========================================================== ========================================================== Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter A Weekly Summary of Events and Topics of Interest to Online Genealogists Vol. 2 No. 6 - February 10, 1997 ========================================================== Copyright (C) by 1997 Richard Eastman. All rights reserved. Information on how to obtain a free subscription to this newsletter or how to cancel a subscription is given near the end of this document. Please do not upload articles from this newsletter to other online services, bulletin boards or newsgroups. If you do contact any of the companies or societies mentioned in this newsletter, please tell them that you read about their services in this newsletter. An archive of all the back issues of these newsletters is kept on CompuServe's Genealogy Forum. ========================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: - Comments - Corel Family Tree Suite - PAWriter for Macintosh - British Censuses Database Tool - Birdie Maps Searches IGI for UK - Tree-O for Windows - Gentree 97 - Cumberland Family Tree Version 2.20 - webGED: Progenitor - International Francophone Week - Ancestors Episode Six - State Libraries Online - CompuServe Stops Junk Mailer - Computer Fraud on the Web - Home Pages Highlighted ================================================================ - Comments For some reason, much of the genealogy news this week is concerned with new or updated software. There are new genealogy programs appearing and old ones being updated. Macintosh owners will be especially interested in one new program. Two programs deal with genealogy records in the United Kingdom. There's even something new for the World Wide Web. In the non-genealogy news, I've been following the "junk e-mail stories" for months. It looks like the problems there are being reduced significantly, at least for CompuServe members. And there are a few other things going on, too. All in all, it's been a busy week. I am pleased to announce that the online version of this newsletter has been picked as "Web Site of the Month" by Ancestry, Inc. For details, look at: http://www.ancestry.com/LINKS/Links.htm. While there, you might also want to check out Ancestry's home page at: http://www.ancestry.com ================================================================ - Corel Family Tree Suite The big news in the past few weeks has been the entry of Corel into the genealogy marketplace. Having a major software producer like Corel as a competitor is sobering news to many specialized producers of genealogy programs, but it benefits the consumers. Not only will prices drop, but new features will need to be added to almost all genealogy programs in order to keep them competitive in a rapidly-changing marketplace. Corel has been famous for years for their graphics programs such as Corel Draw. Not too long ago the company purchased WordPerfect from Novell. Corel has been expanding into still other fields and has millions of customers and a very strong worldwide support organization. Corel is poised to become a major genealogy vendor almost overnight; their new program undoubtedly will sell many copies. It is interesting to note that Corel is a Canadian company, but their acquisition of WordPerfect in Utah provided them with many employees interested in genealogy research. However, Corel's Family Tree Suite was developed in Canada, not Utah. It became obvious last May that Corel was working on a genealogy program. The rumor mill said that it would be called "Bloodlines" which didn't sound like a very interesting title. Corel's first formal announcement was in December, when the press release stated that the new program would be called "Family Tree Master." I wrote in this newsletter in December that I considered this to be a poor choice of a name as it was easily confused with at least one other genealogy program. Many other people agreed with me, according to the e-mails that I received. Broderbund, producers of "Family Tree Maker" apparently agreed as well. Their legal department got involved and filed a legal action to stop Corel from using a name that was so similar to their genealogy product's name. At the GENTECH97 Conference in Texas two weeks ago, Corel proudly displayed their new program. However, all the copies they had in their booth had green duct tape covering the product name. Karen Gauthier and the other Corel employees enthusiastically talked with many genealogists at the conference and were receptive to many suggestions. They indicated that there was a good chance that the product name would change. This past week Corel has confirmed the name change; the program will now be known as "Corel Family Tree Suite." This strikes me as an excellent choice, and I suspect it will soon become a widely recognized product name. Also, Corel has quietly indicated that soon there will be some minor changes in the program, a couple of which I will discuss in a bit. I sat through Karen Gauthier's excellent demonstration at GENTECH97 and was especially impressed with the graphics capabilities of the program. In a one-hour presentation, Karen demonstrated data entry and also many graphics features never seen in a genealogy program before. She did an excellent job of showing the program's potential, and I quickly obtained a copy of the program for my own use. I have now had a chance to use the program at home for a bit and must say that I am very impressed. I still cannot use it as well as Karen does, but I am learning and discovering new things all the time. Corel Family Tree Suite is a bit different from any other genealogy program that I have used, and it is difficult to compare it to other programs in the marketplace. It is more of a publishing tool than a research tool. But I am getting ahead of myself... The version that I use does have the tape on the box covering the original product name and does not have the changes that will soon appear in the program. But my guess is that 98% of what I saw on my screen this week will remain in the final version, so I will write about the program as I saw it. If changes are made in the future, then I will probably write a follow-up article to describe the differences. Corel Family Tree Suite requires Windows 95 or Windows NT version 4.0. It is a 32-bit program and will not operate under Windows 3.1. It also will not work on versions of Windows NT prior to 4.0. It is the first genealogy program that I have seen which announces on the box that it operates on Windows NT. I normally use Windows NT 4.0, so perhaps I am overly sensitive to operating system issues. NT is growing rapidly in popularity, and I suspect it will replace Windows 95 in a year or two. Microsoft will probably combine the two operating systems together in a future release. Almost every Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 program that I have ever tried has worked properly on my Windows NT system, but few manufacturers seem willing to state this in their literature or to guarantee operation on NT. One point for Corel. Corel recommends at least 12 megabytes of RAM memory on a Windows 95 system although it will operate (slowly) in less than that. My guess is that Windows NT users will want to use at least 8 megabytes more than that. The disk space required will depend upon the number of fonts installed as well as the number of optional components selected. The total disk space required might be as low as 23 megabytes or as much as 42 megabytes. Corel's "typical installation" requires 30 megabytes of disk space. The Corel Family Tree Suite box contains four CD-ROM disks. Actually, the program itself fits on the first disk alone. The other three CD-ROM disks are actually produced by Ancestry, Inc. and I'll describe those in a bit. The program also contains a users manual with 156 pages of instructions, including a step-by- step tutorial. Pages 137 through 147 contained an excellent tutorial in "How to get started in genealogy." I wish that all genealogy programs came with something similar. The manual also has many more pages showing the fonts and thumbnail-sized pictures of the many graphics images included on the CD-ROM. Corel Family Tree Suite ships with 150 fonts, all of which can be used by any Windows program. You can use them in almost any word processor. The fonts include many famous ones such as Bitstream Amerigo, ITC Bookman, Bitstream Cooper and even Park Avenue. The CD-ROM also contains more than 2,000 backgrounds and borders, more than 250 photographs, and 300 "coats of arms." Installation was simple: insert the first CD-ROM and it automatically launches the installation program. A minute or so later the program is fully installed, and the registration process is done via modem. Corel even donates $1.00 to any one of seven charities upon registration. The charities are the American Foundation for AIDS Research, Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth International, the International Red Cross, OXFAM, The Lung Association and UNICEF. It was nice to see that Corel also installs an "uninstaller program" that will remove the program and all its related files in the future if the user wishes. I wish that all genealogy programs would include that feature. (I install and uninstall a lot of genealogy programs!) I immediately fired up the program and started entering data. I didn't even glance at the manual, although I had sat through the one-hour demonstration at GENTECH97. Data entry is as easy as any genealogy program that I have used. I did go back and read the manual at some length after using the program for a couple of hours. But I suspect that many people will not open the manual at all. Most data entry functions are obvious and intuitive. You "fill in the blanks" for a person with name, dates and places of birth and death plus the fields for Occupation, Also Known As, Title and Comments. You then click on labels to add Spouse, Children, Mother, Father, Events, Address, Medical or Album. Linking people together in family units was always simple, and a "family tree" started to grow before my eyes. There are two main "views" available, a data view and a tree view. The tree view is a graphical display that always shows a family, even an extended family of aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. The tree view appears to be limited only by the number of pixels available on the video board and monitor. The tree view was pleasant to watch as I entered data on more and more people. On the downside, the data fields available are rather simplistic. There is only one field available for each fact. Anyone who has done genealogy research for a while has undoubtedly encountered conflicting information. For instance, I have three different dates of birth and places of birth for my great-great-grandfather. The family Bible lists one date but no place, his tombstone lists the same day and month but a different year, the U.S. census records of 1840 and 1860 list two different places although they agree on a year that is different from either the Bible or the tombstone. Finally, his son's marriage license application filled out in 1882 lists still a different location for the place of birth of the new groom's father. Unfortunately, that marriage application never asked for a date. The Corel program does not accommodate these conflicting dates. The more sophisticated modern genealogy programs allow for the entry of three or more birth events and even allow the researcher to rank the probability of accuracy of each birth record. The same would be true for marriages, deaths, graduations or any other life events. These programs can also sort on these various dates and locations and can even print the multiple "facts" on printed reports. At least two genealogy programs allow the researcher to print or to omit these multiple records based upon the probability assigned. That is, any information rated a two or higher might be printed while anything rated one or lower would not be printed. Corel's Family Tree Suite does not have any such capability. However, dates and locations can be entered as long text strings. In the case of my great-great-grandfather, I was able to enter his place of birth as "Possibly Portland, Maine or Tamworth, New Hampshire or Nashua, New Hampshire." I entered the date as "Different records disagree, it may have 3 April 1810 or 3 April 1811 or some date in 1812" Of course, dates entered in this non- standard format will not sort properly on the various reports. Next, Corel's Family Tree Suite does not have a sources database of any sort. All references to sources of information and the repositories where the records were found must be entered as simple text notes. If 75 people are listed in the family Bible, the words "Record found in the Eastman Family Bible now in the possession of Richard Eastman" or some similar text must be entered 75 times in the comments fields of the 75 individuals. After entering a few generations of my own family, I decided to quit and to import a GEDCOM file instead. Obviously this saves a lot of keystrokes as I already had the information available in a different genealogy program. Corel's Family Tree Suite allows you to import one individual, a few individuals or everyone in a particular GEDCOM file. I liked this feature; many programs require that you import everyone or that you import all the descendants or all the ancestors of one individual. Corel allows you to select individuals one by one or else to simply import everyone. You can search for individuals to import by name, sex, dates, places, occupations or any of a number of other fields. The GEDCOM import was fast; I was able to import the records of more than 4,000 people in about 3 minutes. Obviously that number will depend upon the speed of the processor and the amount of memory available. The GEDCOM import seemed to work well; most of the data was imported properly. An error log displayed the information that Corel's Family Tree Suite could not understand. This process is normal among genealogy programs. The real power of Corel's Family Tree Suite is its "albums." When entering data on an individual, you can click on "Album" and then import pictures in a wide variety of formats. But this feature is only the beginning. Corel has bundled in a separate program called Photo House, which probably deserves a separate review of its own. Photo House has at least as many features as Family Tree Suite. It can scan images directly from a scanner or import them from a wide variety of sources. It also is a full photo-editing and bitmap creation program that can be used either as an addition to Family Tree Suite or as a free-standing program. This program alone might be worth the purchase price of the entire suite if you do not already have a high-powered photo editing program. I expect to use Photo House for a lot of graphics work that has nothing to do with genealogy. Corel Photo House can "clean up" photographs, resize, change contrast, change colors or do any of many other enhancements to scanned images. One of the nicest features is its elimination of "red eye." If you have family snapshots made with a normal flash, you often will see instances of red eyes. With Photo House you scan the image and then select Image, then select Touch-up effects and then select Remove Red Eyes. Almost instantly the red disappears, leaving behind a normal image. You can also lighten or darken photographs quickly. If a photograph is a bit out of focus, selection of Touch-Up Effects and then Sharpen will almost always result in improvements. Of course, if the photo is seriously out of focus, no program can perform miracles. Improving damaged areas of old photographs will probably be the most popular use for genealogists. You can scan in the old family photograph and then automatically remove dust marks and scratches. I experimented with a couple of old photographs from the late 1800s and was amazed at the results. I still have one that is going to require a lot of "mouse click" work, but I bet that Photo House cut the work required by about 50% or so. Corel's Family Tree Suite can display the photographs on screen or in printed reports. Perhaps the nicest thing that I saw demonstrated at GENTECH was a multimedia family album. It can include photographs and even sounds. That would be a neat thing to take to a family reunion. The printed reports available in Corel's Family Tree Suite are varied. It will create the normal reports that one expects in a genealogy program, such as ancestor report, descendants report, family group sheets, etc. It also does Fan Charts as part of its Corel Family Publisher report; I will be writing about that in a future newsletter. However, perhaps Corel's best report is the "Album Report." It allows you to print photograph albums from the program's database. Resolution will be limited by the capabilities of your printer, but a high quality color printer can create gorgeous pictures. Each page in the album report can contain from one to nine pictures, and the user has a lot of control over captions, titles and fonts. Corel Family Tree Suite can also create many reports in HTML format, complete with pictures. These can then be uploaded to a personal Web page on the World Wide Web. Two features of Corel's Family Tree Suite will create controversy amongst genealogists: the "Name Histories" and the "Family Crests." Several of the shopping malls near me have pushcart vendors who sell "certificates" and other merchandise that claim to be "the history of your family name" or "your family's coat of arms" or both. Unfortunately, they overlook a few facts. First, in the United Kingdom, Ireland and most of western Europe, there is no such thing as a "family coat of arms." Coats of arms or crests are issued only to individuals. Anyone who displays a crest that he is not authorized to use is, in effect, misrepresenting himself. The "family histories" are a bit fuzzier. These often are based upon facts, but no one should ever expect these "histories" to represent their ancestral origins without tracing lineage back one generation at a time. This is especially true in North and South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand where so many immigrants changed their surnames after arrival in order to assimilate into new cultures. Various mail order outfits such as Halberts have been selling these bogus family histories and "family coats of arms" for years even though they have been vigorously prosecuted several times by postal inspectors. The National Genealogical Society and others have been very active in identifying these companies who advertise misleading products. I will admit that I had a very negative frame of mind when I first clicked on the "Name Histories" entry on the pull-down menus in Corel's Family Tree Suite. I expected to find more of the junk that I had seen elsewhere. However, what I found was a rather mild version of the so-called "histories." I first checked on the entry for my own surname. It found "Eastman in England" which first gave quite a bit of background about the origins of surnames in the Middle Ages. I don't claim to be an expert on Middle Ages surnames origins, but what I read on the screen was similar to what I have read in authoritative books on the subject. The text then went on to give many early spellings of "Eastman," all of which I suspect are accurate. At least all the spelling variations that I have found were listed, plus many others that were new to me. The text gave elementary information about the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, the Inquisition, the Ragman Rolls and the Domesday Book. It then went on to clearly state the origins of the surname in England and listed the first known immigrant of the name to North America. It also gave references to two published genealogies on the surname, although it didn't mention the two best-known books. I was surprised to see how well the "family history" of my surname was treated. It never claimed to be my ancestry; it simply said that the name was found in a particular area. Also, Corel gave clear references to several authoritative and respected books on the subject. That is much better than what I had expected. However, I have also corresponded with people named EASTMAN with proven ancestors of that name from Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Russia. They might not be