Monday, June 7, 2004 Issue
Posted June 8, 2004 8:05am*** G e n S m a r t s N e w s l e t t e r ***
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GenSmarts - Automated Genealogy Research From Underwood Innovations, LLC
Monday, June 7, 2004 Contents
New Version News
Online Research Tip
GenSmarts Usage Tip
PC Utility Tip
PC Trivia
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Version 1.0.5 is out! We started shipping it in late May.
Current "Production" Version: 1.0.5.00
Registered Version Download Site: http://www.GenSmarts.com/versionHistory.asp
Trial Version Download Site: http://www.GenSmarts.com/download.asp
Lots of new things in 1.0.5:
1) Added Houston's Clayton Library
2) Added coverage for over 1000 additional Ancestry.com databases
3) TO DO List <= SEARCH box now supports +inclusion and -exclusion for search phrases
4) Added Kiosk mode for people who don't have a file and for library use
5) Added the ability to generate an email from the My Genealogy File tab containing an ancestor's background
6) Place name data cleanup now makes suggestions for misspellings
7) Double clicking an ancestor in the My Genealogy File tab now "zooms" you to their suggestions
8) Added support for Ancestral Quest and Ancestry Family Tree
9) We've heard that Heritage Family Tree Deluxe uses identical files to Ancestral Quest, so perhaps we can also now support that as well.
10) You can now expand the countries, states, and counties GenSmarts understands. See TOOLS...CUSTOMIZE GEOGRAPHY.
It's a free upgrade for registered users. We'll be "queuing" it for automatic upgrade over the next week or so... that means you'll receive a notice when you run GenSmarts and be able to download "just the changes" and the software will install them for you. Or you can download the entire install now, if you'd like - you'll find a download link at http://www.gensmarts.com/versionHistory.asp
When you install a new version of GenSmarts, you don't have to uninstall the old one - though the install will ask you to confirm that you're installing into an existing directory (that's ok). Your research results and settings are always preserved.
What's next? We're working on more user customization features - add your own records and record sources, add your own "marks" and notes to TO DO's, add your own reports, etc.
We had a couple of good sessions in Sacramento, for those GenSmarts users that were at NGS. We'll organize a session or two for users at FGS in Austin (Sep 8-11). If you're planning on attending FGS, drop us an email and we'll send you an invitation to anything we get organized.
We're still working on the two new products we mentioned in an earlier newsletter, scheduled for release later this year. And no, we're not ready to go public with what they do yet... :-)
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TIP 1) Ancestry.com's 1870 index now has "every name" in it, not just head's of household, and they've started to do the same with 1860 as well. Search these "every name" indexes for minor children of your hard to find ancestors using a few variations on their place and year of birth.
TIP 2) Use your local library to get free access to pay sites, such as Heritage Quest and Ancestry.COM. If you've got a laptop computer, many libraries now let you "plug in" to their network. Many libraries now have "wireless" networking, so if you've got an 802.11 card in your laptop... you don't even have to plug in. Install GenSmarts on your laptop and use it at the library to make the most of your free access.
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From our mail bag:
"I have some circumstantial evidence that my ancestor died in Indiana, but GenSmarts is not suggesting any records for me to look at in Indiana. I guess that makes sense, since I don't have anything recorded in my file that mentions Indiana. How do I clue GenSmarts in to what I suspect?"
Here's two ideas for getting help from GenSmarts:
1) Find the ancestor in your "My Genealogy File" tab, and double click on him/her. Now switch to the QUERY tab, where you'll find what GenSmarts has brought in from your file on this ancestor. Change the place of death to INDIANA, and press the GENERATE SUGGESTIONS button. Changes made on this screen aren't stored anywhere... it's simply a "sandbox" for you to try out hypothesis for what might have been.
2) Depending on your standards and evidence, you might consider recording a place of death in your genealogy file as "perhaps Indiana" or something similar. GenSmarts gets a little picky about things that follow place names ("Indiana I think" wouldn't be a good place name), but tolerates almost anything that precedes a place name.
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Have a color printer and think the price of that "hi-res" paper is high? We've found an alternative... it's called High Resolution InkJet Coated Paper and it's made by InkTec. It sells for less than 1 cent for an 8.5 x 11 sheet ($9 for a 100 pack). We've switched to it for 1440 DPI output on drafts and things we're putting behind glass or plastic. It is thin - about the weight of regular copy paper and it has a matte finish. Probably not good for that masterpiece you want to still be around in 10 years, but great for everyday use. We've only been able to find it by mail order - we've used Inksell a couple of times with good success - http://www.inksell.com/itp7210l.html
For those of you who can't get enough protection from viruses and spyware, we've added another little helper to our "bat belt" - BHODemon. It's a small utility that shows you the "browser helper objects" that are attached to your browser. A browser helper object is a utility that's installed itself into your internet browser, and has the opportunity to "help" you when you're using your browser. While this mechanism was, of course, intended to let people create great little utilities to help people use the internet, less scrupulous types are using it to spy on you or pop ads. It's handy when AdAware and SpyBot come up clean but you still suspect or are seeing unprompted activity. http://www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm
No connection or affiliation to GenSmarts on either of the above - just products we use and find very helpful.
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We often get requests for a MAC version of GenSmarts. As another way of gauging interest in a MAC version, we thought we'd look at our website statistics and see what percentage of people looking at our homepage (www.gensmarts.com) were using a MAC... the answer is 2 out of every 100 people.
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Tags: Family Tree Maker Anit Virus Ancestry.com
