 |
 |
Member Login | My Account | Guest Registry |
 |
 |
| Getting Started | Learning Center | Reference | Publications | Articles & Columns |
| Learn > Articles & Columns > Daily News > Current Article | |
Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
| IN THIS ISSUE: |
|
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Car Wash |
| February 1, 1999 |
- A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Car Wash If you read this newsletter two weeks ago, then you already know that I met with a minor accident. Before the newsletter was completed, I decided to wash my pickup truck at a local car wash. While there, I slipped on some ice, fell forward and broke a bone in each of my forearms. The next few days were very unpleasant. The left arm was in a sling and the right arm was in the cast. This made life a bit difficult, to say the least. Not only could I not scratch my own nose, I also could not zip a zipper nor even cut my own meat. I was rather dependent upon other people. However, on the fourth day after the accident I went back and visited the doctor again. She removed the cast from the right arm, examined it closely and pronounced that it had a very minor hairline fracture. Rather than giving me a new cast, she instead gave me a small nylon-and-velcro brace that covers the wrist and heel of the palm. She even told me to remove the brace from time to time. I only need to wear it when the wrist begins to ache. I now have almost full use of my right arm, including all the fingers. Once again I can dress myself, feed myself, and do all the other things that most people expect to do without thinking. The left arm will remain in a sling for a few more weeks, but that doesn’t seem like much of a problem now. I would like to thank everyone for all the e-mail messages. I couldn’t write personal replies for rather obvious reasons, but I do want to let you know that I really enjoyed reading them. It is nice to know that people care. Even with two broken arms, I did manage to hop on an airplane last week and attend the annual GENTECH conference in Salt Lake City. As predicted, this conference was the biggest and the best GENTECH ever. This year’s conference broke the GENTECH record for the number of attendees, the number of sessions presented, and even the number of vendors. Everyone I talked to at the convention seemed to enjoy it, and all spoke highly about the conference. I might be a bit biased as I sit on the GENTECH Board of Directors, but I think that GENTECH99 was a resounding success.
More than 400 people attended the Friday evening banquet. It, too, was the largest banquet that GENTECH ever had. I was honored to be able to address the audience after dinner. I suspect that the banquet attendees were somewhat sympathetic to my speech as I stood there with two broken arms. If you are interested in seeing a full list of all the sessions held at the GENTECH 99 conference, take a look on the Web at: http://www.gentech.org/99home.htm I think everyone should give the GENTECH conference organizers a round of applause. I would especially like to commend the great efforts of the two people I worked most closely with: Dave Rencher, the conference chairman, and Dean Hunter, the program chairman. I know that a lot of other people also contributed many hours of work to ensure GENTECH99’s success. The GENTECH organization will not be resting on their laurels. Next year’s conference in San Diego already looks like it will be bigger and probably even better. Kip Sperry is in charge of the arrangements, and he assures us that there will not be any snow or ice in San Diego. If you would like to attend an excellent genealogy technology conference in a sunny climate, circle January 28 and 29, 2000 on your calendar right now. Keep an eye on the GENTECH Web page for details. You can find that page at: http://www.gentech.org. If you are interested in being an exhibitor at GENTECH2000, look at: http://www.gentech.org/2000exh.htm. Finally, if you would like to be a speaker or present a technical paper at GENTECH2000, look at: the Web pages and then contact Alan Mann at: alanm@credible.com See you in San Diego! - NEHGS Technology Excellence Award One of the announcements at the GENTECH99 conference was the creation of a new NEHGS Technology Excellence Award. At the Friday night banquet, Steve Kyner of the New England Historic Genealogical Society read the following press release:
Electronic representation of original source documents Electronic publication of genealogical research, including full source documentation. Cataloging of repository materials for electronic access. Collaborative efforts among societies, family history associations or commercial ventures to increase the electronic accessibility of genealogical resources.
- Heritage Quest to Computerize the Entire U.S. Federal Census One of the major announcements coming out of GENTECH99 was from Heritage Quest. Heritage Quest announced a project that uses digital imaging to capture the entire U.S. Federal Census Schedules, 1790-1920. Quoting from the information supplied by Heritage Quest:
Heritage Quest was showing late beta test versions of their first such CD-ROM disks at the GENTECH99 conference. The software was fun to use. The images could quickly and easily be enlarged, switched to negative or enhanced in a number of ways. I suspect that some pages that are difficult to read on a standard microfilm reader will be easier to view and understand on a computer that is running this new software. The software also allows any page from the census to be printed locally on a laser or inkjet printer. Heritage Quest expects to start shipping the first CD-ROM disks to customers within a very few weeks. Project completion is expected around September 1999. For details, look at: http://www.heritagequest.com/genealogy/CD-ROM/
Wholly Genes Software was at GENTECH99 with probably the largest piece of hardware in the vendors’ area. They had a huge plotter that created some very impressive wall-sized printouts in full color. This was done as part of the announcement of the addition of large printouts to The Master Genealogist for Windows.
