Ben Sayer

One of the common problems MacGenealogists shared with me in my recent “One Problem Survey” is the fear of your genealogical materials being lost or forgotten after you pass on or can’t manage it yourself any more. This concern coincides with a recent story.

I know a genealogist that passed away on January 1st, 2007. His name was Bob. I know Bob put a lot of effort into his research and that he took trips to do more research and walk in his ancestor’s footsteps. I wondered what happened to his research, so I asked.

It turns out Bob’s PC and three-ring-binders have yet to be picked up by his son! [Read more…] about The Program that is Preventing Genealogy Research from Being Lost and Forgotten

Synium released an update to their Macintosh genealogy software MacFamilyTree. According to the software update dialog, version 5.6 includes the following changes:

• New Virtual Tree
  • Drastic performance enhancements by using multiple processors/cores when available
  • Much improved 3d alignment, especially in complex scenarios
  • Can only show partial subtrees within a database
  • Displays pictures of persons directly in the 3d tree when available
  • New palette to directly jump to near ancestors or descendants
• Improved Media Management
  • One picture, audio, web page or video can now be assigned to multiple persons, families, events or sources
  • Persons or families can be tagged on group fotos for easy identification
  • Pictures can be edited from within MacFamilyTree (cropping, hue control, saturation and noise reduction)
  • Images with embedded DPI information are now handled correctly and are displayed in full resolution
  • Media can now be bookmarked as it has already been possible for Persons or Families
  • Improved playback of Video and Audio media entries
• Virtual Globe
  • Improved rendering performance on slower Macs
  • More detailed map
• Other Improvements
  • Text-based Descendant and Ancestor Reports are now available in the Person Report
  • Full screen mode for the Virtual Tree and the Virtual Globe
  • All dialogs or sheets have been improved to a consistent and user friendly look
• Further performance enhancements throughout the whole application as well as a reduced memory footprint

Thanks to the 98 of you (so far) who have answered the call by joining GenealogyWise.com and the MacGenealogist group I created there, we’ve got the biggest on the whole site! we’re in 8th place for the most members. It’s great exposure for the Mac genealogy community to be seen first by everyone on GenealogyWise.com. It also tickles me to no end!

We’re going to be surpassed unless many more of you join us. I know there are hundreds more of you that could help us get back to the top. If helping people find and join our community isn’t enough, I have another good reason for you to join (besides it being free and making me happy).

There’s already some great information available there. For example, theres a great discussion on the forum where people are listing their favorite free genealogy resources. And, I’ve got an offer in the forum for a free educational program I’m starting that hasn’t been announced anywhere else.

What do you say? Will you help make my day?

FamilyLink has launched a new social network web site just for genealogists called GenealogyWise.com. It’s like Facebook, but focused on genealogy and its practitioners. There’s no cost to join.

It’s filling up fast! I’d love to see you there and have you listed among my friends. When you sign up, be sure to send me a friend invite. Also, join the MacGenealogist group I created there. Click on “Groups” on the navigation bar then enter “MacGenealogist” in the search box. Finally, click on “Join MacGenealogist” under the navigation bar near the right end.