January 2011 - Monthly Meeting

St. George East Stake Building
449 South 300 East, St. George, UT
SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 2011
Greeters................ Marilyn Rohrer and Wilma Staton

WELCOME: Fran Lightner – 10:00 am

OPENING PRAYER: Sunny Konold

➔Welcome was extended to all members and visitors.

➔Fran noted and gave Thanks to the Directors of the St. George Family History Center, Robert and Elaine Booth, for procuring this meeting site for our group. A special thanks was extended to Director Booth for securing means to set-up the Internet. It appears the Internet is not Family History friendly and he, Elder Booth, will be meeting with the powers-that-be to see if various genealogical sites can not be available through this Internet.

➔Former President Connie Stewart was present and she was given a Thank You gift from the user group with much applause and many thanks. The gift was a gift card for Desert Book.

➔We have a new “Intro Minute” beginning today which will highlight the various Family History Centers in our areas. Marlene Williams from the Ivins Multi-Stake Family History Center gave a short history of their center which services 4 stakes. Many classes are given at this center.


PRESENTERS: ..... Don and Diane Snow

Donald and Diane Snow are both Californians with Utah roots; Don's ancestors are the Snows from Southern Utah and Diane's are the Manwaring's from Northern Utah. Both of the Snows are retired from BYU where Diane taught in the Humanities Department and Don in the Mathematics Department. Diane has a Masters Degree in Humanities from BYU and Don has a PhD in Mathematics from Stanford. They have lived and taught in Minnesota, Colorado, Ontario Canada, Peru, London England, and Provo. They have 6children and 30 grandchildren. Since retiring from BYU, they have been on four Family History missions for the LDS Church, including being Directors of the New York Family History Center, serving in the London Family History Center, and in Nauvoo where they worked on a database of LDS Church members which is now posted on http:// earlylds.com. They have been involved with family history for many years, and Don has been a Vice President of the Utah Valley PAF Users Group since the 1990's. Don is currently a Board Member of our User Group. They are frequent speakers at genealogy and family history conferences.

Don told the group of the classes that are being held at the Morningside Stake Center by he and Diane. A list was presented to those attending. Family History Update Series - 1st and 3rd Wednesdays – 1:00 to 2:30 pm
16 February 2011 – The Best Things in Life are Free: Freeware for Family History
02 March 2011 – Filling Out the Family: Censuses in Family History
16 March 2011 – Great Grandpa was a Mormon: LDS and Utah Records

PRESENTATION: ..... Don and Diane Snow

This class discussed and demonstrated some programs that were freeware or inexpensive shareware for genealogy, which are defined as:
• "Freeware" means completely free with no "nag" screens; can use freely and give copies to anyone else
• "Shareware" means that if you plan to use it regularly, you should send a specified donation (usually small) to the author at the address given in the program.
• "Open Source" means freeware including the source code, so you can edit it if you know programming
• "Apps" means applications, i.e. software.
The lesson was summarized as follows:
“THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE”
#23 – FASTSTONE CAPTURE 5.3
• Freeware screen capture tool allows you to capture images online
• Capture Options – Active Windows, Window/Object, rectangle, Free Hand, Scrolling Window Full Screen.
• Capture in jpg, pdf, tif, and other formats.
#51 – EVERYTHING
• Freeware to find files quickly anywhere on your computer
• File Maintenance
• Use in tandem with Explorer or Q-DIR to move files to where they belong
• Drag and drop
• Find and delete duplications
#52 – FILESEEK
• Freeware to search in files for specified texts
• Can have it search entire hard drive or only specific folders
• gives a list of which files contain those words or phrases
#44 – ESSENTIAL PIM
• Freeware Personal Information Manager
• Daily calendar and record
• Easy to search for any word, event, name, location
• Good for historical record and shows activities in context
#15 – OURTIMELINES.COM
• Free website to show a life in its historical context
• Helpful in writing history
• Gives ideas of what records to research, e.g. wars going on during his/her life
#42-JOCR
• Freeware optical character recognition (OCR) programming
• Requires that you have MS Word 2003 or later on your computer, but doesn't use it
• Saves text to clipboard so you can paste it anywhere, e.g. into PAF sources
• Good accuracy; does better when text is larger size
#43-TRANSCRIPT
• Freeware program to help in transcribing handwritten documents (DOESN'T read handwriting)
• Format is two panels, one to show image of document and one where you type the transcription
• Has many features such as moving the image down when you press ENTER at end of line, can convert image to negative an zoom in or out
#53-Q-DIR
• Freeware program that acts like having two or more copies of Windows Explorer open at once
• Panels in Q-DIR (windows) can show contents of different folders so you can rename files or drag and drop between them to copy or move files from one to the other
• Has many other features as well, including printing a directory of a folder

