Research Tips

• My own list of genealogy standards
• Here are my tips for getting started.
• Julian vs. Gregorian Calendars
• Social Security Number Explanation
• Soundex Codes
• Terminology Sites
  • Defining Cousins

Organization idea:

Try organizing your genealogy contacts with

• LifeLines -- yes, the genealogy program -- may be used to store contact information on individuals. I don't yet know of a report program for LifeLines to print address books, but eventually someone (perhaps me) will write one. The only people this wouldn't work for is contacts who aren't in one's genealogy database.

  More on the syntax later...(20 Aug 2003)

• Palm Desktop, for MacOS or Windows. You can create a Surname category in which you can put all the surnames a person is interested in, separated with commas. Then in the list view, you can specify to view just those with a certain word in the Surname field. Drawbacks: doesn't let you store anniversaries in a way to let them be synchronized with the calendar.
• People Book 2.1.1. Mac-only. It may be found at ZDNet's Macdownload.com

or

• Now Contact 3.6.5, Mac-only, 30-day fully functioning demo available from Qualcomm (Now Software), under Products

I had been looking for an address book type of program that could link people to multiple surnames and allow a view of just the people associated with a particular surname. I was beginning to think I'd have to do this myself using a database program. If anyone knows of other programs that can do this, please let me know and I'll mention them here.

I'm just starting to use People Book, so I don't know yet what else it can do besides just list people. Customizable exporting so I could make mailing lists would be nice. [I'm not being paid to say this.] Now Contact Pro 4.x which shipped with Performa Macs a few years ago appears to have dropped this multiple-category-membership feature. Now Software (www.nowsoftware.com) has folded and been bought by Qualcomm.

Click on the Products link at the Qualcomm site (that www.nowsoftware.com takes you to). There you'll find a link to download the Now Contact 3.6.5 demo. Keywords NCTMAC and ContactMac can be used with the search feature at Qualcomm's website to find troubleshooting tips.

Now Contact 3.6.5 supports e-mail addresses via Internet Config. It will even allow addressing of e-mail to multiple contacts. (Remember to use Shift to select a range and Command to select disjoint entries in a list.)

Some tips gleaned from the site:

• To optimize the contacts file (eliminate unused space which can build up over time) hold down the option key when choosing Close from the File menu and continue to hold the option key until the wait cursor goes away.
• To enter spouses names, such as Joe and Terry Graden as a contact, press [Option-Space] instead of just [Space] between words that are to be grouped.