December 19, 2011 Issue
Posted December 19, 2011 4:03pm*** G e n S m a r t s N e w s l e t t e r ***
.......................................................................
GenSmarts - Automated Genealogy Research from Underwood Innovations, LLC
Dec 19, 2011 Contents
Update news
Online Research Tips
GenSmarts Usage Tips
Support Mailbag
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Email change Instructions
*** U p d a t e N e w s ***
.......................................................................
The latest release is 2.1.1.92 (2.1.1.98 if you have a special edition). Changes over the past year include the following:
1) Support for FTM 2012
2) A tweak to recognize place names with no period after an abbreviation, such as "St Bernard"
3) A workaround for occasional bad data being passed by RootsMagic when accessing GenSmarts from within RootsMagic (error GSEC99)
4) Bug fix to remove the limit of 2GB on files opened by GenSmarts
5) A workaround for an MS bug that caused form filling to not work on a few PC's
6) Approximately 50 FamilySearch.org databases added... mostly US State BMD
7) A bug related to custom flags in TMG when using multiple data sets
8) The usual assortment of link updates, and minor bug fixes
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.
Work continues on several major new features for GenSmarts. Beta testing will start early next year. If you're interested in being a beta tester, complete the beta testing survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8WXV2M6
*** O n l i n e R e s e a r c h T i p ***
...........................................................................
One of the biggest benefits to posting your family tree online is the increased visibility and thus the increased odds that someone might step forward and contact you about a common ancestor. Those genealogists who are not comfortable posting their genealogy online miss out on that benefit. It occurred to me that there might be a middle ground here... As an experiment, I created an online ancestor "trap". I made a public tree at Ancestry.com that contained primarily one person - one of my brick wall ancestors. I "baited the trap" with all of the well researched and documented tidbits that I had accumulated over the years about this person and his family. Then I waited. It only took about two months before Ancestry.com notified me that another user had copied some of this data into their tree. Ah ha! I had found someone else researching my elusive ancestor. During a quick review of their data, I noticed they had documented the complete (first and middle) names of my ancestor's children. Where did they get this level of detail? After a few emails, I learned they had access to a family bible passed down from one of these children - a bible that I didn't know existed and that provided me with a few more clues on this elusive fellow. I'd have never made this connection had it not been for the online trees. So for those of you who have not "gone online" with your data - you might consider at least posting a key ancestor or two where perhaps the upside outweighs the downside.
*** G e n S m a r t s U s a g e T i p ***
...........................................................................
GenSmarts 2 introduced a couple of usability changes to improve the first time user experience on the To Do List tab - the removal of the search box (immediately above the suggestion list) and the removal of the filter check boxes (immediately to the right of the suggestion list). New users, who often didn't understand what these two filter mechanisms did, would try to explore what their purpose and quickly end up in a confusing situation with an empty suggestion list. If you would like to get those filter mechanisms back into your GenSmarts Version 2 UI, it's easy to do - on the To Do List tab, note in the upper-rightmost corner of the UI "box" containing the suggestion list - immediately to the right of the number of "suggestions displayed"- you'll see a tiny rectangle "button" that's just a little smaller than your cursor. If you click on it, you will cycle through a couple of different UI configurations of the suggestion list and filters. Keep pushing it to cycle back around to where you started. You can also choose one of these different "views" directly by using the top line menu- VIEW- option. If you need a refresher on how to use the search box, just position your cursor in it and hit F1 - the help function key.
*** S u p p o r t M a i l b a g ***
...........................................................................
Q) When I make a find with GenSmarts, why can't GenSmarts record the data for me into my genealogy file?
A) Most, if not all the record keeping software that GenSmarts works with were not designed to be multi-use - that is to have multiple people or processes make updates at the same time. If unexpected external updates were to occur, your record keeping software (e.g. Family Tree Maker, etc.) could get confused and wipe out some or all of your data. So GenSmarts doesn't try to update your data. For this to work reliably, your record keeping software would have to publish an interface for software like GenSmarts to use in making updates. We've lobbied a few of the software vendors to provide such an interface for GenSmarts to use, but we haven't had any luck so far in getting any of them to provide it...
Q) I use (TMG or RootsMagic) and when I access GenSmarts suggestions from within (TMG or RootsMagic), occasionally I'll notice those suggestions vary somewhat from the ones I get when using GenSmarts standalone. Why is that?
A) GenSmarts suggestions depend heavily on hypotheses that are developed for the data you don't know - missing dates and places. These hypotheses are based on known events from the individual in question, as well as relatives of the individual in question. When invoked from TMG or RootsMagic, GenSmarts is only given a set of facts about the target individual and their immediate family. When running GenSmarts standalone, GenSmarts has access to all the people and events in your entire database. The additional data available in standalone will occasionally lead to a different hypothesis and hence a different suggestion. Why don't TMG/RootsMagic pass all the data so it works just like standalone? It's a performance consideration - the marginal improvement in suggestion quality wouldn't be worth all the extra time it would consume to gather and pass all the data.
*** S u b s c r i p t i o n I n f o ***
...........................................................................
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: TMG RootsMagic Family Tree Maker Ancestry.com
