Genealogy Software Reviews

Between the Stacks: May and June 2011

Summer reading will be a wide world of fun this summer at the Porter County Public Library! Our theme this year is “One World, Many Stories.” All PCPLS library branches offer the independent summer reading program for children ages 2 through 18 (still in High School). Registration for summer reading starts Monday, June 6 at all branch youth departments. The last day to register is Saturday, July 2. Each participant receives a reading booklet to record the titles of the books they read. All books must come from the Porter County Public Library system. After you register and get your booklet, then you read, read, read to complete the requirements for your age group. Once you’ve completed the reading requirements, turn in your booklet (at the same branch where you registered) and win fun prizes! (Preschoolers and students who have completed Gr. K-8 will also receive a Read & Ride voucher for the Porter County Fair. This voucher provides a discount on the carnival ride wristband – good for any one day, Monday, July 25 through Friday, July 29.) You can turn in your booklet for prizes as soon as you’ve completed the reading requirements. The last day to pick up prizes is Saturday, July 16. About ten years ago, terms were coined in an attempt to characterize and explain these differences.1 “Digital Natives” describe the generation born into our digital world. They have never known a world without computers. “Digital Immigrants” describe those born before the digital world, who adopted digital technologies later in life. Some argue that because they did not learn digital and technological literacies early in life, these skills will never come to them as easily or quickly as they do for digital natives. Indeed, fMRI’s of the brain behaviors of younger and older people while using a computer shows differences between the groups.2 Does this mean that digital immigrants are fated to struggle more just to gain the same skills as their younger counterparts? Several studies have been done to explore these questions further. One examined two different groups of middle aged adults.3 One group had prior experience to searching on the Internet and were considered “web -savvy,” while the other group had little or no experience searching the Internet and were considered “webnaïve.” MRI’s taken of participant’s brains as they searched showed that the web-savvy group had much higher activity throughout the brain than the webnaïve group.

What's With Other Genealogy Software Developers? - Louis Kessler's ...

I just finished reading Tamura Jones’ latest genealogy software review on The Master Genealogist’s (TMG) Public Beta 8. I’ve stated before that I think Tamura’s reviews are the best on the web . They are full of solid sound advice that the software author should listen to, and doing so will lead to significant improvements to their program.

In the case of TMG, a program that has a good team with a lot of knowledge and experience behind it, you’d think they’d be looking at their reviews. Tamura comments that the Beta has added a new report engine to work in 64-bit Windows and made some other small changes. But he reports horror stories about its installation, import capabilities and speed, GEDCOM compliance (and its “export Wizard from hell”), its lack of Unicode support, and its more than unfriendly user interface.

What bothers me most about all of this is that Tamura had reviewed TMG 7 over 3 years ago . There are still many outstanding problems he reported then, that still exist in the new version today.

Are software developers not trying to improve their program’s quality? Do they not want to eliminate the sore spots of their programs? You’d think 3 years would be enough to at least address the worst of the concerns that reviewers point out.

TMG is not alone. Tamura continues to mention that Legacy does not run on 64-bit machines, but Millennia have never mentioned that they are working on fixing that major flaw. And Ancestry probably could seriously improve Family Tree Maker and put a stranglehold on the genealogy marketplace if they’d follow and use Tamura’s articles as a roadmap for them.

Ancestry almost had complete domination of the genealogy software industry some years back after they gobbled Ultimate Family Tree and Generations and Family Origins (their biggest opposition at the time) and theirs dominated the retail store shelves. On top of that, FamilySearch was getting out of the software market. At the time, Ancestry’s users were fanatical and loved Family Tree Maker. Their user groups were plentiful and everywhere. … But then something happened. They fumbled the ball. Did a rewrite. Alienated their current users. Allowed Bruce Buzbee to start up again and provide real competition. Allowed Legacy to take away some market share. Did not become the dominant player in the online family tree world, but let 100 startups divide the pot instead. Ancestry had domination at their fingertips, and let it go. But they have the clout and power to achieve it again - if they listen to the community and improve, or get dirty and buy up their competition again.

Genealogy Software Guide

Genealogy software has changed quite a bit in the last few years; ... Just as it was not reasonable to review obsolete software, reviews for all of the ...

The Online Genealogy Handbook

We've taken it a step further and scoured the Internet for the best genealogy software review sites, including Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, ...

Ancestry

GENEALOGY SOFTWARE GUIDE Book review by Joyce B. Williams Marthe Arends, 1998, 269 pgs, illus, index, paperback published by Genealogical Publishing Co., ...

Mennonite family history

Designed to be used with existing commercial genealogy software programs, it is recommended that users have Brother's Keeper. (They are working at soon ...

Cyndi's List, A Comprehensive List of 70,000 Genealogy Sites on the Internet

Category Index: ♦ Articles & Reviews ♦ CD-ROMs: Books, Databases & Indexes ♦ GEDCOM: GEnealogical Data COMmunications ♦ Genealogy Software Programs ...