Among the software that you’re going to want for some of your genealogy is some type of tool that will permit you to view gedcom files, as well as displaying and working with your genealogy research.
There are several open source genealogy software that are as good and as full featured as those you’re going to purchase at a far higher cost.

Among them are software that will permit you to work with others over the internet and those are some very helpful kinds of software if you’re not able to travel freely.

One of the most interesting that I’ve worked with, and one that might be helpful for anyone who is working over the internet in collaboration with another family member, will be Gnuology

Gnuology is very much like a genealogy wiki.
It permits you to import a Gedcom file and then display it so that your entire extended family can view it as well as edit it in their favorite web browser.

Available from open source, it is of course web based in nature, is free to download, and operates on all versions of windows as well as unix and linux based systems.
You can download it from its home page

GNULOGY DOWNLOAD Page