People love an intrigue, and when unraveling a mystery may also mean unlocking secrets about yourself, the temptations can be too great to resist. So if you think genealogy is nothing more than dusty books, scraps of paper, and tedious note-taking, think again. These five free and open source applications will help you unlock your inner sleuth and lead you to plot twists that would shock even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Family.Show

Originally created simply to explore Microsoft's Window Presentation Foundation (WPF) -- a tool Microsoft developed to make it easier for computer programmers to build graphical interfaces -- Vertigo Software's Family.Show application is a lightweight program for managing genealogical data.

On their company's website, the Vertigo team explains that "Family.Show is not a 'real product.' It's more like a concept car that we built for geeky programmers and designers so they can poke around under the hood and test-drive some new and exciting Microsoft technology." However, the software's developers also point out that people have said that, "Family.Show is a compelling, enjoyable experience and is unlike any other genealogy application out there."

If you're on a Windows-based computer and you're looking for a unique genealogical tool, you can download Family.Show from its project page on Microsoft's CodePlex website.

GenealogyJ

GenealogyJ, on the more traditional end of things, is an open source genealogy application written for the Linux, Microsoft Windows, and OS X desktops.

With many of the standard features you'd expect -- individual and relationship tracking, family trees, reports, and more -- this software provides all of the basic essentials for anybody looking to take their first steps into the world of genealogical research.

With only one technical requirement (that you have a Java Virtual Machine version 1.6 or higher installed on your computer), GenealogyJ is easy to try. To get started simply visit the project's home on SourceForge.

GeneWeb

As its name implies, this software merges genealogy with the web to bring you a web-based genealogical application.

On the plus side, GeneWeb is highly functional, stable, well supported, and frequently updated. On the minus side, the project's development team's first language is French, so if your French is rusty, you may miss out on some documentation and information. But, more importantly, this is a web application, which means you'll need a web server -- local or remote -- to run it. And if that less sentence has you confused, GeneWeb probably isn't the right choice for you.

Released under a GNU GPL license, GeneWeb is free to download from the project's official website.

Gramps

If you like your genealogical software to run on the Linux, Microsoft Windows, and OS X desktops and you like it to be written, designed, and guided by genealogists, then Gramps may be the missing branch on your family tree.

Very polished and feature rich, Gramps is a mature and stable application that's suited for both entry-level hobbyists and seasoned professionals. Plus, because Gramps supports so many different file formats, it's easy to migrate to this application from many others.

You can download Gramps from its main project website, and you can learn more about this software in our in-depth review.

LifeLines

Originally created between 1991 and 1994 for Unix-like operating systems, Tom Wetmore's LifeLines project may no longer be actively developed, but it still enjoys a rich and vibrant user community that now spans the Linux, Microsoft Windows, and OS X desktops.

Aside from being the first open source genealogical project for Unix, what still draws people to this application so many years later are its stability and its very powerful reports. Be warned, though, no matter which operating system you choose to run LifeLines on, this is a text-based application, which means there are no colorful buttons to push, menus to drop down, or mouse pointers to move.

The best way to get started with LifeLines is to visit its home on SourceForge.

Lastly, if you're new to genealogy, here's one additional tip. While the many dead ends and turns can be frustrating, the discoveries and surprises of genealogical research are well worth the effort.