Do not reply to this message. This is a post-only mailing.

Copyright© 2002 by Richard W. Eastman. All rights reserved.

If you do contact any of the companies or societies mentioned in this newsletter, please tell them that you read about their services in this newsletter.

I frequently mention the acronym "GEDCOM" in this newsletter. This week a reader wrote to me with an excellent question: "What is GEDCOM?" I realized that I haven’t explained that buzzword in a long, long time. So here is a brief, non-technical explanation of the term for the newer subscribers to this publication.

GEDCOM is an abbreviation that stands for GEnealogy Data COMmunications. In short, GEDCOM is the language by which different genealogy software programs talk to one another. The purpose is to exchange data between dissimilar programs without having to manually re-enter all the data on a keyboard.

To illustrate the importance of GEDCOM, step back in time with me for a moment. Back before the invention of GEDCOM and before the invention of the home computer, I entered onto 80-column punch cards the names and limited information about 200 or so of my ancestors. I did this after hours in my employer’s data center. I then used the employer’s mainframe computer that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to sort the data and to print a few crude reports. Luckily for me, my employer allowed me to use all the mainframe time I wanted during the evening, after the company finished its daily work.

Around 1980, I built my own home computer. I decided to put my genealogy database onto the new system, but it would not read 80-column punch cards. I manually re-typed every bit of data into a dBASE-II program that I wrote. My database had grown; I had to enter data on 400 or so individuals. I stored the information on 8-inch floppy disks attached to my homemade 8-bit CP/M computer that had 64 kilobytes of memory.

Some time later I discovered a CP/M genealogy program that would operate on my system. Unlike my crude, homemade program, this new genealogy program printed pedigree charts, family group sheets, and other reports. I decided to convert to the new, more powerful program (although I must say that it was rather elementary when compared to today’s powerful programs). My database had grown to about 600 individuals, and I could not find any method of easily copying that data into the new program. I first printed out the information from the dBASE-II database. Then I sat at my computer for several evenings, reading the information on paper and re-typing every bit of it into my new program.

I bet you can guess the next step: I purchased an IBM clone in 1984 and decided to move my data to this new powerhouse. After all, it had 640 kilobytes of memory and a 20-megabyte hard drive that I was certain that I could never fill. Having been rather active in my genealogy research, now I had information about 1,200 people to re-enter. I printed out the entire database from the old system onto paper and then manually re-typed it into the new PC powerhouse. That effort took weeks, and I promised myself, "Never again!"

Newer genealogy programs appeared in the following years, each with new features that I found enticing. However, I continued to use the same program simply because I didn’t want to go through the keyboard effort again. Then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced something new: a file format called GEDCOM. This new proposed standard file format was designed to allow different genealogy programs to exchange data. There was only one problem at the time: the only program that could read and write GEDCOM data was the one written by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

GEDCOM is a standard, not a program. As such, genealogy programs that are going to use the same data have to be written by the programmers to handle GEDCOM files. If you are trying to transfer data from one program to another, only to discover that only one of the programs supports GEDCOM, you are out of luck. Instead, both programs have to support GEDCOM.

Slowly, over a period of several years, other genealogy programs began to add the ability to read and write GEDCOM files. It was now possible to move data from one genealogy program to another without manually re-typing everything. The author of the genealogy program that I used never did add GEDCOM capability. Luckily for me, someone else eventually wrote a small routine that would export data from this program in GEDCOM format, and I was then able to move my data to more powerful new programs.

By 1990, I was writing articles on CompuServe, advising everyone to never use a genealogy program that lacked GEDCOM capabilities. Luckily, that is not much of an issue this year. All of today’s major genealogy programs will import and export GEDCOM data. Data transfer is still a problem for those using older genealogy programs without GEDCOM capability; many people still find their data trapped in these "islands." For them, there is no easy solution.

Unlike the "dark ages" of the 1980s, it is now common for people to use two or three or even more genealogy programs. You may find one program that you prefer to use for storing all the bits of information that you encounter in your research efforts. However, you might prefer the printed reports or multimedia scrapbook features of a different program. Thanks to GEDCOM, you can easily move your data from one program to another. You can also share information with distant cousins using yet other genealogy programs by sending GEDCOM files to each other by e-mail.

The instructions for creating or reading GEDCOM files will vary from one program to another. You need to consult the program’s HELP files to find the exact sequence of instructions your genealogy program requires.

