Posted by writer on August 29, 2010 under Royal Families | 
With the announcement that the Queen has joined Facebook, the vastly popular online social networking site, the whole world sat up to congratulate and welcome the world’s most popular and fancied monarch onboard. Though the Queen is slow in signing up, she has already docked on the other social networks from the video manage site, Youtube, to the micro blogger, Twitter to the Photo sharing space, Flickr. So what so special about the representative of the world’s most followed Royal family joining a community web site that already has more than 500 million users online including members of other royal families?
Using Facebook will be a quick way to relay information to fans and friends in a variety of ways ranging from text, graphics and video involving . More than 40,000 “facebookers” have already clicked on the “Like” button thereby signing up as fans one hour after the page was launched. The Queen will not allow friends obviously due to the nature of the page but interested persons and fans will be able to search for royal events in their area through the hi-tech version of the Court Circular which has been the official record of the royal family’s engagements updated daily since the early 1800s.
According to an aide, the Queen is already aware of the awe and popularity that Facebook currently wields and also knows that all her grand children have accounts. However Princes William and Harry are not allowed to be on Facebook under their real names. Prince William is reported also has two other accounts under the pseudonyms “Wills Wombat Wales” and “Bobby Davro”. This secretiveness was ensured after some unfortunate events in 2007 when an imposter set up a fictitious page under the name of William Wales and went on to successfully “added” a couple of Prince William’s true friends. Royal families have every reason to shield their identities online.
Facebook was developed in the early 2000s as a Harvard’s undergraduate project of reaching out to fellow college mates and later in 2005 it was released to the public and since then it has move to be the world’s second most popular web destination after the giant search engine, Google. It has also catapulted its developer and CEO, twenty-three year old Mark Zuckerberg into limelight and into one of the world’s exclusive club of billionaires, the latter estimated to have assets of about $2b according to forbes.com and assuming a kind of popularity most royal families will envy.
The whole world is sure to follow the Queen on Facebook closely and she is sure to have more fans signing up in the coming days. In the hey days of Princess Diana, the latter was rumoured to be the world’s most photographed lady and other royal families elsewhere watched with glee. The Queen might end up being the most followed Royal on Facebook. Who knows for sure?
Posted by writer on August 23, 2010 under Family tree software |
When searching online for family tree building information, it is important that one takes very keen interest in what she is look for to avoid getting into the traps of fraudsters online. It is therefore important that one checks out a genealogy site thoroughly before she commits her money. The following guide will help to uncover some of these traps;
- 1. Check for Contact Information
Always look out for the contact information of the company. This should be the physical address and phone number of the company. You should be wary of web sites that allow contact only through an online contact form. You could also do a Whois search to know more of the domain name owner.
- 2. Look out overly used words
Some sites in a bid to earn high search engine ranking would repeatedly use such terms as family tree building, genealogy on their webpages. This is a sure sign that such service might just be there to get your money and scram.
- 3. Beware of Free Service
Nothing draws the crowd than a free meal. So most dubious sites make use of free service to draw traffic to their sites after which they find means of pulling a scam. Usually what these sites aim at is to collect your personal data with which they use to spam your mailbox. Really useful free genealogy or family tree building records available online doesn’t require you to register first before you could access them.
- 4. Play around with the search field
It is not too difficult to find out if that online genealogy is for real or fraudulent. You can try input your name first into the search box to see the results. Then you can input any other name say “amry werejui” or “j78dnm qiuoss”. If you keep on getting default results like “Congratulations, There are xxxxx records for Harry”, then you should smell a rat and move away.
- 5. Try Visiting Consumer Complaints Site
You can do a search for the web site through consumer complaints such as Rip-off Report and Complaints Board. Also surreptiously go through the web site’s “terms and conditions” and “privacy policy” to see if you can spot the name of the company. If you are lucky, then you can carry out a search on that company with regards to complaints.
- 6. Carry out Wide Area Consultation
Try asking around for the reputation of the company, whether anyone has used their service before for the purpose of getting family tree building information and if yes how did it go? You can also go on google to check out by using the keyword, “company name + scam” to see if you will get results.
- 7. What Do They Claim to Offer?
It would be ok if they provide specific information on records they claim to provide. For example if they are providing birth records, they should go on in providing the time and place of birth and other essentials rather than just leaving it vague as “Birth Records”.
In concluding, it will be safe to say that a whole lot will be salvaged and prevented if the necessary precautions are observed while browsing for genealogy or family tree building records online. There are businesses out there that would provide these services at little or no amount but one has to tread carefully so as not to fall into the trap of the numerous scammers out there.
