MAC Genealogy Software

I've got a few people in my ward that have Macs rather than Windows computers.  The PAF program from the Church only works on Windows.  So, I get the question: What can I use on the Mac?

I tell them that I run bootcamp or a virtual machine with Windows and PAF runs just fine on my Mac.  That answer doesn't help them as most of them don't know or want to do things that way.

Today, I decided to try out a few of the genealogy programs that run on the Mac.

GenealogyJ

The first one that I tried was GenealogyJ.  The price is right -- it's free.  It's open source.  It is a Java program and appears to run on any platform with the latest Java runtime.

I did not like it.

Reunion 9

I then tried Reunion which is currently at version 9.  They have a demo version.  The demo did not allow me to load a GEDCOM, so I had to enter my data to test out the program.  A test data file is also available, but I wanted to see what my own data looks like in the program.

The main window displays a couple with their children and both the parents of the husband and the wife.  I like that the program had support for LDS ordinances.  The overall look and feel was Mac-like and appeared to me to be quite intuitive.

MacFamilyTree

The MacFamilyTree also has a Mac-like look and feel, but it did not appear as intuitive as Reunion 9.  I was able to load my own GEDCOM, but when I entered a date, it did not normalize the date -- it accepted and kept the date exactly as I had typed it.

iFamily

This software appears to take advantage of many of the latest Mac features.  While I found the LDS Events, I could not find a place to record the temple nor a place to record BIC.

It has a 10 day trial period.

GEDitCOM

This is a nice utility that allows the user to work with a GEDCOM file.  I would not recommend it for a typical user.

An Evening at the Family History Center

I worked at the Family History Center last night. It was a good night even though I got there about half an hour late.

Temple Ready
There was a sister there from my ward working on preparing names for temple work by using the Temple Ready program. She has been going to the Family History Center all week trying to get names ready for a youth baptism trip to the temple. It was good to see her there.

Genealogy Merit Badge
While I was talking with her and trying to help in any way that I could, a set of twelve-year-old twins from my ward came in with their dad to work on the genealogy merit badge. I presented information about that merit badge at their Scout meeting about a month ago, and they came to the Family History Center as a follow up. We had a good discussion and reviewed the merit badge requirements that they had complete and identified the things that they still needed to do. I suspect that we will have a follow up on a Sunday during one of the next few weeks. Their dad dropped them off and about half an hour later their mom picked them up. I was good to see all of them at the Family History Center.

Who's On The Direct Line?
After they left, I ended the evening by helping another patron gain an understanding of how to keep track of her genealogy. This good sister has a bunch of genealogy information in typed format.

She is going through that information and organizing it into family group sheets and pedigree charts and appeared to be struggling with how to keep track of which people are in her direct line and which ones are on the branches. She has been marking the ones that are on the direct line with a blue crayon and then she makes a few notes listing which grandmother or grandfather each person is in relationship to herself. (For example, this is my father's mother's father's father -- or this is my father's grandfather's father.)

I saw what she was doing and thought that I might be able to give her a bit of help if I could explain the Ahnentafel numbering system to her, so I made the attempt.

I had her look at the numbers on one of her pedigree charts. It starts with "1" for the first person, has "2" & "3" for the parents (or 2nd generation), "4", "5", "6" & "7" for the grandparents (or 3rd generation), and "8" through "15" for the 4th generation. I explained that if the chart continued, the numbers would simply continue to increase for each successive generation. (For example, "16" through "31" for the 5th, "32" through "63" for the 6th, and so on.) Now, if she puts herself in position "1", all of her direct ancestors have a unique number that can be determined by their respective positions in that chart. That number will always be the same for a given ancestor. By figuring out which number each ancestor has and then always using that number whenever referencing that person on any other chart or form, you can keep track of who is in the direct line and who is not.

I then used PAF to enter a few of her names for her and then showed her the Ahnentafel printout (in preview mode only). She was pleased to see the numbers were automatically created by the software.

I hesitated for a moment before I decided to show her the binary trick. As can be seen with a little observation, a pedigree chart is a binary tree -- each node in the tree has two branches. By assigning a "1" to the first person in the pedigree, a "1" to each mother and a "0" to each father, you can write out the binary number for anyone in the pedigree chart.

Taking the first example above (my father's mother's father's father), we have 1 for "my", "0" for "father's", "1" for "mother's", "0" for "father's" and "0" for father -- or 10100 in binary. Converting this to decimal gives "40" which is the Ahnentafel number.

