Navel Gazing and Future Proofing

We need to evaluate our practices regularly. The catalyst for my recent navel gazing is the presentation I  prepared for Connections2025, The Thoughtful Ancestor: leaving a large footprint for future generations. I have a big footprint but need to ensure that it's easy for my descendants to follow.

I've been reviewing my practices, the products I use and my genealogy budget and trying to make my genealogy assets easy to access for future generations. Following is a summary of my recent thoughts and actions. 

I am looking at my assets in three categories: Digital, Physical and Cranial and using as a prompt this process.

My process for future-proofing my genealogy assets. 
Evaluation is vital at each stage of the process

Social Media

X formerly Twitter - I am no longer posting there but have kept my account. I have replaced this product with Bluesky where many of my genimates have accounts.  I am @geniaus.bluesky.social.

Instagram - I set up an Instagram for family history purposes after Twitter became unattractive. I'm still on Insta but not actively posing since moving to Bluesky

Facebook - I have a huge investment and history so won't be ditching it at the moment. My GeniAusPage is my main vehicle for sharing family history news and views. 

Family Tree Software

Family Historian. While I still retain Family Historian for my main database I have resisted upgrading to the latest version.

RootsMagic  I started using RootsMagic to manage the people in my CareyBay2283 One Place Study. Although I don't have a handle on its sourcing system I appreciate its fairly seamless syncing with Ancestry, FamilySearch and FindMyPast. This may become my primary tool in the future.

I now have several projects in RootsMagic 10. I find it good for managing the DNA matches of some of the kits I manage. 

TNG  I use The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding to maintain my family website. I can upload a gedcom file from any other product to TNG. 

I am concerned that when I turn my toes up no-one will keep the website going.  Over Easter two of my offspring committed to this task so I won't be ditching TNG or my website in the near future. 

GeniAus Website This is where I host my family site. I will keep it going while I am able but I need to have insurance lest my descendants run out of time or money to maintain it. 

WikiTree I am committed to Wikitree as a collaborative tree. I am working to ensure that my ancestors' and forebears' stories are not lost so I aim to give them all a profile on this platform. It's a future-proofing exercise.

Other Activities

Blogging I am committed to blogging about family history and to record my personal history. I use two free platforms, Blogger and Wordpress.com although I prefer Blogger because it is much easier to tweak their templates and they don't sprinkle my posts with ads as is the Wordpress practice. 

I see that several of my genimates have moved to Substack. I am not convinced that this is the platform for me. I will sit back and see how it progresses. I have seen too many Bright Shiny Objects come and go to move platforms when I am satisfied with what I have. 

FindaGrave In addition to adding details of ancestors' final resting places to the FindaGrave site I have set up several virtual cemeteries on that site. I have one each for biological relatives of  my husband and me. I also maintain one for a Cousin and one to support my One Place Study.

One Place Study I'm not sure I can do this justice but as no-one else was recording the history and  stories of the place where I live I commenced this project last year. 

Surname Study I now realise that I have bitten off more than I can chew with this project I commenced in 2014. I did not realise that Curry, my maiden name, was such a common surname, I should have chosen Pusell, my grandmother's maiden name which is not so common. Currently this project is stalled with a database of several thousand persons in Family Historian. The study blog is still active and will remain so. 

Cranial Assets or What's in my head I'm working on this. Some are things I am not yet ready to share. I keep a diary in an Excel spreadsheet and blog at jillballau but need to do more. 

Money Matters I need to give this some thought and will report in a future post. 

Housework time at Geniaus.net

I remember somewhere, sometime saying that I intended to update my website GeniAus Family Site every month or so. It seems that my good intentions flew out the window. I just checked to see when I had last updated the site and it was back in February.

GeniAus Family Site

Ever since we went into our latest Covid lockdown a website update has been on my gunna list but I keep saying I'll do it tomorrow. During the lockdown I have been hatching, matching, and dispatching many ancestors.  I hadn't looked at some of my research from last century since last century and, in that period, many new records have come online and several elderly cousins have left this mortal earth. 

When I did my early research I was grateful to find one source for each event but I have learnt that is not enough. Events need to be corroborated by multiple sources of quality. Lockdown has given me time to go back, update records and seek new sources.

