2014: Quality over quantity!

The start of the new year is a time to look back and look forward. Jill Ball of GeniAus has encouraged bloggers to look back with an eye for the positive. Although I haven’t followed her prompts, and I’m late joining the party, I hope she will include me in her annual ‘Accentuate the Positive' roundup!

2014 started with the immediate concerns of my family demanding precedence over hatches, matches and dispatches in the past. I’m not sure how I managed to write five blog posts that month!

In the space of a day my five year old daughter went from being a lively child with a mild case of the sniffles, to child very ill with pneumonia lying in a high care hospital bed. I’m glad to say that after a week in hospital on oxygen, nebulisers and antibiotics she had recovered well enough to attend her very first day of school at the same time as the other children.

This came only a few months after my son’s case of scarlet fever! His temperature hit 40 degrees and he was clearly a very unwell boy, but he quickly recovered with antibiotics. It was not a big deal.

This left me feeling reflective. Many of my ancestor’s children had similar illnesses at similar ages, with much less happy results. I felt very grateful to live in the time and the place that I do.

My first notable genealogy achievement of the year was finding merchant seaman records for my ancestor, John Lee. This supported the family story that he was a crew member who left the ship in Australia, and disproved the theory that he was an “exile” – a convict sent to Port Phillip (now Victoria) and pardoned on arrival. I still need to follow up on engaging a researching to dig further into the records for me!

The highlight of the year was my research trip to Melbourne. I got such a kick out of seeing the documents for myself. Those big old registers really are big! I made some great discoveries, boosting my confidence that I really could track down and find information that I wanted in the archives, and I met my cousin Shirley for the first time. I also spent time with my aunt, uncle and cousins who I haven’t seen in years which was worth a trip in itself. I said that I would like to make the research trip an annual event – I’ll have to get planning!

Finding copies of my ancestor’s letters at the National Library of Australia came a very close second in terms of genealogy excitement. As it happened, Shirley was in Canberra and we had planned to meet again. It was great to have someone else to ooh and ahh over the papers with.

I have made progress on a number of other fronts:

• I have all but finished the Basic level Australian courses at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies.
• I started putting words on the page, writing up what I know about my Couper family.
• DNA research has begun picking up steam as more people test. It has now moved on from being something that I thought of as fun, but only likely to be useful long term (if ever) to a potential source of breakthroughs. I “met” a Couper/Allsop descendant, and a Bennett/Darcy descendant through DNA testing – it’s nice to have support for the paper trails. I also “met “ a predicted 2-4th cousin. Such a close match! We think that our respective Halliday ancestors may have been siblings (making us 3rd cousins twice removed, if I’ve worked the relationship out correctly) but don’t have any information to confirm this. What we do have is a hypothesis to follow up on which we would not have had without the DNA tests.
• I upgraded to version six of Family Historian and have spent quite some time playing with the new features. Version six has added ‘witness’ support (which I’m very happy with) and place support (which is a step in the right direction) but it’s the new minor features that I would look straight past in the product description that I’m most taken with. This deserves a post of it’s own, which I may or may not find time to write!

Overall I think it was a year of quality, rather than quantity, and I’m very happy with that!

History and Genealogy 2010 Roadshow - Canberra

Yesterday I attended the Unlock the Past History and Genealogy Roadshow here in Canberra. I had been looking forward to this event, as it was a rare (for me) chance to get out and among people while in pursuit of my family tree. I not only took the day off work, but took the evening off family! That's actually kind of momentous for me.

My day started with a minor hiccough. When I looked at my map I discovered that the venue was not the hotel I had been thinking of. It was ten minutes further away from home. On arrival, the car parks were already full and it took me a while to find a suitable parking spot. I walked into the first session mildly late, and feeling flustered.