as impressed with this English-oriented version as I was. I checked a number of other names that I was familiar with and found that they were also mildly-worded. In fact, most seemed fairly accurate. There were a few phrases that I disagreed with. For instance, I frequently found the phrase "Some of the family moved to...." when it seemed obvious that the authors found multiple instances of the family name in different locations. Let's face it, not every surname can be traced back to one individual. Trying to justify multiple instances of one name in different countries as "some of the family moved to..." is a bit artificial. Finally, the list is extensive but certainly not complete. There are some big omissions. Corel says that there are 160,000 "name histories" included, but I found several common names missing.. For example, Wong is considered to be the most popular surname in the world but was not listed. I did find a number of other Oriental names. The surname DOW is found in both England and Scotland; most of the DOW descendants in North America can claim English origins. But the only Dow listing in Corel was for Scotland. All in all, I felt that the "family histories" were passable but needed a bit of "clean up" for the sake of accuracy. The "family crests" are a different story, however. As mentioned earlier, there really is no such thing as a family coat of arms or a family crest. But the Corel CD-ROM has many "family crests" included. The version that I looked at had no disclaimers or background information about the use and abuse of family crests. Corel employees have told me that there will be some changes made here in the very near future. I'm not sure what the changes will be, but hopefully I can report that in a future newsletter. Corel has bundled three other CD-ROM disks with their program, all from Ancestry, Inc. Two of the disks contain the Social Security Death Records. It appears to be a later version than what is available in the LDS Family History Centers. The Ancestry disks also include the "Ancestry Genealogy Library," a variety of high-quality research books from Ancestry, Inc. Several of the standard reference books have been on my shelf for years and are well used, including Ancestry's "Red Book (Revised Edition): American State, County & Town Sources." The Red Book provides county and town listings within an overall state-by-state organization. Another book on the CD-ROM is "The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy." Its description states, "The Source provides a thorough exposure to genealogical information sources of all kinds. Each chapter provides an introduction to a specific category of source records, indicating the time period for which the record type is available and the scope and quality of information contained. Also included is information on the location, accessibility, and special problems related to use of the record type. Maps, tables, illustrations, and reproductions of records supplement the text descriptions." A third book is the American Genealogical Gazetteer. It contains more than 1,058,000 entries taken from the National Mapping Division of the U.S Geological Survey (USGS). Those three books are excellent references for every genealogist. Corel and Ancestry are to be commended for including them. The retail price of those three books on paper is higher than the price of the Corel Family Tree Suite program alone. Ancestry, Inc. also put 18 other name and reference databases on the CD-ROM disks, but they are encrypted. When you first install the Corel software you will not be able to read any of these "extra" databases. If you want to use any of them, you can "purchase" them by calling Ancestry's toll-free number and giving them a credit card number. In return, you will be given a "key" which will unlock the specific database that you want to purchase. Your credit card will be debited the appropriate amount. This is a good way to quickly obtain the databases you want. The prices vary from $5.00 to perhaps $25.00 each. You can only purchase these "keys" during normal business hours, however. All in all, there is a lot of software and numerous databases in Corel's Family Tree Suite. It is a mixture of high-quality software (Photo House), an easy-to-use but simplistic genealogy database, high-quality genealogy sources from Ancestry and rather low-quality "family crests" and "family histories." The obvious question is whether or not this is "the best genealogy program" for you. The only answer is "maybe." This program is the best genealogy graphics program available today, no doubt there. It also has excellent fan chart reports, wall-sized charts, register reports and other printed and on-screen reports that I will describe in a future newsletter. It even does multimedia reports on the screen. But its data entry is simple with limited capabilities. It doesn't have the research features of the "high powered" genealogy programs. I think Corel will sell hundreds of thousands of copies of this program. They will sell it to two audiences: (1.) The biggest audience will be to genealogy newcomers who will be impressed by the reporting capabilities and fancy graphics available. (2.) The second audience will be experienced genealogists who already have their data in another genealogy program but want to add more reporting and graphics capabilities than what they have presently. These people will continue to use the more powerful research- oriented genealogy program as their primary program but will use GEDCOM capabilities to transfer data to Corel's Family Tree Suite for the graphics and reporting capabilities that it offers. As a member of that second group, I expect to use this program frequently, especially at Christmas time and just before the annual family reunion. But I will keep my main database in a different program. Those who are in the first group shouldn't worry; they can still enter data in Corel's Family Tree Suite and later transfer it via GEDCOM to any other program they may wish to try. Keep in mind that this is version 1.0 of a major new program. Like revision 1.0 of many programs, it has a few rough edges. I expect it will add new features and will mature over the next few months. Corel employees have already mentioned version 1.1 and I am sure that it will be followed later by even more enhanced versions. The same has been true of thousands of other popular computer programs. Do you remember Windows 1.0? Or WordPerfect 1.0? Or any of a host of other initial releases? Find any successful and popular program today and compare it to the first release. You'll find huge differences in most of them. Karen Gauthier and the rest of the Corel team went to GENTECH97 and they listened. They are still listening right now and have already made some changes based on the feedback they