Each day I think I'll update the website now but then I say "I'll just check a few more records and upload tomorrow."  I could have gone on like this until Christmas. When I wanted to share a link to the record of a family member who had recently passed away I realised that I needed to upload a gedcom containing the death date of that person to make the record appear on the GeniAus Family website.  (Records of living people are not in the public domain on my site.) All of a sudden I had a pressing need for an immediate upload.

So today, 7 months since my last update, I have spent a few minutes exporting a gedcom from my Family Historian software and uploading it to my website ( TNG software hosted by Simply Hosting). If I had remembered where I had saved my login details for the site this should only take around five minutes! Sadly it took me much longer to retrieve those details. Once I was at the host's site I also made a full backup of my website that I will store on an external hard drive. 

A few statistics from the GeniAus Family site today.

I am constantly making edits and additions to my Family Historian database so I will try to remember a monthly website upload (reminder now in calendar). I wonder if I will manage.

News from Darrin

Some of you will know that I use TNG (The Next Generation of Sitebuilding) which I highly recommend for my online tree. I have been using this platform for 9 years and have experienced no hiccups. When there is a problem the developer, Darrin Lythgoe, is just an email away.

GeniAus TNG site

Darrin sent me an announcement about a new upgrade to the package. I'll get on to upgrading real soon as it promises "significant upgrades to the DNA Testing Feature".


Press Release: TNG version 12
May 8, 2018
Contact: Darrin Lythgoe (darrin@lythgoes.net)

SANDY, UT: A major upgrade for The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding (or “TNG”), is now available from Next Generation Software. TNG 12 includes many enhancements and new
features, plus security and user access improvements. Existing users can purchase the upgrade
at a discount by returning to their previous download page.

This release also includes three new template designs, plus added functionality for several
others, and a new language is supported (Chinese). Several media handling functions have
been improved, and two privacy-related tools have been introduced. Significant upgrades have
also been made to the DNA testing feature and the Mod Manager, which allows users to easily
install or remove add-ons.

Several of the third-party libraries used in TNG (like jQuery and PHP Mailer) have also been
upgraded, and many updates have been made to keep TNG compatible with the latest versions
of PHP and MySQL.

A more detailed summary of the version 12 changes can be found on the TNG blog at
http://tngsitebuilding.com/blog/genealogywebsites/announcements/tng-12- feature-preview, and
a complete list is available at http://tngsitebuilding.com/recentchanges.php.

For those already running TNG, upgrading to the new version should be fairly easy and should
take less than 15 minutes. Helpful videos are also available to walk users through the process
and to highlight new features and other processes, but an option also exists to pay someone to
install the upgrade for them.

TNG makes it easy to put your genealogy on your web site in dynamic fashion. It uses a
database to store your information, so the pages are created at the time they';re requested.
When you want to make a change, you only need to upload your GEDCOM file again, or enter
the new facts directly online. TNG also allows you to link photos and other media to the people
in your tree. You're in total control, so you can update your information or customize the look
and feel any time you want.

TNG is commercial software ($32.99 USD one-time license fee). In order to run TNG, your web
site must support PHP (a programming language) and MySQL (the database). Existing users
may upgrade to the latest version online starting at $15.99. The first version of TNG was
published by Darrin Lythgoe in 2001.

Following Taneya's Tip

I love it when I pick up a really useful tip from another geneablogger.

Yesterday as I was catching up on some blog reading I came across a recent Tech Tuesday post from Taneya Koonce in which she talked about the organisation of her digital images. She mentioned that she had been a user of Picasa but that when Google withdrew support for that product she returned to an ACDSee  product she had used previously.

That post was so timely for me as I have been looking around for something to replace Picasa.  Picasa still works but I don't want to be in a situation where it may crash and I lose all the info I have added to my images with the program.

I immediately investigated the ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 10 program by seeking out reviews and reading posts in user groups. There was a lot of positivity so I took advantage of the month's free trial and downloaded the program.

