Genealogy SW with Good Photo Meta-Data Management

[Dave Bakken]

I am new getting into geneology, and have done some reading, but need
some advice on software. I am of 100% Norwegian descent, and am in
Norway until June 2005 on sabbatical, and hope to visit a number of
relatives (and already have done so). Also, my wife is not working
this year outside the home, so has a lot of time to do genealogy work
and especially scanning in all our years of family photos that we have
been meaning to get into photo albums for years….

We appreciate recommendations on what software would meet our needs,
and what features discussed below are essential or at least very
helpful in practice.

As a computer scientist, some very obvious features involve great
meta-data support, but I do not know how well they are supported in
different software today, and it is not obvious in reading their
feature lists for Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, etc. (Meta-data is
"data about data" FYI.) For example, if I enter a photo, for each
person in the photo, at the least I would like to have a link to that
photo from each person's entry. Only one copy of the photo should be
stored, and in a given person's entry I should be able to look at the
list of photos and click on links, perhaps sorted by date. Some more
advanced capabilities seem fairly obvious, too. For example,
automatically storing the date of the photo along with estimated error
margin in the dating of that photo (sometimes you know to the day or
month, other times maybe guessing to within a decade). Storing text
and other info about the photo, including location, names of people in
the photo, the occasion of the photo, etc. would be nice, ideally in a
standardized way that could be shared across genealogy SW. Also, it
would be really nice (but probably nobody supports it) to be able to
go into each photo, and annotate who each person is somehow. Not just
"back row, 3rd from right" but maybe even tracking with a mouse an
outline for each person, then when you clicked on the photo link from
a person's entry that person would be outlined in perhaps a red line
or maybe even the rest of the photo is ghosted out (until you choose
to remove the ghosting for that viewing).

Other capabilities are no doubt possible regarding smart managing of
photos in genealogy programs. I guess I am making an assumption here,
that entering a family's history of photos is an activity that is part
and parcel to genealogy. Stated otherwise, it would be sad (even
tragic) to have to get an advanced photo management software package
to have nice photo management, because it seems that you would lose so
much useful genealogical information that could be captured if the
genealogy and photo management were integrated into the same package.
But maybe today's software does not support this very well yet. I
profoundly appreciate any information along these lines.

Finally, ancestry.com offers different paid services with monthly
fees. Are these worth getting for someone who hopes to do a lot of
digging in the next half year? Or is everything already there via
familysearch.org or other free sites?

Thanks,
Dave

[Ron Parsons]

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Dave Bakken) wrote:

I am new getting into geneology, and have done some reading, but need
some advice on software. I am of 100% Norwegian descent, and am in
Norway until June 2005 on sabbatical, and hope to visit a number of
relatives (and already have done so). Also, my wife is not working
this year outside the home, so has a lot of time to do genealogy work
and especially scanning in all our years of family photos that we have
been meaning to get into photo albums for years….

We appreciate recommendations on what software would meet our needs,
and what features discussed below are essential or at least very
helpful in practice.

As a computer scientist, some very obvious features involve great
meta-data support, but I do not know how well they are supported in
different software today, and it is not obvious in reading their
feature lists for Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, etc. (Meta-data is
"data about data" FYI.) For example, if I enter a photo, for each
person in the photo, at the least I would like to have a link to that
photo from each person's entry. Only one copy of the photo should be
stored, and in a given person's entry I should be able to look at the
list of photos and click on links, perhaps sorted by date. Some more
advanced capabilities seem fairly obvious, too. For example,
automatically storing the date of the photo along with estimated error
margin in the dating of that photo (sometimes you know to the day or
month, other times maybe guessing to within a decade). Storing text
and other info about the photo, including location, names of people in
the photo, the occasion of the photo, etc. would be nice, ideally in a
standardized way that could be shared across genealogy SW. Also, it
would be really nice (but probably nobody supports it) to be able to
go into each photo, and annotate who each person is somehow. Not just
"back row, 3rd from right" but maybe even tracking with a mouse an
outline for each person, then when you clicked on the photo link from
a person's entry that person would be outlined in perhaps a red line
or maybe even the rest of the photo is ghosted out (until you choose
to remove the ghosting for that viewing).

