GC Extra is a new weekly column that is intended to give you fresh perspectives on the genealogy and technology front—ideas to help you in your technology-buying decisions and in your use of the latest technology. As managing editor of Genealogical Computing, I’m in a unique position to present this kind of information to you in a timely manner. Genealogical Computing—or GC, as we affectionately call it—is a quarterly journal and therefore suffers from the typical printing time lag. We’ll try to make up for that here, weekly, in GC Extra.

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The 20th Annual National Genealogical Society’s Conference in the States has come and gone, and participants are back home digesting all of the new information they gathered. There were a number of new items displayed or discussed at the conference. Dick Eastman summarized some of them in his weekly newsletter, which is posted here.

The Demise of Ultimate Family Tree
One topic that kept the place buzzing was the demise of Genealogy.com’s Ultimate Family Tree program, and the programs that are available to take its place. On 19 May, the CEO of Genealogy.com, Rob Armstrong, posted an announcement about UFT in GenForum. Armstrong announced that Genealogy.com will no longer develop UFT and will only provide technical support for the product through the next year. The reasoning was that the company wants to concentrate its efforts on developing online genealogy tools.

This announcement was a crushing blow to the many dedicated fans of UFT—a program that has gone through its share of trials and tribulations since it started its product life as ROOTS. I’m sad to see UFT abandoned by its latest “parents” because the program is powerful and contains features not found in all programs—features that allow you to document and record your family history using standards promoted by genealogical societies and professional genealogists.

So where do UFT users turn? On the same day as Armstrong’s announcement, Wholly Genes announced that it would make The Master Genealogist available to UFT users at half price—a bargain for a program that retails for $99! This announcement is posted at http://www.whollygenes.com/html/prmay2000b.htm.

This is good news for UFT users because TMG can directly transfer data that is unique to UFT, preserving the data in recognizable fields. This is accomplished using Wholly Genes’ trademarked GenBridge transfer technology. UFT users were treated to an overview of TMG at the National Genealogical Society Conference last week, assisting them with their decision to switch or not to switch. A demo of TMG version 4.0 can be downloaded here.

The other contender for power genealogy software users is Legacy 3.0, by Millenia Corporation. On Tuesday of this week, Millenia announced a special competitive upgrade offer for UFT users of $29.95—a $20 savings off the retail price of $49.95. According to the announcement, “the new Legacy 3.0 packs more than fifty new features and enhancements, including:

• Increased Internet Support—one-click button to access e-mail and the Internet, including searches at www.familysearch.org and Ancestry.com.
  
• To-Do Lists&3151;allow you to sort and track your research tasks.
  
• Photos—scan and edit photos within Legacy.
  
• Expanded Notes—include up to one million characters in each field.
  
• Events—add addresses and notes to births, deaths, christenings, burials, and marriages
  
• Quick Bookmarks—jump easily to key individuals in your file.
  
• Speed—publish Web pages, import GEDCOM files, create tags, and calculate relationships faster.”

There is a downloadable demo of the program on the Legacy Web site. Legacy’s developers are known for posting new “builds” on a regular basis. These builds either fix bugs or add new features based on customer input, making Legacy probably the most interactive genealogy software on the market.

There are, of course, other programs that will fill the void left by the demise of UFT. If you’d like to see a comparison of features in a new “report card” format created by Bill Mumford, check out his listings and remarks at “The Genealogical Software Report Card.”

The New Ancestors Series
KBYU-TV in Provo, Utah has finished its second Ancestors series that will air on PBS beginning this month. Previews of the episodes were showing at the NGS Conference, enticing viewers to contact their local PBS stations for air times. KBYU has put up an excellent Web site to introduce the series. Not only can you read snippets from each episode and view parts of the actual video, but you can also check air times of PBS stations nationwide. Although I didn’t get a chance to catch any of the previews, the comments from those who did preview the series were all very positive. Make sure to encourage your local PBS station to carry the series, if it’s not already scheduled there.

Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, CGRS, is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing, editor of the Board for Certification of Genealogists’ newsletter OnBoard, the creator of Clooz—the electronic filing cabinet for genealogical records, and a frequent contributor to Ancestry Magazine. She can be reached via e-mail at liz@ancestordetective.com, or at gceditor@ancestry.com.