The charts generated by The Master Genealogist have many options. The software used to generate the charts considers each individual as an "object" so that any box or combination of boxes can be moved, enlarged, colored or otherwise modified in an almost infinite number of variations. For instance, a family could show all the descendants of each sibling in different colors. Someone interested in charting inherited medical conditions could use a separate color to show all the individuals who suffered from the malady in question. Another variation is to enlarge the displayed information for individuals with pictures or details available while simultaneously shrinking the size of the text boxes for individuals with less information available. The Master Genealogist will also create blank charts. You could go to a family reunion or to a library with an empty pedigree chart going back many generations and then start filling in the boxes as your "work sheet." The Master Genealogist can generate the large charts in almost any size. If a large plotter is not available (who has one of those in the living room anyway?), the output can be sent to any Windows-compatible black-and-white or color printer, and then the pages can be taped together. Another option is to send the output to a diskette, which you can take to a local Kinko’s store or some other commercial operation that will let you print on their large plotter. Wholly Genes has a winner with the new wall charts. They are very impressive to look at. However, the really nifty features available do not become apparent until you sit down and start experimenting with all the options available. This is a very flexible program. The new charts will be available in the next release of The Master Genealogist. That new release probably will be available soon although Wholly Genes never predicts dates. Keep an eye on their website at http://www.whollygenes.com/ for details. As I write this, the Web pages do not yet mention the new wall-sized printouts or the new release. However, I suspect that will change when the ship date gets near.
The folks from Sierra were showing off their brand-new Generations Grande Suite at the GENTECH 99 conference. Generations has continued to evolve into a very impressive suite of genealogy-related programs. In fact, it ships in a very large box, which is needed to hold the 12 CD-ROM disks. One disk holds the program while the other disks contain a number of interesting databases and software add-ons.
I sat through a demonstration of many of the new features as presented by Elon Gasper. Elon had one hour in which to present the features of the new program, and he labored quickly to present as much information as possible. However, even in one hour, he was unable to show all the features of the program. It was a pleasure listening to Elon. If the software business ever folds up on him, he obviously has a possible second career as an auctioneer. He spoke rapidly but never stumbled, and he covered a broad territory in his allotted time. At the end of the one-hour presentation, Sierra employees gave away ten copies of Generations Grande Suite as door prizes. Generations Grande Suite has many new features. Probably the most notable is a brand-new graphics program supplied by Micrografx. The graphics program is designed to help enhance and repair old photographs along with most all the other features you expect in a graphics program. Generations Grande Suite has a new scrapbook program and many new charts. One of the new charts is called a "waterfall chart". This is very tough to describe in print; let’s just say that it is an excellent way of showing descendants or ancestors in a space-saving format. You can move information around quickly and easily, highlighting information or changing colors as you wish. You can insert graphics or almost any other information you wish into an ancestor or descendent chart. The program also provides an "enhanced hourglass chart" that shows all blood relatives (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) in an easy-to-understand format. During the demonstration the Sierra employees passed around a large number of professional-looking charts made with Generations Grande Suite. Generations Grande Suite includes a number of databases in the product. Two that I noted are the Civil War Muster Rolls and the Genealogy World Wide Name Index. Generations Grande Suite also includes a number of things one would not expect to find in a genealogy program, such as a cookbook program called MasterCook Heritage Edition. It can be used to save and publish family recipes handed down from generation to generation. In fact, such a cookbook was on display in the Sierra booth at GENTECH. The child of a a Cendant employee created it, complete with graphics and scanned copies of old family photographs, all done with Generations Grande Suite. I hope to write a full review of this program in the near future. In the meantime, you can find a lot of information at: http://www.sierra.com
- Kindred Konnections’ New Additions Kindred Konnections has had an online website for some time now. They have been best known for their database of relationships, much of which was created from GEDCOM files submitted to them. Their database presently contains more than 24 million names and is available on a subscription basis. The folks at Kindred Konnections haven’t been idle, however. At GENTECH99 they introduced several new services. Kindred Konnections says that they are now indexing all the genealogy-related Web pages on the Internet. The server at Kindred Konnections looks for other Web pages that contain GEDCOM files, text files in certain formats, plus several other file formats. On the day I was writing this article, their Web pages report that 2,652,450 names from other pedigree-linked Internet sites have been indexed, and that number is growing daily. With the new software on Kindred Konnections’ server, you can upload a GEDCOM file, which will automatically be compared to the 24 million