You need to be aware that the creation of the GEDCOM standard was not a perfect implementation. For one thing, not all the data fields are specified precisely in the GEDCOM specifications. Next, not all the programmers of the various genealogy programs interpreted the specifications in exactly the same manner. For instance, your present genealogy program might be perfectly happy with a birth date listed as, "after 1847 but before 1852." However, once that information is exported in a GEDCOM file and then imported into a different program, the birth date may say something else. Typically, it is simply left blank.

Another problem is that not all genealogy programs have the same ideas about databases. One program may have only one field for "occupation," assuming that every person on the face of the earth never, ever changed careers. Another genealogy program may have the ability to record multiple occupations during the person’s lifetime. When transferring data via GEDCOM from the more powerful program to the simpler one, some of these occupations will be lost. These are a couple of simple examples; you can find numerous other inconsistencies when moving data between dissimilar programs.

Another limitation is the fact that the present GEDCOM standard was created before the popularity of multimedia. You can transfer textual data, such as names, dates and locations rather well in GEDCOM. However, transferring scanned images, sound clips and movies from one genealogy program to another is almost impossible to accomplish via GEDCOM files.

There is another problem with translating from one format to another, that of data integrity. Translating from one program’s database to GEDCOM is sort of the same as translating from one spoken language to another. The basics work, but subtleties and details sometimes do not translate well. Then, when translating to the third language (the receiving genealogy program’s database), more translation losses creep in. I well remember reading a technical manual some years ago that had been written in Japanese and then translated into Chinese. At a later date, the Chinese version was translated into English. The resultant English manual was barely readable. The same may happen with translating a database from Program A into GEDCOM and then from GEDCOM into Program B.

Despite all the shortcomings, GEDCOM is still a simple and somewhat effective method of transferring genealogy data from one program to another. Most of the data will transfer properly, and then there are easy ways of reviewing the data to look for errors. The names, dates and locations normally transfer correctly. Text, events, notes and source citations may not always work perfectly. The exact problems encountered will depend upon the two genealogy programs involved.

Most modern genealogy programs will create an error log of GEDCOM data imported but not understood by the receiving program. You can read that log file to see what the program detected as inconsistent, then manually go in and fix the errors. While tedious, this is still a lot better than re-keying everything!

I offer this as a non-technical explanation of GEDCOM plus some commentary on its use. For more details and for technical explanations of the inner workings of GEDCOM, I would suggest that you read the following:

[Return to Table of Contents]

The long-awaited version 5.0 of The Master Genealogist was released on Tuesday, 21 May 2002, as a downloadable file from the Wholly Genes Web store. The Master Genealogist, or TMG as it is often called, enjoys a reputation as the most powerful genealogy program available today and is sometimes called "the one that does it all." Version 5.0 is a complete re-write of the program.

This week’s announcement from Wholly Genes Software, producer of The Master Genealogist, says that version 5.0 will feature the following:

New features

Beginner and Advanced Data Entry Modes

Welcome window simplifies startup options.

Export Wizard simplifies GEDCOM and other export options.

"Tips and Hints" expose you to new a feature each time that the program is started.

"Cue cards" explain the purpose and options of each major screen when you access it.

Import directly from Generations (without GEDCOM)

Import directly from Legacy 3 or 4 (without GEDCOM)

Citation Reference field

Each event participant can have a specific name variation associated with the event.

Use Microsoft Word's spelling and grammar checker as an alternative to the built-in spell checker.

Customizable name field labels and easily apply Name "styles"

Customizable place field labels and easily apply Place "styles"

Customizable Add Person window, including flags.

Expanded Picklist shows full names of parents and spouse.

Expanded Picklist has Column Mode and Event List Mode to show more data.

The unique Project Explorer shows people in a Windows Explorer-like interface.

Master Event List can be searched and sorted

User-defined Focus Groups allow operations (e.g., web searches) on selected groups of people.

Save/load Picklist filter conditions to file.

Produce flexible hourglass charts.*

Rescale charts to fit a user-defined size

Repaginate so that boxes skip page breaks

Add and delete lines from individual boxes

Simple and artistic frames jazz up your box charts.

Design your own frames!

Apply frames based on Accent conditions.

Export charts to Enhanced Metafile (emf)

Web searching.

Point and click to search for your relatives on Ancestry.com, Rootsweb, and other sites.

Conduct one search for all name variations on multiple sites at the same time.

