CGSSD Meeting on Saturday, 19 July - on GenSmarts

The Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego (CGSSD) meets on the 3rd Saturday of each month (except December) from 9:00 a.m. to noon on the campus of UCSD, University of California, San Diego. See our web page www.cgssd.org  for directions.

The next meeting will be held on 19 July 2014 from 9:00 am to noon. Here are the details:

 9:00 AM  User Groups/SIG: Legacy with Reuben Marchant, Family Tree Maker with Ken Robison, Cloud Computing with Gary Hoffman 

10:00 AM Break, refreshments

10:20 AM Announcements

10:30 - 11:30 AM  Feature Speaker: Del Ritchhart

GenSmarts

GenSmarts is an application that has been around for several years.  Many of us used it a few times; but got involved in keeping up with all the other technological developments in genealogy and lost interest in GenSmarts.  It uses the fundamentals of artificial intelligence to search your genealogy applications (i.e., Family Tree Maker, Roots Magic, Legacy, etc.) and identify holes in your research such as missing dates and locations.  It not only identifies the missing data; but will list web sites and/or libraries where the information might be found.

Del recently delved back into it and learned it is still very much “alive and well” and has a lot more capability than he ever imagined.  His presentation will not only stimulate your interest in the capabilities of GenSmarts; but show you how to apply its many very useful features.  

Del began researching his family history in 1994.  He has served in leadership positions in several San Diego genealogy organizations; including President, Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego.  Del has given genealogy presentations to numerous groups in the Southern California area, including the San Diego Genealogical Society, Escondido Family History Fair, North San Diego County Genealogical Society, our own CGSSD and others.  He published his family history, “Breathing Life Into My Family Ancestors”. in late 2011. 

We meet at the Robinson Auditorium complex on the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus in La Jolla. From North Torrey Pines Road, turn at Pangea Drive into UCSD. Free parking is available in the parking garage on the left; use any space other than those specifically reserved for UCSD vehicles. Signs will mark directions to our meeting room. Please refer to our website www.cgssd.org; or the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies website (click here) for driving directions and a map.

The URL for this post is:

Using GenSmarts - Post 5: Queries

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received a copy of the latest version of the GenSmarts family tree analysis software last month - see CGSSD Program Review - Aaron Underwood - GenSmarts for my summary of the meeting. GenSmarts is a Windows only computer program.

In the first post, I demonstrated the "File Open Wizard" that gets a genealogy database file (in my case, from Family Tree Maker 16) into the GenSmarts program. In the second post, I explored two of the program tabs - the "To-Do List" and "My Genealogy File" tabs. In the third post, I demonstrated using the To-Do list for a specific person. In the fourth post, I explored isolating records for a particular person in some of the repository locations available in GenSmarts.

In this post I'm going to demonstrate how the user can obtain a list of research suggestions for any person that the user desires - either from his genealogy database or someone not in the database at all.

I'm still working with David Jackson D.J. Carringer - and I clicked on the "Query" tab on the main screen. This form appeared with David Carringer's birth and death data filled in, his wife's data filled in, and the data for his first child filled in:




I clicked on the "Generate Suggestions" link and this screen appeared (I highlighted the first item):

The screen above doesn't tell me how many research suggestions it found, and I didn't count them, but it looks like about 70 or 80 for the three people. The list above covers vital records, census records, etc. This list was generated independently of the lists shown in the "To-Do" tab. While this is pretty useful, it doesn't include all of the children of the subject couple. If the first child is not the one you want to use, you could add the one you want into the firm.

A user can generate suggestions for somebody not in the genealogy database by filling in the information for husband, wife and child.