names in the internal database as well as compared against several million more names on other Internet sites. You will then be notified of all the possible matches. The company also demonstrated some new genealogy software called My-Tree Online that actually runs on their Web server. You view it through Netscape or Internet Explorer on your PC or Macintosh. It even works on WebTV, unlike many other sophisticated Web services. My-Tree Online allows you to store your data on Kindred Konnections’ server. All software executes on that server; you simply view it through your computer’s Web browser. There are several advantages to this. First of all, both Macintosh and Windows 3.1 users can use this program since it runs on the Internet. Even people who subscribe to WebTV and do not own a computer capable of running genealogy software can use all the power built into My-Tree Online, thereby equaling the capabilities of many other genealogy programs. Next, any new software updates that the producer provides are automatically available to everyone instantly, with no installation required. My-Tree Online stores both data and images. One thing that really excited me was the fact that the data is stored in Unicode, not ASCII. This means that it operates well with non-European written languages as well as all the languages handled by other genealogy software. The folks in the Kindred Konnections’ booth were demonstrating genealogy data in Hebrew, Thai, Japanese and Russian. The Hebrew version even inserted data from right to left! As I entered a Hebrew character, it always went to the leftmost position and then shifted previously-entered characters to the right. Kindred Konnections expects to handle Chinese and several other languages as soon as they can find native speakers of those languages to help in the effort. Kindred Konnections has added many more features to their site, including the 1871 Cornwall (United Kingdom) census, a list of thousands of libraries with genealogy content, and a list of many professional genealogy researchers. I hope to write more about these services soon. In the meantime, you can view them at: http://www.kindredkonnections.com
- GenRef’s Pennsylvania Archives CD-ROMs GenRef is a small Utah producer of genealogy CD-ROM disks. The company announced a new series of disks at the GENTECH99 conference. This series will fill eight CD-ROM disks when completed and will contain scanned images of the following Pennsylvania records: Officers and soldiers in the Service of the Province of Pennsylvania, 1744-1765 Indian Traders, 1743-1775 Ships’ registers, 1753-1761 Muster Rolls of the Pennsylvania Navy, 1776-1779 Numerous Muster Rolls, 1775-1779 History and Rosters of Pennsylvania Military Units and Continental Line, 1776-1783 Depreciation Pay Abstracts of Pension Applications Letters of Marque, 1762-1776, 1778-1782 Enlistments The price for these eight CD-ROM disks will be $39.95 each. However, GenRef is offering a pre-publication price of $29.95 each for orders received before the CD-ROM disks are released. For more information, send an e-mail to: info@genref.com
- Genealogical Library Master Catalog Another new product being displayed at GENTECH99 was the Genealogical Library Master Catalog for both Windows and Macintosh. This catalog will be published on three CD-ROM disks and will contain listings of more than 300,000 works held by eighteen libraries across the United States. Most of the listings will contain the full title, the author’s name, publisher, format (usually meaning the number of pages in a book), whether or not the work has a bibliography, notes, a description of the book’s subject, the library where it may be found and that library’s call number. The CD-ROM disks will include profile information about each library such as location, hours for onsite research as well as information about research services available via FAX, mail or telephone. The Genealogical Library Master Catalog Family History CD-ROM will list nearly 100,000 family histories and genealogies. The two Local Histories and Genealogical Sources CD-ROM disks will list more than 100,000 titles of original and transcribed records. All the CD-ROM disks will cover books, manuscripts and microfilms. Developer Rick Crume exhibited a late beta test version of the Genealogical Library Master Catalog at GENTECH99. The CD-ROM certainly was simple to use: it runs in either Netscape or Internet Explorer. All commands appear as buttons or icons within the browser. It looks like you are on the World Wide Web even though you are actually reading the data from your own CD-ROM drive instead. The Genealogical Library Master Catalog CD-ROMs can be read by any Windows PC or a Macintosh. The company reports that the first of the three CD-ROM disks will be available within a few weeks and that the other two will follow in rapid succession. Each CD-ROM disk will sell for $39.95 U.S. funds, or all three can be purchased at once for $99.95. The company expects to have a Web page soon at http://www.OneLibrary.com but that is not yet in operation. You can also obtain more details by sending an e-mail to: crume@rrnet.com
- Supreme Court Says That Census Cannot Use Estimates The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the 2000 census cannot use statistical sampling to enhance its accuracy, a decision making it more likely that millions of people will be left out. The 5-4 ruling requires the traditional nose count to redraw congressional districts. Left in doubt, however, was whether the sampling the Clinton administration favors will be used to determine state-by-state eligibility for $180 billion in federal money each year of the coming decade - or for drawing election districts at all levels of government. That may depend on whether the Republican-led Congress provides enough financing for the Census Bureau. The nation's highest court ruled that a 1976 federal census law "directly prohibits the use of sampling in the determination of population for the purposes of apportionment."
