Genealogy - Your Connection with the Past
Thursday, March 19th, 2009
William Pelham and Sarah McGehee
The best history is your own history. Everyone has a history and discovering and documenting that history has a number of benefits:
An Appreciation for the past
So many of the wonders of modern-day life are taken for granted. Consider the every-day things that our ancestors didn’t have: dentists to prevent toothaches; anesthesia for medical and dental procedures; cross-continent travel in a matter of hours; instant communications; the ability to search a world of information on any topic from the comfort of your own home; and the list goes on.
A Personal Link with Historic Events
I am rather awe-struck by the fact that my great grandfather, William Pelham McGehee - the grandfather of my father (who is still quite sharp at 95 years old) - fought in the War for Southern Independence. That is just three generations ago! When I visited the preserved battlefields of that war, I stood on the very ground that he fought on and realized that the opposing sides were just yards from each other at Petersburg where he was captured. History is not an abstract concept for me because I have a personal link with it.
A Sense of Time and Connection with the Future
As I gather information on those who came before me, I do so realizing that it is being gathered for those who will come after me. Like an older adult planting a tree, it is done so knowing that its full benefit will be enjoyed by our descendants.
Getting Started and a Software Review
My interest in genealogy comes and goes in spurts. After setting it aside for about the past 20 years, I have once again picked it up. The early records that I had worked on are now available only on faded dot-matrix-printed paper. The data files are so old that they are no longer usable. The good side to all this is realizing the progress that genealogy software has made over these years. I am using Legacy software, and it is an absolute dream to use. The old software that I used years ago forced you to work within a very narrow set of parameters. Legacy lets me record all sorts of information and either display it or hide it as needed.
Hide it? why would someone want to hide what they are entering? Identity theft - that’s why. Legacy lets me set an option on the reports that hides information about anyone who is currently living. I set that option to just show the word “Living” in place of their name. That is used for reports that will be posted on the internet for others to use. Legacy will also create a CD that I can distribute to other family members. That will be set so that all the information is displayed - unless I want to mark an individual as private. For example, if someone in the family had a failed marriage, they may prefer that it not be made a part of the family record. I can record it and set it to private so that future researchers will have that information, but not until those involved have died. Legacy’s privacy features make it so much easier to get distant family members to share their information when they know that it will be used in a way that respects their reasonable expectation of privacy.
What about photos? I am now able to include scanned images of all those old family photos that were once very difficult and expensive to share. There can be only one original, and for those who have been entrusted with them, there comes the responsibility to share them. Legacy lets me do that. I can add the photos and video and attach the files directly to the appropriate records. We have some audio recordings of those family members who moved from Alabama to Florida in a covered wagon. I will be able to add that audio to the CD to share with the rest of the family.
I did a rather thorough search for the genealogy software that best suited me needs, and Legacy was, without a doubt, the winner. There are other, more comprehensive programs available; there are other, simpler programs available. Legacy strikes the right balance for the serious amateur family researcher. I guess if you are planning to make a career out of doing genealogy research for paying customers, then perhaps the more comprehensive programs are worth the steep learning curve and the complexity. I can’t see the need for it, but perhaps there are better choices for those folks.
I might also add here that I write software for a living and have had my own software business (Adjutant Software, Inc.) since 1995. I can say with some degree of authority that Legacy is a well written program.