Playing with ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 10

After 6 hours use I find that it is a sophisticated package that has some features I may never use but it does what I want and more. The tags I had assigned to all my images in Picasa have appeared in the IPTC Metadata keyword field. This was a major criteria for me, a feature that was essential. Being able to apply metadata that conforms to IPTC international standards is most important to this old librarian, I have spent most of my time today doing that. I have played around with retrieving images from my sample collection and that works well.

I only had to resort to the Help Menu a couple of times as I played with my photos from 2017 so I guess that means it is fairly intuitive.

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 10  is not cheap but is on special online for $USD99 until 17th January. I won't be parting with my money immediately. I'll play with the program a little more but I am confident that I have found a solution that suits my purposes.

Which software to use?

Whenever I am asked a question about which software to use I refer my genimates to Louis Kessler's website GenSoftReviews. Following is his annual report on top rated genealogy software for 2017. I'm pleased to see that the packages I use, Family Historian and TNG (The next generation) are in the top 25 list.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GenSoftReviews.com is where users go to rate and review their genealogy software. The site lists almost 1,000 programs, and users have contributed over 4,800 program reviews and ratings since the site opened in 2008.

,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 1, 2018

The 9th annual Users Choice Awards have been tabulated and awarded at the GenSoftReviews website.

During 2017, 82 of the nearly 1,000 programs listed received 535 reviews. Along with the review, users rated the programs from 1 to 5 star, with 5 being best.  Programs that received at least one review in 2017 with 10 or more all-time reviews that achieved a user rating of at least 4.00 out of 5 receive a GenSoftReviews User Choice Award for 2017. The award reflects that the program is well-liked by its users.

The 25 programs awarded a GenSoftReview Users Choice Award as a Top Rated Genealogy Software for 2017 are:

• 13 Windows programs: Family Historian, Ahnenblatt, Personal Ancestral File, Family Book Creator, Ancestral Quest, Generations, Brother’s Keeper, RootsMagic, The Master Genealogist, Relatively Yours, Family Tree Builder, Family Tree Maker (up to Version 16), and Ages!  
• 3 Mac programs: iFamily for Mac, Heredis for Mac, and Reunion
• 4 programs built for Windows, Mac and Unix:  Evidentia, Ancestris, Familienbande, and GenealogyJ
• 5 Online programs: Famberry, The Next Generation, Genealogie Online, webtrees, and MyHeritage
• 0 Handheld programs.

The top program for 2017 was Evidentia, a program that helps you analyze evidence. Evidentia had an almost perfect user rating of 4.98 out of 5 based on 14 reviews. iFamily for Mac, a full-featured genealogy program for the Mac, was second at 4.95 out of 5 also on 14 ratings. And the online program Famberry was third with 4.94 out of 5 from 61 ratings.

New to the list of winners for 2017 was Ancestris, a free full-featured program from France. Ancestris received 8 reviews in 2017 bringing it to 12 reviews in total and making it eligible for the first time. Ancestris placed fourth overall with a 4.92 out of 5 rating.

Heredis for Mac rejoined the winners in 2017 after previously having won from 2012 to 2015. It dropped off the list in 2016 because it did not have any reviews in that year.

Winners in 2016 that dropped off the list this year include GenSmarts and Aldfaer which did not have any reviews in 2017, as well as Clooz and Heredis for PC whose overall rating dropped below 4.00 in 2017.

Several unsupported programs are still thought of highly enough by their users that they won an award in 2017. These include: Personal Ancestral File, Generations, The Master Genealogist, Relatively Yours, and Family Tree Maker up to Version 16.

Six programs have been GenSoftReviews User Choice Award winners every year since the awards began in 2009. They are: Personal Ancestral File, The Next Generation, Brother’s Keeper, RootsMagic, Family Tree Builder and Reunion.

GenSoftReviews uses a time-weighted average score. The weight of every user rating is reduced 50% every year, so newer opinions will be better reflected in the overall average score.

GenSoftReviews was created to be a site, somewhat like TripAdvisor for travelers, where genealogists can go to express their feelings about the genealogy software that they’ve used and tried. The reviews and ratings will likely help other genealogists who are looking for new software. It is hoped the developers of the programs also will see and use the reviews at GenSoftReviews to improve their programs.

For more information and a complete listing of current and past winners, see the Users Choice Award Winners page at GenSoftReviews.