- Jewish Records Indexing - Poland Stanley Diamond asked me to write about the Jewish Records Indexing project. Stanley is involved in this great project and would like to make sure that other Jewish genealogists are aware of the project. I decided that I was no expert on this, so I asked Stanley if he could write the article. He wrote:
- A-Z of British Genealogical Research An extensively revised 4th edition of the "A-Z of British Genealogical Research" tutorial by Dr. Ashton Emery is now available online. Dr. Emery describes this tutorial as:
To read the tutorial, look at: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/EmeryPaper.html
- Loyalist Landing Reenactment in Ontario Bill Daverne sent along a notice of a reenactment that sounds like a good time. I’ll publish the notice here in its entirety:
the arrival of authentic, flat-bottomed bateaux with rowers and passengers wearing appropriate period attire; a landing ceremony with the drawing of lots; the brigantine St. Lawrence II tall ship will lead the arrival of the bateaux (and perhaps provide one or two short cruises in the Bay of Quinte following the landing ceremony); food served on the grounds of the Loyalist Cultural Centre (located in the Park); booths (tables) for UEL branches, historical societies, genealogical societies and other such nonprofit/not-for-profit groups (free if they bring their own tables/setups, nominal fee for supply of tables); and, booth space for appropriate commercial enterprises at a very reasonable cost (e.g. genealogy booksellers, craftspeople, tourist operators, etc.).
other reenactments; related crafts and other displays; and, a mini-concert of American Revolution-era music.
San Francisco Supervisor Michael Yaki recently received an advertisement from the notorious Halberts, supposedly doing business in Bath, Ohio. (NOTE: See my newsletter for August 31, 1998 at http://www.ancestry.com/columns/eastman/eastAug31-98.htm where I wrote about my trip to Bath, Ohio. I found the building at 3687 Ira Road, but there was no company called Halberts there.) Upon opening the letter from Halberts, Yaki found a notice of the "New World Book of Yakis, an international directory compiled after searching sources in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Poland and South Africa." Michael Yaki was able to easily figure out that such a "family history" was a scam. You see, Yaki’s ancestry is entirely Chinese and Japanese. I wonder where Halberts found all their "data" on the Yaki family.
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred I have spent the past two weeks recuperating from two broken arms. I must say that I have been absolutely delighted at the number of "get well" messages I have received. It is comforting to know that there are real people behind all those mysterious e-mail addresses with the @ signs. Quite a few people suggested that I experiment with speech input software. In fact, the majority of them recommended a program called Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Several months ago I experimented with a competitive product called Philips FreeSpeech98. I wrote about that in my newsletter dated September 14, 1998, which can be found at: http://www.ancestry.com/columns/eastman/eastSept14-98.htm. However, I was never really satisfied with FreeSpeech98. It did convert speech to computer text, but it had a very high error rate, consumed a great deal of memory and slowed the operation of my computer significantly. Still, it was not bad for a $40 program.