Posted by writer on August 18, 2010 under Family tree software |
The use of sophisticated genealogy computers in mapping out family trees is widespread today but how did it all start? How did the first family tree software arise? By this is meant programs that were developed and released to the public in both a commercial way or otherwise.
The first documented and supported genealogy program was known as “Genealogy: compiling Roots and Branches” also known as GCRAB and was written by John J. Armstrong and released in 1979. It was written in Microsoft BASIC targeted at the TRS-80 computer manufactured by the famous Radio Shack. It involved typing in code published in the September 1979 issue of Personal Computing Magazine and it sold for $250.
A few months later in early 1980, Howard Nurse, the owner of a small software company that was set up to produce software for ham radio operators while working with Herb Drake developed and released their first genealogy product: ROOTS 89 for the Heathkit H-89 computers. Subsequent years saw them release newer versions of the family tree software which included ROOTS/M for CP/M computers and the ROOTS number series; ROOTS2-ROOTS5 targeted at the IBM-compatible PCs. These programs averaged $250 in cost.
Two years. Quinsept Software based in Lexington, Massachusetts released Family roots and had all versions produced for almost all the computers available including the Apple II, Macintosh, IBM PCs, Commodore64 and Commodore128. This program sold for $225 and thrived in the market for sometime before it was displaced by other family tree software.
The same 1982 saw the emergence of “Genealogy on Display” written by Melvin O, Duke in BASIC and “Family Ties” developed by Neil Wagstaff for CP/M computers. Later both programs became available for the new IBM Personal Computers. Following closely in 1983, the Mormons introduced the Personal Ancestral File (PAF) family tree software and this came with the unbelievable price of $35.
From the mid to late 1980s, many family tree software surfaced and like many other products of that era sold at cutthroat prices (averaging at $200) though not measuring by miles to the features and capabilities in today’s programs. Some of these setbacks include;
- Having limited Reporting Capability
- Having no provision for recording conflicting data
- Manual handling of data through inaccessibility to disk systems
- Not having the capability to say where information was obtained
- Also worthy of mention was the inability to communicate and exchange data with other genealogy programs back then.
- Also upgrading was cumbersome and involved complete data re-entry.
These days the situation is a lot better. Costs have dropped drastically (At $20, one is sure to acquire a very powerful program) and family tree software have appreciated significantly in features. Even for free, one can get access to very good programs in Legacy Standard Edition and Personal Ancestral File. All the setbacks earlier reported are corrected as all family tree software can exchange data with other genealogy programs via GEDCOM files. Also almost all can create reports for the World Wide web.
Posted by writer on August 9, 2010 under Family Trees Building |
Digging up one’s family tree shouldn’t exactly take one to the seer but a careful use of the resources available will help to enable the task. Family trees building which involves the use of online databases to carry out a wide search of records can still fall short of expectations. Therefore a trip to the library can be of immense help or at least put one of on the right track.
- Historical Newspaper Collections
This is the provision of access to historical data as they appeared in Newspaper centuries ago. Some providers include Newspaper Archive which alongside the library provision also offers online access and claim to have records dating to as early as 1786.Every newspaper across the United States, Canada, England, Ireland and Scotland covering obituary, birth, marriage etc records are contained by their database. Another provider is known as the ProQuest Historical Newspaper Collection which includes text and image articles from a handful of major U.S. Newspapers.
- Biographical and Genealogy Master Index
This is a master list of biographies published since the 1970s in a varied number of collective biography volumes. With a record of the individual’s name, dates of births and deaths(when it applies), this is a useful source for information for a veritable family trees building project.
This is another library database resource that has an abundant depository of information, in this case obituary records. Dating back to 1851, more than 10 million obituaries and death notices appearing in such U.S. national newspapers like The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Constitution, The New York Times are indexed in its database.
This library offers records covering over 25,000 family books, U.S. Federal census statistics, Revolutionary War Pension and other collections. This service is available via remote access from libraries which offer the feature and not housed directly in libraries.
- Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970
For one keen on carrying out family trees building based on physical structures as there exist in cities and large town, this offering also form ProQuest is a masterpiece as the database provides digital access to more than 660,000 large scale maps of more than 12,000 American dwellings. Street names, property demarcations and markings are clearly available to access.
So how can one go about getting access to these very important resources for a thorough family tree building? Word has it that with a valid library card, many of the databases can be accessed remotely and in some states, access is free to all residents. Some libraries in these states even allow patrons who don’t live in their coverage area to purchase a library card.
With these steps taken no matter how tedious it might seem, the U.S. resident who wants to bridge the gap and carry out an enduring family trees building campaign would have taken a huge leap in this regard. Further steps to be taken might then involve the use of the numerous web applications to further deepen the search, that is if the former moves do not yield anything substantial.