December 9, 2005 Issue
Posted December 9, 2005 10:26am*** 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
December 9, 2005 Contents
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GenSmarts Usage Tip
Mailbag
PC Tips
Online Research Tip
Editors Comments
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Version 1.0.9 is now available, along with a new "failsafe" upgrade utility. We started shipping it earlier this fall. For update instructions (it's a free update), see:
http://www.GenSmarts.com/versionHistory.asp
For those of you that missed our summer newsletter, the big news was that our new training video is also done. For more information and free samples, see:
http://www.GenSmarts.com/training.asp
Here are the highlights of what's new in Version 1.0.9:
1) Added over 150,000 US research relevant books and films from Salt Lake's Family History Library (FHL)
2) Right click on FHL suggestions is now integrated directly to the FHL card catalog
3) Added support for multi-word surnames in FTM (eg. Mc Donald)
4) Contents in brackets [] are now considered in place name resolution
5) Added a few additional Ancestry.com databases (Texas, SSDI, 1851 Census)
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Interested in DNA testing? Need an article for your newsletter? I did an essay recently for a genealogy group on my experiences with DNA testing. I know it can be a struggle to come up with content for newsletters, so thought I'd share it. Feel free to use the article in your local club's newsletter if it helps. You'll find the article posted at:
http://www.GenSmarts.com/dnaEssay.html
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Need a quick way to get rid of all the direct ancestor marks you've made? With GenSmarts closed, you can simply delete the file DefaultDirectAncestors.csv in your GenSmarts program directory (typically C:\Program Files\GenSmarts). Next time you run... all your direct ancestor marks will be gone. Of course, you could do it "manually" instead - under the My Genealogy File tab, you can always repeat the sequence, FIND NEXT ROOT button, CLEAR button, until there aren't any roots found.
The same "clearing" trick works with your research results tags - just delete the file ResearchResults.csv in your GenSmarts program file directory. If you've turned on the option to track these results separately by file name, or if you've customized the location of this file, the file will have a slightly different prefix and location, accordingly.
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From recent customer correspondence-
Q) What's the purpose of the ID number that shows up at the bottom of the suggestion in recent versions?
A) It identifies which item in our inventory of known records a suggestion is referring to. It provides a unique way of identifying a suggestion - the same suggestion for different people will have the same number. Showing this number helps us in support when someone has a question about a suggestion.
For more Q & A see our online forum where there are 100's more like this:
http://www.gensmarts.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=185
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Tip 1) Did you know you can reuse/reburn a CDR? Well... sort of... As background, a CDR is the cheap "write once" recordable CD - whereas a CDRW is the slower, more expensive, "erasable" CD. Most people think of a CDR as "write once" and a CDRW as "reusable" but that's not entirely true. Here's how you can get some reuse out of a CDR... look for an option in your CD burning software called "Multisession" and turn it on, and an option called "Finalize" and turn it off. Now when you burn data to this CD it will be done in a way that lets you add/replace things at a later time. Since this adding/replacing is accomplished by simply creating a new copy each time in the "unburned" area, that "unburned area" and hence your available space will get smaller and smaller each time. So there's a limit to the number of times you can "reburn", which will depend on the size of what you're burning.
This CDR reusing is useful when you want to use a CDR to get a copy of data, but feel a little guilty about wasting a whole CDR for a one time thing... like taking some pictures into the photo shop, or copying files to another PC. It's also handy for backups of things that don't come close to filling up a whole CD. Google the words "multisession" and "finalize" for more information.
Tip 2) Do you frequently get an annoying "Windows Messenger has an update" message when you run Outlook Express? Here's how you can turn that update checking off:
In Outlook Express, go to TOOLS...OPTIONS... and on the General tab uncheck "Automatically log on to MSN Messenger Service". If you don't use MSN Messenger Service at all, you may also want to right click on those two little blue people that show up in your tray (very lower right of your screen), and use TOOLS...OPTIONS... preferences tab. Uncheck "Run this program when Windows starts"
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This issue's online tip is a bit of a brain teaser - it takes a little deeper thought than most tips- but anything that's free and can work 'round the clock on your brick walls is worth knowing about.
Most of you have probably tried typing in a few of your ancestor names in Google to see if you could find anyone else researching that ancestor. Did you know that there's a good chance that someone else has also Googled some of those same names? Would you like to be connected to any other researcher who searches one of your key ancestors? It's easier and more obvious than you think... all you need to do is "post" some data about your key ancestors somewhere on the internet where the search engines can find it, and a search result of you, your areas of research, and contact information can be presented front and center to that researcher.
To make a good search target, include variations in forms and spellings of the name, along with locations and spouses you think might also be included in a search query. Also include date ranges and any other identifying information that would help the viewer determine if you've got a common ancestor. You don't need fancy links or formatting - in fact the search engines probably like simple text the best. Don't forget to include your contact information, if it's not provided by the mechanism you're using to post. And don't forget to make that contact information friendly to humans, but unfriendly to robots, to avoid the spammers.
Many internet accounts now include the ability (and space) to create a web page. That's likely the easiest way to accomplish this, just follow the instructions your host provides. . Here's a sample web page:
http://www.GenSmarts.com/auResearch.html
Once you get your page up, you can test it yourself by trying a search for one of your names. It likely will take a couple of weeks for the search engines to find and index your page, so be patient. You can often speed up the process by pro-actively submitting your page to the search engine, for example use the following link to give Google a clue:
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
Perhaps a bit more work, but another way to do this is to post to an online forum or mailing list, such as http://genforum.genealogy.com/ or http://lists.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/findlist.pl where specific forums/lists exist by surname. Really, anyplace on the web that's being indexed by the search engines will work.
Those of you who recoil from the thought of posting your research on the internet should note - this isn't what I'm suggesting- those of you who already have uploaded your trees into a website and think you've already got this covered should note - there's key search data (alternate spellings, for example) that may not be present in what you've uploaded, so it still may be worth considering-
Because this tip is a bit more involved, I've started a topic in our forum for questions/answers/tips related to it. Post questions or suggestions related to this tip there:
http://www.gensmarts.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=468
Finally, for those of you that like brain teasers and didn't think this was really that hard to figure out- think about this- The traditional search paradigm is that a researcher uses a search engine to connect with information about an area of interest. This is constrained to data that's been published on the internet. There are several orders of magnitude more data in the heads of researcher (the people searching the internet) that hasn't been published. This tip represents the inverse of that traditional paradigm - a way of searching the heads of other researchers-
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We'll be upgrading our website over the next couple of weeks, and it'll be quite different than the current site. In addition to an updated look, the new site will have more automated support goodies and should also make it easier to keep track of the latest updates and enhancements. The URL won't change, of course - it'll still be GenSmarts.com More on some of these features in our next newsletter...
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That's all for now-
Aaron Underwood
GenSmarts
Tags: Family Tree Maker Ancestry.com