Other capabilities are no doubt possible regarding smart managing of
photos in genealogy programs. I guess I am making an assumption here,
that entering a family's history of photos is an activity that is part
and parcel to genealogy. Stated otherwise, it would be sad (even
tragic) to have to get an advanced photo management software package
to have nice photo management, because it seems that you would lose so
much useful genealogical information that could be captured if the
genealogy and photo management were integrated into the same package.
But maybe today's software does not support this very well yet. I
profoundly appreciate any information along these lines.

Finally, ancestry.com offers different paid services with monthly
fees. Are these worth getting for someone who hopes to do a lot of
digging in the next half year? Or is everything already there via
familysearch.org or other free sites?

Thanks,
Dave

I'm sending via separate email an example of what you seek that comes
from Reunion for Macintosh.

--
Ron Parsons

[Gjest]

NONE of the Genealogy Programs do what you want to do with photos.

You will have to use a photo management software or create on in
Access or some other database software. Or for a fee, I will create
one for you.

Ancestry.com for people in Foreign Countries especially is a rip off.
They cover very few things outside the US.

Plus, they are notorious for continuing billing even after they have
been asked to stop.

I don't know if they do it but you might see if your local library can
or will subscribe to Heritage Quest if you are looking for US
information.

Otherwise good luck.

[john]

Dave Bakken wrote:

I am new into genealogy, and as part of this my wife and I will scan
in decades of family photos. We will be getting a scanner very soon
as part of this. We hope to pay not more than about US $500, and
cheaper would be better if it is good enough. We hope to get it in
Norway (where we are for a year), but if a must-have model is
available only in the US we can get it (and then get the right power
adaptor for European power, or a voltage transformer).

If you are considering buying in Norway, you might find the following

site useful as an indicator of what is available and the price:
http://www.kelkoo.com/ then select Norway.

Don't forget the software packages included with a scanner bought in
Norway might be different from those with the same scanner in the USA
and could also be localised and in Norwegian, so you should check carefully.

There may be more choice in Sweden - but there could be import duties.

You might want to consider taking a US PC keyboard (or set of key
overlays if you aren't taking a portable PC with you.

Dell Norway will probably sell you a PC with US keyboard, manuals, etc
(I assume this is correct since Dell France have done so for me - but
you won't necessarily be able to order off the web site). Not sure that
extends to peripherals.

[Shelley Crawford]

"Dave Bakken" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

I am new getting into geneology, and have done some reading, but need
some advice on software. I am of 100% Norwegian descent, and am in
Norway until June 2005 on sabbatical, and hope to visit a number of
relatives (and already have done so). Also, my wife is not working
this year outside the home, so has a lot of time to do genealogy work
and especially scanning in all our years of family photos that we have
been meaning to get into photo albums for years..

We appreciate recommendations on what software would meet our needs,
and what features discussed below are essential or at least very
helpful in practice.

As a computer scientist, some very obvious features involve great
meta-data support, but I do not know how well they are supported in
different software today, and it is not obvious in reading their
feature lists for Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, etc. (Meta-data is
"data about data" FYI.) For example, if I enter a photo, for each
person in the photo, at the least I would like to have a link to that
photo from each person's entry. Only one copy of the photo should be
stored, and in a given person's entry I should be able to look at the
list of photos and click on links, perhaps sorted by date. Some more
advanced capabilities seem fairly obvious, too. For example,
automatically storing the date of the photo along with estimated error
margin in the dating of that photo (sometimes you know to the day or
month, other times maybe guessing to within a decade). Storing text
and other info about the photo, including location, names of people in
the photo, the occasion of the photo, etc. would be nice, ideally in a
standardized way that could be shared across genealogy SW. Also, it
would be really nice (but probably nobody supports it) to be able to
go into each photo, and annotate who each person is somehow. Not just
"back row, 3rd from right" but maybe even tracking with a mouse an
outline for each person, then when you clicked on the photo link from
a person's entry that person would be outlined in perhaps a red line
or maybe even the rest of the photo is ghosted out (until you choose
to remove the ghosting for that viewing).

