Most of us at some point in our lives think about putting together a family tree and piecing together the different generations of our relatives, many of whom we usually know very little about. What tends to put most of us off is the difficulty in doing it and the lack of simple to use, free software to guide us through the process.

GenoPro 2011 might just encourage some people to go about this task after all, as it makes the building of genealogical details a lot simpler and more fun than any other program we have come across.

The basic functions you need to construct a professional looking family tree are all here; the building of profiles, the adding of important dates and the linking together of people.

You can then add in details such as the current state of the relationship between the people who are linked. You can also build groups for non related people. Exporting options include excel, the GenoPro website and an open Genealogy exchange program.

The help section is very comprehensive, although it has to be accessed on the web, and the option of adding photos, occupations and education details to the profiles means that you can end up with a much clearer picture of what your relatives were actually like as people, rather than just being a name and a couple of dates.

All in all, the features are pretty intuitive, and getting started on filling in the blanks in your family history should be a quick and painless process.

The latest version has a toolbar which lets you keep track of medical conditions which run in the family, an interactive timeline and Google Map location features. If you are using an older version then the 2011 program is available as a free upgrade. Anyone trying it for the first time can download it directly for free.

Probably the best thing you can say about GenoPro 2011 is that it is suitable for both genealogy experts who need lots of features and those of us who simply want to find out more about our family history in an easy and entertaining way.