Information like this is only useful if you can have a way to see it in a repository. I clicked on the "Print" button on the right of the screen above, and another box with options for creating a To-Do list opened:

The choices include : Print only To-Dos highlighted; Print all Displayed; One Line per To-Do; Multiple To-Dos per Page; One To-Do per Page; Combination of Info and Input Form; Collated Set of To-Dos and People; Which Location; By Record Geography; By Surname; Type of Output. I selected Print All Displayed, Multiple To-Dos per Page, By Record Geography, and Printed Report. I clicked on the "OK" button:

Another window informed me to choose the destination of my printout - to the Printer, to a Preview or to a File (and enter the file name). I chose Preview and saw:

The result is a 15-page report of my 70 to 80 research suggestions generated by the Research Query. I could save this to a file or print it out. The list may include extraneous or previously accomplished To-Do items, but those can be easily checked off the printed To-Do list.

I really like this Research Query option, especially if the user hasn't checked off any To-Do items for the subject family. It can be used for any person that a user is researching, but does require the name of the person and an approximate birth and death date and place for the husband and wife.

If a researcher was going to one of the repositories on the list, say the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, the user could limit the To-Do list to only that repository. If the user had GenSmarts on his laptop or netbook at the library, s/he could create a new list for a newly found ancestral couple right on the spot.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to continue this series this week, so there may be a three or four week hiatus in this series until after I return from my vacation.

Using GenSmarts - Post 4: Research Locations

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I received a copy of the latest version of the GenSmarts family tree analysis software last month - see CGSSD Program Review - Aaron Underwood - GenSmarts for my summary of the meeting. GenSmarts is a Windows only computer program.

In the first post, I demonstrated the "File Open Wizard" that gets a genealogy database file (in my case, from Family Tree Maker 16) into the GenSmarts program. In the second post, I explored two of the program tabs - the "To-Do List" and "My Genealogy File" tabs. In the third post, I demonstrated using the To-Do list for a specific person.

In this post I'm going to demonstrate how the user can determine which records might be found in which research library or website using GenSmarts "Research Locations" list for a specific person.

I'm still working with the David Jackson Carringer family. From the last screen, I clicked on the "Research Location" tab, and saw a list of research facilities and libraries in the top left box on the screen. I selected the "Family History Library" from the list. In order to find suggestions for David Jackson Carringer, I typed "david jackson" into the search box below the list of locations:



The program found seven suggestions for David Jackson Carringer - I highlighted the first one above and the right side of the screen showed me the FHL microfilms for Mercer County PA land records. With a research location selected, and a specific record selected from the list, the program usually shows information about that record at the research location. Sometimes, the program shows only the address of a research library and no further details.

If I had had more than one person with the words "david jackson" in their name, the program would have provided me with all of the suggestions. I initially had a hard time getting results here, and had to retype at least a part of the name for each locality.

What if I had typed in "d.j." which is part of the name in my database? I did that, and it
gave me the same seven suggestions:




D.J. Carringer is RIN number [5150] in my database - I found it works to input just this number (enclosed by brackets) to get information for a specific person in my database:




The above method of using the RIN number may be the best way to isolate suggestions about a specific person in the database. Note that the program uses the person's name in the database, not in the actual records. If I were to search on Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org for David Jackson D.J. Carringer, I would have to use all of the tips in my bag of search tricks to find him in the records.

This method of finding which records for a given person are in which research location is fairly cumbersome. The user has to go one-by-one in the Research Location list to find results. The should be a way to get information about:

* A specific person in all research locations
* A selected number of persons (e.g., all of a surname, all in a family, all in an ancestral group, or all in the database) in one research location

There are several better ways to do this task, and I'll demonstrate them in one of the next posts.

Using GenSmarts - Post 3: To-Do List Actions

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I received a copy of the latest version of the GenSmarts family tree analysis software last month - see CGSSD Program Review - Aaron Underwood - GenSmarts for my summary of the meeting. GenSmarts is a Windows only computer program.

In the first post, I demonstrated the "File Open Wizard" that gets a genealogy database file (in my case, from Family Tree Maker 16) into the GenSmarts program. In the second post, I explored two of the program tabs - the "To-Do List" and "My Genealogy File" tabs.

In this post I'm going to demonstrate how the user can keep track of their research using the GenSmarts To-Do list for a specific person.

