RootsMagic 6 Review/Top 10 Irish Web Sites/GenSmarts--A Forgotten Genealogy Tool

RootsMagic 6 Review

The May/June issue of Family Tree Magazine contained a review by Rick Crum of RootsMagic 6.  I think that RootsMagic is one of the top three genealogy software programs, so thought it would be worthwhile to summarize Rick's comments. He stated that the Biggest Draws for the program were: ease of use, data entry, documenting sources and reports.  For drawbacks his comment was "nothing major".  He had a short discussion of each of the "biggest draws" and then provided a Verdict: "Probably the best all-around genealogy program, RootsMagic 6 makes it easy to organize and share your family history.  Most current users will find the upgrade worthwhile for the new online publishing and search features."  His star ratings were as follows: Ease of Use--5, File Management--5, Charts and Multimedia--4.5, Documentation and Publication--4.5, Searching--4, Overall Rating 4.5.  He considered 4 stars as great and 5 stars as exceptional.  

Those of you who use RootsMagic should feel happy that you made a good choice. 

Top Ten Irish Websites for Your Research

I subscribe to Irish Roots and the 2013 Second Quarter edition had an interesting article by Chris Paton, author of the new book Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet, which discussed what he considered the Top Ten Irish Websites.  I though the many of you who have Irish ancestry might find it helpful and of interest.  The sites are as follows: Irish Genealogy Toolkit, Irish Genealogy, RootsIreland, findmypast Ireland, National Archives Genealogy Website, PRONI, Ask About Ireland, Ordnance Survey, JSTOR Early Journals and Military Archives.  

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BillionGraves Partners with GenealogyBank

Yesterday BillionGraves announced a new partnership as follows:

Hey BillionGravers,

We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with GenealogyBank.com! This site is a fantastic aid for anyone searching for their ancestors.

GenealogyBank has over a billion records, so we are confident you will find records and documents there to benefit your research. We've created a link on the search page that helps you connect the BillionGraves records you find to those at GenealogyBank. Check out the BillionGraves blog to read more about it.

And don't forget to check out the latest stories at BillionGraves!

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GenSmarts--A Forgotten Genealogy Tool?

I had the GenSmarts program several years ago; but it probably didn't get transferred when I got a new laptop and a new desktop.  I had almost forgotten about the product as they aren't at Jamboree, nor do they do much advertising.  However, I recently noticed a full page ad in Family Tree Magazine. 

I checked and confirmed it is only a one time purchase, so I sent an e-mail to them (they have a phone number; but it is just a recording telling you to submit your query by e-mail) hoping they can confirm my past purchase and will send me the activation key.  

For those of you not familiar with GenSmarts, it is somewhat of an artificial intelligence program.  It analyzes the data you have for the individuals in your genealogy software program (i.e., RootsMagic, Legacy, Family Tree Maker, etc.) and then suggests specific locations or sources you should search to fill in the holes of your data.  For instance if you didn't have a death date for someone born in a time period such that they would have had a Social Security Number; it would suggest searching the Social Security Death Index.  When I was using it, I found it to be a good "second pair of eyes" which often suggested searching a source I had totally overlooked.