Other capabilities are no doubt possible regarding smart managing of
photos in genealogy programs. I guess I am making an assumption here,
that entering a family's history of photos is an activity that is part
and parcel to genealogy. Stated otherwise, it would be sad (even
tragic) to have to get an advanced photo management software package
to have nice photo management, because it seems that you would lose so
much useful genealogical information that could be captured if the
genealogy and photo management were integrated into the same package.
But maybe today's software does not support this very well yet. I
profoundly appreciate any information along these lines.

Finally, ancestry.com offers different paid services with monthly
fees. Are these worth getting for someone who hopes to do a lot of
digging in the next half year? Or is everything already there via
familysearch.org or other free sites?

Thanks,
Dave

I'm trying out different packages at the moment, and am impressed with how
Genbox handles multimedia. I think that aside from annotating within the
photo, it does most if not all of the things you list above.

You can create a media library in Genbox that links to the original pictures
(with optional relative referencing so you can move pictures to a new
location without lots of work updating links). The media library includes a
reference name, title (for use in reports), caption (for use in reports),
description field, creation date field, drop down list for subject and
setting type, plus any number of tick box flags that you can define
yourself. It also has a field for where the hard copy of the document is
stored. You can link image to people, places or events in your database, and
they are searchable that way too. Note though that it won't display GIF
images, but JPEG and TIF work fine. It also claims to take video, audio and
other assorted file types but I haven't experimented with that.

It doesn't have any image editing capability. You would have to edit your
images elsewhere.

I still haven't decided if I want to use Genbox myself, but it's media
capabilities are by far the best of any of the programs I've tried.

Shelley

[Ralph F. De Witt]

Ron Parsons wrote:

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Dave Bakken) wrote:

I am new getting into geneology, and have done some reading, but need
some advice on software. I am of 100% Norwegian descent, and am in
Norway until June 2005 on sabbatical, and hope to visit a number of
relatives (and already have done so). Also, my wife is not working
this year outside the home, so has a lot of time to do genealogy work
and especially scanning in all our years of family photos that we have
been meaning to get into photo albums for years….

We appreciate recommendations on what software would meet our needs,
and what features discussed below are essential or at least very
helpful in practice.

As a computer scientist, some very obvious features involve great
meta-data support, but I do not know how well they are supported in
different software today, and it is not obvious in reading their
feature lists for Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, etc. (Meta-data is
"data about data" FYI.) For example, if I enter a photo, for each
person in the photo, at the least I would like to have a link to that
photo from each person's entry. Only one copy of the photo should be
stored, and in a given person's entry I should be able to look at the
list of photos and click on links, perhaps sorted by date. Some more
advanced capabilities seem fairly obvious, too. For example,
automatically storing the date of the photo along with estimated error
margin in the dating of that photo (sometimes you know to the day or
month, other times maybe guessing to within a decade). Storing text
and other info about the photo, including location, names of people in
the photo, the occasion of the photo, etc. would be nice, ideally in a
standardized way that could be shared across genealogy SW. Also, it
would be really nice (but probably nobody supports it) to be able to
go into each photo, and annotate who each person is somehow. Not just
"back row, 3rd from right" but maybe even tracking with a mouse an
outline for each person, then when you clicked on the photo link from
a person's entry that person would be outlined in perhaps a red line
or maybe even the rest of the photo is ghosted out (until you choose
to remove the ghosting for that viewing).

Other capabilities are no doubt possible regarding smart managing of
photos in genealogy programs. I guess I am making an assumption here,
that entering a family's history of photos is an activity that is part
and parcel to genealogy. Stated otherwise, it would be sad (even
tragic) to have to get an advanced photo management software package
to have nice photo management, because it seems that you would lose so
much useful genealogical information that could be captured if the
genealogy and photo management were integrated into the same package.
But maybe today's software does not support this very well yet. I
profoundly appreciate any information along these lines.

