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| EOGN Note: The information in this archived copy was accurate on the date of publication. Since then, Web sites have appeared and disappeared, companies have been merged and many other facts have changed. You may find references in this archived copy that are no loner accurate. Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter A Weekly Summary of Events and Vol. 3 No. 41 – October 10, 1998 This newsletter is sponsored by Ancestry Publishing, To learn about Ancestry's Past issues of this Newsletter Copyright (C) 1998 by Richard W. Eastman and Ancestry, Inc. All rights reserved. Information on how to obtain a free subscription to this newsletter or how to cancel a subscription is given near the end of this document. 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. IN THIS ISSUE: - On The Road Again - On The Road Again If you have been reading this newsletter for a few months, you know that I travel quite a bit and that before each trip I normally write a disclaimer saying, "Next week’s newsletter may be delayed or skipped entirely." Well, here I go again. I am taking a week’s vacation. In an attempt to "get away from it all," I am going to the other side of the world. Shortly after this newsletter gets posted, I am jumping on a plane to Hong Kong. This will be my first trip to Hong Kong in 13 years, and I am anxious to see all the changes that have occurred during my absence. On my last visit the city was still a British Crown Colony, but today it is a part of the Peoples Republic of China. However, I am told that the city still maintains its energetic and capitalistic ways. I am taking the palmtop computer along, and CompuServe does have a local access number in Hong Kong. Therefore, you might receive a newsletter next week. But if the Chinese food is as good as it was on my last trip, if the sightseeing is still as spectacular, and if the shopping is as cheap as ever, I might not sit in the hotel room long enough to write a newsletter! Look for the next newsletter in either one or two weeks. - New Version of Ultimate Family Tree This week Palladium Interactive released a new version of their Windows program, Ultimate Family Tree. The new Platinum Edition includes multi-language capability. It also contains new features of interest to anyone with U.K. ancestry or Latin American ancestry.
Ultimate Family Tree is available for Windows 3.1 as well as Windows 95 and Windows 98. Previous versions have always worked well on Windows NT as well. I suspect the new Platinum Edition will do likewise, but I haven’t had a chance to test it myself yet. You can find more information and even download a trial version of the program at Palladium’s Web site. Look at http://www.uftree.com/UFT/Nav/uftnewsplat.html - New Online Surname Guide I have written before about the Family History Show. It is a talk show that is broadcast weekly on a number of radio stations affiliated with the Texas State Network. It is also available as an audio broadcast on the Internet via KPRC Radio’s live audio link. Host Michael Matthews always seems to have interesting guests on his show. Mike also maintains a Web site that promotes the show as well as lots of other genealogy-related things on the Internet. He has recently added a new Surname Guide to the Web site. The description says, "Developed to assist beginning and intermediate ‘Internet Genealogists’ by the host of The Family History Show, this listing may be of value to anyone seeking surname websites. To some degree, the listing features websites that focus on one family name, and/or those that contain substantial information on-line." The site is easy to use. The surnames are listed in alphabetical order. The list apparently contains links to thousands of Web sites devoted to particular surnames. Each surname in the list is a hypertext link to one or more other Web sites containing information about that surname. I experimented a bit by clicking on various surnames of interest to me that I found in the list. Some of the links went to elaborate sites full of information. Others simply linked to a pedigree chart. At least one link points to a site containing information about an annual family reunion. If you have a personal home page with information about one or more families, you can request that a link to your page also be added to the list. To view Mike Matthew’s Online Surname Guide, look at: http://familyhistory.flash.net - Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society Quarterly on CD-ROM
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The CD-ROM price is $85.00 for orders received before October 15, 1998. After that date the price will be $99.95. I noticed that the company’s Web site says the discount expired on July 31, 1998, but in an e-mail to me this week the company owner listed the date as October 15, 1998. Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society members can obtain an additional discount. For more information, look at: http://www.genquest.com/catalog.html - How To Store This Newsletter I must admit that I never thought about how to keep information from this newsletter that is of interest to you. I keep a copy of the entire newsletter archived on my hard disk. Obviously, not many people have a need to do that. Tony Burroughs told me this week how he keeps items of interest, and I thought I would pass along his comments. This is an excerpt from his e-mail message:
I hope this helps others. Thanks Tony. - GenIndex Staub & Associates has released GenIndex. They refer to the program as the "Everyname Indexer for Windows". The program produces an "everyname" or "back-of-the-book" index to assist in genealogical research. A trial version is available, so I took a look at the program this week. GenIndex is a simple but useful program that maintains indexes. It doesn’t do anything that you couldn’t do manually; the program simply makes the task somewhat less tedious. If you have to index hundreds or even thousands of names, you probably will appreciate this program. Once installed, you create a new title for an index, which is normally the same as the title of the book involved. Next, you enter the first surname. After that, a new window appears for entry of first and middle names, prefix, suffix and the page numbers where that name appears. You enter the information as appropriate. As the building of the index progresses, you can add additional surnames as well. Once the data entry is completed, you can create indexes in several formats. Of course, the primary purpose is to create a printed back-of-book index, and the program will print on most any standard Windows printer. It will also create disk files in a number of formats, including: Crystal Reports, Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, Quatro Pro, ASCII text, Rich Text Format (RTF), comma separated values (CSV), character separated values, data Interchange format (DIF) and tab-separated formats. Many of these file formats can then be imported into other programs, such as spreadsheet, database or word processing formats. If you are facing a major indexing task, GenIndex may help. GenIndex requires Windows 3.1, 95, 98 or NT and a video resolution of 800-by-600 pixels or greater. Its disk and memory requirements are modest, so it should run on any Windows system other than basic systems that only support 640-by-480 pixels of video. GenIndex sells for $19.95 U.S. funds if you download it from the company’s Web site. Add another $10.00 if you want a copy on CD-ROM or floppy disks. A free 15 day trial version can be downloaded online. I obtained my copy from CompuServe’s Genealogy Techniques Forum (GO ROOTS), but it is also available on the Web at http://www.staubassociates.com/genindex.htm. - A Child With Two Mothers? Reuters News Service carried an article this week that describes a potential challenge to genealogists. How would you document this in your database? Reuters’ Health and Science Correspondent, Maggie Fox, wrote, "A fertility expert has surprised colleagues by announcing he has tried out a controversial procedure which involves mixing parts of the eggs of two women together to help them have babies. The procedure, aimed at helping older women have babies, uses cloning technology although it is not actual cloning." The article then goes on at length describing the work of Dr. Jamie Grifo, director of the division of reproductive endocrinology at New York University. Dr. Grifo says he has already tried out the procedure in two women. The idea is to rejuvenate the aging eggs of an older woman using the "shell" of a younger woman's egg. According to Dr. Grifo, a woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have, and as she ages her eggs age, too. Her chances of a successful pregnancy diminish as the eggs deteriorate. The new procedure combines the nucleus of the egg of the older woman, including the genes, which carry the instructions for making a new human, with the cytoplasm of a younger woman. The cytoplasm is the "working machinery" of the egg; its main function is to keep the cells alive and healthy. It also contains the mitochondrial DNA. Any child born of this technique would have the genes of its mother (the older woman) and father, but the mitochondrial DNA of the younger woman whose egg was donated. Will future genealogists want to record information on all the individuals involved? - Home Pages Highlighted The following is a list of some of the genealogy-related World Wide Web home pages that have been listed recently on http://www.rootscomputing.com. Some of these sites may charge a fee for their services:
To submit your home page to this newsletter, enter the necessary information at: http://www.rootscomputing.com/register.htm. Due to the volume of new Web pages submitted, I am not able to list all of them in the newsletter. If you would like to submit news, information or press releases for possible inclusion in future newsletters, send them to richard@eastman.net. The author does reserve the right to accept or reject any articles submitted. 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 and by Ancestry Publishing and by others so designated. You are hereby granted rights, unless otherwise specified, to re-distribute articles from this newsletter to other parties provided you do so strictly for non-commercial purposes. Please limit your re-distribution to one or two articles per newsletter; do not re-distribute the newsletter in its entirety. Also, please include the following words with any articles you re-distribute:
Thank you for your cooperation. Subscription information: To subscribe to this free newsletter, send an e-mail message to the following address: The message title is unimportant. The first line of text in the message must have the words SUBSCRIBE ROOTSCOMPUTING followed by your first and last names. For instance, if your name is Jane Doe, you would write a message of:
That is the entire message; nothing else should be in the message text. To cancel an existing subscription, send an e-mail to: The message title is unimportant. The text of the message must be exactly:
Please note that the address of listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com is an "e-mail robot" and messages sent to that address are only read by a computer. If you send any more text in the message, it will be ignored. If you want to see the current issue as well as back issues of the newsletter, look on the World Wide Web at: http://www.ancestry.com/columns/eastman/index.htm 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. About the author: Dick Eastman is the forum manager of the four Genealogy Forums on CompuServe and is editor of Genealogical Computing magazine. He also is the author of "YOUR ROOTS: Total Genealogy Planning On Your Computer" published by Ziff-Davis Press. He can be reached at: richard@eastman.net
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The following is an extract from
Palladium’s press release:
GenQuest, Inc. has announced a new CD-ROM
disk for both Windows and Macintosh will soon be available. You can order it now for a
discounted "pre-publication offer." Here is the announcement: