March 27, 2012 Issue
Posted March 27, 2012 10:52pm*** 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
March 27, 2012 Contents
Update news
Online Research Tips
GenSmarts Usage Tips
Support Mailbag
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Email change Instructions
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The latest release is 2.1.2.13 (2.1.2.18 if you have a special edition). Changes over the past few months include the following:
1) Support for the US 1940 Census
2) A minor improvement in place name recognition where no default country is specified
3) Changed the default directory for TOOLS...EXPORT PLACE NAMES
4) Fixed bug in finding suggestions based on TMG flags
5) Fixed bug in Family Search MA Birth Suggestions
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 be starting (hopefully-) in the next couple of months. If you're interested in being a beta tester, complete the beta testing survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8WXV2M6
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Ah- the 1940 Census- in less than a week, we'll realize one of the most anticipated records releases in a long time. I suspect there will be disappointment for many - only the raw images are being released - work on the indexes will just be starting. So to look someone up, you'll have to do it the "old fashioned way" - narrow the geographic area as much as you can, then search the pages manually, line by line. If this seems fondly nostalgic to you, remember there were a lot more people in 1940, than say, 1860, which you may have searched by hand many years ago. Many researchers will elect to wait a few months for the indexes to be completed, before going after all of their 1940 targets.
So you might ask- if there are no indexes to do searching on, what will GenSmarts link me to for a 1940 suggestion? Yes, that was a bit of a challenge for us to think about. The indexes will likely be available in a few months, so it's not a problem to spend too much effort on. There are some public finding aids that have been created in support of this "no index" period, so we decided that we'd create a page on our own website that will link you to those aids. That gives us a mechanism to manage the transition to proper search pages as the indexes become available.
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Why would I use GenSmarts to produce a list of people I should look for in the 1940 census, or why would GenSmarts 1940 suggestions be different than what I might be able to get from my genealogy software? Well, for starters, it's probably easier to do it with GenSmarts - you simply type in:
1940 Census
in the <= SEARCH input box (found immediately above the Research To Do List - if you don't see this use the top line menu VIEW-ADVANCED TO DO LIST DISPLAY- and turn it on). The quality of the list from GenSmarts will be better. It will include people who may not have any direct evidence themselves that they were living in the US in 1940, but whom you would believe to have been there, based on events that have occurred elsewhere in their family. The GenSmarts list will exclude people not thought to have been a head of household at the time - in other words, you won't get 8 suggestions for a family of 8 that was thought to be living together in 1940 (if you know how to edit an INI file, you can change this exclusion if you like - see http://www.gensmarts.com/censusForAll.html ). The GenSmarts list is search orientated, not people orientated - so it includes the hypothesis of a location for the 1940 search - for example, a person with a child born in Milford, Illinois in 1935 and an infant daughter who died in 1945 in Loogootee, Indiana will get two 1940 search suggestions - one for each state. The GenSmarts list is also sensitive to those that you've already found on the 1940 census - once you've recorded that 1940 census fact/event in your genealogy software, GenSmarts will no longer make the 1940 Census suggestion.
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Q) Does GenSmarts have a manual?
A) Yes, you can download it from the DOWNLOADS section of our GenSmarts.com website. But don't forget that the manual is already integrated into GenSmarts itself - just put the cursor in an area of question and press F1. That will attempt to bring up the page of the manual that deals with where your cursor resides. For example, earlier in the newsletter we mentioned typing in the <= SEARCH input box. If you put the cursor in that input box and press F1- you'll get the page from the manual that explains that search function.
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That's all for now-
Aaron Underwood
GenSmarts
Tags: TMG Family Tree Maker Family Search