###

About Louis Kessler

Louis Kessler has been a genealogist, lecturer and programmer for over 40 years. He developed and runs the GenSoftReviews site. He is also the author of the genealogy programs Behold and GEDCOM File Finder available at www.beholdgenealogy.com, as well as the DNA analysis program Double Match Triangulator available at www.doublematchtriangulator.com

101 Reasons to attend #Congress_2018 - Find fellow users

There are many genealogy software packages out on the market most of which have their champions. Some of the more commercial packages have user group meetings in larger centres where fellow users can help and suppport each others' use of the program. I have noticed in a few family history groups that one software disciple will convince others to use the program he/she uses because he can help them with their questions.

As I don't know many people who use my program of choice, Family Historian, I rely on printed manuals and online groups to give me guidance when I get stuck. I happen to know that a few Congressites also use this program so I am hoping to snatch a few minutes to discuss my use  and get some tips from them in March.

You too can find fellow users and organise a get together during downtime (is there such a thing?) at Congress. Feel free to set up an event on our Facebook group for users of your fave package.

It was a bumper day..

...for deaths in my tree today.

A quick squizz at my site shows that these people took their last breath on December 2nd.

Died

Matches 1 to 6 of 6

#	Last Name, Given Name(s)	Died		Person ID
1	Kealy John	2 Dec 1933	,Ballyfoyle, Kilkenny, Ireland	I2168
2	Gowans Joanna Neilson	2 Dec 1959	3719 West 2nd Street,Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada	I226
3	Corbett Catherine Mary	2 Dec 1960	Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Camperdown, NSW, Australia	I79
4	Nelson Ronald David	2 Dec 1965	Prince Henry's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia	I1404
5	Winefield Louisa Clifford	2 Dec 1981	,,NSW, Australia	I786
6	O'Brien Bert Trelawney	2 Dec 1984	,,NSW, Australia	I555

I love this Dates and Anniversaries feature in my TNG software where one can select a date and see who was hatched, Matched or dispatched on that day.

MyHeritage News

News from genimatae, Daniel Horowitz, at MyHeritage

I'm delighted to announce the launch of the new Consistency Checker for online family trees at MyHeritage. This new tool scans your family tree and identifies potential mistakes and inconsistencies in your data so that you can quickly make the necessary changes in your tree, improving its overall quality and accuracy.

At MyHeritage, we hold accuracy in high regard and the Consistency Checker is an important tool for family historians of any skill level. We hope it will improve the quality of collaborative genealogy as a whole.

Please find attached a visual, and more information in the blog post here:

https://blog.myheritage.com/2017/02/new-online-family-tree-consistency-checker/

Rootstech Innovator Showdown Semi-Finalists

The semi-finalists are...

Champollion 2.0
CSI Crowd Sourced Indexing

Cuzins

Double Match Triangulator
Emberall
JoyFLIPS
Kindex

OldNews USA

QromaTag

RootsFinder

See the official announcement and program details here: https://www.rootstech.org/innovator-showdown

Congratulations to the semi-finalists and thanks to all who entered apps in the competition.

I  spent an enjoyable couple of days last week evaluating the 42 entries for the Rootstech Innovator Showdown. I was honoured to receive an invitation be a judge on the selection panel for the semi-finals of this award.

Having met the other judges online I figure that I represented the older generation,  amateur genealogists, the southern hemisphere and women and Rockstar Genealogists (with Christine Woodcock from Canada).

The judges individually selected their top ten apps (and two reserves) from the list before we met to discuss our choices with David Pugmire from Familysearch in a teleconference earlier this week. There was a deal of consensus among the group but we also had lively debate on the merits of some programs. Once we settled on our list David and the Showdown organisers went away to give the good news to the semi-finalists. We came up with a worthy list of semi-finalists whose products will serve the diverse needs of family historians.

I look forward to attending the Innovator Showdown during the  Innovator Summit at Rootstech and hearing the developers pitch their products to the judges and audience. If you are going to be at Rootstech 2017 make sure you register for this event on Wednesday 8th February and be in attendance to support your fave software and developer. The five finalists chosen on this day will present their apps again during Rootstech on Friday 10th February where there are some handsome cash prizes on offer.

