • Court Records - ie Quarter Sessions, Manorial Courts etc
  • Service Records - Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and also Merchant Navy
  • Taxes and Other Population Lists - for Hearth Tax, Window Tax, Subsidy Rolls etc
  • Published Sources - Trade Directories, Newspapers, Other Published Sources
  • Other Records - for anything else!
  • Pictures - import files containing photos or documents and display
  • GEDCOM - imported files are treated as a source in their own right
Every genealogist and family historian collects masses of information over the years, not necessarily directly relevant to one's own family history. Indeed, people undertaking one-name studies purposely collect as much information on a name as possible. Custodian uses 16 databases, all designed to store information from most UK sources. All you need to do is enter your data and let Custodian do the rest.

A grid (spreadsheet) type from is used where the data is likely to be just one line of information as in early parish registers, and also where the original data is in a line format, e.g. the International Genealogical Index. This allows lots of data to be viewed on the screen at once and details common to all of your entries is entered only once. The forms for Banns (and Marriages from 1754) have boxes to complete as these entries often give more information.

In all the certificate forms, you have boxes to complete and the layout is almost identical to an actual certificate of birth, marriage and death (they can be printed out in this style too). This much more visually appealing than having the data simply in lines. The bride and groom are both included in the Master Index.

For wills there are special forms which allow you to record all the important details. There is plenty of room to type in an abstract and if you have a copy of the will you can select the 'Will' option from the menu bar and enter this in too. A small box on the screen indicates if there is a will recorded.

The form for 'Other Sources' can take just about anything else you need to enter. As mentioned before, whatever you type into 'Type of Document' will appear in the Master Index, so you will know exactly from which source the record comes.

As well as being able to go to any record in Custodian directly from the Master Index, you will find the Index to be invaluable in identifying which records are likely to be of the same person.

You can import pictures into Custodian from a floppy disk or your hard disk and if you have names and a date, these can be included in the Master Index.

Import and export is also available - you can do this in CSV (comma separated text) format or Import in GEDCOM format. Data imported as GEDCOM is treated as a source in its own right (this is because of the nature of Custodian - i.e. it is not a family tree program) and it will be included in the Master Index along with other information.

All the forms have a 'Notes' option so that you can enter your own notes against any record as you wish. The probate forms also have the option to enter in the actual will.

All forms (including the Master Index) can be searched, sorted and a report printed, either as an index or as a detailed report (detail report not relevant to Master Index); you can also search for specific text i.e. a surname, in free-format text boxes, Notes and Wills.

Minimum requirements
128Mb RAM
40 Mb free hard disk space
Windows ME/2000/NT/XP

Custodian 3 is £29.25 inclusive (was £48.90) Buy  View Basket

Order now from TWR Computing on 01284 828271

All prices include VAT and UK first-class postage (or airmail to Europe)

Back to Software

Back to the Top