Vyger

I don't want to be naming another program here, it just reminded me how quickly things can change. A few years ago I was developing and testing an application in the workplace, maybe not quickly enough as the support for the project and my idea was almost unamamous. Suddenly another individual who had been quietly working in the background with more direct access to raw data and superior programming ability came out with a slick app to deliver the same goal, plagerism or original thinking?

It was being discussed over on Facebook, I haven't tried it but here is a quote from the developer;

"Open source and free genealogy / family tree software written in PHP using Laravel 5.6 and Vue.JS. Enables you to securely process your genealogy data and manage your family tree website. Under development and not to be used in production! Feedback and suggestions welcome."

I see there is another open source genealogy software development project on the go and was wondering if someday the whole house of cards will come falling down due to such a project?

Like any developer he is actively listening and reacting quickly to user needs seemingly on a daily basis, reminiscent of how things were back in the Family Origins days, I also notice a few other Rootsmagic users on that Facebook thread!

And I say that knowing that ancestry.com does not support fact notes, which creates no end of problems for TreeShare.

Unfortunately so much data input in RM is biased towards reporting desires or sorting. I am one who likes to stay with the designed intention and live in the hope of Rootsmagic accepting and overcoming the identified short comings. For example, Ancestry has no corresponding field for Nickname so I have converted these to Alternate Name Type 'Nickname'

I don't place too much emphasis on the literal meaning of "Alternate Name" I use it as persons were known by various names throughout their lives and I find it useful that they also appear in the index under these variations. This is especially true for a woman who has her birth name and then appears throughout her life on records with the married names of maybe numerous husbands and likely the last husbands name on her grave marker. Just as I modified my text to US and used Grave Marker instead of Headstone it's also worth remembering naming conventions are different in different countries for example it's very unusual for a wife to carry her maiden name into part of her married name in UK & Ireland.

The glaring gap for me still pertaining to names is the examples of LNU, MNU, MSU, Unknown, "_____", [married name] etc all of which are incorrect and used to achieve reporting and sorting goals.

The sorting goals have been overcome by Alternate Name in my opinion and I cannot see any sorting objective not served by use of the Alternate Name. If the name is left blank then this is correct by data standards but Rootsmagic does not force or encourage such standards whilst NameClean will aim to assist anyone wishing to clean things up.

Now for the various reporting goals, Rootsmagic only needs to provide the option for a user to specify what to print in reports when the Surname is BLANK, this can be 5 underscores, "Unknown", "Still to be discovered" or whatever the user prefers. It is such a simple add and would overcome one of the remaining reasons for entering bogus data.

 

I keep reading of people struggling to have a "Name" fact - RM allows multiple instances of the Alternate Name fact, and I am convinced that this is the best way to document a person's name. For nearly every person in my database, I have found that person called different versions of their name in multiple pieces of evidence. There's a birth certificate, a baptismal record, a marriage record (or more), several census records, several city directory and telephone listing records, and on and on. I have even found instances where the birth record is for Jules G. Whatchamacallit, the baptismal record is for George Whatchmacallit, census and city directories variously call him Jules or George or J.G. Whatchamacallit.

 

So, many years ago I decided to add another alternate name fact EVERY TIME that I found a new variation in the person's name-as-presented. Based on the full set of evidence, I would list the above person's "display name" as Jules George Whatchamacallit. And the fact that I don't have any references that show his name exactly like that is irrelevant - Jules George is clearly Mr. Whatchamacallit's name.

 

The absence of a "name" fact is irrelevant to me, because by using multiple alternate name facts I can thoroughly document what I know about this person and his name.

I agree completely and make extensive use of the Alternate Name Fact to very good effect. I myself have three forename variations for a single forename, there are records for each variant and different people call me by different variants depending on what phase of life they met me and then there is one person who insists on calling me John no matter how often I correct him.

The Alternate Name fact can also have explanatory Notes and Sources, I don't understand why it is not more widely accepted.

I restrict particular fact types as Private via SQL so as not to upload them to Ancestry etc. A large database can contain a gold mine of information easily parsed when converted to gedcom if someone wished to go to the trouble.

I do hope Rootsmagic take user concerns seriously and facilitated Privatizing Fact Types to protect user data.