You can see what my genimate Christine had to say about our gig here: http://scottishgenealogytipsntricks.blogspot.com.au/2016/12/innovator-summit-semi-finalists.html

Rootstech Innovator Showdown - The Submissions

What sort of app would you like to see developed to solve a genealogy issue you have?

Among the 41 submissions for The 2017 Rootstech Innovator Showdown I can see a few apps or programs that would make my life easier while I wonder about the usefulness of some of the other entries. I enjoyed looking at the programs and wonder which ones will win the generous prizes on offer.

There are programs/apps for several operating systems.  Some are for Windows, some for mobile devices, some are web-based and there's even a Chrome extension. It's interesting to note that seven of the entries were also submitted to the 2016 showdown. Some submissions have been made by individuals while some come from teams with expertise that covers technology and genealogy.

Submissions come from a range of countries including Australia, Canada, England, France, India, Ireland, Morocco, Tunisia and the United States. Some apps integrate with Familysearch and one is an addon to the ShotBox. Quite a number are based around preserving stories while some are unique. There is something for just about every genie.

Of course price is always an issue with cash-strapped genies. Unfortunately it is hard to ascertain the costs associated with many of these programs/apps.

I'd love to know which programs/apps on the list are your favourites. Please take a look and let me know.

Family Historian Data Matching

One of the first messages I read on Facebook this morning was from my genimate Shelley who was excited about the latest upgrade, 6.2,  to our favourite genealogy software package, Family Historian. Shelley's glee was soon matched by Colin Spencer who also shared the news.

Not to be outdone, when I had finished my morning chores I set about downloading the Family Historian upgrade and it took ages, I usually don't download upgrades so promptly so I was keen to get this upgrade as were probably many other FH users.

The FH site told me "Users of version 6 can now download a free upgrade to Family Historian 6.2 (the full 3-digit version number is 6.2.0). The new version adds automatic record matching and ‘hints’ for Findmypast databases. To learn more, see Automatic Internet Data Matching".

Well I have a sub to Findmypast that I don't use a lot so I thought I'd give this a try. Family Historian already had data matching with MyHeritage but, as I only recently won a sub to that site at Rootstech, I hadn't set up this facility.

After taking ages to download I installed the upgrade in a minute or two and following the instructions from Family Historian I set up data matching. It took me a while to get the hang of using the tool and I had to read the instructions (something I don't often do) but now I have it down pat. 

One must use the Focus Window view in Family Historian to see the matches. A little green icon in the bottom right hand corner of a person's name indicates there are matches available.

Family Historian - Focus Window View

When one hovers over the green icon a little box appears indicating how many matches have been found in each database. Selecting one of the databases opens a web search window within Family Historian where one can view and accept or reject the suggestions. One can use an external browser which is the way I started but I found the inbuilt browser easier for me.

Although one can't directly import into Family Historian I am not perturbed, it makes me stop and think before hastily adding something. One does not have to type data into FH (which is a boon for this hunter and pecker) one can use copy and paste or drag and drop to move data from the Web Browser into Family Historian. I have added quite a few records to my CurryAus study database via this method today. Of course I am concentrating on indexes at My Heritage and giving the user submitted trees a wide berth!

Am I happy - You bet your life I am. I am sure that after some more tweaking by the developers this feature will become even easier to use. 

My genealogy software package has become even more useful and I am about to get more value from two of the databases to which I have access.

Who wouldn't be smiling?

Family Historian Upgrade

No more forward slashes

The thought of upgrading software fills me with fear and trepidation but I am pleased to report that the free upgrade to Family Historian version 6.1 that I applied last week went off without a hitch.

I haven't noticed much difference in the program except with the entering of surnames which used to be enclosed within forward slashes . The need to use these forward slashes has disappeared so that's good.

There is a full list of the tweaks and new features that have been applied on the Family Historian website.

I must thank Simon Orde and his team for pushing out this free upgrade which takes on board many suggestions made by former users of The Master Genealogist and Family Tree Maker who have migrated to Family Historian.

One of my fave programs just got a whole lot better

This is not really about genealogy but the product in question is a great tool for the genealogist.