received. They obviously are planning even bigger things for future releases. To Karen and her co-workers I can only say one thing: "Thanks for listening!" Corel Family Tree Suite has a retail price of $99.95 (U.S.) but you will probably find it at the discount stores for about $70 to $80 or so. This has been the longest software review that I have ever written for this newsletter and yet I still had to omit a number of things. I will cover some of the printed reports in Corel's Family Tree Suite in a future newsletter. In the meantime, look at http://www.corel.com/products/familytree/ for even more information. ================================================================ - PAWriter for Macintosh Howard Metcalfe has released a rather nifty program called PAWriter. That's an abbreviation for "Personal Ancestry Writer" and it is primarily designed to be an add-on reporting tool for Personal Ancestral File for the Macintosh. PAWriter will read files created by MacPAF version 2.0 or later and then will create nicely-formatted reports in FrameMaker format. Quoting from the program's users manual: "The basic use of PAWriter is to generate a set of Lineage Chapters for a book, with ahnentafels pasted in as needed. The edited Lineage Chapters can then be manipulated with FrameMaker's book functions, and an index for the entire book generated. Pedigree Charts can also be included in the book for an almost infinite number of generations. A Register may become a book. A (genealogical) Dictionary can be produced, with a separate chapter for people whose surnames start with a given letter or group of letters." I don't have FrameMaker installed on my PowerMac, so I couldn't test the program extensively. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could still use some of the more elementary functions. I was able to move around the database that was displayed in a graphical manner. I could print some nice looking pedigree charts on a Color Stylewriter even though I did not have FrameMaker. Obviously the more advanced features require FrameMaker. PAWriter will operate on any 68030 or 68040 Macintosh or a PowerMac. System 7 is recommended. The author recommends four megabytes of available RAM memory or more, although he notes that the program will probably operate in less. However, less memory may produce speeds so slow as to be unacceptable. PAWriter is a shareware program with a $20 registration fee. You can download the program from CompuServe's Genealogy Forum. Look for the file PAWRITER.SEA in the "Macintosh Software" Library. For more information, contact author Howard Metcalfe at 73457.3106@compuserve.com. ================================================================ - British Censuses Database Tool A rather simple MS-DOS program for recording British census data appeared on CompuServe's Genealogy Forum this week. The British Census Database is primarily a data entry and "quick search" tool. The user enters data from the keyboard; fields are available for the columns found in British census records. Some error checking is done to make sure the data is logical. Once a significant amount of data has been entered, the user may search and optionally print reports by several different search methods: by address number, by town or by a person's surname. For instance, here is one report showing a family named Morley in Brighton as entered for the 1881 census (this may not show properly in some e-mail programs as it is 80 columns wide): 1881 21 MELBOURNE ST BRIGHTON BRIGHTON SUSSEX 4 JAMES HENRY MORLEY HEAD M M 21 MILK COWMAN EDBURTON, SSX SARAH ANN MORLEY WIFE M F 21 RIPLEY, SRY JAMES WILLIAM MORLEY SON S M 5MO BRIGHTON, SSX (F)orward,(B)ack,(M)enu The British Census Database is a shareware program with a registration fee of 15 pounds Sterling. It is available in the "MS-DOS Software" Library on CompuServe's Genealogy Forum, look for the file CENSUSGO.EXE. For more information, contact the author at: v_morley@compuserve.com ================================================================ - Birdie Maps Searches IGI for UK Speaking of things that are British: A demo version of the British Isles Regional Display of IGI Extracts (BIRDIE) program is now available. This program creates maps and allows you to filter data obtained from the International Genealogical Index data files for the UK. It is a nice-looking Windows program that converts IGI GEDCOM files into Paradox databases and comes complete with a runtime version of Paradox that allows you to search for events, dates, names and places. Results are displayed on a map of the British Isles on the screen. The map can also be printed. It's a great way to plot locations of ancestors. The version on CompuServe is a demo of a commercial program. You can obtain it in the "Windows Software" Library on the Genealogy Forum. Look for the files SETUP.EXE and SETUP.WO2. ================================================================ - Tree-O for Windows TREE-O is a Windows genealogy program produced by Genealogical Computer Services that has been around for a while. Version 1.2.3 has just been released. The program is no longer a demo version; it is now shareware. TREE-O is called " a genealogical, historical and genetic management system." Quoting from the program's documentation: TREE-O makes you more productive by providing the appropriate tools for the different aspects of genealogical research. Databases can be of particular family lines, cemetery records, marriage records or of historical studies. This makes TREE-O ideal for the genealogist at home, the professional genealogist, the genealogical society, a history group, a museum, or library. Using TREE-O you can create extensive databases. TREE-O exploits the key features of Microsoft Windows, including dynamic data exchange (DDE), graphical images and more. TREE-O has extensive on-line help. This help file can be accessed from within TREE-O (from the menu bar or by pressing F1 any time--F1 is context sensitive, meaning I'll get help on what has current focus) and from the Program Manager's Genealogical Computer Services Group. TREE-O is rather unusual in its concentration on genetics. That will appeal to some people. One neat feature is called the Family Advisor. The Advisor is simply a window that advises you of potential issues with your database. The new version adds a Search Text feature and a Spell Checker. You can find the program on CompuServe's Genealogy Forum. Look in the "Windows Software" Library for the files TO123_1.ZIP through TO123_3.ZIP. ================================================================ - Gentree 97 An updated version of GenTree has been released. The new version is called "GenTree 97" and is available in both English and French versions. (Author Michel POTIER lives in Angers.) GenTree 97 differs from other genealogy