A Smart Program -- GenSmarts

[Disclosure: I have no affiliation with GenSmarts or its publishers, Underwood Innovations, LLC]

If you are a vastly experienced researcher with perfect recall for where you might find a record, then the program won't help much. Do you have brick walls? Do you despair of finding the right record? Then read on.

It is an affordable $24.99 (for download only, no tutorial or CD provided -- a free trial version is available, but does not include all features.) The program is a one-time buy -- all upgrades are included in the purchase price.

It is easy to install and extremely easy to use. If you use one of the programs below, GenSmarts will work as a button on your program:

• Family Tree Maker (including FTM 2008)
  
• PAF 5
• Ultimate Family Tree
• The Master Genealogist
• RootsMagic
• Legacy
• Ancestral Quest
• Ancestry Family Tree
• Brother's Keeper (Version 6)
• Family Trees Quick and Easy (contact GenSmarts for more info)
• Heritage Family Tree Deluxe (contact GenSmarts for more info)

GenSmarts can also import a gedcom file made from any genealogy program.

ILet's look at a real-world example. I use The Master Genealogist, v7.03 (TMG), and there is a little green and orange "G" on a button on my tool bar. I entered Abraham and Nancy Todd Lincoln for basic events (birth, marriage, death & burial only) and then pressed that "G".

At the top of the page there is a list of sources. For this example, a list of 21 suggestions was generated. The first five are:

• Illinois Marriage Records
• District of Columbia 1850 Census
• Illinois 1850 Census
• District of Columbia Land Patent
• Illinois Black Hawk War Service Records

If I place the hi-lite on the first suggestion, Illinois Marriage Records, a window at the bottom of the screen shows me the why and how of using this record.

Why:
"Researching the Illinois Marriage Records makes sense because he was married on 4-NOV-1842 in Springfied, Sangamon County, Illinois. . . .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."


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

• State: Illinois
• Person: Lincoln, Abraham
• Alt Spellings:
• Spouse(s): Mary Todd [394]
• Inlaws:_____
• Parents:____
• Brothers: ____

This record can be researched at the following 2 locations:
1) Illinois State Archives Website
2) Ancestry.com Website

A visual key (a little green mouse) tells me that I might find both of these sources on-line. I have an Ancestry account, but I don't think I have used the Illinois State Archives. So I leave "Illinois Marriage Records" hi-lited and press the button for "Online Lookup." An IE session opens the Illinois Archives site (http://www.ilsos.gov) at the exact query I need -- "Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, 1763–1900", with the query for Abraham Lincoln displayed. The search has returned 3 possibles:

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM GRANT, LUCY 1886-07-27 / 00104894 COOK
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM TODD, MARY 1842-11-04 / SANGAMON
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM B MACK, FANNIE 1899-06-29 / 294218 COOK

You may think that only one of these records is any help at all, but remember that the other two may be clues to wider family ties. Who are these other two Abrahams? If you are a thorough researcher, you will try to find out about them, or at least put them into your research log. At this point, you are probably thinking that you don't need a program to tell you where to look for marriage records.

But let's look at another suggestion. Do you know when and where the Black Hawk War was fought? Would you know how to look up someone who might have been involved? I would have to answer "no" to both questions.

A quick side trip to Google and I find that the war was fought in 1832, meaning Abraham would be 23 and unmarried in 1832, thus eligible for service.

I move the hi-lite to Illinois Black Hawk War Service Records, and again select "Online Lookup". This takes me the Illinois State Archives again, this time to a database titled "Database of Illinois Black Hawk War Veterans," with 4 hits.

Name Rank Company Place Enrolled Regiment Brigade
LINCOLN, A PVT E ILES SANGAMON CO 20 DAY
LINCOLN, A PVT J EARLEY SANGAMON CO ODD
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM CPT A LINCOLN RICHLAND 4 WHITESIDE
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM PVT A WHITE ADAMS CO 20 DAY

My next task will be to look for records of the war, and try to determine if any of these A Lincolns are the one I am researching. This may involve a web search, an email or regular mail inquiry letter, or maybe a telephone call to the Illinois Archives.

Now, if I don't have time to do all that, I can tell GenSmarts to "Create Task", which is what TMG calls making a research log entry. The task has been automatically generated for my program with the the information I will need to research this later, including the name of the subject and where the records may be found.

As well as helping on-line searches, this tool will let you plan more effective road trip to research your data, alerting you to records and repositories you may not have learned about.

If you try the program, I welcome your comments on whether you find it helpful.

[Coming Soon: Research Logs]

Charles Magnus Wibert -- Portland, Oregon

Charles Magnus Wiberg (also spelled Wyberg) was born circa 1820 in Norrkoping, Sweden. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker as a young man to learn a trade. In about 1841 he left Sweden for London and practiced his trade there for several years. In 1849 he set sail from Galloway, Ireland, to New York City, arriving 12 July 1849 on the C. Tottie. He is listed on the passenger manifest as Carl M. Wiberg, a shoemaker.