At the end of the second post, I had created a To-Do List for a specific person - my second great-grandfather, David Jackson Carringer. There were 71 suggestions in the To-Do list, including items about his parents, his spouse and his children.

In the screen below, the Mercer County PA Marriage Records "suggestion" for David's father, Heinrich Carringer is highlighted. There are a number of small icons to the left of the suggestion in the list, including: Available Online; Available Online (Fee); Missing Data; Missing Source; Direct Ancestor Root; Direct Ancestor; Found; Not found; Plan to Search; Ignore; and Revisit Later. Every entry in the To-Do list may have some of these icons. The first six icons are created by GenSmarts based on the content of the genealogy database. The last five are user-selected based on the status of their research.

I have a choice of actions to make for each one of the To-Do List items for the specific person using the five buttons (Found; Not found; Plan to Search; Ignore; Revisit Later). For the Mercer County PA Marriage Records "suggestion," I clicked on the "Not Found" button and the red icon (a box with an X) appeared next to that item, as shown below:




I clicked on "Not Found" for the second item too, and for the third item - the 1850 US Census record for David Carringer, I clicked on the "Found" button because I have already found that resource. The green icon (a box with a check mark) appears next to the item (see below):




I can go down the list of 71 items clicking on the correct box to my heart's content. In the screen below, I clicked "Plan to Search" for the Colorado Land Patent for David Carringer:




Over on the right of the screen, under the list of icons, is a box that has "Available Online" highlighted in Bold IF the item is online. The screen above indicates that the Colorado Land Patent database is online, so I clicked on the "Available Online" link and saw:

A separate window opened for the BLM General Land Office records website and the program filled in the blanks for State = Colorado, Last Name = Carringer and first Name = David, as shown above.

I clicked on the "Search" button and this screen appeared:

No matches were found in the Colorado Land Patents for David Carringer. I went Back a page and put First Name = Jackson" with no matches, and then searched for no First Name, and there were no matches for my David Jackson (or D.J.) Carringer.

I closed the BLM GLO website window and clicked the "Not Found" button for that item (see below):

I worked my way through the entire list of 71 suggestions clicking the buttons based on my knowledge of the research for David Carringer.

I want to create a shortened To-Do list for the "Plan to Research" items on the list and take that to a repository. In the next post we'll take a look at the Repositories on the list with "Plan to Research" items for David Carringer.

I mentioned before that the GenSmarts program loads your genealogy database every time you start the program. It remembers any of the Actions you took (Found, Not Found, etc.) even if the database was modified after the last time it was used in GenSmarts.

Do you see how powerful this program can be? It can be used to organize your research for specific persons and/or at specific repositories (e.g., the Family History Library, Ancestry.com, etc.).

I know that the screens above are fairly hard to read unless you click on them, but you should be able to follow my actions by reading the text descriptions. You can click on the figures and see them fairly clearly.

Using GenSmarts - Post 2: First Looks

I received a copy of the latest version of the GenSmarts family tree analysis software last weekend - see CGSSD Program Review - Aaron Underwood - GenSmarts for my summary of the meeting. GenSmarts is a Windows only computer program.

In the first post, I demonstrated the "File Open Wizard" that gets a genealogy database file (in my case, from Family Tree Maker 16) into the GenSmarts program.

The same database will open every time you start GenSmarts until you select a different database. It remembers where the database is located, and uses the latest version of the database.

In this second post, I want to explore the opening screen and some of the program tabs. The GenSmarts program opens to the master "To-Do" tab list:





This screen has the list of research helps for everybody in the database. For my file of over 39,000 persons, it found over 169,000 research helps. I highlighted a research help for a person on the list (Abbie Ardell Smith [5138] (Carringer) ) and information for that particular research help appeared in the bottom panel of the screen above (labelled "Explanation"). We'll explore items in the "Explanation" area a bit later in this post.