Includes web links to searchable geographic databases

Includes other useful web links for researchers

New Multimedia Items:

Image Window displays the primary image of a person on the main screen.

Exhibit Log shows scrollable thumbnails

Produce multimedia slideshows with transition effects and other advanced features

Export slideshows send them to relatives with the included Slideshow Viewer

Drag and drop multimedia files from the Windows Explorer

Direct scanner support.

New Project Management Tools:

View multiple data sets at the same time.

View/search your data with that of other researchers in one alphabetical list without merging them together

Open multiple projects at the same time and navigate them side-by-side

Import and "lock" data sets from other sources

Easily "Refresh" locked data sets upon receiving an update from relatives.

Disable data sets

Drag and drop to copy or move people between data sets.

Customizable Working Environment:

Control the size/position of every display window to completely customize the display.

Easily switch between user-defined screen layouts

Multiple independent toolbars

Moveable and dockable toolbars

Automatic support for Windows color schemes

Customizable on-screen fonts

Custom Toolbar includes new options

Change the row height on the Person View (i.e., show events with wordwrap).

Additional Convenience Features:

Item Tips show pop-up extended text by simply pointing the mouse to long memos on the Person View.

NEW: Send your completed charts online to be printed at a budget price on a large-format color printer.

Online upgrade option checks for a more recent version. If one is found it is downloaded and applied automatically.

In addition, the following features were available in earlier versions but have been significantly improved in version 5.0:

Import Wizard with Simple and Advanced Modes

Expanded context-sensitive Help

Direct import options are updated to reflect the latest versions of supported programs.

Data Entry Tools:

Expanded Abbreviation fields

Link a single research task to a person AND an event AND a source AND a repository

Better Searching Tools

Simple Picklist for fast access even with very large projects

Unlimited user-defined bookmarks

Supercharged Accents:

Use an unlimited number of Accent conditions to display people in different colors on the screen.

Define Accents based on elaborate conditions (e.g, Born in Virginia, > 10 children, etc.), not just flags.

Accent definition displayed on the Status Bar

One item to note is that a few of the fancier reports have not yet been certified by the beta testers. As a result, the program is being released this week with the report output limited to charts (ancestor, descendant, hourglass, and fan charts). However, the remaining reports will become available once they are certified and will then be easily downloaded online at no additional charge. This should happen within a few weeks. The rest of the program is complete now.

The TMG 5.0 download is about 20 megabytes. That will not be a problem for anyone using a cable modem or DSL Internet connection. However, dial-up users who are limited to 56 kilobaud connections may wish to wait for a CD-ROM version to become available within a few weeks. The release on May 21 is only for the downloadable version. The CD-ROM version and a printed manual will not be available for a few more weeks.

The purchase price of version 5.0 will be $79.00, a 20% reduction from the price of the earlier Gold Edition. Registered users of TMG version 4.x may upgrade to 5.0 for $30.00. In addition, registered users of Family Tree SuperTools may upgrade to TMG version 5.0 for $59.00.

I suspect the download site will now be  very busy. I hope to obtain a copy of The Master Genealogist version 5.0 and write about it in this newsletter in the near future.

Two weeks ago I wrote about the Society of Genealogists’ annual Family History Fair to be held in London May 4 and 5. I was unable to attend this year, but several newsletter readers who did make it wrote to say that this year’s event was a big success.

John Konvalinka, an American attending his first SoG conference, wrote, "I spent a little time at the FHF today, not enough to give you a detailed report, but my impression was that it is quite successful… . … the exhibit area was a beehive, and the lectures I popped into were good."

Ed Lear wrote, "Just happened to be in London so went to the fair and looked around. … Talked to several genies from Australia, U.S., etc. and they all felt that it was a well-done show, as did I."

You might want to plan now to attend next year’s Family History Fair. It’s a great excuse to visit London, and the airfares in May are usually reasonable, preceding the big tourist rush of the summer. I haven’t yet seen any announcement for next year’s event as I suspect the organizers are still catching their breath after this year’s success. However, the fair is usually held on the first weekend in May, and my calendar says that it should be May 3 and 4, 2003. Check for confirmation later this year.

[Return to Table of Contents]

The annual conference of the U.S. National Genealogical Society will be held this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This conference is usually the largest in the U.S., typically attracting more than 2,000 attendees. Many companies also announce new products and services at this conference. I hear via the rumor mill that one brand-new genealogy program will be exhibited for the first time at this year’s NGS conference. In addition, the newly released version 5.0 of The Master Genealogist will be shown. (See the earlier article in this newsletter about this new version.)