Whilst I use Librarything to record all the books (including genealogy ones) I have read and those I own that are still to be read I have always wished that I could record the movies I watch in a similar program.  I have dabbled with a few other options but I prefer Librarything.

I just about danced for joy when on their blog last week the good folk from Librarything annoounced  on their blog that they are bowing to the wishes of their users and making it possible to search a few online music and movie catalogues to add details of these works therein to Librarything.

So in between backing up my genie files to a couple of hard drives today I did a search of my diary (it's an excel spreadsheet) to find any entries with the word movie in them.  What is scary is that I can't remember half of the first 20 movies I found. It only takes a few seconds to find the movie from the Amazon (UK) catalogue or whichever catalogue you nominate and zap them into my Librarything account. Once that is done I can add ratings, reviews and tags just like I do for my books. I could even do it for my music if I felt inclined.

My love for Librarything has gone up another notch ( I'm sure there must be some genealogy related movies I can add.)

If you haven't heard about Librarything take a look at these earlier posts of mine:

http://geniaus.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/librarything-genealogists-friend.html

http://worldwidegenealogy.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/librarything-for-genealogy.html

http://geniaus.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/librarything-for-genealogists.html

Beaut software is even better

It's hard for me to contain my excitement when I find something fantastic but I have exercised considerable restraint while Beta testing Version 6 of Family Historian software. As a Beta tester I committed to keeping mum about the new version and its features but now that the developer Calico Pie has announced the product's imminent release and discussed some of its new features I feel I can open my mouth. Here is a snip from the company's recent newsletter:

Family Historian 6 is due for release on December 9th. It will be a big and exciting release, packed with enhancements and great new features. There are far too many features to cover in a single bulletin (and in any case, we want to keep some surprises for the day), but just to whet your appetites, we are including a sneak preview of a just a couple of new features below – Map Windows and Witnesses.

As a tester I can confirm that it is big and exciting. When  I moved over from The Master Genealogist to Family Historian a couple of years ago I was delighted with FH except on a couple of  counts. The major one being that I lost all the witnesses to events that I had created. There was a work around in version 5 of FH but I couldn't be bothered with it. 

I was delighted when I found that a witness function had been added to Version 6. During the testing I put this through its paces on a copy of my database and it worked a treat. Now I will be able to reinstate all the ministers/priests who BMDed family members, all the guests at various family events, godparents, bridesmaids and so on. Calico Pie suggest:"For example, you could use it to record the fact that a group of people all lived together, if you wanted to. The practical effect is to provide richer and more fleshed-out reports, and a richer experience when browsing, because witness details can be accessed when viewing an event from the point-of-view of any of the participants."

Jane Taubman teaching FH 2014

If you are into maps then the new mapping facility is fantastic. There aare some other new features that really struck a chord with me but I must keep them under wraps for the moment.

Santa Jill will be delivering my update by download as soon as the package is released on December 9. I just need to find out how to place an advance order!

You may know that I recently undertook two days of Family Historian training with Family Historian guru, Jane Taubman. Jane and I are intending to show off FH version 6 in a Google Hangout in early January. I will share details when I have a time and date.

BTW. The only perk I receive from Calico Pie is the opportunity to test and comment on the beta version of their new release. I just happen to lke their product.

Trove Tuesday - An Apple Tree

One of the first computer labs I managed in the mid eighties was one of Apple 11 computers in the days before I got hooked by the genealogy bug.

I found this article about an early genealogy database software on Trove and am wondering if any of my genimates used this Australian program to maintain their data.

1985 'Genealogy program for Apples.', The Canberra Times(ACT : 1926 - 1995), 30 September, p. 20, viewed 1 September, 2014, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128258369

Advice for a Schoolfriend

Two days ago I received a text message from a very dear schoolfriend who has been dabbling in family history for quite a few years. Now that she has joined the retiree ranks she will have more time to get into research.

Her text message said: " Can u recommend a prog for family tree stuff so I can digitize all the records, certificates, letters etc that I have. I have so many unwieldy folders."

Rather than only write back to her I will offer some thoughts here on my blog and send her the link. What I say may not be relevant to all but parts of it may be useful to more than just my friend.

