Ice Family

I did some work on two branches of the Ice family and posted short PDF descendant reports to the Ice family page on Facebook (closed group).

• Alpheus Reynolds Ice
• Isaac W. Ice

Some of the folks following the Ice family had posted short messages to the page which prompted my response.  I remain hopeful that people will respond to what I share by filling in some of the information or making suggestions for corrections. There isn't much of that activity going on.

Dick Henthorn
31 January 2015

Exchanging Information On Facebook

There are country groups and family groups for genealogy on Facebook.  Lately, there have been some good exchanges of information on the Greene county, Pennsylvania and Wetzel county, West Virginia groups.  Some of the folks have subscriptions to Ancestry.com. I have never subscribed, so I don't really have an appreciation for what is available.  Today I read some good information about ship arrivals.

From time to time I shared PDF files to the File areas of some of the groups.  I encourage others to share in a similar manner.  That idea hasn't amounted to much, to date.

I also encourage everyone to learn how to use their genealogy programs.  Learn to export and import GEDCOM files.  Learn how to produce files in "text" or PDF format and be willing to reciprocate when someone shares information.

Plan ahead. Give thought to which libraries you might want to donate a copy of your work.

Dick Henthorn
29 January 2015

Sharing Information

I'm concerned about how I share the information I have compiled.  I'd rather not share with folks I don't know or with those I know who don't reciprocate when I share information.

I'm of the opinion that there are as many rules about how to do genealogy as there are people doing genealogy.  Sharing information always opens the door to criticism.
Some say:

• "It's all wrong." 
• "Send me everything you've got."
• "You didn't cite enough sources."
• "You didn't cite your sources in the approved manner."
• "You have too much information about the living in your files."
• "I don't want you to have any information in your files about my family."
• "The dates you recorded are wrong."
• "The places you recorded are wrong."
• "That's not the name of this person."

Today I'm testing another method of sharing.  The idea is to share a PDF report on a limited basis, say 48-hours.  I can do this using the application Files To Friends. Files uploaded remain available for download for two days.

I'm sharing the URL to a 51-page Descendant Report for the family of Thomas and Mary Clegg here and also on my Henthorn Genealogy group on Facebook.  The link expires on 29 Jan 2015 at 10:38 a.m.

Dick Henthorn
27 January 2015

Rudolph Lemley and Jemima Pyles

Some information about Rudolph Lemley and Jemima Pyles was shared on the Greene county, PA page on Facebook.  There was a scan of a newspaper article about Jemima and a one-page scan of a page of typed genealogy. I've been working on this family for a couple of days.  I had the wife's surname as, Piles.  There is some good information about members of this family on FindAGrave.  They lived around Mount Morris, Greene county, Pennsylvania and Pentress, Monongalia county, West Virginia.

Dick Henthorn
24 January 2015

Sharing Genealogy On CDs

I'm working on a project to share some genealogy information on CDs with longtime collaborator, Larry. We worked on the Yoho family of Beaver Co., PA.  Larry doesn't have a computer.

I created two CDs that I'll be sending via snail mail.

I used RootsMagic7 to create a shareable CD of the family of Jacob Yoho and Mary Lawrence. When RootsMagic creates a shareable CD all of the information in the genealogy file is included. Because I only wanted to share the information about the Jacob Yoho family I needed to create a GEDCOM file that included just Jacob Yoho and his descendants.  Next I created a "new" RootsMagic file with the GEDCOM.  The final step was to create the shareable CD.

The Shareable CD Menu

Here's a screen shot of what Larry will see when he clicks on "View Family Tree" on the menu.

The second CD contains three files.

1) McCullAnc.pdf, a 67-page PDF report about Larry's ancestors.

2) McCullDes.pdf, a 345-page report about the descendants of Jacob Yoho.

3) YohoJacob150107.ged, the GEDCOM file.

Dick Henthorn

8 January 2015

Some RootsMagic7 Glitches

Yesterday I installed RootsMagic7.  I noticed several disappointments.

The problem with wrap-around text when you save a report in .txt format hasn't been fixed.  When I mentioned this yesterday to Tech Support the person I talked to brushed me off saying that no one had ever reported the problem.

The installation procedure suggested that I let them uninstalled RootsMagic6.  I followed their suggestion.  I'm not sure this was such a good idea.  They didn't warn me that the newly installed version of the program would forget all of the formatting information such as color scheme and toolbar button icon placement.  I'm not happy about that.

I installed a copy of the program on a thumb drive for the first time.  I had a new SanDisk 4Gb thumb drive on hand.  After the installation I copied one of my files to the thumb drive in order to test drive how it works. This is a very handy way to take your genealogy with you if you travel and don't want to take your laptop. I think I'll take the thumb drive to the computer club meeting to show Dale Grant who does genealogy.

Dick Henthorn
6 January 2015

RootsMagic7

Genealogy Program Update

Today, 5 January 2015, I purchased and installed a downloaded version of RootsMagic7 on my computer.  I allowed the install process to remove RootsMagic6 from the computer which was recommended for those who don't consider themselves "Advanced Users."

A new User's Key was supplied.  This time I was careful to record it on a 3x5 card and to print out the Email page and store it in a notebook. The key is needed to install the program.  It is also needed if you want to install a copy of the program on a USB thumb drive which I intend to do with this version.

Before I made the purchase I called RootsMagic and discussed several of my concerns about the program.  My biggest concern is that RootsMagic6 often locked up when I was working with my two largest files, one with 84,000 records and the other with 245,000 records.  I wasn't happy about the answers I received.  That's probably why I put off calling them for many months.

Dick Henthorn
5 January 2015