I will be attending the NGS conference this week and will be spending a lot of time in the vendors’ area talking with the companies who exhibit there. I certainly will be watching any demos of new products and will be taking notes. I hope to write about these discoveries in next week’s newsletter.

As always, there is some risk of the computer gods not cooperating when traveling. I will be writing next week’s newsletter on my laptop and handheld computers while in Milwaukee, so I will be dependent upon dial-up telephone connections from the hotel and wireless modem connections at airports and other locations. There is a risk that next week’s newsletter will be delayed a bit.

I would also like to invite newsletter readers who are attending the conference to join me Saturday evening for a Dutch treat dinner. The Saturday evening dinners have become somewhat of a tradition over the years. These dinners occur after the conference has finished and everyone can sit back and relax. The dinners started off some years ago as a number of genealogists found themselves alone in a strange city, looking for a place to dine. Some of these strangers, myself included, compared notes, and then all went off together as newly found friends. Spending dinner with people with similar interests as your own is always better than dining alone in a strange city.

At the next genealogy conference, some of us got together to do the same thing again, and we invited still more people. We did this again and again, and now these dinners have occurred for fourteen years. There is never a set agenda; we simply eat and talk.

As always, this year’s dinner is not planned in advance. It will be a last minute effort; no restaurant will be selected until after we all arrive in Milwaukee and scout out a place willing to seat a large bunch of raucous genealogists on a Saturday evening. As you might imagine, not all restaurants are willing to seat that large a crowd on what might be their busiest night of the week.

Previous Saturday evening dinners have had varied results. The number of attendees has varied from twenty to perhaps fifty or so. At some conferences we have had private rooms while other years have seen us seated at multiple tables in the restaurant’s main dining room. The food has also varied in quality and in price. The ambient noise level has also varied widely. However, I think everyone has enjoyed himself or herself. I know that the conversations over dinner typically have been first rate.

There will be a sign-up sheet for dinner on the bulletin board that typically is provided for postings at these conferences. We usually need a firm headcount by Friday night or early Saturday morning, as we have to notify the restaurant. By sometime Saturday, the sign-up sheet will also list the time and location of the dinner.

[Return to Table of Contents]

The U.S. National Genealogical Society has announced a new online genealogy newsletter. That sounds like a great idea; I think there is room for many more newsletters online.

The following announcement is from the U.S. National Genealogical Society:

An Open Invitation to NGS Members and Our Friends in the Genealogical Community

The members of the staff and the Board of Directors for the National Genealogical Society would like to invite you to subscribe to our brand new online newsletter:

UpFront with NGS
The Online Newsletter of the National Genealogical Society

PREMIER ISSUE

The premier issue of UpFront with NGS is due in June 2002. Be sure to subscribe to the mailing list before June 1st to be sure that you receive the first issue. See the instructions below to subscribe to this free newsletter.

PURPOSE

UpFront with NGS is designed for members of the National Genealogical Society and the genealogical community. The online newsletter will bring you the latest genealogy news, information about upcoming events and brief articles to help you with your genealogical research.

 

ABOUT UPFRONT WITH NGS

• UpFront with NGS is a free genealogy newsletter by e-mail.
• UpFront with NGS is a read-only, bi-monthly mailing list.
• The co-editors of UpFront are happy to receive articles, comments and suggestions from readers.

[Return to Table of Contents]

Now a scholarship fund has been established inDr. Mills’ honor. The fund’s organizers are seeking additional financial support.

The following is an announcement from the Mills family:

Gary B. Mills Dissertation Scholarship Fund to Support Native-American or African-American Research

The University of Alabama announces the creation of the Gary B. Mills Dissertation Scholarship Fund in memory of the well-known historian and longtime National Genealogical Society Quarterly associate editor, Dr. Gary B. Mills. From 1987 until his death on 25 January 2002, the journal was based in UA's Department of History, where Dr. Mills held a professorship.

Seeded with a donation from the Mills Family, the scholarship fund will specifically support dissertation research by students working in an area to which Mills' own research contributed significantly--the Pre-20th Century South, with an emphasis upon African-American and Native-American history and family life.