programs in several ways. Its graphical interface is easy to use. It features an events journal and a document library. It also can create any kind of relation between people such as godfather, guardian, etc. You can also print different types of graphs like ascendants, descendants and several different listings of individual records or events. The reports can print directly or can create RTF format files that can later be imported into most word processors for extra "touch up." GenTree 97 can read and write GEDCOM 5.5 files. You can find GenTree 97 on CompuServe's Genealogy Forum in the "Windows Software" Library. The English version is GNTR97EN.ZIP while the French version is GNTRE97S.ZIP. More information can be found on the Web at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/aurejac ================================================================ - Cumberland Family Tree Version 2.20 Ira Lund has released version 2.20 of his popular Cumberland Family Tree for Windows. I wrote about this program at some length in the June 17, July 29 and September 30 issues of this newsletter. The program continues to thrive. It is shareware, but a commercial version can also be found on the shelves of many software stores. Version 2.20 adds a bunch of small improvements, including a larger Event List option, foreign dates are now stored internally in English (users of other languages will not notice or care), auto-sorting of dates and a bunch of bug fixes. The program is available in two versions. A 32-bit version for Windows 95 can be found on CompuServe's Genealogy Forum as CFTW220X.zip while a 16-bit version for Windows 3.1 is available as CFTW220.ZIP. Cumberland Family Tree is shareware with a registration fee of $50 for the disks only. If you would like a set of printed manuals add another $14. ================================================================ - webGED: Progenitor webGED: Progenitor is a new program that accepts a standard GEDCOM genealogy file as input and then produces the complete set of files for a self-contained World Wide Web site. The user can then upload these files to his/her Internet service provider's server to have the information immediately available on the Internet. webGED uses "client-side search technology." This permits a viewer of the site to search any tables associated with the site's information, such as the names of the individuals included in the genealogy tree within a site generated by the webGED: Progenitor program. To view data generated by webGED: Progenitor you need a browser that supports JavaScript. Netscape Navigator 3 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 both work well with webGED: Progenitor. webGED:Progenitor runs under Microsoft's Windows95 although it probably will also work under Windows NT. It takes a "Builder-User's" GEDCOM file and "compiles" a corresponding set of WWW pages that can be installed on an Internet Service Provider host system to permit potential "Viewer- Users" all over the world to access the information via the Internet. webGED:Progenitor can create: An initial Entry Page, which provides some operational hints to the Viewer-Users and warns them about possible browser incompatibilities. The main Genealogy Page, which provides Viewer-Users access to the complete file of ancestry information taken from the GEDCOM through a "client-side searchable" index of full names. An optional Additional Family Information Page, which can provide supplemental text information on the family, etc. A Help Page, which is intended to assist Viewer-Users. A single Index Page containing the names of all of the individuals in the ancestry files, along with linkage information. The ancestry information itself is broken up into several Ancestry Page files, which can then be loaded into a frame on the Genealogy page. The number of such pages generated is determined by the program, depending on the number of individuals in the file, so as to balance the amount of information available for browsing at any one time, the frame load time of the individual file, and the need for frequent re-loads. webGED:Progenitor uses the following information about each individual from the Builder-User's GEDCOM in constructing the corresponding entry in its output ancestry pages: Individual's Full-Name Individual's Place and Date of Birth Individual's Place and Date of Death (optional) Notes associated with that individual (optional) Notes associated with each marriage Mother's Full-Name and Life-Span Dates Father's Full-Name and Life-Span Dates each Spouse's Full-Name and Life-Span Dates each Child's Full-Name and Life-Span Dates webGED:Progenitor will calculate estimated birth dates for individuals whose entries in the GEDCOM input lack such information. Rough estimating rules will be used, and all such estimated dates will be displayed preceded by a question-mark (e.g. "?1935") in the generated ancestry pages. In addition, all qualified dates in the GEDCOM (e.g. "about 1947" or "after 1880" ) will be denoted by preceding the year by an initial symbol in the Life-Span dates (e.g. ~1947, >1800). A date range will be replaced (in the Life-Span dates) by the mid-point year preceded by an "r". At the Builder-User's option, webGED: Progenitor will not produce entries for an individual born after a year specified by that user. Cross references to that individual from other entries, however, will be included - but without date information. There are many more features, too many to list here. For more information, look at: http://www.access.digex.net/~giammot/webged/. To see the results of the program, look at: http://www.access.digex.net/~giammot/ webGED: Progenitor is freeware. ================================================================ - International Francophone Week The following is a press release: The American-Canadian Genealogical Society {with headquarters in Manchester, NH} announces that it will be a full participant in the upcoming INTERNATIONAL FRANCOPHONE WEEK which is scheduled to occur from the 16th through the 22 of March 1997. During that week, the society will waive all guest fees for non- members and in addition we will provide research assistants to aid all new and inexperienced visitors to our library, The Library hours during International Francophone Week will be as follows: Wed. 19 March: 10 AM to 9 PM Fri. 21 March: 10 AM to 9 PM Sat. 22 March: 9 AM to 4 PM For any Guests wishing to call ahead with special requests, we will place on reserve certain books of historical interest which might be pertinent to their ancestor's origin. For more information those interested are asked to contact the society via it's E-mail address: 102475.2260@compuserve.com The Society has also set the dates for its fall All Research Weekend for May 2nd through the 4th and it will take place at it's Library