Keith Wilson, R.I.P.

Sad news indeed: Keith Wilson passed away from a heart attack at age 65. Keith was the developer and the person behind "iFamily for Tiger," a Macintosh genealogy program, and the later version called "iFamily for Leopard."

I was very impressed with iFamily for Tiger when I wrote a review of it nearly two years ago. (See http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/12/ifamily_for_tig_1.html.) As Keith wrote on the program's web site, "iFamily for Tiger is a family tree program with a difference because Apple users think differently."

Indeed, it is a very different genealogy program: very visual.

I never met Keith Wilson but he and I did exchange a number of e-mail messages. He also posted comments to this newsletter's reviews of his program. I knew he lived in Australia but did not know much more about him. Indeed, his work spoke eloquently for him.

I also wrote in my review, "Keep an eye on this program. It's a good one right now but I bet it will become even more popular in the future." I don't know if the program will continue or not. One thing that I do know is that the world has lost a very talented genealogy programmer.

Comments

[Paula Perkins]

A sad day indeed. A few months ago I switched from a pc to a MacBook (I couldn't be happier.) Dick based on your review I had downloaded the free trial version recently and was about to purchase the program this weekend. I had used and instructed classes on FamilyTreeMaker since they first started and begin originally with PAF. I was very impressed with iFamily for Leopard as well as some of my Mac user friends that use Reunion. I will be curious to see if the program is carried on in the future.

Thanks for all your work and keeping all of updated on news around the world.

Paula

[Jay Rogers]

If I were Paula, I wouldn't back off IFamily. Keith has a wonderful product here and it doesn't need much polishing to be perfect. Keith was wonderful in supporting it, and surely someone will pick up the pieces. Even as is, it's the best I've worked with.

[Rob]

This is a very sad news! Keith had been wonderful in helping with me to fix up some past glitches and improvise the program consistently. My sincere condolences to his family.

I hope someone else can pick up iFamily for Tiger/Leopard what Keith left behind and continue to support/improvise the program, consistently as Keith had done marvelously with it.

RIP, Keith.

[Jill]

How terribly sad for his family and the genealogy community. I hope it provides some comfort to his family to know how much he contributed to each of our families and how much he will be missed by people he had never even met.

Keith developed a great program and his ongoing improvements and product support were absolutlely outstanding. Extremely simple to use, incredibly powerful and pleasantly visual.

I hope someone takes it on, hopefully with the same mindset and passion that Keith had. I understand he was developing a mobile component to work on the iPhone. Who knows what else he had planned.

Wouldn't it be a fitting tribute to carry it forward?

[Dennis]

I'm so sad to hear of Keith's passing. Through his program he touched my family's life. Through his support he touched mine. I'll miss him greatly.

What can we do to help iFamily find a new home? It would be a wonderful legacy for Keith and his family. And a way for his work to continue.

[Warwick Wilson]

Keith was my father. iFamily is in good hands and continues to be available from the website with support. Keith was proud of the mature product he had developed and it continues to be in daily use by genealogists around the globe.

The future holds many possibilities for iFamily. I am currently working towards releasing Keith's unreleased version which had some new features that he was very proud of, and deserve to be published. Just two days before his passing he was showing off his new additions to me with a big proud smile.

Many thanks for all the condolences we have received, our family takes great solace in the number of lives Keith was able to touch, and the high praise that he received from his customers and reviewers. Apologies for my delay in posting here, but as you can imagine his shoes are time consuming to fill.

[Nerissa Williams]

Dear Dick, I was stunned and heartbroken to learn of Keith Wilson's passing. May he be resting in peace, always.

As a newcomer to computerized genealogy, I chose iFamily, over TMG, Reunion, and other programs, because of its emphasis on individuals, its intuitiveness, and intriguing pictorial display.

Keith was in regular email touch with me as I started out in late October tiptoe-ing through the program. I didn't realize he was the program's developer. Nor did I realize what that meant in terms of the time he spent answering my questions.

One of the issues I had, Keith resolved by making a change to the program. I am African American. As you know, tracking individual slave history is extremely difficult. There are slaves listed in documents, such as wills, who have no last names. I wanted slaves in my family to be not just a mention in a Source, but a member of the family tree. iFamily had an "Unconnected Person" label that I debated Keith about. One slave, Harriet, is known, via the family history and indisputable documents, to be my great-great-grandmother. She may have had brothers and sisters also listed in those wills.

Our email exchanges led Keith to write back on October 25, 2008: "You have encouraged me to put "Associated Person" back on the ToDo list - your reasons for doing it are sound - in fact if you look at the Context Diagram in the top half of the main window you will see that there is quite a lot of blank real estate above the Focal Person - I have reserved this "blank space for "Associated Person."

Keith emailed me v2.505 with the change. Maybe I'll never be able to prove who besides Harriet was a blood relative. It seems to me, so many genie programs dismiss slaves. Keith seemed to want to right that wrong. (I think the the moment Obama stands on the steps of the Capitol Building built by slaves, more and more people will want to include slaves a members of their family trees. ). As I wrote Keith, "blood is blood and it is thicker than all the water in the Middle Passage."

Keith not only sought to solve problems, he shared his own history. I was surprised to learn Australia had a slave trade that lasted for four decades. He was, as he put it, fascinated by "historical stuff." Yours, mine, ours.

I am heartened to read his son's commitment to keeping the iFamily legacy alive. To Warwick Wilson, I wish to say, thank you and yours for sharing your father and his vision. He seemed wonderfully dedicated to making iFamily work for every end-user. I felt honored to get personal help from him.

God Bless,
Nerissa Williams

P-S: Dick, I believe you're slated to speak at the NGS conference in Raleigh North Carolina in May. Hope to run into you there.

[Susan McCullough]

A faulty external harddrive recently destroyed my iFamily program. I was composing an email to Keith for help. He so generously gave of his time back when I was just starting to use iFamily. I was stunned and so sorry to read of his death. What a bright, giving, sensitive man he was! I'm glad his family is able to know how profoundly Keith affected so many people. My condolences to you. I'm hopeful someone will continue to develop and support Keith's wonderful work.

[Susan McCullough]

A faulty external harddrive recently destroyed my iFamily program. I was composing an email to Keith for help. He so generously gave of his time back when I was just starting to use iFamily. I was stunned and so sorry to read of his death. What a bright, giving, sensitive man he was! I'm glad his family is able to know how profoundly Keith affected so many people. My condolences to you. I'm hopeful someone will continue to develop and support Keith's wonderful work.