Contributions, which are tax deductible, may be directed to the Gary B. Mills Dissertation Scholarship Fund, Department of History, University of Alabama, Post Office Box 870212, Tuscaloosa

[Return to Table of Contents]

The following is an e-mail from Howard W. Henry that I found interesting. I decided to republish it here in its entirety:

The Albuquerque Genealogy Society has a committee on indexing. I am the chairman of the committee. We are indexing the 1910 Territorial Census of New Mexico. It had never been indexed, and is turning out to be quite a project -- one we have been working on for 3 and a half years and I hope to have finished in another two years. I never dreamed it would be this long when I started.

I print out the pages of the census for a county. There are 100 names on each page and I put 25 pages in a "book". The first volunteer transcribes all these names onto a sheet. The second volunteer then rereads or checks the names to see if he/she agrees with the first interpretation. If so, fine. If not, they write their thoughts in the margin on what the enumerator is trying to spell. A third volunteer does the same, giving us three readings of the original microfilm. I then go through it again against the film, and check the different interpretations and try to decide which spelling is the one the enumerator wrote down. If more than one is a possibility, I put both of them in the index. "An extra name that no one looks for is better than leaving out the right one that everyone is looking for."

I then enter it in a computer data base. Another volunteer converts that access file to a Microsoft .doc base that I can then edit and review and correct.

We publish the final results in county books. There were 26 counties in New Mexico in 1910 and we have finished 17 of them. We give the original work to the library with the Albuquerque Genealogy Society holding the copyright, and we advertise and sell these indexes.

I think it is a very necessary and vital work. I am getting a lot of feedback from folks who have been searching the microfilms for ancestors, without any index, and were going crazy with the writing, spelling, bad films. It makes me feel good to be able to help them in this way with their research.

I will be glad to answer any questions you may have about our committee or our work. We have been doing this for about 8 years now, and have published 77 Indexes of various kinds.

Origins.net has announced that the following counties have now been added to Boyd's Marriage Index.

• Devon (containing 335,869 names)
• Lancashire (containing 521,656 names)
• Durham (containing 231,278 names)
• Northumberland (containing 249,140 names)

Last week I wrote about Genealogy-Developments.com, an online site that charges $45.99 to $69.99 and then delivers information to you that is available at no charge elsewhere on the Web. I also mentioned FamilyDiscovery.com, a similar operation that has since disappeared. Apparently the Internet service provider that hosted FamilyDiscovery.com shut it down after complaints by many users.

My mailbox filled up quickly after last week’s article was published; several people wrote about still other scam operations on the Web. A newer site has appeared recently that seems to be very similar in operation. GenLocator.com. This new site offers essentially the same "service" as Genealogy-Developments.com although the price is slightly different: $39.99 for two years.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see more Web sites spring up soon with similar "offers." I would assume that having more sites in operation will create more income for the site owner(s). After all, it doesn’t take much work to create one of these Web sites that simply links you to other sites.

If you ever have a question about an online genealogy "service," I’d suggest that you check the above sites before spending any money.

Local authorities seeking to boost their budgets resulted in Turkey counting at least 3.65 million non-existent people in a national census in 2000. "It has been established so far that 3,651,000 people were recorded as imaginary population," Sefik Yildizeli, the country's chief statistician, told reporters Thursday.

Officials acknowledge that the 2000 census, which reported a national population of 64,059,000, was distorted by fake counts at scores of municipalities, whose state budgets are tied to population size. Statisticians are trying to strip the results of the corrupted data and revise the figures.

[Return to Table of Contents]

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: The contents of this newsletter are copyright by Richard W. Eastman with the following exception:

Many of the articles published in these newsletters contain quotes or references from others, especially from other Web sites, software user’s manuals, press releases and other public announcements. Any words in this newsletter attributed to another person or organization remain the copyrighted materials of the original author(s).

You are hereby granted rights, unless otherwise specified, to re-distribute articles from this newsletter to other parties provided:

1. You do so strictly for non-commercial purposes
2. Your re-distribution is limited to one or two articles per newsletter; do not re-distribute the newsletter in its entirety
3. You may not republish any articles containing words attributed to another person or organization until you obtain permission from that person or organization. While you do have permission to republish words written by Richard W. Eastman, you do not have automatic authority to republish words written by others, even if their words appear in this newsletter.

Also, please include the following statement with any articles you re-distribute:

The following article is from Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2002 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Subscription information: This newsletter is sent to you free of charge. 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.