Friend and GeniAus 1961

Dear Schoolfriend,

So pleased that you want to get all your family history stuff organised, your kids may not be interested now but when they are old and gray like us they may become interested in their backgrounds. I think there are a few things you need to do.

Firstly you need to get a genealogy management software program into which you can record all the names, dates and details that you will find on all those documents you have. Secondly you need to organise all your digital and hardcopy files.

1. The software I use is Family Historian, an English product. You can download a trial version and use it for a month before you need to part with any cash. The benefits are:

* If you need help I am at the end of the phone,
* It manages multimedia well,
* It is an English product and your ancesstors come from that neck of the woods,
* It is eminently customisable but you can use it out of the (virtual) box,
* There is great support from the user group,
* You are one smart cookie so you will have no trouble using it,
* It uses native gedcom. don't worry about what this is, but it means that your data will transfer smoothly to another platform/program in years to come.

There are many software packages on the market and they will all do the job to a greater or lesser degree. If you don't want to spend any $$$ at the moment I would suggest you use the free pruned down version of Rootsmagic, Rootsmagic Essentials, it is available as a download. Quite a few of my friends use the fullblown version. I have installed the free one on my computer so I can help people at the Society and it does a good job of managing one's data, I can probably give some assistance with this too. Once you really catch the genealogy bug you will probably want more bells and whistles in your software. From either of these you can import your data into an app on your iPad and take it around with you.

You can print all sorts of reports and trees from your software package (not so many from a freebie one), having stuff organised into a database in your software package also helps you see where there are gaps in your information.

One thing to note is that you can store all of your documents in your genealogy program or you can store them elsewhere on your computer. I keep mine on my hard drive, I can explain why down the track.

2. With your documents it's a case of what comes first the chicken or the egg? Do whatever you feel comfortable with but you should aim to:
* Record all the information from them into your software program and make sure you add source information as you go even if your source is a person or an email (I learnt my lesson the hard way and have quite a few unsubstantiated assertions in my database). You must record where you found the information or you will have a fairytale on your hands.
* Start with yourself and husband then go on and add the descendants and ancestors.
* Scan all of your documents, toss out the more ephemeral things, keep the important certificates and original documents and store them away safely.
* Organise all your documents into a logical order, it doesn't matter how you do it but you must be consistent. It is a good idea to replicate the filing method you have for your hardcopy documents in your digital files.
* FYI I have a set of Family History folders on my hard drive, in Family History - People I have one subfolder for each surname I am researching. Where there are people with lots of documents I make personal subfolders within each surname folder. You can throw all sorts of files in together: sound, images, docs, pdfs, videos. Some people keep Paternal and Maternal lines in separate folders, others file by document type putting all Birth certs together, all newspaper clippings together etc. Others do it differently.
* I also have a folder for Family History - Places where I put stuff about various ancestral towns, I have a subfolder there for each town. I may put maps, photos, news articles, cemetery info into these folders.
* I also have a Family History - Sorting folder where I park newly digitised stuff  from which I need to extract data prior to filing. You could actually start by putting everything in something like this and move each file to an appropriate folder once you have dealt with it.
* My hardcopy files are organised by Surname and Forename just like my digital stuff and then chronogically so Birth comes before Baptism and Death before Burial.
* It is important to have some sort of file naming convention that you use consistently. For people I use Surname, Forenames dates and some sort of description eg Duncan, Francis 1900-1963 Birth Certificate or Curry, Thomas William 1877-1954 Obituary SMH 19540832.
* Once you've organised all that you have you will need to have a Research Log to keep track of what you need to do next and what you have done already. Family Historian can deal with this or you may consider Evernote that we talked about the other day or you could use a spreadsheet.

The most important thing to do is to make a start. I hope I haven't frightened you off.

Love, Jill

GeniAus and Friend 1970

Signed up for Two Courses

I moved my family tree data over to Family Historian nearly two years ago now but I still class myself as a beginner with this versatile software package.

I learnt a lot from Family Historian expert, Jane Taubman, on the Unlock the Past Genealogy cruise in February when she presented a series of lectures on the package. Jane indicated that several times a year she conducted full day courses for Family Historian users at Dillington House in Ilminster, Somerset in the UK. When I expressed an interest in these courses Jane asked when I would be in the UK and said she would try to schedule some courses when I would be there. She was as good as her word.

