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Hi Members of our RootsWeb Gen Lists,
I've been asked by more than a few people what is the best Gen program. I happen
to use FTM (Family Tree Maker) which is one of the easier programs to use and is
the most used program according to a number of sources, BUT, I'm not as happy
with it as I would like. The owners are rather bullyish and greedy (especially
in the oft published upgrades that often betray past users and totally cripple
older versions compatability, especially for sharing info). Still, it works, it
generates an excellent Outline Descendant Tree (ODT), and they are entitled to a
profit.
A couple more of my complaints of FTM include limited capacity for notes for
each name & the limited capacity of FTM to sustain its ODT formatting to display
its Tree in email programs (I retain Netscape 6.2 because it does sustain the
ODT formatting, but requires 5-10 mins to convert from FTM to a Netscape Tree
that will be a faithful Tree in an email).
I'm considering converting to RootsMagic and/or Legacy, both of which are
addressed to some extent by Dick Eastman below. I'd like some input from any or
all of you. I'm aware that there are better Gen programs with more & better
features, but they are generally for the more expert Genealogists. I'll
summarize your comments in a later email.
Another matter of concern to me is the lack of establishment of websites for
display of our Trees and sources thereof. Rootsweb has provided us an
opportunity or 'right' to establish a FREE genealogy website online, see:
http://accounts.rootsweb.com/http://freepages.rootsweb.com/directory/genealogy.html
but have any of our researchers established one?
I did establish the WringtonAncestors MS site a few yrs ago:
http://groups.msn.com/WringtonAncestors/welcome.msnw
which is Free for W'tons and those researching, but, while useful and containing
many good photos & some files, it does not allow the type of interaction as does
a website. Of course, the WorldConnect.com site:
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/
is EXCELLENT for Trees, but w/o the inter-action & attraction of a pure website.
Use of DNA for Genealogy-
There is a new process available to us for resolution of many Gen issues - the
use of dna to establish direct connections to certain family lines. To put it
into context, consider one of my more pressing issues, the '2 Rocksolannahs'
problem, which is also associated, to some extent, with the question of whether
Peter W'ton b 1770 is a son of Wm W'ton md Eliz Lewis. While I'm no expert, but
do attempt to keep up w/the issue, there are a number of surnames which are
currently engaged in dna testing to determine the accuracy of published lines.
While I'm not going to discuss all ramifications here & now (I have posted a
number of msgs discussing the issue), there are definite advantages to dna
testing for genealogy, one of which, as I understand it, could, (if we were to
obtain sufficient # of those willing to pay abt $50-$100 and swab their interior
mouthes w/ a cotton swab & send it in the furnished package to the testers),
establish the various Lines & links of those W'tons & Carruthers (& Jones &/or
Smiths, etc) who participated. Male dna & its testing procedures and results,
are much different than female results, see below, altho each can tell us much.
The results would not tell us who was related to the Rocksolannah/s (not unless
we could obtain the actual dna of Rock' husbands or her known Wton sired male
children/ descendants, which we could then match to near 100%), but would
establish a group or likely groups of persons alive today [BTW, leave good
samples of your dna for use by your descendants for many useful purposes] who
have common ancestors. So, for example, if we tested 30 Carruthers & W'ton type/
connected males (I'll discuss only male testing now), and there were 3 groups of
100% matched males, then we could be very confident that there were 3
independent direct lines of Carruthers/ W'tons - certain dna markers are passed
unchanged & 100% identifiable to sons, and in continuity to all male
descendants. If the results were 12, 15, 1, 2; then we would conclude there were
2 Carruthers/W'ton lines & 2 unknown Lines - perhaps adopted, name changes,
incest, slaves, or other hanky panky. There is much more to it than that
(Please, Don't spend a lot of your time 'correcting my examples - they are
solely for general illustrative purposes & info on a very complicated issue.
Also, female mitochrondial dna
(http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2000-10/0972176135 - you
WILL enjoy this msg) is useful to connect up female generations, & was used to
connect up a 5,000 yr connection in England, alto there are mutations along the
way (the mutations are also useful!), see a few of my dna emails in the
Archives:
http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname/c/carruthers.htmlhttp://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname/w/witherington.html
For the end of this year, I'd like to feature Below some excerpts from the
OnLine FREE Gen NewsLetter, which I highly recommend, published by noted
genealogist and writer, Dick Eastman, in which he points out some issues of
topical importance to those who use the internet for Gen research.