I wanted to obtain research helps for one particular person, so I clicked on the "My Genealogy" tab and saw this list of all of the persons in my tree, listed alphabetically, last names first:

I entered "carringer, david" into the "People" search box, and two matches came up in the left-hand panel. I clicked on my second great-grandfather, David Jackson Carringer [5150] (note the number 5150 is the RIN number of the person in my database), and a narrative summary of the known Facts about him appeared in the right-hand panel, as shown below:

I double-clicked on David Jackson Carringer's name on the list above, and all of the research helps for his family appeared in the top panel. There were 71 suggestions for this search, which included himself, his parents, his spouse and his children.

I clicked on the first suggestion - for "Mercer [County] Pennsylvania Marriage Records for Heinrich Henry Carringer [5154] and Sarah Feather [5155], David Jackson Carringer's parents. The "Explanation" section in the bottom panel has a number of information items about this record and how it might be found (two screens below)

There are text areas in the "Explanation" section in the bottom panel (in the two screens above) for:

Why?

Researching the Mercer Pennsylvania Marriage Records makes sense because he was married in BEF. 1825 in Mercer County, PA.

Missing Source

This suggestion is important because it appears to be either a source for an event where you have no sources, or because there is a high probability that it will be an additional source to what you currently have.

Background

Some background on Heinrich Henry Carringer [5154]: He was born on 6-JUN-1800 in Sandy Creek, Mercer County, PA, and he died on 10-AUG-1881 in Columbus City, Louisa County, IA. He married Sarah Feather [5155] on BEF. 1825 in Mercer County, PA, and had the following children: Eliza [2575] (1827), David [5150] (1828), George [2576] (ABT. 1832), Cornelius [2577] (1834), Mary [2578] (1835), Sarah [2579] (ABT. 1837), Henry [2580] (ABT. 1839), Louisa [2581] (ABT. 1842), Matilda [2582] (1845), and Harvey [2583] (ABT. 1848). His parents were Martin Carringer [5169] (b. ABT. 1758 in prob. PA, d. 25-JAN-1835 in Sandy Creek, Mercer County, PA), and Mary Magdalena Molly Hoax [5170] (b. ABT. 1768 in MD, d. 31-AUG-1850 in Sandy Creek, Mercer County, PA).

Finding Aids

Here is a recap of some of the people and places that might be involved in searching a Marriage Records

State:Pennsylvania

County:Mercer

Person:Carringer, Heinrich

Spellings:

Spouse:Sarah Feather [5155]

Inlaws:Cornelius Feather [5165] and Mrs. Unknown [15231]

Parents:Martin Carringer [5169] and Mary Magdalena Molly Hoax [5170]

Brothers:Johann Jacob Carringer [5171], George Carringer [5174], Soloman Carringer [5176], and Joseph Carringer [2584]

Research Locations

This record can be researched at the following location:

1) Salt Lake City UT

This information might be found on 1 Microfilm at the Family History Library. The volumes for these are:

MF Roll: 383437 Title:Will abstracts and vital records of Mifflin and Mercer Counties, 1793-1880

The internal GenSmarts inventory id for this record set is 14673.

The information above summarizes why I might want to find this particular record, notes that I'm missing a source for the marriage, provides a concise list of the relatives of this person, provides some finding aids, and provides a specific research location for the particular record.

Frankly, I have never seen that particular specific microfilm for will abstracts and vital records of Mifflin and Mercer Counties, 1793-1880. It may well have this record.

I can go down each item on the list of 71 suggestions and see what research ideas that GenSmarts offers.

How can I keep track of all of these suggestions - what have I already researched and found, or not found, what ones should I plan to search for, etc.? In the next post, we'll explore how we can code the research suggestions in the To-Do tab list to organize our research.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of GenSmarts from Aaron Underwood, the developer of GenSmarts. I made no commitment to him to review the program or say nice things about it. The opinions expressed in this post are solely my own based on my own experiences.

Using GenSmarts - Post 1: Loading a Database File

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I received a copy of the latest version of the Gensmarts family tree analysis software last weekend - see CGSSD Program Review - Aaron Underwood - GenSmarts for my summary of the meeting. GenSmarts is a Windows only computer program.

