This month I’ll be returning to the series about using the Internet for genealogical research. I’ll present another Rideau article next month. August, one hundred and seventy years ago, represented the start of the “sickly season” on the Rideau. I’ll delve into what and why that was. Most people using the Internet for genealogical research are storing their information in a genealogy computer program. Is this program currently serving your needs? Have you wondered if there might be something better out there? You’re not alone and a number of websites have sprung up comparing the features of various programs. www.mumford.ca/reportcard/ – Bill Mumford has assembled a report card on the various genealogy programs available. The final score does not necessarily reflect the best program for you. Some are better designed for the expert than they are for the beginner. Bill does a good job of explaining how he made his ratings and it quite easy for you to make your own judgements regarding which program is best suited for your needs. www.gensoftsb.com - Genealogy Software Springboard is another comparison site although it doesn’t provide side by side comparisons. It does allow user input and some of the comments are quite interesting to read. www.cagenweb.com/rwilson/comparison.htm – Richard Wilson has put together a series of side by side comparison charts. Using the above three sites should give you a pretty good idea of the capabilities of many of the programs that are on the market today. Switching topics, of local note is www.rootsweb.com/~onleedsg/ the Internet address for the Leeds and Grenville GenWeb. Genealogy researchers delving into their local roots will be interested to know that this website has a new host, Hugh Campbell, who took over from Bruce Murduck. It looks like Hugh has done quite a bit of work in updating the site. www.onegreatfamily.com is a brand new website, so new in fact that it is still in beta development. They have an ambitious goal, put the whole world into one genealogy database. The Mormons (LDS) have been trying to do this for over a hundred years, but these new guys are using the Internet to help speed up the process. In fact, the person heading up OneGreatFamily.com, Alan Eaton, was the technical leader of the group that developed the familysearch.org LDS database. Once on the site, have a look at the Overview section to see what the future site will look like, and have a look at the FAQ to see how to use the site. This column and other resource material, including a link to my own genealogy pages, can be found on the Internet at "www.rideau-info.com/genealogy/". I can be contacted by email at kwatson@kos.net. |