The complete handout contained the following:
GENEALOGY DATABASE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS
1. PAF 5.2 -- http://www.familysearch.org/ -- Free and still a good program to use until you need something more; can get help for it at any FHC
2. PAF Companion 5.2 -- http://www.familysearch.org/ -- Additional reports not in PAF 5.2, including fan charts; free trial version only does 3 generations; full version is on CD bundled with PAF 5.2 CD from the LDS Church Dist Centers (about $8) or can be ordered online
3. Ancestral Quest -- http://www.ancquest.com/ -- Has a free version (Ancestral Quest Basics), as well as a 60-day free trial of full version; can be used to link to and download from new FamilySearch; full version is free to use in FHC's
4. RootsMagic -- http://www.rootsmagic.com/ -- Has a free version (RootsMagic Essentials); can be used to download from new FamilySearch; full version is free to use in FHC's
5. Get My Ancestors -- http://www.ohanasoftware.com/ -- Freeware to download data from new FamilySearch -- Family Insight is also from Ohana Software - commercial program, but free to use in FHC's; links your PAF database to new FamilySearch
6. Legacy -- http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/ -- Free version (Standard version); full version is free to use in FHC's
7. Family Tree Builder -- http://www.myheritage.com/family-tree-builder -- Free genealogy program
8. Smart Genealogy -- http://freewareapp.com/smartgenealogy_download/ -- Free genealogy program; can import/export Excel and GEDCOM files which is sometimes very helpful
9. PhpGedView -- http://www.phpgedview.net/ -- Freeware to generate web pages from your GEDCOM for on- and offline use; requires PHP (also free)


OTHER GENEALOGY PROGRAMS AND DATABASES
10. PAF Pal -- http://www.ohanasoftware.com/ -- free helpful utility for PAF 5 databases to expand and contract US state names and add "USA" after every state; can then change "USA" to "United States" globally, as nFS wants now
11. GENViewer Lite -- http://mudcreeksoftware.com/genviewer.htm -- free and commercial versions; very fast and helpful to read and analyze GEDCOM's and databases from several genealogy programs
12. Addnote -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gumby/ged.html -- free utility to add a note to every record in a GEDCOM
13. Addsour -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gumby/ged.html -- free utility to add a source to every record in a GEDCOM
14. GEDCOM Viewer -- http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=90339 -- Open source program to view GEDCOM files
15. OurTimelines -- http://ourtimelines.com/ -- Free website that makes timelines of world events during your ancestor's life; can be personalized with up to 10 events of your own ancestor's life; can then save as pdf or html file and link it into your PAF program like a photo
16. OnePageGenealogy -- http://roots.cs.byu.edu/pedigree/ -- Makes pdf's of large pedigree and/or descendant charts from GEDCOM's
17. Pedigree Viewer -- http://labs.familysearch.org/ -- Trial release of new FamilySearch program by LDS Church to view large pedigree and descendant charts
18. Parish Locater -- http://www.parloc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ -- Program and database of 15,000 parishes in the United Kingdom; draws maps with nearby parishes
19. Parish Locater for Windows -- http://web.onetel.net.uk/~gdlawson/parfind.htm -- Program and database of 25,000 parishes in the United Kingdom
20. PRF Magnet -- on http://www.ohanasoftware.com -- Downloads data from Pedigree Resource File index (index only, no notes nor sources) on FamilySearch
21. FamilySearcher -- http://myweb.cableone.net/kevinowen3/FamilySearcher.htm -- Searches IIGI and several other web sites for names in a GEDCOM


GRAPHICS PROGRAMS
22. Adobe Reader X -- http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/ -- Free reader for pdf files
23. FastStone Capture (version 5.3 is last freeware version, later versions are shareware) -- http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/mmedia/FastStoneCapture.html -- Excellent screen capture utility that also captures entire scrolling screens
24. FastStone Image Viewer -- http://www.faststone.org/download.htm -- Good image viewer that also has screen capture features, but doesn't capture scrolling screens
25. Namexif -- http://www.digicamsoft.com/ -- Renamer for digital photos that copies date and time from metadata and puts them at start of file name, so sorting arranges photos in chronological order; can add other descriptive terms after the date/time for further ease of searching
26. Irfanview -- http://www.irfanview.com/ -- Photo editor, converter, and slideshower; many features, including batch conversions
27. Picasa 3 -- http://picasa.google.com/#utm_source=en-us-more&utm_campaign=en-pic&utm_medium=et -- Google's free photo editor and organizer
28. GIMP -- http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html -- Freeware open source photo editor -- GIMPShop is an interface that makes GIMP menus look and act like PhotoShop
29. Oscar's File Renamer -- http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=69 -- Good batch file renamer that allows you to see what the file name changes will look like before you actually change them


SOUND PROGRAMS
30. Audacity -- http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ -- Excellent sound recorder and editor, but parts are hard to learn
31. WavePad -- http://wavepad.en.softonic.com/ -- Sound recorder and editor
32. VLC -- http://www.videolan.org/ -- Good media player, has adjustments to synchronize sound and video when they don't match
33. Skype -- http://www.skype.com/download/ -- Free program to talk through your computer and the Internet - free to talk to other Skype users worldwide, small charge to talk to any land or cell phone worldwide; requires a broadband connection


