Mark Lang's Review of Family Tree Legends 1.0
By Mark Lang, BA (Computer Science)
December 2002 Issue of Australian Family Tree Connections
Family Tree Legends is produced by Pearl Street Software who is Cliff Shaw and Chris Shearer Cooper, and I have had a real pleasure in being able to work closely with Cliff who is one of the developers of this month’s review.
Background and System Requirements
Family Tree Legends will only work on a modern Windows platform running 95/98/ME/2000/XP. I have my XP system set up using the NTFS file system, so would automatically conclude that NT can be included even though not mentioned. Your computer will have to be running at a minimum of 166MHz, have at least 10MB HDD and 32 MB RAM. Most computers sold within the last 5 years will meet this criterion. In respect to the hard disk space and volatile memory issues, my usual recommendation is the more you can afford, the better the program will operate.
I used a Pentium 4, 2GHz computer with 256MB RAM for this test running Windows XP Home (SP1). The download file is a tad over 19MB, so unless you have a fast connection, I suggest maybe obtaining a download manager that can resume file transfer if your connection is lost. I used Download Accelerator Plus and had the file within 45 minutes on a 56K modem.
Installing
Installing the program is done first through downloading from a secured Internet site to a temporary directory on your hard drive. Double-clicking this file activates the install process, and if you accept the default install, is just a matter of following the bouncing ball, or in this case, the ‘Next’ button. Family Tree Legends installs to a default location in the C:Program FilesFamily Tree Legends directory, places an easily accessible link in the Start Menu and an icon link on your desktop.
When you start Family Tree Legends for each new database, you traverse the usual volley of setup screens. This enables the program to “actively” work in favour of you for the settings used.
Getting Started
If you’re truly starting from scratch, it couldn’t be easier: click File > New and give your file a unique name. Progressing through the following screens of the wizard enables you to decide if you want Real-Time Internet Backup, Real-Time Internet Publishing (not possible if the first option is ‘No’). Fill in the GenCircles File Options, decide the sharing options you would like to enable, and set the Privatisation options. Complete the GenCircles Registration (you must be registered first as this stage is verified via the Internet).
You can add your details either straight into the Home Page or via small wizards available from the menu system. Standard information is name, birth and death dates, and birth and death locations. Extra information about a person can be also added via the buttons located along the right hand side of the program. There are six buttons for six different types of information – Facts, Medical, Notes, Address, Names and Scrapbook. On the Facts page, you can select from 81 different events for each individual from adoption to will. The Medical page allows you to give a physical description, while Names allows you to add all those additional names we came to know our family by. Of course the Notes and Scrapbook pages are fairly self explanatory.
For those readers who are not starting from scratch and already have their details in another program and are seriously thinking of investing in another piece of software, you can import all your information via the GEDCOM1 process. Like many modern programs, this is now a painless procedure.
Searching for any particular person can be an issue at the best of times. In Family Tree Legends, I was impressed by the speed of the search engine – it was blindingly fast and accurate. The program allows you to search by either individual or by surname, and for more detailed searches in this version; it allows you search not just by name, but Christian name, surname, birth place and death place.
When you start your family history I have always been an advocate of citations from the very beginning; so I found the Sourcing facilities in Family Tree Legends extremely easy to use. Citing your sources is your way of confirming the authenticity of the information gleaned as well as its location should anyone wish to verify or dispute your claim. It even allows you to update, add or leave sources as are from a GEDCOM import.
Charts/Reports
Family Tree Legends has the standard charting facilities that would be required for the beginning family historian. They are the Ancestor, Descendant and Hourglass charts, all of which produce fast clean charts of the person who is primarily highlighted on the Home Page. Unlike programs like Legacy, Brothers Keeper, TMG4 or PAF, there is currently no way to select a person other than the highlighted primary individual.
This aside, you can modify the charts to suit your needs. You can adjust the horizontal or vertical attitude of the chart, number of generations shown, titles, footers, cross page boundaries can be eliminated if desired (depending on whether you are using single sheets or a large scale printing service). The number of facts that can be displayed numbers 84, so you shouldn’t be short of information to present. Facts can be either drag and dropped or clicked and moved to where desired. Box styles you can choose from are also plentiful. No longer are you restricted to simple B&W boxes; now you can choose from colour, shadows, background colours, by gender colour box border colour or even select from one of the 28 different border graphics included.
The fonts for various chart elements can be modified for font, size, colour, boldness, and italics. Background can be an image or straight colour and there are also 35 frame borders for your page to choose from. Lines between individuals can have optional colour, as can special relationships highlighted between two individuals. Family Tree Legends also gives you the ability to save your options to files so you can select from different settings without the need to remember or keep changing them.
There are 4 report types at present – Ancestor, Descendant, Individual Timeline and Family Group Sheet. All these reports are displayed to the screen. You can create one, and then change to the others and the report/chart is simply redrawn without the need to re-identify the individual.
What’s Selling Family Tree Legends!
To release a new piece of genealogical software in today’s market is either brilliant marketing or professional suicide. To avoid the latter, you will have to incorporate at least something that no-one else have thought of yet. So what is Family Tree Legends offering that we can’t do without? Well this is what the marketing blurb is posting:
Four features are included:
1) Real-Time Internet Backup.
2) Real-Time Internet Publishing.
3) SmartMatching.
4) WebFacts.
Internet Backup
These four features alone are not really anything new per se, but collectively under a single application – and a genealogical application at that – will invigorate the wheels of the industry, and only time will tell how it goes. More and more programs are integrating their programs to and with the Internet. Using the Internet as a backup medium is nothing short of new; it truly has been around for many years. With the latest sales of computers incorporating CD-R burners as a standard inclusive item, there really isn’t any need to require Internet Backup services. It states “In case of a computer disaster, you can rest easy knowing that your family history is safe on our secure servers.” Believe it or not, a server is still a computer, and I have seen servers crash and burn many times. Disaster Recovery for an Internet Server is no different for them than it is for you and I. For a recount on backing up data, refer AFTC September 2001, page 36-37. I admit, having a computer go down on you even at the worst of times is daunting enough, but normally if you have your own disaster recovery program, you can be back up and running within a day and with the majority of your system intact. In order for this feature to be effective, you are required to be on the Internet when the Family Tree Legends program is active.
Internet Publishing
Placing your genealogical information onto the Internet is nothing new either. Some programs align themselves with particular businesses. Family Tree Legends uses GenCircles.com and will become better known as the program becomes well known. Most Australians will be wary of uploading to an American server, thinking that they won’t reach their target audience. What the family historian fails to do is to think outside the square we live in. Regardless of where the server is located, genealogy and family history is a world hobby with no boundaries, so the geography of the server is really irrelevant. The more Australians and Europeans use services like GenCircles, will compound our family history searches manyfold.
SmartMatching
SmartMatching is the most innovative Internet Feature in Family Tree Legends. Utilizing your existing Internet Connection and the millions of published files at GenCircles.com, you can instantaneously search other published family history files for information about your ancestors. You can then incorporate this information into your file.
WebFacts
Many people think genealogy is simply about gathering data about ancestors’ birth, deaths, marriages, etc. But, genealogy is far more than that. It’s about understanding new cultures, times, and places. Family Tree Legends helps you learn about the information surrounding specific individuals in your family history and incorporate it into your file through the WebFacts Internet Feature. You can view WebFacts for surnames, places, dates and events.
What is not sold but works in favour of the customer is the program’s stability. When I was speaking to Cliff, he said, “One thing we're proud of that we don't get any credit for (because most don't understand what it means) is that we are the only program that uses a transactional file system. This basically means that our file system is considered ACID safe (a database term) and cannot suffer from a lot of the file crashes that plague other programs. Other programs will just begin writing to their files... if the writing doesn't finish (because of a program, OS, or hardware crash), the file is almost definitely ruined. With our program, we use transactions to protect our users from this. We first write to an area of the file that you could say is a "safe area", having no effects on the file. Only once the data has been completely written and is verified does the program now flag that data as committed (and it does it all at once by writing just one byte to the hard drive). All of this means that you can update your file all you want while hitting the reset button over and over without ever breaking anything. You may the last change (because it didn't commit), but you will never crash the file. Try doing that with any other program.”
Kudos and yet to come...
In the process of reviewing this product in such an early development stage, I received a lot of support from its developers. As such, I was able to relay some of its smaller misgivings, which were rectified immediately, and within a few days, the program was updated to reflect those changes. So what changes did I suggest? Apart from some application behaviours, I had the dates and measurement system modified to accommodate Australian (and to a more universal degree, European) market.
Most will remember my thoughts on the navigation process in Family Tree Maker 10 (AFTC September 2002, page 37, Overview – 2nd paragraph). Because Family Tree Legends is “loosely” based on FTM, so too was a similar feature of navigating with the extra information buttons. You would begin on a family page, and progressively click through the Facts, Medical, Notes, Address, Names and Scrapbook inputting information as you go. To get back to the family page required clicking the Back button six times. I am pleased that Cliff and Chris were able to implement my suggestion of correcting this navigational problem (yet included the option of keeping it the same way should the user so desire), so when you click the back button, you now go immediately to the family page of the last person visited.
“As for future enhancements,” announced Cliff Shaw from Pearl Street Software, “we're going to make people's heads spin. We are going to put out at least one major enhancement per week (with lots of little enhancements as well). By Christmas, we will have auto-complete done for place names (tries to guess the place name based on the first few characters you enter) and your Navigate ideas, Master Place, Source, Repository, etc windows that allow you to view all the places, etc in your file and edit them. Then we'll be adding an Individual List Report. After that, we'll probably start rolling out all sorts of reports we don't have yet, even PDF export support.”
