The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
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A great deal of controversy has recently been generated amongst members of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (NYG&B). If the society's Board of Directors has its way, the several thousand present members will soon be disenfranchised.
The Board of Directors has proposed an amendment to the organization's by-laws that will eliminate all memberships in the Society, other than the 15 people who sit on the Board of Directors. That's right: the proposal states that there will only be fifteen members, and they alone will run the society. They will not be answerable to anyone else. Today's treasury, library, and all other assets will become the sole property of the very small genealogy society, controlled entirely by fifteen people.
As you might guess, the proposal has not been well received by present members. My e-mail inbox has been ablaze with messages and genealogy message boards have been abuzz with reactions as the details of this proposal have started to circulate.
In case you have not heard the news, many genealogy libraries are struggling financially these days. For this article, I will focus solely on the larger societies that have their own buildings or perhaps rent a significant amount of space in other buildings. I will also look only at societies that have libraries that are not funded by taxpayer dollars. Many of them have paid employees, although not all do.
Examples of such libraries would include the New England Historic Genealogical Society and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. The same may be true of the Society of Genealogists' library in London. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) library in Washington, D.C. also is a huge, non-profit resource, although the sponsoring organization is not limited to genealogy interests. The DAR library does seem to fit in the same business model as the libraries of large genealogy societies.
Second Site is a great program that automatically creates some of the best-looking genealogy web pages I have ever seen. It is a genealogy web site builder for use with The Master Genealogist, a leading genealogy program for Windows. Second Site creates HTML (the most popular format of pages on the World Wide Web) in any of an almost infinite number of styles and formats, as specified by the user. It generates either narrative or grid style person pages, a master index, a surname index, and source pages. Best of all, the user doesn’t need to know anything about HTML programming and the creation of Web pages. Second Site takes care of all. Minimal technical expertise is required. .
I do not remember the last time a genealogy software producer released a free public beta test of a new version to the general public. Most betas are run behind closed doors by a closely-kit group of "friends of the company." This one is different: it is open to everyone. I haven't had a chance to download this yet as I just received this news. However, I believe it is supposed to be an all-new program, a total rewrite.
This beta test is free but please note the warning, "The beta will stop functioning on August 24th." I assume that you will need to purchase the released version by then if you wish to continue with the program. Also please note that Windows either XP or Vista is required. The program will not work on older operating systems, such as Windows 98 or ME.
The beta test version is a 164-megabyte download. You can download it on a 56k dial-up connection but that will take a long time. Broadband users should be able to download it in a few minutes.
The following is the announcement:
Announcing Family Tree Maker 2008, the next generation of the world's best-selling genealogy program. Family Tree Maker 2008 is coming this August, but you can give it a try now by downloading and installing a beta of the program. Simply click the link [at http://beta.familytreemaker.com] to download the beta.
The following announcement was written by the Board for Certification of Genealogists:
Pre-orders are now being taken at the BCG website http://www.bcgcertification.org/catalog for Elizabeth Shown Mills' newest highly-anticipated book, Evidence Explained - Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. The author's signature will appear in the books sold through this website "while supplies last." For those of you looking to support an organization whose mission is genealogical standards, here is your opportunity - including a chance to win a free book!
The following announcement was written by the Genealogical Speakers Guild:
The Genealogical Speakers Guild (GSG) seeks an editor for its newsletter, Speak!
Applicants should have experience in editing and producing a professional newsletter in a digital format, and competence in establishing and maintaining communications with GSG members, board members, and others in the genealogical community. The position will be largely self-managed with input from the GSG board. Meeting deadlines and publishing the newsletter in a timely fashion are critical. The editor will be responsible for editing submissions, writing articles when necessary, layout, and distribution to members.
Computer owners sometimes forget that not everyone owns computers and not everyone uses e-mail. Indeed, many of our relatives do not want the expense and complexity of purchasing a computer, setting up an Internet account with e-mail, and then checking for e-mail frequently. Many people do not possess the skills or interest to own and use a computer.
It would be nice if everyone had an e-mail address. Wouldn't you like to include Grandma on the list of people you send messages to frequently? How about pictures of the family's vacation or the new grandchild? Sure, you can print things out, stuff them into an envelope and mail them to Grandma, but I suspect that many people never do that. Thanks to Hewlett-Packard and an online service called Presto, anyone with a telephone line can now have a receive-only e-mail account. No computer or expertise is required. The only thing needed is a special printer made for this purpose. In fact, the e-mail recipient doesn't even need to take any action, other than making sure that paper is in the printer. (It uses standard computer paper.) E-mails arrive automatically and print without any user interaction.
I am a big fan of the Pocket Genealogist, a program that allows you to carry your complete genealogy database, including text notes and citations, in your handheld Windows Mobile computer. You can find my past articles about this program at http://tinyurl.com/2lgmqj. Now Northern Hills Software has released a new version that includes several new updates, including support for the new "Smartphones ." Here is the announcement:
El Dorado Springs, MO - Northern Hills Software is pleased to announce the release of Pocket Genealogist Version 3.10.