Finally, ancestry.com offers different paid services with monthly
fees. Are these worth getting for someone who hopes to do a lot of
digging in the next half year? Or is everything already there via
familysearch.org or other free sites?

Thanks,
Dave

I'm sending via separate email an example of what you seek that comes
from Reunion for Macintosh.

I would recommend Gramps the best Linux Geneology program available. The

program is under active development. It is simply the best program out
there.
--
Yours,
Ralph.
I have installed PCLinuxOS NV-P7a Register Linux User 168814
ICQ #49993234 AIM & Yahoo ralphfdewitt Jabber & Skype ralphdewitt
GPG Public Key available at http://www.keyserver.net
Key fingerprint = DE4D 6225 A558 A2B9 8DEC 7E94 BB6F 435C 0DE2 085D 03E7
Kernel version 2.6.7-2.tmb.6mdk
Current Linux uptime: 2 days 11 hours 14 minutes.

[Dave Bakken]

Wow, Shelly, thanks for the info! GenBox looks very good!

It did did not seem to have one useful feature, due maybe to its
origination outside the US and/or its maybe targetting professional
genealogists. From what I have read of RootsMagic, FamilyTreeMaker,
and even the LDS' freebie PAF, I think that these programs seem to
have hooks into all kinds of online genealogy sources (at least ones
in the US) that let you do lots of searches from within the program.
Given that both my wife and I are novices, that could really help I
think. Would it make sense to use GenBox for the main genealogy
entry, but then in another window have another program to do the
searching (PAF, a commercial one, or maybe just a web browser pointed
to familysearch.org or whatnot)?

Thanks,
Dave

"Shelley Crawford" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

I'm trying out different packages at the moment, and am impressed with how
Genbox handles multimedia. I think that aside from annotating within the
photo, it does most if not all of the things you list above.

You can create a media library in Genbox that links to the original pictures
(with optional relative referencing so you can move pictures to a new
location without lots of work updating links). The media library includes a
reference name, title (for use in reports), caption (for use in reports),
description field, creation date field, drop down list for subject and
setting type, plus any number of tick box flags that you can define
yourself. It also has a field for where the hard copy of the document is
stored. You can link image to people, places or events in your database, and
they are searchable that way too. Note though that it won't display GIF
images, but JPEG and TIF work fine. It also claims to take video, audio and
other assorted file types but I haven't experimented with that.

It doesn't have any image editing capability. You would have to edit your
images elsewhere.

I still haven't decided if I want to use Genbox myself, but it's media
capabilities are by far the best of any of the programs I've tried.

Shelley

[Shelley Crawford]

"Dave Bakken" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Wow, Shelly, thanks for the info! GenBox looks very good!

It did did not seem to have one useful feature, due maybe to its
origination outside the US and/or its maybe targetting professional
genealogists. From what I have read of RootsMagic, FamilyTreeMaker,
and even the LDS' freebie PAF, I think that these programs seem to
have hooks into all kinds of online genealogy sources (at least ones
in the US) that let you do lots of searches from within the program.
Given that both my wife and I are novices, that could really help I
think. Would it make sense to use GenBox for the main genealogy
entry, but then in another window have another program to do the
searching (PAF, a commercial one, or maybe just a web browser pointed
to familysearch.org or whatnot)?

Thanks,
Dave

Personally, I wouldn't bother with online links from within the program,
particularly as you said you are of 100% Norwegian descent. I haven't
counted how many programs have links to Norwegian sites but I'm guessing not
many!

Have a look at http://www.cyndislist.com - you should be able to find more relevant
resources on there than any software package could hope to offer, and
they're generally pretty easy to search. But be aware that not everything
you need is sitting waiting for you on the internet!!

I'd suggest using the site to find some 'getting started' guides, which
should have good advice on basic procedures to follow.

If you still want software to help you with searching, have a look at
Gensmarts.

Shelley