So by the time you read this article, in just version 1, Family Tree Legends will have come a long way to give the customer a quality product that is easy to navigate, is rock solid and won’t crash at the first time of trouble.
Overview
In a nutshell, Family Tree Legends is an extremely easy program to use. It is quick and responsive to instructions when executed. Visually, it looks like a hybrid version of Family Tree Maker and Brothers Keeper wrapped into one. However, Family Tree Legends will evolve into its own persona as it grows. The icons used (24-bit colour) are refreshingly clean and clear and blend comfortably into the XP model.
With the Real-Time Internet Backup and Publishing, the user now has the option to have their data saved to a location where it is retrievable if you have something nasty happen to your computer. Other programs that I have reviewed either give you the option to save your data along the way (definitely not a true database) and usually to backup your data to a backup file when you leave the program (and I certainly hope you have not turned this feature off in your program options). What happens then? Do you backup this file to another medium? Most answers that are truthful will be no.
With Real-Time Internet Backup, the most information that can ever be lost in the event of a disaster is at the most 2 minutes work, and this is all due to the transactional file system Cliff described above; this has to be the best recovery/loss ratio I have seen in a long time.
In addition to all this, Family Tree Legends also has a wonderful PDF manual with plenty of graphics to help you along the way. Another wonderful feature that I have run out of room to describe in more detail is the ability to upgrade while on-line.
This program is at version 1 and this must be remembered when using it. There are a lot of improvements that can be made to Family Tree Legends, especially in some of the areas noted above, but as it stands, it seems to be an extremely stable product. There is a lot happening in development, so new features will be evolving quickly. As such, I will be keeping a close eye on its advancements, and informing you in What’s New of any significant changes. This is definitely the program to watch over the coming months.
Lastly, at the last minute before completing this review, the program was updated with 3 more functionalities that allow greater navigation using the Navigation window, Auto-Complete for places/locations, and is now capable of viewing reports in a word processor or save them to an RTF file. Hence this review now carries the 1.06 designation.
So how do you get a copy of this great new program – I’m glad you asked. By the time you read this, a free 30-day demo will be available. After that, there is the pay over the Internet with the secure server. If you prefer not using your card on the Net, you can obtain a copy from here in Australia through Gould Genealogy. Paying by Internet is a direct download, and through Gould’s you will receive the program on a CD.
This review appeared in the Computers and Genealogy section in the December 2002 edition of Australian Family Tree Connections.
Copyright 2001, Mark Lang & Australian Family Tree Connections. Reprinted with permission.
Mark had this to say in a followup review:
In my last review on this first release product, I was using an extremely early piece of software that was due to hit the market in December 2002. I received an enormous amount of help from its two Pearl Street Software developers, Cliff Shaw and Chris Shearer Cooper. And since this review, the communication lines have been onward going; I have received each update as it is released through the technological marvels of their product with its ingenious Internet detection and downloading the latest update from the Pearl Street servers. This way I always have the latest product available.
The original review was based on v1.06, so in 20 updates, what has changed?
A lot has been happening in the way of stability and functionality. General features include faster navigation, index viewing and searching, report and chart generation. There is a much improved context menu in the Navigate window, Date Parsing and Viewing, and sorting children by birth. Additional data items include the ability to attach notes and scrapbook items to facts, sources and citations, notes to repositories and sources to aliases. Eight new reports are included along with the ability to export reports as RTF files or you can view the report in your word processor. The Birthdays & Anniversaries and Timeline reports have all been improved. There have been extensive improvements to GEDCOM export, the Scrapbook feature and SmartMatching. Currently features being worked on are LDS support with reports, a TempleReady export, To-Do List and master Place, Source and Repository Lists.
Both Cliff and Chris have spent countless hours testing and re-testing the program (with the aid also from a dedicated group of Beta Testers). When I first looked at v1.06, being so new, obviously it had some teething problems. Twenty updates later, v1.26 is almost impossible to crash, and if it does, both Cliff and Chris work actively on fixing the problem as well. In all cases, it never results in your data being corrupted.
How can this be you ask? Cliff and Chris gave me a sneak peek at their server setup to avoid that inevitable crash. They take enormous steps to make certain that a crash does not occur. All data is stored on 2 separate servers on 2 separate RAID 1 mirrored arrays. This means that 4 hard drives would simultaneously have to crash. These are top of the line SCSI hard drives that have protections and fault-monitoring built in. They have a mean-time between failures of over 1 million hours. Even in the event the inevitable could happen (including the data center being involved in a fire, flood or bomb, etc), Pearl Street Software makes frequent (daily) backups to an additional off-site location. In the future, they are going to have the data mirrored in real-time to multiple geographic locations. What this means to you as a user, is that the data you upload is extremely safe with added protection included.
The future of Family Tree Legends certainly looks bright and secure.
Copyright 2002, Mark Lang & Australian Family Tree Connections. Reprinted with permission.
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