First up I had a choice of hearing Rosemary Koppittke talk about FindMyPast.com.au, or Cora Num discussing "Irish research in the electronic age". It was a difficult decision, but I chose the FindMyPast session. I have recently taken out a monthly subscription to FindMyPast.com.au in order to give the site a proper chance. I think that the search tips Rosemary provided may just make all the difference for me. I hope that FindMyPast will add more information to their site on how to search effectively there.

Next up was a choice between Louise St Denis with "Can I Learn Everything I Need About Records and Research Strategies Online? Genealogical Education from a Distance..." and Tom Foley with "Treasures of the National Library of Australia". In her blog post, Shauna Hicks expressed surprise that so many Canberrans attended the National Library session as we would "almost live at the library". Before I had little children that was true for me. I can't speak for all attendees, but I was interested in this talk precisely because I spend so much of my research time at the Library. Imagine if I missed out on something fantastic that I could have accessed so easily?

After a short break the late afternoon sessions began. It seems that a choice between Dan Lynch, the author of Google Your Family Tree and the Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Canberra (HAGSOC) was no choice at all. The HAGSOC speech was cancelled as the overwhelming majority of attendees chose to sit in on Dan Lynch's talk. And no wonder. Dan's style was immediately engaging, and he conveyed his information clearly. For me, Dan's speech was the highlight of the day. Although this session only covered the basics, and I thought I had the basics pretty well covered, I still picked up plenty of ideas. I bought a copy of the book between sessions and look forward to making my way through it and trying things out for myself.

The next session presented me with another difficult choice: Shauna Hicks with "Archives you may not know - but should!", or Cora Num with "How Did They Get Here?: Locating Shipping and Immigration Records". I decided to hear Shauna speak - but not before dashing out to my car to get a jacket, as the air conditioning was uncomfortably cold. Shauna spoke well and introduced the audience to archives large and small, and portals for finding out about them.

Dinner time arrived. I was pleased when Shauna joined me as I had "met" her on twitter but not in real life. It was good to have a chance to meet her in person. Also joining us was one of the very few other younger attendees - who, it turned out, reads this blog! Although I know from the page statistics that a few people out there must read this blog, it still came as something of a (pleasant!) surprise to meet one of them.

The evening sessions held more difficult choices. Either "FindMyPast UK and AU" with Elaine Collins and Rosemary Kopittke or "I Found It Once, Why Can’t I Find It Again!" with Louise St Denis. Then, either "Google Your Family Tree: Images and Video" with Dan Lynch or "ScotlandsPeople: the place to launch your Scottish research" with Rosemary Kopittke.

As I had already heard a discussion of FindMyPast.com.au, I went to Louise St Denis' session. It was good to see that the majority of attendees in that session already cited their sources.

Finally came a choice between hearing Dan Lynch again, or learning about ScotlandsPeople. It was another hard choice, but Dan Lynch had whetted my appetite for Google tips! This time I'm not sure I picked up quite so much. In some cities, I gather, the Roadshow extends over two days and Dan Lynch gives four different speeches. As the population of Canberra is smaller, the Roadshow here was a one day event. This second speech was more of a whirlwind tour of the three other speeches and, although I enjoyed it, I think I would have preferred to hear a full speech on one topic.

During the day I bought a few other books, and was lucky enough to win one of the early registration prizes. I also signed up with HAGSOC again, after a lapse of 15 years. Aside from the chilly air conditioning, the only other thing that I would have changed about the organisation of the event would have been to provide water and tea/coffee facilities for attendees, rather than having to purchase drinks from the bistro.

And that was it!

The roadshow still has a few more stops, and from what I saw I can recommend the event to anyone thinking of attending, assuming of course that the presenters don't collapse with exhaustion before they get there...

Software review - Geves

I've only found two software packages that attempt the kind of source-based data entry I describe in my previous post (not counting products such as Custodian or Clooz, as their purpose is different). They are 'Genealogy Research System' and another that I found a few weeks ago, 'Geves'. I've been having a ball playing with Geves since I downloaded the trial. I used the deluxe version, which has more customisation options that the standard version. The version I downloaded was 1.3.28.

