Bruce Busbee, along with his company, FormalSoft, is a rare survivor of the fallout that usually occurs when software companies acquire their competitors. FormalSoft has maintained relative independence through relationships with larger companies such as Parsons Technology, Intuit, and Broderbund Software.

Bruce’s background in genealogy began at an early age. Born in 1959, he grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His mother was a genealogist who worked at the local Family History Center. Bruce remembers that “she always used a typewriter to fill in her charts,” and that she would need to spend time tediously re-typing those charts. He remembers that vacations would often be spent visiting cemeteries when the family took trips to Missouri. His mother would devise cemetery scavenger hunts all during his school years.

Bruce started doing his own research when he reached college age. When asked about his college experience, Bruce states, “I attended BYU [Brigham Young University], and received a master’s degree in electrical engineering.” This was also at a time when computers were first coming into mainstream use, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He recalls, “I did learn a bit of programming in college, but I’m mostly self-taught. What I learned in college was assembly language, which I don’t use much at all now.”

Bruce bought his first computer in 1979, a model ZX80 built by Sinclair, one of the pioneers in the personal computing field. When he became employed following college, he bought an Apple II, which came with two 5.25-inch floppy disk drives. That first “real job” was with Ford Aerospace. “I worked in signal and image processing for satellite systems,” he says. “I later worked at Stanford Research Institute [now called SRI International].”

Bruce began experimenting with writing a genealogical program. “Personal Ancestral File [PAF] wasn’t out yet ... I don’t know if Roots was out yet.” His efforts resulted in a precursor to his later product, Family Origins, but he wasn’t satisfied with it because the only output was to floppy disks. “For a while I gave up on writing my own genealogy software.”

His hardware capabilities continued to increase; in 1984 or 1985 he bought an IBM-compatible ATT-6300. At the same time, the capabilities of genealogical software were rising, and Bruce bought the first release of Personal Ancestral File. He used that for a few years, then upgraded to PAF II when that became available.

In 1986, Bruce moved to San Jose, California, to take a position at Menlo Park’s Stanford Research Institute. At SRI, he continued to work in the field of signal and image processing for satellite systems. At about the same time, he started his own company, FormalSoft. His major product was spreadsheet software, and over the years he developed various packages, including InstaCalc, Qubecalc, and Proqube. Soon his software business became so successful that he left SRI to “devote full time to FormalSoft.” That year, 1987, he also moved to Utah, where he lives today.

In 1989, Parsons Technology licensed Bruce’s spreadsheet software. After this successful arrangement had progressed, Parsons approached Bruce about writing a genealogy program. Thus, after a period of about ten years, he was writing genealogical software for the second time. “Family Tree Maker (FTM) was out by then, and Parsons wanted it to look like FTM.”

But Bruce didn’t care for the FTM approach, so Parsons decided to develop its own genealogy independently, while Bruce continued writing a program that met his own needs as a genealogist. After completing his program, he released it under the name AncestraLink. He sold it in the retail market for about six months.

“Then Parsons called ... they hadn’t finished their genealogy program yet.” The company decided that it was interested in Bruce’s software after all. He modified it and renamed it Family Origins. Parsons received exclusive rights to sell the software, and Bruce discontinued his own marketing efforts. Thereafter he stayed in the background, though he did conduct labs for users at conferences, beginning at the National Genealogical Society’s conference at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He also staffed the Parsons booth at these conferences, and helped with the development of Parsons’ map software, called Family Atlas, which is no longer available.

While attending conferences, Bruce “got connected to the GENTECH developer community.” He attended many of the tech sessions at the GENTECH conferences. In addition to the tech sessions at GENTECH conferences, Bruce says he was “mainly interested in the data model GENTECH was putting together. There were some very good ideas in the model.” Bruce also participated in the GEDCOM TestBook Project, which, according to GENTECH, “was an effort to evaluate how well popular genealogy programs conform to the GEDCOM 5.5 standard for exchanging genealogical data.”

In September 1994, Parsons Technology was acquired by Intuit, Inc., which owned TurboTax. Intuit maintained its ownership of Parsons for two and a half years. Despite the fears of Family Origins users, Intuit “took a mostly hands-off approach” to Parsons’ non-tax software, including Family Origins.

During that period, Bruce provided a great deal of unofficial and unpaid support for his software. “I did monitor the mail lists and answer questions, so I guess you could say I did do a lot of support. I also taught classes and helped with the promotion of the program.” Over the years, Bruce has found that users really appreciate the personal support he gives to his software.

A much greater change for Bruce occurred in May 1997, when Intuit announced that it planned to sell Parsons Technology—excluding the tax software—to BrØderbund Software, Inc. As evidenced by a flood of e-mail expressing panic on Family Origins and other message boards, users were convinced that BrØderbund intended to discontinue Family Origins in favor of its own popular genealogical software, Family Tree Maker. However, Bruce explained, BrØderbund had “only acquired the marketing rights to Family Origins.” Family Origins was not immediately discontinued, but instead became “the ugly stepchild” in BrØderbund’s family of genealogical software. Over the next few years, more announcements occurred—The Learning Company acquired BrØderbund (August 1998), then Mattel, Inc. acquired The Learning Company (December 1998). Finally the BrØderbund genealogy unit of Mattel was formed into a new company called Genealogy.com (November 1999).

Although rumors long predicted that Family Origins would be discontinued, it wasn’t until January 2003 that Genealogy.com actually stopped supporting the software. In the meantime, Bruce had begun to develop an all-new genealogy package, which was given the name RootsMagic (reviewed in GC 22.4). After extensive beta testing, the new software was officially released in February 2003. In response to a question about this transition, Bruce answered, “Yes, your data will transfer smoothly from FO [Family Origins] to RootsMagic using GEDCOM.”

“In retrospect, I’m really glad it worked out the way it did,” Bruce reflects.

Because he was prevented from marketing Family Origins by the original “exclusive marketing rights” contract with Parsons, he decided to start over. “It was a long three years writing a new genealogy program from scratch, but it is a better program than Family Origins was, and now that we have complete control again, things are really looking bright.”

All in all, Bruce estimates that at least 300,000 genealogists use one of the versions of FormalSoft’s genealogical software. He enjoys great loyalty from the users of his software. They make numerous suggestions, which are often incorporated into new features. Bruce provided an online wish list for Family Origins, and now has a “wish list” message board. “I participate in the wish list and message board quite heavily,” he says.

Bruce’s career has been heavily oriented toward technology, but his life is balanced with other interests, including “camping, and most sports, and genealogy (obviously)!”

His passion for genealogy is shared by countless researchers; his ability and desire to provide software is shared by a number of developers; but his determination to remain independent is rare in the field of genealogical software.

Birdie Monk Holsclaw, CG, is a genealogical researcher, writer, lecturer, and editor. Her major project is researching the earliest students at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind (1874–1883). She is a certified genealogist, and was the winner of this year’s NGS Family History Writing Contest.

Return to the October/November/December 2003 Genealogical Computing Table of Contents.