Well, it's started. This newsletter is something that I have been considering for a long time but I finally decided to "take the plunge." I've subscribed to several other electronic newsletters for some time now and have found them to be valuable. On many occasions I have said to myself, "Someone ought to do a weekly newsletter for genealogy news." One day the light bulb went on and I decided that perhaps I was that someone.

I hope to collect various bits of information that cross my desk and appear on my screen every week. Some of these items may be considered "news items" concerning events and happenings of interest to computer-owning genealogists. Some other items will be mini press releases about new genealogy software or other products and services that have just become available. I may write a few articles about things that are not genealogy-related but still seem to be of interest to me and probably to the readers. This may include articles about online systems, operating systems or other things that affect many of us.

You will also find editorials and my personal opinions weaving in and out of this newsletter. Hopefully I will be able to clearly identify the information that is a personal opinion.

The expected audience of this newsletter includes anyone in the genealogy business, any genealogy society officers and anyone with an interest in applying computers to help in the research of one's ancestors.

I chose to distribute in electronic format for two reasons: (1.) it's easy and (2.) it's cheap. In years past, I have been an editor of other newsletters that were printed on paper and mailed in the normal manner. The overhead associated with that effort was excessive; I spent more time dealing with printers, maintaining addresses of subscribers, handling finances, stuffing envelopes and running to the post office than I did in the actual writing. Today's technology allows for a much faster distribution and it is done at almost no expense to either the producer or the subscribers. I want to spend my time writing, not running a "newsletter business."

Since the expected readers all own computers and almost all of them use modems regularly, electronic distribution seems to be the most cost-effective route to use. It also is much lower cost than any other distribution mechanism that I know of. The savings are yours: the subscription is free.

A few paragraphs later, I wrote:

Future articles may include information that you supply. Send information to me, preferably by e-mail. Press releases about new software or other genealogy products are welcome. So are notices about genealogy societies, conventions, meetings, new books, etc. I can't print everything but those items that interest me will be included.

I guess there were a few things that interested me over the next few years: my newsletters stored as ASCII text on my hard drive now total over ten megabytes!

A lot of changes have occurred since that day in January of 1996. I have written articles about:

• PAF*Mate, an add-on product for Personal Ancestral File produced by a previously unheard-of company called Progeny Software, based in Nova Scotia. Progeny Software has since gone on to produce many genealogy products.
• The latest edition of the New England Computer Genealogists, an organization later absorbed by the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
• The release of the National Archives and Records Administration’s Audiovisual Information Locator (NAIL) Database.
• A new series on Public Broadcasting called "Ancestors."
• Family Tree maker version 3.01 from Broderbund (a company later purchased by several other companies before being spun off once again as an independent company known as Genealogy.com). Version 9 was released in 2001.
• "Family Gathering," a new (in 1996) program produced by CommSoft, Inc. Later the same year I wrote about the release of another CommSoft program: Roots V for Windows. CommSoft was once a leading producer of genealogy software, but the company’s genealogy products have since disappeared.
• The release of FamilyTree for OS/2 (does anyone remember OS/2?)
• The demise and death of Halberts, a once prosperous publisher of pseudo-genealogy books called the "World Wide Registry of <Your Family Name>." In fact, I even visited Halberts’ mailing address in Bath, Ohio and wrote about my experiences there.
• Family Origins version 5.0 (version 10.0 was released late last year)
• The first release of The Master Genealogist for Windows
• The first release of Family Tree Master by Corel
• The sale of Reunion for Windows to another company
• And much, much more… .

In the past six years, I have written about a lot of software and about a lot of online sites. I have also traveled to genealogy conferences in about thirty states and in three countries.

It has been a very enjoyable six years. Thanks to you, the readers of this newsletter, and thanks to the excellent sponsorship by the fine folks at Ancestry.com, I have had the chance to travel to many places, meet many interesting people, and experiment with all sorts of modern software and gadgets. I hope to do this for at least six more years.

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