Barry
- The Year in Review - by Richard Eastman
[The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is
copyright 2003 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the
permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at
http://www.eogn.com]
Genealogy research has been revolutionized in the past decade, and the changes
have continued in the past twelve months. In 1993 the World Wide Web was in its
infancy, and there was minimal genealogy information online. To be sure, there
were also very few genealogists online at the time. My, how our world has
changed since then!
According to several sources, genealogy is now the third or fourth most popular
topic among the millions of Web pages available. There are so many online
genealogy databases that I could not possibly list them all in a single
newsletter. Many new ones appeared in 2003. Millions of genealogists are now
online every day, searching for ancestors.
The year 2003 saw a continuation of the decade of genealogy revolution, both
online and off, including the following:
Genealogy programs have appeared and disappeared. Family Origins disappeared
from view in 2003. RootsMagic appeared at the very beginning of 2003 and has
since become one of the more popular genealogy programs of today.
Online publishing tools have flourished in the past year as well. You can find
many ways to publish your genealogy online and on CD-ROM as well as on paper. I
am especially fond of Ancestral Author, a program announced early in the year
and available at http://www.ancestralauthor.com.
Handheld computers have become useful devices for genealogists. When first
introduced some years ago, the Palm and Windows CE handheld systems had such
limited storage capacity and slow processors that they were little more than
toys. However, that has all changed within a very few years. I now own a
handheld with 512 megabytes of storage that costs less than the model of a few
years ago, which had only one megabyte of storage. Even better, genealogy
software is available from a number of vendors to take advantage of this power
and storage. Genealogists no longer have to carry multiple three-ring binders or
even a laptop PC to the archives. Today, a database of thousands of people,
complete with source citations, can be carried in an overcoat pocket or a purse
by using a device that weighs less than one pound.
Mergers continue within the genealogy community. The big news of 2003 was when
MyFamily.com, owners of Ancestry.com and other Web sites, purchased their
biggest competitor: Genealogy.com. The result is a genealogy powerhouse that
provides software, online databases, and CD-ROM disks. MyFamily.com now is the
largest commercial supplier of genealogy information and services in the world.
The year was not perfect for genealogists as threats appeared. Florida governor
Jeb Bush proposed a budget that included shutting down the state archives. When
genealogists and historians protested loudly, the governor withdrew that section
of his proposed budget. In addition, several states have added complexity and
expenses to the process of obtaining copies of birth, marriage, and death
records.
Genealogy scams have existed for centuries. Some of the more recent ones have
become notorious, but the perpetrators always seemed to make money and then
disappear when things got "hot." The year 2003 saw what is perhaps the first
arrest of a genealogy scam artist. Elias Abodeely was arrested on three felony
counts for his operation of GenSeekers.com, GenealogyGiants.com, and a long list
of other online Web sites. These sites claimed to give access to millions of
genealogy records for payment of fees that varied from $35.00 to $65.00.
However, the sites only contained menus that pointed to publicly-available
genealogy sites elsewhere. Twenty-three-year-old Abodeely was charged with
identity theft and money laundering, among other charges. As of this writing he
still is awaiting a court date.
Pressure is being exerted on genealogy societies everywhere as declining
membership and reduced revenues are rampant. Indeed, the (U.S.) National
Genealogical Society has undergone recent turmoil. Several members of the Board
of Directors have resigned, the president of the society resigned, the Executive
Director is on unpaid administrative leave, and several employees were recently
dismissed. The society is now being managed by a few hard-working individuals
who hope to restore the NGS to be a leading provider of services and education
to our community. I would strongly encourage NGS members to support their
society at this time. If ever there was a time that the society needed your
support, this is it.
Genealogy conventions and conferences have seen declining attendance in recent
years. I often hear of declining attendance and revenues at genealogy
conferences. However, I attended four large conferences this year, and they all
had very good attendance: the Society of Genealogists' Family History Fair in
London, the U.S. National Genealogical Society's annual conference held in
Pittsburgh, the U.S. Federation of Genealogical Society's annual conference held
in Orlando, and a regional conference, the New England Regional Genealogical
Conference, held in Massachusetts. All of them had good attendance with the last
one exceeding the organizers' expectations by about 50%!
Indeed, 2003 has been a year of mixed news. You must admit, however, that it has
been an interesting year!
In next week's newsletter, I will peer into a somewhat murky crystal ball and
try to make some predictions about genealogy news, services, software, and
searches in 2004.
What Do You Think? Comments and discussion are available on this newsletter's
Discussion Board at:
http://www.eogn.com/discussionboard