Today Wholly Genes released a new version of The Master Genealogist 6.04 with some bug fixes and new features (for a full list of changes see the Change Log on http://www.whollygenes.com/upgrade.htm). At the same time, Second Site, an “add-on” that allows you to use your TMG file to create a genealogy web site also released a new version 1.9 (Build 2).

With the bi-annual seminar of the Kelowna & District Genealogy Society coming up this Saturday, I thought I'd take this opportunity to provide some tips on how to make the most of a genealogical seminar. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Arrive early. This makes it easier for the organizers, yes, but you will also be able to browse the merchandise stands, figure out where the washrooms, lunchrooms are etc, and get a seat near the front of the room.
2. Talk to other attendees and the lecturers. I have been to many seminars where people each their lunches in silence at tables with other genealogists. Instead, make the effort to get to know the people you are sitting with. Ask them where they are researching, what time period, what surnames, any particularly interesting problems they have overcome, useful resources in the community or online. In short, you could be sitting next to a long-lost relative or someone who knows the answer to the particular problem you are having. Make sure that you take the opportunity to find out.
3. Listen. It is so easy to tell others about our family history but theirs never seems as interesting to us. Yet you don't learn anything by talking. Make sure that you are open to listening to the kind of information in point 2 above.
4. Collect and keep the handouts provided to you by the lecturers. Lecturers are usually limited in the number of pages they are allowed to provide in handouts (due to the expense). This means that the handouts should have the "essential" information that you will need to know on their topic. I have been to many seminars over the years and have collected extensive resources. Make sure that you file these as soon as you get home so that you can find them later.
5. Take money with you. It might seem like a no-brainer but with all that genealogical merchandise floating around make sure that you have cash to purchase anything that catches your eye. Most of these vendors probably won't take credit cards (except at large genealogical conferences). While you might need to watch you don't overspend, it is better than to miss out on that book you have been looking for.

Remember, in order to get the most out of these seminars you should be proactive. Talk to people. Ask questions. And don't forget to write down anything that is useful or interesting.

Enjoy your seminar!

For most of us, genealogy becomes addictive after a short time. I think this is why it is so hard for us to commit to actually publishing our findings. We know we are "that close" to finding the next missing link and, for every ancestor found, there are at least two more (the parents) to find, so our work never seems complete. I for one have had a hard time commiting even just a small family history story to paper. So here are some ideas to try to help you overcome this fear.

• Try focusing on just one family or a few generations. For me, it is my Rayner/Aggio family that I have been concentrating on. This family are particularly interesting as the family were in and out of Workhouses (Marylebone and Mile End) for four generations.
• Similarly, you could choose a theme such as the Workhouse theme above.
• Don't worry about only having enough material for a small booklet. The cost of publishing has come down hugely in the computer age. Check out http://www.lulu.com/. This is a self-publishing service where you submit a book for publishing, order copies for yourself and provide a web address to your relatives so they can order a copy of your book for themselves. For $39.95 US it even has the option of applying for an ISBN number as well as using the Amazon bookstore.

If writing isn't your thing (and for many people it is not), then try creating a heritage album instead. My 2nd hobby is scrapbooking so I am creating a scrapbook for my family history. I like this idea because:

• Pages can be created out of order (chronological, alphabetical etc) and new pages inserted in-between. As I write up each family story I just create a one or two page layout for each family.
• Like a book, my album will eventually have a table of contents and an index (although these will need to be created either in a temporary form (pencil) or re-printed on paper each time I add something new to the album.
• Photos are easily added (either originals, scanned copies or photocopies) as are other items such as ships passenger lists, newpaper cuttings (originals or copies). This cuts down the need for lots of written materials. Remember, even if you don't have a lot of documents for your ancestors you can add information about the town where they lived, or the events in their lives.
• Other 3-dimensional keepsakes can be added (either the original item or a colour copy), baby tags from the hospital, tickets or postcards from a trip etc.

Genealogy is hard work. We should take the time to share and enjoy our work with our family while we can.

Last week saw the launch of Legacy 6.0. I have been a Legacy Deluxe user for almost two years since I upgraded from PAF 5 (which I liked because of the advanced search criteria feature). I have always been impressed with the speed at which the Legacy team have been able to accommodate changes/fixes and absolutely *love* the ‘Check IGI’ feature where you can check one individual, all or a focus group against the IGI database and then merge in the information.

A while ago I decided that enough was enough, I had to publish a family history. I have been ploughing away at my family history for 15 years but, like many other genealogists, hadn’t actually produced anything to share with my family except some pedigree charts. I decided to bite off just a small project at first, 4 generations of one family, and I spent hours doing some background research to put my ancestors into historical context for the relevant time period and locations.