In a nutshell, this version includes usability changes, new screen sizes for Windows Mobile 6, and support for Smartphones (Windows Mobile devices without a touchscreen - called Windows Mobile Standard with Version 6.)
Genealogical Publishing Company has republished one of the more popular books of the past decade or two. The full name of the book is Emigrants in Chains: A Social History of Forced Emigration to the Americas of Felons, Destitute Children, Political and Religious Non-Conformists, Vagabonds, Beggars and Other Undesirables, 1607-1776 by Peter Wilson Coldham. A 2007 reprint is now available that appears to be unchanged since the last printing in 1994. I had a chance to read the book this week.
Anyone who has researched ancestry back to the years 1607 through 1776 in North America or the Caribbean has an excellent chance of finding ancestors who were "transported" from England to the colonies. Indeed, the British government saw the colonies as a great place to dump convicts and other undesirables. The undesirables included those whose "crime" was a disagreement with the official church of the time and others who simply were poor.
The BBC is reporting that the UK National Archive is warning of old formats being a 'ticking time-bomb' where data is going to be lost because of incompatibility in newer versions of software, and software not existing at all.
Natalie Ceeney, the chief executive of the UK National Archives, said society faced the possibility of "losing years of critical knowledge" because modern PCs could not always open old file formats.
The Ontario Genealogical Society has thrown its support behind keeping the Wall of Honour out of Confederation Square in Peterborough, Ontario. “There are human remains there, as much as people don’t want to recognize that,” society president Robert Crawford said. “That was their final resting place and we don’t feel it should be disturbed.”
In the first article in this series, I described how to create web sites and CD-ROM disks of genealogy information that others will be interested in purchasing. In the second article, I described how to advertise your products online and how to create a "web store" to sell CD-ROM disks. The third article in the series described how to collect the money. This week I will describe a process of selling information that you have stored online on your web server.
This week I had a chance to use a new CD-ROM disk, called the Compendium of New England Gazetteers produced by Archive CD Books USA. It is a collection of ten early New England gazetteers (geographic indexes or dictionaries that describe many locations).
When I first opened the package I thought, "Oh, this is a collection of old books that have been re-released as PDF files on a CD-ROM disk." Looking back, I can now say that I was both right and wrong. Indeed, it is a bunch of PDF files. But this disk is also a lot more. In fact, I wish more old books on CD disks were like this collection. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Footnote has been holding members' meetings at various locations around the country. I have attended a couple of these and found them to be enjoyable. If you use Footnote.com and if you would be willing to give feedback and also learn about the company's future plans, you probably will enjoy attending one of these sessions:
Salt Lake City, Utah: Friday, July 20, 2007 IAJGS 2007 Conference
Fort Wayne, Indiana: Saturday, August 18, 2007 2007 FGS Conference
Chicago, Illinois: Saturday, September 1, 2007 The Society of American Archivists Conference
The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation is a major "player" in the field of genealogy DNA. The non-profit foundation and its commercial "cousin," Relative Genetics, have been mentioned in this newsletter many times. A newer commercial enterprise of the foundation, Sorenson Genomics, entered into a partnership with Ancestry.com in June with the promise of letting people some day trace distant cousins through DNA at the click of a mouse. Now USA Today has written an article about the founder of these and other companies, 86-year-old James LeVoy Sorenson. You can read the article at http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2007-07-01-sorenson_N.htm?csp=34.
I met Jim Sorenson a couple of times and received an impression similar to that described by the author of USA Today's article.
The weekly Plus Edition newsletter was sent by e-mail last night, as usual. Today I have received about a dozen e-mail messages asking why I sent it as a ZIP file. Actually, I didn't.
The interesting thing is that every one of the dozen or so people who asked have AOL e-mail addresses. I have not yet received any such question from anyone with a non-AOL address. I also know that the copies I received at my three e-mail addresses all looked normal, there wasn't a ZIP file in the bunch. (I don't have an AOL account so I could not test that theory myself.)
The following announcement was written by the New England Historic Genealogical Society:
New book examines twelve generations of late Princess's British, European, and American ancestors. American connections include: Thomas Jefferson, Emily Dickinson, Susan B. Anthony, Nancy Reagan, Anderson Cooper, and Mitt Romney
Boston - Aug 2007 - The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) announces the release of a new book examining twelve generations of the ancestry of Diana, Princess of Wales, to mark the tenth anniversary of her death in 1997.
The following announcement was written by Geni.com:
Geni's birthday reminders, family calendar, messaging and photo sharing provide social networking for families. Geni's family tree keeps families connected through genealogy.
Los Angeles, Calif., July 2, 2007 -- Geni (www.geni.com), the social network that connects users by their genealogy, today announced that it has acquired over 5 million profiles since launching in mid-January just 5 months ago.
Writing in the Lebanon Daily News, Jim Beidler has an interesting story on plans by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church, to help other organizations place their records online at little or no cost to those organizations. I have written about bits and pieces of this in past newsletter articles but Jim's article nicely summarizes the plans.
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