Hey,

Have you already decided on what programme you want to use for your analyses?

You will need one, that is able to read .ab1 files, if you also want to be able to see the quality of the sequenced signal. Programmes such as Chromas, Chromas pro and Mega could be used. With Chromas you have the option to see and work in your .ab1 file. With Chromas pro you can assemble your sequence directly from the .ab1 file and quality check the resulting sequence alignment/assembly directly with the chromatograph peaks on sight. Mega allows you to assemble your sequence, either by alignment options or by manually overlapping, for regions and bases you are unsure which might be the correct one, you then also can have a look into the .ab1 files. If you don't care for the quality you basically can use any available programme that is able to work with .fasta files to assemble your sequence.

I use CodonCode Aligner

http://www.codoncode.com/aligner/download.htm

it works great :) easy to use.

For basic analysis and trace quality checking Bioedit free software may be used. However this is not appropriate for assembling

You can use the free software called UGene for all kind of work. But it was little laggy. Use more memory (RAM). If you doesn't have any financial constraints you can purchase Geneious software which can give you publication quality images for your research.

MEGA X can be used first to check, correct and assemble the sequence from ab1 files, then to align with others and/or export in FASTA file

try this manual http://www.dnabaser.com/help/manual.html