Naturally, you can take the "40" decimal and convert it to binary and then "read" the 10100 as "my father's mother's father's father."

The patron understood this. She took some notes. She looked like and said that she was pleased. It was good to see her in the Family History Center.

First Class

I taught my first Family History Sunday School class yesterday. For those that were in the class, here's a summarized review of what I was trying to share. For those that were not in the class, here's a summary of what I was trying to share.

Basic Steps
Family History for Temple Work Purposes can be divided into three steps:
1) Gather Information
2) Organize Information
3) Process Information

Process
With an attempt to "begin with the end in mind", here's what we need for and do in the "Process" step.

We are trying to take care of these items: B E P S C
B is for Baptism
E is for Endowment
P is for sealing to Parents
S is for sealing to Spouse
C is for sealing to Children

In order to do this we need the following information:
B & E: The name of the individual, male or female, an event date & place
P: Add the individual's father's name
S: The name of the husband, marriage date & place

C: This is just an indicator from the Parent's perspective that the children have been sealed to the parents. The information is taken care of from the Child's perspective.

Once we reach the "Process" step, we can see where additional information needs to be added and go back to the "Gather" step.

In the "Process" step, we also share the information with others.

Organize
There are many ways to organize genealogy. The most common tools are the pedigree chart and the family group sheet. There are other tools that can also be used. The key to organization is to pick something that works for you. Use it until you discover you need something else or until you find something else that works better for you.

I like the Ahnentafel numbering system.

Today it should be obvious that organizing information using the computer has many advantages that have not been available in the past. The computer presents its own set of problems -- picking software, understanding data, doing backups. There is also the choice (or need) to store things locally as well as online.

Gather
This step can be split into two parts: 1) Where to look & 2) What to gather.

Where

• At home
• At relatives' homes
• On the internet
• At libraries
• At government & religious institutions (including parishes, court houses, government offices, etc.)

What

• Vital records (e.g., birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, censuses)
• Military records
• Journals, personal & family histories
• Newspapers
• Books
• Photo albums
  

Summary
Naturally, this is just an overview; therefore, there are lots of details and even many whole items that have been left out. We will cover some of these details and other items in subsequent lessons.

Assignment
This is a multiple choice assignment -- choose multiple items! And, please share what you learn.

• Do something!!
• Contact one of the Family History Consultants for an in-home consultation!!!
• Visit the Family History Center
• Play with PAF
• Gather your home-based information
• Check out the Family History Religion class at BYU -- Rel261
• Try something else

Greetings

Well, I thought I would start a blog for my activities as a Family History Consultant in the Royal Park Ward. First, I thought I should explain a few things.

1) I am not (yet) an avid blogger. I created my first blog last July (2007) called code-geek and since then I have not created any entries in that blog.

2) I design and write software for a living. I've done this for more that 20 years. (I think it is about 26 years now.)

3) I am learning about family history, so "consultant" is more of a goal than an accurate description of my experience.

4) What is a "Family History Consultant" as I have used the term? This is a position or calling in the church that I belong to. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints. I am by no means an official spokesman for the Church, so the things I state here are my own thoughts and explanations. I have been a member of the Church my entire life, and my family has been members of the Church for several generations, so I have what I think is a pretty good idea of what the Church is all about. Right now, though, I'm trying to explain what a "Family History Consultant" is. A position or calling in the Church is an area of responsibility that we, as members of the Church, are asked to take by our leaders. We do this on a volunteer basis. We believe that these callings come from the Lord through our leaders by inspiration by the Holy Ghost. I believe this. Therefore, when I am asked to take a calling, I do it. As a Family History Consultant my responsibility is to help others with their own family history. I should probably put some sort of link here that directs the interested reader to more information, but I currently don't know what I would link too ... and I don't know how to link a this point in time (this is my first real blog entry).

5) What is a "Ward" and what is the "Royal Park Ward"? A Ward is a geographic area in the Church presided over by a Bishop. Usually a Ward has between about 300 to 600 members. The Ward, however, includes all people whether members or not as we believe that we have a responsibility to care for all people in the Ward whether a member of the Church or not. Of course everyone has a responsibility for themselves and I think that good people everywhere care for their neighbors and friends. I think it is nice to know that there are people available and willing to help when help is needed. The "Royal Park Ward" is the Ward that I belong to. It picks its name up from the street where the church building is located.

Okay, now that I've got those short explanations in place, what is this blog about? I wanted a place that I could share my experiences and help those people in my Ward.