Steve’s Blog

Shall I Go On?

Way back when, when I started doing my genealogy, I relied a lot on the PRDH database.  It was THE site to go to for finding out 18th century and earlier information.

They keep sending me updates about new records being added all the time.  It seems, they have moved into the 19th century.

Here’s a snippet from the latest message I received today:

“More than a year ago, we announced the addition of the family reconstructions from 1800 to 1824 to the PRDH-IGD database.

Today, we are pleased to announce that the family reconstructions from 1825 to 1849 have been added to the PRDH-IGD website, which officially brings the 1800 – 1849 period to a close.

This massive update represents the addition of 787 675 individuals and 94 444families to the database. In total, we are talking about 8 500 000 new family links to explore in the PRDH-IGD database! To put this into perspective, the PRDH-IGD database contained a total of 870 763 individuals before this update. That number has now nearly doubled!”

That is a lot of new information to absorb.  I have a bunch of that already from other sources, but I find myself wondering if I should dive back in to fix and/or update what I have. I still have plenty of “hits” available in the PRDH database if I should choose to do that.

The other issue is my family genealogy software.  I *think* I still have FTM on my Windows computer, but I can’t remember.  It has been a few years since I have actually added any new information to my database.  To get back into genealogy, I’d have some leg work to get done first.

I am still happy with my barebones website and with using Webtrees to show my data.  Who knows, I might actually have new info soon.

Finally Up and Running Again

For a long time now, I have been putting off the inevitable – installing and using new genealogy software on my computer. I loved my really antiquated version of Family Tree Maker. The old version really helped me input data quickly. It was a no frills program, yet still powerful enough for what I needed it to do. Fast forward to today.

I have received many e-mails lately about genealogy. Most of them were not for doing research, but some were. I had no way of updating my own database on my computer unless I did something quick – so I ponied up the money for the new FTM software (digital download at least to save money). The new interface is hard to get used to – it is information overload. I persevered, however, and was able to update my database and then get those updates onto the site.

I’ve done some back-end work too, but nothing that should concern the genealogy stuff. I’m also contemplating a redesign of the site. Most of you land inside one of the databases and never even see the site, so it is more for myself than anything else. I’ve also taken down the guestbook as it was getting spammed a lot, despite the captcha and other stuff to prevent that sort of thing. Oh well – not like it was being overrun with comments!

Here We Go . . . .

So it is now 2013. Huh. That’s really strange to me since I’ve posted very little here of late. Genealogy has sort of fallen off of my radar the past couple years, but I am committed to keeping my information available to those people who stumble across my site. One problem that I’ve run into is this: I used to use an old version of Family Tree Maker. When I upgraded to Windows 7 a while ago, I found out that FTM wouldn’t work on the 64-bit version. Lovely. The solution was to create a virtual machine within Win 7 and run the program that way. It was laborious and not fun to do.

I recently started my system from scratch and have not installed any genealogy software on my computer. I am not sure what I’m going to do at this point. I don’t really like the new FTM software as it relies so heavily on integration with Ancestry.com. If, however, I ever want to do any mass data input, then I am going to need something so that I can then upload the new information to my site. At this time, I’m just reviewing my options. I haven’t had the itch to do mass data input for a long time, but it would be nice to keep things up to date as I do get new stuff.

I’m also hoping this isn’t my only post for 2013. I’m sure it won’t be, but then again, 2012 had just the one. While it may not seem like I’m around, you can always e-mail directly for help with your own research. I still have all my French-Canadian resources at my disposal and can help out as needed. Until next time (hopefully not 2014) happy geneaology-ing!