Just quickly before I begin - I have no financial interest in this product other than as a customer and have not been offered anything by anyone to write this. I'm writing the review purely because I found the program interesting. 

Geves - how it works 

The good

While it's possible to go to an individual person's view and enter information, Geves is based around the idea of entering data from a source document. The best way to start is not adding details to a person view, but by choosing the type of source you want to insert.

The program gives a reasonable selection of data entry forms for England, Scotland and Wales and some general purpose forms. If the birth death or marriage form you want isn't there (eg I need Australian certificates) you can choose the most similar form and adapt it to your needs. That didn't work too badly with my Australian BMD records for data entry but they do end up labelled as the wrong type of certificate which is annoying.

Here's an almost completed form for a Scottish ancestor, James Couper, who was kind enough to pass away in 1855 - giving me a death certificate with more than usual detail! If you attach an image to the source record, Geves displays it in a split screen below the data entry form. It makes data entry and checking against the source very easy.

 

The yellow dropdown boxes are where you choose which individual or place the name in the record relates to - or you can add a new person at a click of a button. If you do choose from the dropdown, a box appears when you hover over a name with the events from that person's life. You can also use the extensive list and search windows to find the correct person in the database, then drag and drop their name across to the box.

I very much like the adjustable split screen source display. The forms aren't too bad, so far as they go. I did find occasionally that some detail seemed to be missing but that's relatively easy to correct. There is some data validation, with cells coming up in shades of orange or red if you accidentally try to make someone their own grandfather. The data entry was quick and easy - completing and checking the form took only a few minutes.

Individual and place names are as recorded on the source. You make the link to a individual in the database or a place on the map for the purpose of searches. So far so good, and it's all quite efficient. But... it gets better.

The very good

The program includes a web browser. For certain records (primarily UK census) on selected genealogy sites you can download the information into the appropriate form at the click of a button, including the source image(s). It takes about 20 seconds and all that's left to do is correct the information against the image (add in any data not in the transcription), and link it up to the right people and places. Even a fairly large household took me less than five minutes to enter this way, from start to finish. I was mostly using FindMyPast. When I tried Ancestry, Geves managed to suck information into the form that wasn't visible on the page. Clever.

In less than two weeks, when I was looking after a sick baby and was also unwell myself, I still managed to enter every detail for 125 UK census households without breaking a sweat. 125. Every detail. Really! I told you I had a ball with it! I got a kick out of seeing the forms fill themselves out every time.

The other very nice thing is that if you do enter a source only to find that the John Smith in that source isn't the John Smith you thought, it's very easy to undo. Just clear the dropdown box where you identify who (in your database) the John Smith in the source relates to. All the other bits and pieces from the source - residence, employment, birth year, whatever - will disappear from your John Smith's record.

You can't please all the people all the time...

As you enter data into the source template Geves translates it into events for you, including lineage connections between the people. Obviously the program has to make a lot of assumptions along the way, and they may not always be assumptions you agree with. If this only happens occasionally it's no big deal to fix. On the other hand all the time and effort saving made in data entry would be lost if you disagreed with something the program did in a systematic way, as there is nowhere (that I saw) to vary any of the assumptions that Geves makes.

Here are the events automatically created by Geves for the death certificate above...

 

And here's the family tree it has constructed...

 

The program does a great job where the family connections are defined by the form (eg father and mother on a birth certificate) including spouse and parent-child relationships to the head person on a census form. It makes no attempt (and nor should it) to make more ambiguous connections eg a niece or stepson. You can quite quickly and easily add events to the source yourself. For example, a birth record for the niece with just the name of the child and the parents. You don't need to put in any details that are already generated by the form, such as estimated birthdate or place of a birth for a niece on a census form. There are a few more issues along these lines for census forms in particular, and it is worth reading the help file to be aware of them and understand how to work around them. 