By his own account, he lived in Connecticut, New Orleans and Wisconsin, finally settling in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1851, where he opened a shoe store. His entire business was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1851. He remained in Milwaukee another year to repay his debts from the fire, and then left for Oregon by way of the Isthmus of Panama. He arrived in Portland on 06 July 1852, and promptly started the first boot and shoe store in Oregon.

In 1858, he married Paulina Ingram. They had 9 children, 8 of whom lived to adulthood. Charles was a highly regarded businessman, owning property worth over $45,000 in 1870. He was a member of the board of directors of the Willamette Iron Bridge Co., which built the Morrison Street bridge in Portland.

He died on 03 February 1897 in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, of pneumonia following grippe [influenza] complicated by Bright's Disease [kidney disease]. He was buried on 6 Feb 1897, in River View Cemetery, Portland, Oregon, section 7, lot 95, plot13.

That is the short story of one man's life -- a collateral line to a line I am investigating in my Boones in Oregon project. This required research, of course: immigration lists, census information 1850-1920, death certificates, marriage certificates, a visit to River View Cemetery, consultation with available Polk's city directories for Portland, histories of prominent men in Portland, newspapers of the era, a medical dictionary -- just to name a few. Just Charles' narrative (not including his wife and children) generated over 20 footnotes, referencing 16 sources.

Ten years ago this project would have been impossible for me. I can't afford to travel to New York for instance, to look through several years of ship manifests. I would not have had access to indexed historical newspapers. The microfilm copies of old Portland death certificates would not have been available.

Now, I have the internet and a subscription to Ancestry, the site we all love to hate. As I have said before (and Dick Eastman has said better here), this subscription is worth every penny I pay for it. I also joined the Genealogical Forum of Portland (that's not free either, nor should it be).

I also have The Master Genealogist (TMG) program, which helps me properly format citations to my sources, and keep track of where to put the footnotes. Glory Be! I am old enough to remember typing term papers and putting in the footnotes by hand (and retyping them endless times to get the footnotes on the correct page), then having to make a bibliography by hand.

Using Elizabeth Shown Mills' book, "Evidence Explained, Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace," I can put in the format for a type of source only once -- first citation, subsequent citation and bibliography - and then be confident that the source will be printed out correctly. When I output my report to a word processor (and I prefer to use the free, open source OpenOffice), all of my footnotes are firmly attached to the text, and the bibliography prints correctly at the end.

I want to make it clear that I am no way affiliated with Ancestry, TMG, OpenOffice or any one or any software or book mentioned in this site. The blog is provided by Google, and that is the extent of my relationship. These are simply the best tools out there for doing genealogy.

Later this week I will share with you what I learned from a class taken at Lone Fir Cemetery in how to responsibly clean monuments and stones. Stay tuned.

I recently purchased The Master Genealogist (Gold) from WhollyGenes (http://www.whollygenes.com/) and I am delighted. The learning curve is a little steep, but there are forums and lists to help you along the way. I have already breached on brick wall that had me stuck for 2 years.

Up until February, I used Personal Ancestral File (PAF) which is available as a free download from the LDS on their site (http://www.familysearch.org/). This is an excellent program for most beginning family historians. But I started getting serious about genealogy almost a year ago, and PAF has definite limitations.

My biggest issue with PAF was the entering of sources. The one-size-fits-all source template made it extremely difficult to enter some sources with enough detail to meet publishing standards. I have been using Elizabeth Shown Mills' "Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian" as my citation guide. She has templates for each kind of citation you are likely to need: everything from interviews to a thesis published on the internet. TMG has the Mills' templates already included, as well as allowing you to customize a source if you need to.

My second issue with PAF was the inability to enter some information, especially census information, just once and have it show up correctly in all the individuals named. I rely heavily on the census to locate the family at a particular time and place. This allows me to use my limited genealogy funds more effectively in finding land records, tax records, wills, marriage and all the other evidence I need for documentation.

TMG allows one to enter all the information about a particular group of individuals and have the various bits tied correctly to each participant in an event. This led directly to my being able to tie a particular event to a person who was not the principal actor. Using this information allowed me to finally successfully break down a huge brick wall.

All of that being said (and much being unsaid), TMG is probably not the best choice for someone who is only interested in finding out a little information for their own use or to pass on to family members. PAF is much easier to learn -- you can download the program, read the lessons that come with it, and sucessfully start entering your family all on a Saturday afternoon. I used PAF for more than five years before I started looking at more sophisticated programs. And if you are just starting, the price for PAF (free) is certainly right!