I should point out that Dragon NaturallySpeaking does come in several versions. I elected to purchase the "Preferred" version. Although a bit more expensive, the Preferred version does allow for direct input to Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect, as well as many other Windows programs. It also has more editing commands. I believe it also has a larger built-in vocabulary. Reportedly, the "Preferred Version" results in more accurate transcriptions. While the cheaper versions might be fun to play with, the Preferred version seems to be the one to purchase for anyone who is serious about dictating speech to a computer. Dragon even has a mobile version that includes a small, battery-operated dictation device. You can dictate text into that device at any time and any place, then later connect the dictation device to your PC. You then transfer the speech from the dictation machine to the PC, where Dragon NaturallySpeaking interprets it. This looks like a rather nifty toy, but I did not experiment with the mobile version. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred does have some heavy-duty system requirements. It only operates on Windows 98, Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0. It also requires at least 32 megabytes of RAM memory. The program requires an additional 16 megabytes of memory if you want to use it simultaneously with either Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect. Doing so will allow you to talk directly into either of those word processors. In fact, Dragon recommends 64 megabytes or more for Windows 95 or Windows 98. Windows NT users will require at least 64 megabytes of memory although 80 megabytes is recommended. In addition, the program requires at least a 200 MHz Pentium processor plus 180 megabytes of hard disk space. These requirements seem quite heavy although most of today’s PCs will be able to match that. I tested Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred on Windows NT 4.0 with a 300 MHz Pentium-II processor and 128 megabytes of RAM memory. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred includes a headset and microphone in the box with the software. The headset/microphone is a rather simple affair; it has one earphone and a microphone connected to a small black box. The other side of the black box has a cable that connects to the Sound Blaster board in your PC. The little black box requires two penlight cell batteries, which are not included in the package. It was eleven o’clock in the evening when I was trying to find two penlight cell batteries. I did find two and was up and running within a matter of minutes after installing the software. After installing the software you must spend about a half-hour training the program to recognize your voice. If more than one person uses your computer, each person will need to spend at least a half-hour training the software. The half-hour training session is really designed to just get started; additional training will result in a more accurate interpretation of your voice. Before writing this was newsletter I spent about one hour training the software. The results are fairly good although I did spend a lot of time editing this text before allowing it to be sent as part of the newsletter. I believe that I can improve the results by spending more time doing training. The more time spent training, the less time I need to spend editing the errors. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred is only guaranteed to work directly with Microsoft Word or with Corel WordPerfect. However, the manufacturer does say that it will work with most other Windows programs even though they cannot guarantee compatibility. I found that Dragon worked well with every Windows program that I tried, including: OzWIN-II (the CompuServe e-mail program that I normally use), Windows Notepad, Windows WordPad, and even a brief test with Microsoft Excel. Not only does Dragon accept text input, but it will also interpret commands. In theory, you can replace your keyboard and mouse with spoken words. To go to the top of a page you simply say, "Go To Top". If you are dictating text and find an error in the text, you could jump back five words simply by saying, "Move Left Five Words". You can even change fonts by specifying, "Set Fonts Equal Times New Roman Size Equal 12". You can also use spoken words in place of the mouse by use of such commands as "Switch to Next Window" and "Copy All to Clipboard." That sounds quite easy to do, but I found it a bit awkward to insert into normal dictation. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred also has the capability to work in the opposite direction: It can read the text from almost any Windows program and speak it back in a somewhat robotic male voice. I found this to be very useful in double checking the text that I dictated. I had the program read the text back, and the errors that had resulted from my earlier dictation became very obvious. This was good, as sometimes I did not see the errors in the printed text. Experimenting with speech input software proved to be a fun way to spend an evening. I dictated a number of text files into the computer. Dragon did not do a perfect job of interpreting the text, but it seemed to function well. You might think, "I will simply dictate text and then let my spell checker find the errors." However, it doesn’t really work that way. When the software is unable to determine the correct word, it always inserts an English word of some sort. It might not be the correct word, but it is always a correctly spelled word. As a result, a spell checker is ineffective as an error detector. For instance, here is an example of a well-known text as dictated to a computer. The following is an unedited transcription of my dictation of Abraham Lincoln’s speech delivered on November 19, 1863 at Cemetery Hill, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania:
Here is the original text that I was reading:
There are several errors that are almost humorous in the above dictation. Dragon cannot tell the difference between "four" and "for." The word "endure" was interpreted as "indoor," and "It is for us, the living" was translated to "It is Frost, living." Even though dictating to Dragon NaturallySpeaking is much faster than typing on a keyboard, I still spent a lot of time editing the results. To summarize, the $170 Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred program works a lot better than the $40 program that I tried previously. However, it still is not 100% accurate. Speech input to a computer certainly is not an exact science today; errors are still very common. Speech input can be a very useful tool for people who do a lot of dictation and especially for people who are physically handicapped. However, for myself, I believe that I will stick to the keyboard as soon as my arms heal. Speech input is a very interesting toy with some uses for some people, but it is not quite ready for prime time. If you would like to experiment with the latest in speech input technology or would like to learn more about the subject, look at Dragon Systems’ Web page at: http://www.dragonsys.com.