I loaded it immediately, and worked in it a bit on Sunday. In this series, I am not going to do a comprehensive review of every feature - just some posts to help a reader get started and to understand how the program works and how it can be used effectively to help researchers find genealogy resources.

In this first post, I want to give my readers some idea of the setup of the software after it is installed. There is a "File Open Wizard" that opens when it is time to load a genealogy database file:



In Step 2, this wizard lets the user choose the program for which the database is available - the choice is Family Tree Maker (.FTW, .FTM), PAF 5 (.PAF) , TMG (.pjc, .TMG), RootsMagic (.RMG, .RMGC), Legacy (.FDB), Ultimate Family Tree (.UFT), Brother's Keeper 6 (folder), Ancestral Quest (.AQ), Ancestry Family Trees (.AFT), and Other Programs (.GED, need a GEDCOM file).



I chose Family Tree Maker. The Step 3 window lets the user choose whether to find the database file by browsing or letting the program search for the database files. I chose to browse myself, and quickly found my database in my computer folder:




The Step 4 window tells me that it found my file:

When I clicked on the "Finish" button, my FTM database started loading. My file has over 39,000 persons now, and it took over two minutes to load. Here is the progress screen about half way through the database load:

In the next post, I'll explore how to use some of the major tabs on the GenSmarts screen.

There is a GenSmarts manual (PDF format) here. However, it is mostly text and doesn't show screen shots of the features. GenSmarts also has a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page here.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of GenSmarts from Aaron Underwood, the developer of GenSmarts. I made no commitment to him to review the program or say nice things about it. The opinions expressed in this post are solely my own based on my own experiences.

CGSSD Program Review - Aaron Underwood - GenSmarts

The program speaker at the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego (CGSSD) meeting on Saturday, 20 February, was Aaron Underwood, developer of the GenSmarts software. Aaron's background and presentation summary is posted here. I had a chance to talk to Aaron and his lovely wife, Angie, both before and after his presentation.

Aaron started his talk by posing a research problem - Abel Fike married in 1805 in North Carolina, had two children, and died in 1852 in Illinois. What resources would you search to find more information about his family and his life? The audience quickly offered census records and county histories. What other resources would you search for?

GenSmarts is an artificial intelligence program that takes the known facts of a person's life and suggests potential records that might exist in known resources - online databases, several genealogy libraries, and the Family History Library Catalog. The program makes educated guesses about missing information - dates, locations, etc. based on the known facts.

There is no real guarantee that the suggested records exist, but that they might exist. For instance, the program would suggest for Abel Fike not only the census records and county histories, but War of 1812 and other military records, cemetery records, land records, probate records ,tax records, church records, etc. The program accounts for the time span that various records cover - so it didn't suggest the Social Security Death Index for Abel Fike since he died in 1852, but if he had died in 1982 it would have suggested the SSDI.

GenSmarts reads your genealogy database file in the native file format (e.g., .FTW for Family Tree Maker 16) or in a GEDCOM format. The list of genealogy programs that it can read, and other Frequently Asked Questions, are listed here. It works only on Windows computers, not on Macintosh, although it can use a GEDCOM file created by a Macintosh but has to run on a Windows computer.

Aaron showed several comparisons of GenSmarts results versus a Google name search and versus a Family Tree Maker 2009 Web Search. For Abel Fike, the FTM 2009 Web Search found two hints - both census records. GenSmarts listed 13 suggestions for further research.

Aaron demonstrated using GenSmarts to create suggestions for a specific person in your database, to make a query for someone not in your genealogy database, to identify problems with place names in your database, and to create a research list for a specific repository, such as the Family History Library.

GenSmarts doesn't modify your genealogy database - you have to do that yourself after finding records using the GenSmarts suggestions. For each person, the user can identify the suggestions that were followed up on so that future searches will not duplicate those suggestions.

GenSmarts Version 2 is available for $24.95 retail as a download on the GenSmarts Buy Now page. A CDROM with more information plus the program is $29.95. They have a trial version that is free to download, on the Gensmarts Download page. A Version 1 owner can receive a $5 discount on the price for a Version 2 download.