Tonight I have signed up for two full day courses in November. Hopefully by the time I return to Australia I will be an intermediate user of the Family Historian software.

These are the courses I will be taking

You can read all about the courses here: http://courses.rjt.org.uk/wp/category/family-historian-courses/.

The Problem Solving Presenter

My head is swimming after nine days at sea on the 4th Unlock the Past Genealogy Cruise.

I had every intention of joining this cruise so after I booked when I found that one of the presenters was to be Family Historian expert and FHUG Site Administrator, Jane Taubman, I was especially chuffed. As a relatively new convert to the Family Historian  software package I am still a novice and need all the help I can get.

I learnt lots about the program from Jane in the six workshops I attended at sea and two subsequent ones on land but I doubt that I will retain much of this. More importantly I was convinced that I made the right decision in moving over to  Family Historian. A software package that contains lots of data must give users many ways to retrieve and massage the data it contains. Some programs make it very easy to input data but extracting data in a palatable format can be a trial.  Family Historian  is excellent in this regard.

Jane Taubman at work on Voyager of the Seas

Jane knows the  Family Historian  package inside out. Her style of presentation that wasn't scripted except for a short introduction was excellent. Jane taught us how to use the program with live demonstrations of the software's capabilities, she coped admirably with questions from participants and happily went off on tangents to address their particular needs.

Jane was a patient and knowledgeable teacher with super problem solving skills and this is where she shone for me. Many people are able to teach but often they don't have the knack of taking a student's issue on board, mulling it over and coming back with a workaround or solution.  There are one or two features that I miss from my old program. Jane went away, thought about them and returned the next day with solutions. What a lifesaver!

I am anxious to get stuck into my research once more and further explore Family Historian. Mr GeniAus has agreed that I can take some time out of our trip to the UK later in the year to attend some of Jane's workshops at Dillington House in Somerset. By then I should have lots of further questions and may be even ready to start retrieving info from my database. For the moment I will concentrate on data entry and editing.

Jane gave one of the most talked about sessions on the cruise to a nearly packed house. In her Snapshots to Photographs presentation she gave all the budding photographers present many tips to improve their images. As a snap happy person I really enjoyed the advice Jane proffered by using examples from her collection of photographs. What a visual treat we had.

I am sure that I would have enjoyed the cruise without Jane but her presence was just the icing on the cake.

Tagxedo

Every so often I create a Wordle. Today I decided to create a word cloud from the words that appear on my blog using a different tool, Tagxedo.

There were lots of options for formatting that I could have spent hours tweaking but as GeniAus is an Australian blog I chose the shape below for my first attempt and didn't play around much.

Repent at Leisure

A contact on Google+ this morning wrote "Ideal Christmas gift for the genealogist - family historian in your family." and posted a link to purchase Family Tree Maker from Amazon.com.

This raised my hackles. So I replied:

 I am reminded of "Marry in haste, Repent at lesiure"

I have to disagree. I won't suggest one program over another but would counsel people wanting to buy a program to think about what they want from that program.

I would use these resources first:
Kerry Farmer's book "Which genealogy program? "http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/37970119 and Lewis Kessler's marvellous site Genealogy Software reviews: http://www.gensoftreviews.com/ where one finds that Family Tree Maker (current version) was ranked 28 on the list of genealogy programs in 2012. 

I would also check to see if the program developers are members of FHISO (Family History Information Standards Organisation) http://fhiso.org/.  

I would add to this short response, to talk to lots of people and find what they like and dislike about their current program. See if any user groups for the proposed package are in the user's local area. See what forms of print and online support are available for users. Seek the pinion of vendors of multiple software packages, they will know what to recommend.

I don't have a personal issue with Family Tree Maker, I know a lot of people who use it and are very happy with their experience. Purchasing genealogy software is like buying a car, the product has to fit the user's needs.Giving a genealogy software package as a Christmas present is a fine gesture but the giver should really do her homework first before committing to a purchase. 

What would perhaps better would be the gift of a voucher from a genealogy software supplier for purchase of a package of the user's choice.