April 10, 2010 Issue
Posted April 10, 2010 11:58am*** 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
Apr 9, 2010 Contents
Update news
Online Research Tips
GenSmarts Usage Tips
Tech Tip
Memorable Quote
Publishing Tip
Support Mailbag
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Email change Instructions
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The latest release is 2.1.1.83 (2.1.1.78 if you have a special edition). Recent changes include the following:
1) Support for new free online 1850,60,70,1900, and 1920 US census
2) Support for Ancestry.com's "New Search"
3) Support for Gedcom files created with a Mac
4) Support for importing Source info from a Gedcom
5) Minor updates to better support Win 7
6) Added support for IE8
7) Minor updates to better support FTM 2010
8) The usual assortment of minor bugs and tweaks
As usual, you can use www.GenSmarts.com/versionHistory.html to update if GenSmarts itself doesn't notify you at start up of the update.
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FamilySearch.org continues to make progress in bringing more and more records online. In addition to the 1880 US census they've had for a long time, they now also have most of the other modern US census records, as well as many other smaller record sets. They still consider these new records to be in pilot, so you won't find them on the regular website - you have to look at pilot.familysearch.org The latest release of GenSmarts knows about these new US census record sets, and we'll be adding more content from FamilySearch.org as it matures.
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It's always exciting to get a new source for a census because it often means a whole new index. Maybe that ancestor you couldn't find was in the census, but simply not indexed correctly? A new index gives you a chance to check out that possibility. Suppose you wanted to retry some of the 1860 US Census lookups that failed before - here's how you would do that in GenSmarts:
1) Make sure you have the "SEARCH" box displaying above the to do list - if not turn it on by using the top line menu and selecting VIEW-ADVANCED-
2) Using the drop down filter list that sits on the top left of the To Do List, select SUGGESTIONS THAT ARE MARKED- and then tick the NOT FOUND check box. If you don't use GenSmarts to mark things FOUND and NOT FOUND, then you can skip this step.
3) Now your To Do List is displaying everything that you've marked NOT FOUND, to limit that even further to just the 1860 census, type the following in the SEARCH box:
+1860 +census
4) If you've told GenSmarts you subscribe to Ancestry.com ( who has the 1860 census also), GenSmarts will take you there by default. To ask GenSmarts to use FamilySearch.org instead, use the little down arrow on the right hand side of the AvailableOnline button and select "SmartSearch FamilySearch.org" If you don't subscribe to Ancestry.com, then that won't be necessary as FamilySearch.org would be your default with GenSmarts anyway.
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Is your PC locking up alot? Does something seem to be running without you starting it and taking up alot of resources? Is there something on your PC that you can't uninstall? Things that used to work won't run now? Do you get scary popup windows asking for money to save your PC from uncertain doom? If you think I'm describing symptoms of having a virus, I'm not. I'm describing what it's like for many people to use an anti-virus software... that's right,.. it seems you can make a case that the cure is worse than the disease. For every request I get for PC help that turns out to be an actual virus, I get easily a hundred that turn out to be buggy anti-virus or anti-spyware software. My advice? Microsoft has a really good free solution for anti-virus and anti-spyware called Security Essentials. I highly recommend it. Google "Microsoft Security Essentials" to find it.
*** M e m o r a b l e Q u o t e ***
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Anyone who knows me (or has tried to read anything I've written-), knows that I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to spelling. Mark Twain, who perhaps also shared my attitude, once said, "I have no respect for a man who can spell a word only one way."
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I recently published a book for the first time (for a local historical society). It was surprisingly cheap, quick and easy, though the "be your own editor and publisher" path requires you to be pretty tech savvy - you need to be (or will become) an expert in MS Word concepts like PDFs, sections, headers and footers. The book in question, a 6x9 150 page paperback ended up costing us less than $4 each for 150 copies, plus a setup fee of around $100. The company used for the printing was 360DigitalBooks.com and they were a joy to work with. If you only wanted a couple of copies of a book, it's hard to beat Lulu.com - I used them to produce a couple of drafts of the book for about $25 per copy - no setup fee.
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Q) I still have Version 1. What's different about Version 2? Where do I find information about Version 2?
A) Have a look at www.gensmarts.com/version2 Googling GenSmarts Version 2 will also get you to that page.
Q) I just got a new PC - how do I move GenSmarts over from my old PC?
A) We have a guide on how to do this (and many other common tasks) at www.GenSmarts.com/support.html - click on item #2 on that page for instructions.
*** S u b s c r i p t i o n I n f o ***
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You are receiving this newsletter via a double request (you had to ask for it, and then reply to an email confirming your interest). If you'd like to remove yourself from the list, simply send a blank email from the email account you wish to unsubscribe to:
leave-gensmartsnews@list.gensmartsnews.com
If you're not a subscriber, but would like to be, or you want to subscribe to from a different email account, just send an email from the email account you want subscribed to:
join-gensmartsnews@list.gensmartsnews.com
You can also use these mechanisms to change your email address - the most important thing is to add yourself from your new email account by sending from your new account to the join address above. If you still have access to your old email, you can remove it from the list by sending from the old account to the leave address above. If you aren't able to remove the old address, don't worry about it - it will delete automatically after we're unable to send to it a few times. Don't send us an email asking us to change your address - we can't do it for you because of our required self verification process.
That's all for now-
Aaron Underwood
GenSmarts
Tags: Family Tree Maker Anit Virus Ancestry.com Gedcom