- Genealogists Close Down Mexican Restaurant Last week I sent a very short e-mail message notifying everyone that they would not receive a full newsletter. In that message I mentioned the CompuServe dinner that was held at a local Mexican restaurant immediately after the close of the GENTECH 1999 conference. This dinner was absolutely the biggest we ever had; we took over the entire restaurant. When the owners found out how large group we were expecting, they decided to close the restaurant, placing a sign in the window that said, "Closed for private party." Close to 50 genealogists descended upon the restaurant. We consumed a large amount of hot spicy food. It looked like everyone enjoyed themselves. The entire affair was orchestrated by Audrae Mathis. I think all the attendees owe her a vote of thanks for her efforts in ensuring a successful and relaxing time for all. The following is a list of some of the genealogy-related World Wide Web home pages that have been listed recently on http://www.rootscomputing.com. Some of these sites may charge a fee for their services:
To submit your home page to this newsletter, enter the necessary information at: http://www.rootscomputing.com/register.htm. Due to the volume of new Web pages submitted, I am not able to list all of them in the newsletter.
If you would like to submit news, information or press releases for possible inclusion in future newsletters, send them to roots@compuserve.com. The author does reserve the right to accept or reject any articles submitted.
DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is being written and sent via e-mail at no charge. I expect to write one new issue on a more or less weekly basis. However, life sometimes interferes, and the need to earn a living may create an occasional delay.
COPYRIGHTS: While the contents of this newsletter are copyright by Richard W. Eastman and by Ancestry Publishing and by others so designated, you are hereby granted rights, unless otherwise specified, to re-distribute articles from this newsletter to other parties provided you do so strictly for non-commercial purposes. Please limit your re-distribution to one or two articles per newsletter; do not re-distribute the newsletter in its entirety. Also, please include the following words with any articles you re-distribute:
Thank you for your cooperation.
Subscription information: To subscribe to this free newsletter, send an e-mail message to the following address: The message title is unimportant. The first line of text in the message must have the words SUBSCRIBE ROOTSCOMPUTING followed by your first and last names. For instance, if your name is Jane Doe, you would write a message of: subscribe rootscomputing Jane Doe That is the entire message; nothing else should be in the message text. To cancel an existing subscription, send an e-mail to: The message title is unimportant. The text of the message must be exactly: signoff rootscomputing Please note that the address of listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com is an "e-mail robot" and messages sent to that address are only read by a computer. If you send any more text in the message, it will be ignored. If you want to see the current issue as well as back issues of the newsletter, look on the World Wide Web at: Please feel free to copy this subscription information and pass it on to anyone else who you think might be interested in obtaining a free subscription.
|
Terms and Conditions | Privacy Statement |
This year’s conference started bright and early at 8:00 AM on Friday morning with four simultaneous presentations. For the next two days that was the norm: four simultaneous sessions or "tracts" all day long. WordPerfect founder Alan Ashton gave the keynote address early on Friday afternoon. He spoke at length about his beliefs and family unity and what genealogy had meant to him and his family. However, he quickly admitted that his mother-in-law was the genealogist in the family.
The printouts on display in the booth were impressive indeed. Not only did they include boxes of text with all the interconnected lines showing relationships, but the charts also can display pictures of any or all individuals. One chart that I looked at was probably about 12 feet wide and 3 feet high. It displayed all the descendants of one particular couple through 4 or 5 generations. The chart included color pictures of most of the twentieth-century individuals listed and even a few nineteenth-century photographs. The quality of the pictures was excellent. Bob Velke of Wholly Genes Software reported that this particular chart was used at a family reunion he attended. An earlier version of the chart was taken to the reunion and was quite the hit of the affair.
Sierra has become very aggressive in the genealogy software business and has had excellent results in retail sales. Sierra is now part of Cendant, a large corporation with excellent marketing skills. The company has succeeded in getting Generations stocked in most retail computer stores as well as discount chains such as Costco and Best Buy, where it has often sold out. Sierra (more properly, Cendant) says that in recent months Generations has become the number-one selling genealogy program.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred seems to be the most popular speech input program in today’s market. It has a "street price" of about $170, more than four times that of FreeSpeech98. I purchased a copy at a local computer store this week. Installation of the program was about as simple as any other modern Windows program; simply insert a CD-ROM disk into the drive, click on start and a few minutes later the software is fully installed. I dictated most of this article using Dragon NaturallySpeaking software. However, I did have to go back and do a lot of edits using the keyboard.