Facilities in Manchester, New Hampshire at 4 Elm Street corner of Baker Street. Also set are the dates for it's 25th Anniversary Conference which will be held at the Tara Wayfarer Motor Inn in Bedford, New Hampshire on the weekend of September 25, 26, and 27 of 1998. More details will be forthcoming. ================================================================ - Ancestors Episode Six I just finished watching episode #6 of the "Ancestors" series on PBS. The show is now moving into the "how to do genealogy research" phase. This week's episode was "Census and Military Records" and featured two guests. Garry Bryant of Farmington, Utah served in Viet Nam at a time in his life when he didn't feel any connection with his ancestry. He talks about his later awakening and research that found his numerous ancestors with military experience. Unknowingly, Garry had been carrying on a military tradition. The "guest expert" for this episode was Curt Witcher of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Curt is a former president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, as well as first vice-president of the National Genealogical Society. He is also department manager for the Reynolds Historical Genealogical Department of the Allen County Public Library, one of the larger genealogy libraries in the world. Curt discussed census and military records in an interesting manner. Next week's episode of "Ancestors" is reported to be devoted to African- American genealogy research. One note: each PBS station is free to broadcast the episodes on whatever date and time that they please. In some areas the programs are not broadcast until 2 or 3 weeks after the initial release. You need to check your local television listings for the date, time and station in your area. CompuServe members can check the nationwide listings in the file TV-SCHED.TXT in the "Introduction to Genealogy" Library on the Genealogy Forum. ================================================================ - State Libraries Online The Library of Congress has a page that links state libraries, state library agencies, state library networks, or state library commissions across the United States. It has links to a LOT of state libraries. Look at: http://lcweb.loc.gov/global/library/statelib.html ================================================================ - CompuServe Stops Junk Mailer I have written in the past a number of times about the growing problem of junk e-mails all over the Internet. For a while it seemed like I received 2 or 3 of these things every time I logged on. I complained, millions of others complained, and now the tide is turning. The most notorious junk e-mailer is Cyber Promotions. During the peak of their "spamming" the company was sending as many as one million advertising e-mails per day. Most of these went to America Online addresses although CompuServe, Prodigy and others certainly received a bunch as well. All three online services took Cyber Promotions to court with varying results. They all won the right to block Cyber Promotions' e-mails, but the details varied. This past week, CompuServe won an even bigger victory: Judge Graham of the Southern District of Ohio issued a preliminary injunction barring Cyber Promotions from sending unsolicited e-mail messages to CompuServe subscribers on the ground that such messages constitute a trespass upon CompuServe's proprietary computer equipment. The 32 page opinion is precedent setting. Previous legal actions had allowed AOL and Prodigy to block e-mails. However, the order obtained by CompuServe prohibits Cyber Promotions from even sending messages to CompuServe in the first place. The Court flatly rejected Cyber Promotions' arguments, which were: 1) by opening itself up to receive Internet mail, CompuServe was obligated to carry any messages sent to it and 2) the first amendment obligated CompuServe to carry Cyber Promotions' mailings. A few points influenced the court: 1. CompuServe had specifically notified Cyber Promotions that it was not authorized to use CompuServe's equipment to carry Cyber Promotions' mailings. 2. CompuServe had attempted to block Cyber Promotions' mailings and Cyber Promotions had evaded the filter. 3. CompuServe established it had lost subscribers and subscriber goodwill as a result of Cyber Promotions' mailings. Judge Graham said junk spamming is not protected speech. "The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides no defense for such conduct," the 32-page ruling says. The ruling applies to CompuServe only. Cyber Promotions is still free to send junk e-mails to America Online, Prodigy and to all other Internet addresses, at least for the time being. But those services will probably seek similar legal restrictions. CompuServe general counsel Steve Heaton said, "The court's decision has a broad impact as the first decision of its kind that says unauthorized mass junk e-mailing is illegal. This precedent is likely to be used by other (Internet service providers) to protect against intrusive and unwanted junk e-mail. CompuServe's goal was to see this through to a binding court decision to prevent not only this defendant's spamming efforts, but those of others who would seek to exploit CompuServe and its subscribers." A CompuServe manager who did not wish to be identified said that the company may sue others who send unsolicited "spamming" messages to CompuServe members. However, he said that the company would wait a few days for the news of the court decision to spread before starting legal actions against anyone else. Cyber Promotions president Sanford Wallace was later interviewed on CNBC where he proclaimed that "CompuServe will lose a lot of members ...who wish to receive this material." Count me out, Mr. Wallace. I am one person who won't miss your junk. ================================================================ - Computer Fraud on the Web Been cruising the Web lately? Have you been looking at any of those "adult sites?" Have you seen your phone bill? The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are conducting a fraud investigation because of complaints of excessive telephone charges that appeared after some people accessed a World Wide Web site run by a Dallas, Texas firm. Millions of dollars may have been bilked from people who visited the Web site -- http://sexygirls.com -- and downloaded what was described as "viewer" software needed to see the "adult" images. In published reports this week, the Montreal RCMP Commercial Crime Section alleged that the site took money from Web surfers without their knowledge by redirecting online visitors' modems to a phone number to the southeastern European country of Moldova. To look at the pictures at the site, users first had to download what the site called a "viewer program." After the program was