Geves does not have all the event types you usually find. Census entries were recorded as a residence, or "Visited at" depending on the description. I would prefer to use a census event and say that the person was "enumerated at". Maybe that's just me. It does have a research screen to see what censuses you have found for each person so I suppose I could live with it - but there may well be other decisions that grate.

Once you have multiple sources for an event, Geves makes more assumptions about which source is more reliable in order to combine the information. Unfortunately there is little description of how this decision is made, either. It's obvious which events are merged, though, and you are able to change the outcome of the merged event or mark it as confirmed.

Here's a screenshot of the events tab for James Couper after I added 1841 and 1851 census information.

Merged events have a blue square around the icon, and are marked "Merged". As you click on events, you can see the source (or sources) for the information in that event underneath.

To be fair, making assumptions is always going to be a perilous business. Overall I think this part of the program is quite well-handled.

The not-so-good and really-quite-bad...

The first not-so-good thing that I noticed about Geves was the very basic output options. From a person page you can access a few simple lists of events (not a lot of detail), an ancestor report and a descendent report. There are no options about what should or should not be included in these. You can change the font, but that's it. You can also print out lists which are really very good, with whatever fields and sorting you want, but it's not the same thing.

Worse, though, there were no source citations on the reports! I could hardly believe that!

It occured to me that you could enter data here, then use another program to do reports and charts if only the GEDCOM export worked nicely with your other program. I shall defer here to someone with better knowledge than myself. Tamura Jones reviewed a beta copy of Geves back in 2007 and gave the program a rating of "Dismal" citing, among other things, GEDCOM import and export problems. I don't know if any of the problems mentioned have been fixed since then, but the ones I was able to check on with my definately non-expert knowledge of GEDCOM had not been. This was disappointing. Source-based data entry loses its gloss if you're not sure of getting the information out again! 

The other stuff

Otherwise, I had no particular problems using the program. It has been stable for me. There was a full 5 second delay going to and from one particular source with 24 sub-records but that was the only lag I noticed. I'm not sure how the program would handle large files. My experimental file was relatively small with just over 700 individuals (many of whom were probably the same people, but I hadn't made the connection yet) and aside from the delay I mentioned I didn't have any problem.

Although the general reports were lacking, the lists were good and very editable. Some fields were easy to add, some you had to start writing expressions. I get the impression that the lists could be very powerful, if only you could work out how to write the expressions. There was some information on that in the help file.

What else...? Photos are treated like source images. The source form relating to the photo has fields for date, place, event, photographer and allows you to mark with a box (which then becomes a passport photo for the individual) who is in the picture. If using the deluxe version you can add your own custom fields to sources, people, events, repositories or whatever. I think I would want to add a custom caption or description field to the source record. It was difficult to find how to access the custom forms you created. I eventually found the answer not in the help file but on the user forum. As an aside, judging by the forum the user base is very small, but the developer is quick to give a helpful response to questions.

I don't know how those custom fields are treated in GEDCOM export. There did seem to be an ability to customise how sources were exported for each template. I didn't experiment with it, but if using the program to export I would. The default export for the source was the one line description given to it although all the other information you would need for a proper source citiation was generally tucked away on the source forms.

The conclusion

I haven't covered every aspect of the program here. In some ways it has surprising depth and is very customisable, in others it's inflexible and falls a little short. Although I have raised concerns and criticisms of the program, I did buy a copy at the end of the free 30 day trial.

Yes, I am perhaps a little besotted with the data entry to the exclusion of all else. They do say love is blind.

I'm not planning on using Geves as my primary genealogy software. I used it in the trial period to begin sorting out the Tregoning families in Gwennap, Cornwall, England. At least 2 of the 17 households with Tregonings in 1841 are of interest to me.

Thanks to Geves I am now confident that I've followed through to the correct 1881 census entry for my great-great-great grandmother, Mary Tregoning, and I think I know which death record is hers, too. I'll enter just the information relating to my family into my main database. It's going to seem so sloooow after Geves, but at least I'll be able to assume whatever I want and make some pretty charts. With source citations.

By the way, Happy New Year!