Well another year has begun and I am starting off the new year with a new genealogy setup!
I am using TMG and the second site software for my website. I have used this setup before but I got worried about the long-term viability of the TMG software and tried out the competition. I tried them all including Rootsmagic, FTM 2012, and Legacy Family Tree. I also tried some of the other software out there! While all of the software packages have their advantages and disadvantages, and any of the ones I have mentioned would be good software for anyone to use for their genealogy, they just don’t suit my methods of research. It seems to take me much longer to get anything added to them and I can’t get the outputs to be as I want. I want multiple photos for each person and I want photos for events added to the website and reports. Second Site is the only website software that will give me that level of output control.
2011 was a year of just mainly trying out new software and I didn’t seem to get much actual research done. This year I am going back to the setup that was allowing me to actually make progress on my research!
I have re-opened the old file that I was using on TMG with the last updates being back in September. I apparently made several changes to the file throughout the year in between trying out the other software packages. I also have some cleanup work to do on the website for the wording of the sentences for the events of family members – the births, deaths and marriages of family members. It currently says that the focus person witnessed the event. Well, they may not have actually been there to “witness” the event, I am working on a sentence that just indicates that they were the daughter/son or sister/brother or mother/father of the person being born, getting married, or dying.
Hopefully, I will have these changes completed in the next few days!
By the way, I have my software set to exclude any data on living people from displaying on my website. I have it set so that unless I have specific information that a person who was born less than 110 years ago, my software will not show any information on that person. There is an exception though: if the person was mentioned in a newspaper article or other public record for a deceased person, then the information from the newspaper article or public record may show for a living person.
I also exclude any information from the website that I feel may be embarrassing to my family members or that I don’t otherwise feel should be displayed publicly. This is my decision exclusively but I don’t have any wishes to embarrass any of my family with this website.