downloaded and installed, it reportedly notified the user that the new "viewer" would disconnect and then dial back to the Internet in "secure mode." It did that; only the number it dialed was in Moldova. The software also de-activated the modem's speaker so that the user could not hear the delays inherent in an international telephone call. From Moldova, the user's data link was rerouted to a company in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. The link then ended up at a server at an unnamed company in Dallas, Texas. Apparently the owners of the Web site got a commission on the telephone charges. The RCMP said the result was phone charges for the unlucky user that ranged from $600 to $900 (Canadian). In addition, the Web surfer would not know about the charges until their phone bill was delivered, up to a month later. Just to add a bit more insult (and higher prices), the modem stayed connected to the server, even if the Web surfer thought they completely disconnected from the Internet. The only way to terminate the link was to either reboot or to power off. With an internal modem, many users did not know they were still connected. If a computer user kept their computer on all night or all day long, the charges would keep mounting. Bell Canada reportedly received more than 1,200 complaints about the site. ================================================================ - Home Pages Highlighted The following is a list of some of the genealogy-related World Wide Web home pages that have been listed recently on http://www.rootscomputing.com: Sexton, Sexten, Saxon and associated surnames: http://www.genealogy.org/~sexton/ Home page of Il Circolo Filippo Mazzei, the Washington, D.C. area Italian genealogical society: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/1709.index.html Wetzel County West Virginia Genealogy home page: http://www.ovnet.com/~bill "Family Album" website is a prototype for a CD-ROM project in development, with pages for various lineages being traced: http://fly.hiwaay.net/~katherin Boynton, Pennington, Hackworth, Watson, York, Hughes, Wyman ancestry (10,000 persons): http://www.e-info-sys.com/~wymanj Genealogy homepage for the surname POUNDERS: http://members.aol.com/CPounders/index.htm Bill Strong's Genealogy Page & Links: http://home.netinc.ca/~wstrong/geneal.htm Lawrence Co., TN home page: http://www.public.usit.net.rburress/genepage/htm. Mesquite (Texas) Historical & Genealogical Society Home Page: http://members.aol.com/dstuart101/mesquite/page1.htm Dunks' Family Genealogical Society: http://sw.cybersurf.de/cyberbase/CS200030/Dunks.htm Veterans who have earned the Purple Heart: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/1418 Comments Descendants of Robert Adams of Newbury, Mass 1635: http://205.213.168.3/adams.html Bland County VA Historical Archives: http://users.netlinkcorp.com/rgap Phelps Connections, a genealogical organization that publishes an award winning (NGS) quarterly newsletter: http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~milstead/pc.html West Virginia genealogy: http://members.aol.com/Bookwyrmb/index.htm All of the above links and hundreds more Web pages are listed in the CompuServe Genealogy Forum's home page at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roots and also at http://www.rootscomputing.com To submit your home page to this newsletter, enter the necessary information at: http://www.rootscomputing.com/register.htm. Due to the volume of new Web pages submitted, I am not able to list all of them in the newsletter. ========================================================== ========================================================== If you would like to submit news, information or press releases for possible inclusion in future newsletters, send them to roots@compuserve.com. The author does reserve the right to accept or reject any articles submitted. ========================================================== DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is being written and sent via e-mail at no charge. I expect to write one new issue on a more or less weekly basis. However, life sometimes interferes and the need to earn a living may create an occasional delay. ========================================================== COPYRIGHTS: The information contained herein is copyright 1997 by Richard W. Eastman except for information attributed to other sources within the text. This newsletter is for the personal use of the individuals on the mailing list. Any republication of articles contained in this Newsletter requires the express consent of the author and must include notice that the article is being republished by special permission. This applies to republishing on other online systems as well as to republishing in print. The subscription information in the next paragraph may be freely copied and distributed in order to encourage others to obtain their own subscriptions. Please copy the subscription information paragraph verbatim. ========================================================== Subscription information: To subscribe to this free newsletter, send an e-mail message to the following address: subscribe@rootscomputing.com The message title must be: SUBSCRIBE To unsubscribe from the newsletter, send an e-mail message to the following address: unsubscribe@rootscomputing.com The message title must be: UNSUBSCRIBE The text of the message is unimportant as no human being will ever read it. The computer automatically enters the e-mail address into the list of newsletter subscribers. In addition, the latest copy of this newsletter and an archive of all previous editions is kept in the "Eastman's Newsletters" Library on the Genealogy Forum on CompuServe (GO ROOTS). Please feel free to copy this subscription information and pass it on to anyone else who you think might be interested in obtaining a free subscription. ========================================================== About the author: Dick Eastman is the forum manager of the Genealogy Forum on CompuServe and is the author of "YOUR ROOTS: Total Genealogy Planning On Your Computer" published by Ziff-Davis Press. ========================================================== Would you like to move up to CompuServe and check out all the genealogy information and assistance available there? You can obtain a free subscription with the first month already paid for. That gives you ample opportunity to check out CompuServe's genealogy forums and other services at no expense to you. For more information look at http:// http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roots or http://www.compuserve.com or call 1-800-848-8199 and ask for representative #149. CompuServe will send you a free welcome kit to help you get started. This free kit even includes an initial usage credit against connect time charges.