Relying on sources as a soundness indicator in genealogy is like trying to understand a court case, but only having the witness list and the verdict. Sure you’ll know the outcome and you’ll know who was called to testify, but you won’t be able to understand why the decision was made. You won’t know what was asked nor what answers were given by whom. You won’t have a sense of the veracity of the testimony. And you won’t be able to get your own sense of whether the right decision was made. It’s the same thing with genealogy.
[Read more...]
The Dangers of Judging Reliability by Source Presence
16 Sep 2010 by 5 Comments
Genealogy Virus Continues to Spread
14 Sep 2010 by 5 Comments
I was disappointed yesterday to hear of another outbreak of the virus that’s sweeping through genealogy. A new GEDCOM (GEnealogy Data COMmunication) file sharing site sprang up. I’m disappointed because this nonsense undermines the practice of genealogy. Mostly this is because many (if not most) GEDCOMs being shared contain incorrect conclusions. Sharing incorrect conclusions is the single biggest threat to our hobby. It wastes an incredible amount of research time.
Researching Distant Records Now Easier
7 Aug 2010 by Leave a Comment
Geographically distant genealogists have been helping each other find records for years. It’s a service referred to as lookups. It works like this: if you’re looking for a record that you haven’t been able to locate locally nor online, you arrange through email or a forum, to have a genealogist who is local to the record do the lookup for you and send you a scan or photo.
Finding and transacting a lookup has gotten easier since Genlighten.com has become available. This service connects genealogists and providers of lookups, handles payment, notifications, service ratings, and document delivery. It has the promise of a centralize source of lookup providers. This helps those of us in need of distant record location as well as those who are willing to do lookups.
In this video: Getting Distant Records Through Genlighten, I show you how to find a provider, request a lookup, and how to retrieve the resulting image.
GenealogyTools Members, download this video to your computer for your private use by control-clicking and choosing “Download Linked File As” or “Save Link As” (depending on your browser).
Find Sources with Ancestry.com’s Explore by Location
31 Jul 2010 by 1 Comment
You can discover sources of information about relatives you may not have been aware of. Ancestry.com has a feature called explore by location that will show you research resources by location. These resources can give you ideas about sources of information you hadn’t thought of or known about. In this video: Ancestry.com Explore by Location Feature, I show you how to see these resources, how to conduct a location specific search, and view brief historical information about a location.
GenealogyTools Members, download this video to your computer for your private use by control-clicking and choosing “Download Linked File As” or “Save Link As” (depending on your browser).
Is the Virtual Globe Bloat?
22 Jul 2009 by 15 Comments
I’ve been working on a MacFamilyTree screencast this evening. It’s related to geocoding which is related to the “virtual globe” feature. As is usual for me when I explore features, I asked myself, “What value does this offer genealogists?” I’m having a hard time coming up with something nice to say about this one.
Yes, I get that you can see points on a globe for events in your database. And, that lines indicating the direction of movement connect the points. So, what? How can this help you with the fundamental activities a genealogist undertakes? Does it help you plan or carry out research? No. Can it help you identify or locate sources? No. Can you turn evidence into sound conclusions with it? No. Does it make preserving information more efficient or effective? No. I can’t imagine a single way that this “feature” improves, in a material way, what you can do already. [Read more...]
Handling People with Multiple Names in the MacGenealogist File System
11 Jul 2009 by 8 Comments
People change names for many reasons. What’s surprising, at least when new to genealogical research, is that it’s relatively common for a person’s name to change during their lifetime. Since it’s common and adds complexity to our practice, I devised a solution with respect to storing computer files. There are three predominant problems that it eliminates.
The Problems
There are countless people in your genealogy with more than one name. Trying to remember all the name variants and which folders contain the files for each is unnecessary. The computer excels at such things.
Storing duplicates of each file for all the name variants wastes disk space and creates a maintenance problem.
Files relating to one person, but scattered across folders can cause confusion, duplicate effort, and conclusions based on incomplete information.
The Solution
The MacGenealogist File System deals effectively with changing names—both person and place names—by making use of the power and elegance of a little known feature of the Macintosh operating system: aliases. [Read more...]
Parallels Desktop 4.0 Build 3844 Released
22 May 2009 by 1 Comment
Parallels released a bugfix build for their Paralells Desktop 4.0 product.
Bugfixes and improvements in Parallels Desktop 4.0 Update (build 4.0.3844)
Improvements:
- Improved 3D graphics in Windows virtual machines.
- Problems with Palm synchronization in Windows virtual machines — fixed.
- Random disconnection of USB 1.1 devices in Linux virtual machines — fixed.
- Invisibility of the text mouse pointer on black background in Windows virtual machines — fixed.
- Problems with SMB shares in native Windows Boot Camp installations that have Parallels Tools installed — fixed.
- Problems with Shared Networking on Snow Leopard host computers — fixed.
Keeping a Genealogy Task List, Part 2: TaskPaper
11 Apr 2009 by 6 Comments
The first Mac task list software I have for your consideration is TaskPaper from Hog Bay Software. It is simultaneously a simple and powerful task manager. It meets both of the criteria I outlined in the first part of this series of articles, Keeping a Genealogy Task List, Part 1:
- Unobtrusive storage
- Simple, powerful retrieval
The developer has created an elegant design that enables entry of tasks in a natural way. Projects are inserted by typing a line of text followed by a colon. Tasks are lines of text preceded by a hyphen and a space. Anything else that’s typed is a note. It doesn’t get any easier than that. [Read more...]
Free Ancestry.com Resource Essentials CD
9 Apr 2009 by 11 Comments
I got a nice little package in the mail today. The Generations Network sent me a package that is the “first in a list of upcoming benefits” planned for for Ancestry.com World Deluxe Annual members. It’s a CD containing PDFs of six reference books produced by Ancestry.com and a 20% off coupon for my next purchase in the Ancestry Store. The coupon expires January 1, 2010. The “books” on the CD are nice to have: [Read more...]
Keeping a Genealogy Task List, Part 1
4 Apr 2009 by 14 Comments
Knowing What to do Next
Do you know what task you can do next to move your genealogy research forward the most? How about all the searches you need to do next time you’re on WorldVitalRecords.com? These and other questions are best asked of and answered by an effective genealogy to-do list. Such a task list serves two purposes critical to family history research.
Unobtrusive Storage
The first purpose is to capture all those opportunities you discover while you research one subject, but are too disciplined to go chasing after. We’ve all experienced the peculiar temporal slippage that happens when we succumb to temptation and follow lead after lead; time seems to compress. Hours later we break free of the phenomenon only to find that we haven’t accomplished anything except perhaps entertaining ourselves. [Read more...]
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