TEXT AND OFFICE PROGRAMS
34. Jarte -- http://www.jarte.com/ -- Small, very fast, free text editor that handles txt and rtf
35. IBM Lotus Symphony office suite -- http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home -- Free and compatible with MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; seems to work faster than OpenOffice 3
36. OpenOffice 3 -- http://www.openoffice.org/ -- Powerful open source office programs compatible with MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and others
37. Gnumeric spreadsheet -- http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/ -- Open source spreadsheet compatible with Excel and many others
38. NotePad++ -- http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm -- Excellent open source text editor - very useful for many formats
39. PDF995 -- http://www.pdf995.com/ -- Installs as a printer so you can "print" anything to pdf, e.g. PAF genealogy reports
40. PDFX-Change Viewer -- http://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-viewer -- PDF utility, allows you to write on pdf files, e.g. to fill out a pdf form and save the results to print, email, etc.
41. PDF Split and Merge -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfsam/ -- Open source program to split or combine pdf files
42. JOCR -- http://download.cnet.com/JOCR/3000-2192_4-10768898.html -- Freeware optical character recognition program for images of text on screen - small, fast, and works well, but requires that MS Word 2003 or later be installed (doesn't work with OpenOffice)
43. Transcript -- http://www.jacobboerema.nl/en/Freeware.htm -- Helps you in transcribing from images of handwritten documents, keeps image and your typed text in sync as you move down the page
44. Essential PIM -- http://www.essentialpim.com/?r=download -- Personal information manager (PIM); good for appointments, calendars, To Do lists, etc.
45. TreePad Lite -- http://www.treepad.com/treepadfreeware/ -- Personal information manager (PIM), uses tree-format
46. Tinyspell -- http://tinyspell.m6.net/ -- Spell checker that works even in PAF notes
47. Thunderbird Email -- http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/ -- Free email reader with many helpful features
48. Eudora Email -- https://wiki.mozilla.org/Eudora_OSE -- Freeware email reader with many features; open source version is in progress


COMPUTER UTILITIES
49. BelArc Advisor -- http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html -- Utility to analyze and list your computer's hardware and software
50. Dropbox -- http://www.getdropbox.com/ -- Automatically synchronizes (copies via the Internet) whatever you put in the Dropbox folder on one computer to any other computer(s) you specify
51. Everything - desktop search engine -- http://www.voidtools.com/ -- Very fast desktop search engine for files on your computer; very helpful to search, launch, and organize files on your computer
52. FileSeek -- http://www.fileseek.ca/Download/ -- Free and fast search engine for text inside files on your computer
53. Q-Dir -- http://www.softwareok.com/ -- Helpful two or more panel Windows Explorer-type program for file maintenance such as checking, copying, moving, and deleting files
54. DupKiller -- http://www.snapfiles.com/get/dupkiller.html -- Fast program to find all the duplicate files on your computer
55. Piriform Defragler -- http://www.piriform.com/defraggler -- Good defragger for your hard drives
56. Glary Utilities -- http://www.glaryutilities.com/ -- Helpful computer utilities to keep your computer running smoothly; free for home use
57. Advanced SystemCare Free -- http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html?Str=download -- Helpful computer utilities
58. JustZipIt -- http://free-backup.info/justzipit.html -- Simple zip/unzip file compression program
59. WinHTTrack -- http://www.httrack.com/ -- Will download all or part of an entire website for offline browsing and backing up
60. PageNest Free -- http://dailyfreeware.net/2009/08/20/pagenest-free-edition-321/ -- Website copier for offline reading and backing up
61. Clipboard Magic -- http://www.cybermatrix.com/clipboard_magic.html -- Allows saving multiple items to clipboard
62. Karen's Replicator -- http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp -- Freeware to backup your data from one location to another
63. ImgBurn -- http://ask-leo.com/imgburn_free_cddvd_burning_tool.html -- Freeware CD/DVD image burner with instructions
64. LogMeIn Free -- http://www.logmein.com (listed under Products) -- Allows you to control one computer through another over the Internet

CONCLUSION
• Many freeware programs are better than the corresponding commercial programs.
• http://alternativeto.net/ -- Lists freeware that works like commercial programs
• http://www.osalt.com/ -- Finds open source alternatives to commercial programs
• Free Apps -- http://www.freenew.net/ -- you select the freeware programs you want from a list and it installs all of them for you
• Portable Apps -- http://portableapps.com/ -- contains several good freeware apps and allows them to run from your flash drive so you can take them with you
• Many additional freeware and shareware programs
• http://www.softpedia.com/ -- Categories of freeware
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source -- Article and list of open source freeware
• http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/index.html -- List of freeware
• http://www.fsf.org/ -- The Free Software Foundation
• http://sourceforge.net/ -- The largest open source software (freeware) development site
• http://www.oldversion.com/ -- Old Versions of software
• http://www.oldapps.com/ -- Old Apps - older versions of freeware and some commercial apps
• To find many more such websites do a Google search for terms like "genealogy freeware" or "free software for family history" (without the quotes)

CLOSING PRAYER

RECORDING SECRETARY: June Morton

Members Attending: 43
Visitors: 10

TOTAL ATTENDANCE: 53