Throughout the talk, I was working in GenSmarts Version 1 on my laptop, and the screens were somewhat different from what Aaron was showing for Version 2.

This was an interesting and helpful program demonstration and presentation for the attendees, and for me!

After the meeting, Aaron gifted me with a CDROM with a damaged case, which I really appreciate! I will use the program to help identify some resources for my elusive ancestors that may be hiding on the FHL shelves, FHL microfilms or in online databases. Doing a reasonably exhaustive search seems to be never ending, but GenSmarts can help.

CGSSD Meeting on Saturday 20 February - GenSmarts

Linda Hervig of the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego (CGSSD) passed this program notice along:

The next meeting of CGSSD is Saturday, February 20, 2010.

The User Group for RootsMagic and Special Interest Groups on DNA and Ancestry.com begin at 9:00. In the DNA SIG, Corlee Morris will analyze your DNA results. Notify Corlee at HMorris575[at]att.net if you would like your DNA results analyzed. Check the CGSSD website, http://www.cgssd.org/, for last minute changes.

After a break and refreshments at 10:00, Aaron Underwood presents the main program, “GenSmarts.”

Aaron Underwood is the developer of GenSmarts, an inexpensive software “add-on” that uses artificial intelligence to analyze your existing genealogy file and produce research suggestions. It helps you generate and track to do lists, print worksheets to record your search results, and plan research trips to libraries, court houses, etc. It directly integrates with Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, and many other popular genealogy programs, and features direct integration with Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and several other popular research web sites. A free trial version is at http://www.gensmarts.com/.

After many years of doing commercial software products for the corporate world, Aaron branched off with his own company. Underwood Innovations was created to provide highly innovative products for everyday people. Genealogy, his long-time hobby that became a passion, was a good fit. The first product, GenSmarts, is inspired by the “to do” lists Aaron created for his father’s genealogy research trips.

We meet at the Robinson Auditorium complex on the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus in La Jolla. From North Torrey Pine Road turn at Pangea Drive into UCSD. Free parking is available in the parking garage on the left; use any A, B, or S space. Signs will mark directions to our meeting room. Please refer to our website http://www.cgssd.org/; or the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies website http://irps.ucsd.edu/about/how-to-find-us.htm for driving directions and a map.

I hope to see all of my San Diego readers at this meeting!

Have you upgraded your GenSmarts lately?

I subscribe to the GenSmarts newsletter, which is issued sporadically by the creators, Underwood Continuum, LLC. The newsletter can be subscribed to by emailing join-gensmartsnews@list.gensmartsnews.com.

The newsletter noted that:

"This past week, we released new free updates to both Version 1 and Version 2. The latest releases are 1.1.1.63 for Version 1 and 2.1.1.63 for Version 2. During the past several months, we've made the following major changes, which were included in this update:

1) Added support for FTM 2008 & FTM 2009 (GS Version 2 only)

2) Added support for RootsMagic 4 (GS Version 2 only)

3) Added support for the 1911 census

4) Added many more Ancestry.com suggestions

5) Added support for the Mid-Continent Public library

6) Added support for TMG's primary birth/death tags (GS Version 2 only)

7) The usual assortment of minor bugs and tweaks

As usual, you can use http://www.GenSmarts.com/versionHistory.html to update if GenSmarts itself doesn't notify you at start up of the update."

What is GenSmarts? Check out the FAQ here. If you want a genealogy program that creates a list of possible genealogy databases from many genealogy web sites, you might consider GenSmarts.com You can buy it at http://www.gensmarts.com/buy.html. You may be able to obtain it through a genealogy software program purchase - I got my version 1 originally bundled with Family Tree Maker 2005 (I think).

When I clicked on my GenSmarts 1 icon on my desktop, my software was updated with Version 1.1.1.68, not Version 63 for some reason. I'm not complaining. I had a good time browsing through the program again, and will do some evaluation of the program in later posts.