My plan was to export a narrative report from Legacy into RTF format, add in the additional information (as it doesn’t really fit into legacy anywhere) and add photos and other graphics. When I took this approach I discovered something about Legacy that I wasn’t aware of, that Legacy’s endnotes/footnotes (for sources) aren’t “real”. What I mean by this is that they are generated as text as the end of the document rather than endnotes/footnotes, even though the RTF format supports this. This meant that I had two options, use the real endnotes of the word-processor which would then create two endnotes lists, or try to insert my endnotes into the text section at the end of the report, meaning I would have to renumber all other endnotes after the one I’d added (in my case renumbering about 100 endnotes).

I enquired about this with Millennia Corp (the company who produces Legacy) and they confirmed that it was not currently a feature. When I pressed further, I was told that it would not be available in version 6.0 (which is true right now). I looked around at some other genealogical programs and discovered that this inadequacy was quite common. This surprised me as any published family history that I have ever seen always has endnotes/footnotes, yet these programs weren’t allowing the user the ability to add further information into the family history together with its sources (something that seemed pretty basic to me). The only program I could find that had this feature (and please email me if I am missing something) was The Master Genealogist 6.0. I had previously assessed TMG 5.0 and at the time didn’t like it but decided to give TMG another shot in its new incarnation. I downloaded a demo and after playing with it for a few days decided that it wasn’t too bad from a usability aspect and had some additional features that I could use (such as event witnesses which Legacy also doesn’t have and which bugs me). I imported my Legacy file and discovered that TMG has some issues importing Legacy files; specifically the source citations lose data when they are imported. These are known issues with TMG and are planned for fixing but are not available as at version 6.03.

So I am stuck. Legacy doesn’t have the feature I need, real endnotes/footnotes. TMG does have the feature but without manually checking and updating all my source citations (there is no search/filter option on source or source citation in Legacy to produce a list of those that need changing) I can’t migrate to TMG.

This is why I am not upgrading to Legacy 6.0. I have decided to see which gets fixed first: TMG’s Legacy data import or Legacy’s real endnotes/footnotes feature.

Note: Marina currently uses Legacy 5.0 Deluxe (Aug 10 release) and Gensmarts 1.09.

This weekend saw the wrap-up of the FGS Conference in Salt Lake City. A number of vendors took the opportunity to use this venue as a showcase for new versions of their products. This included:

• Family Tree Maker 2006 (http://www.familytreemaker.com/) – new features include searching and merging from Ancestry.com, family facts, research tips, charting companion.
• Familysearch.org/LDS released disks 106-115 of Pedigree Resource File (pedigrees submitted by online users) and a new version of their home page which is friendlier, and makes downloading PAF 5 much easier.
• Gensmarts 1.09 (http://www.gensmarts.com/) – have added 150,000 items from the FHL collection together with call numbers.
• Legacy 6.0 (http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/) – new features include a “Home Page”, research helper, publishing center (for a book report), timelines (unfortunately both the publishing center and timelines aren’t included in their FREE version – so there is no way of test driving them before purchasing as there is no full feature demo available).
• Rootsmagic 3.0 (http://www.rootsmagic.com/) – new features include backup to CD, Gensmarts integration including create to-do, private events, sharable CDs, add source to multiple individuals at once. This program is really starting to catch up to the leaders in the industry and I for one, am starting to pay much more attention to it. Note: It should be noted that there were no releases announced from The Master Genealogist as the latest version 6.03 was introduced a few weeks before the show.

I personally won’t be giving up my Gensmarts program just yet. While Legacy 6.0 and FTM 2006 have both introduced research suggestions tools, Gensmarts is still much further ahead of these programs and because it is dedicated to just this one feature, does a much better job. I am particularly surprised that as a distributor of Gensmarts, Legacy didn’t opt to go with tighter integration with Gensmarts. I would have like to have seen the ability to convert Gensmarts suggestions into to-do’s as implemented by Rootsmagic 3.0. Instead, they have tried to reinvent the wheel themselves and have come up with an inferior copy. When I think about all the other features they could have implemented using that development time instead….

I also had great hopes for Rootsmagic 3.0, now that they own Personal Historian. Personal Historian is a fantastic program for creating either biographies or family histories of individuals in your genealogy file. While it imports actual genealogical events for individuals from your file it does not import the source information, so the ultimate biography/family history when exported loses this information. I hope to see tighter integration between these two products in the future.

Rumours have circulated over recent months about a project to digitize the Family History Library collection of genealogy microfilms/microfiche in Salt Lake City. Now official details have been released about this project. The TRUTH is that the Church is planned to make available digital INDEXES of these films (rather than digitizing the film itself) , at least at this point in time. Advances in technology mean that the Church can do this much more rapidly than in the past although this project is still expected to take many years.

The role of Family History Centers is unlikely to change in the near future as even though the index will be digital, researchers will still need to order the microfilm/fiche into an FHC for viewing. However, this is a HUGE advance for family history research, and I for one am looking forward to the day these indexes start to become available.

For more information: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,605153189,00.html