GENEALOGY SIG NOTES January, 2007

by Dave Howell, Computer Users of Erie

 

The group entertained answers to the "brain teaser" sent by Bill that he found in the Eastman Newsletter. It goes as follows:

 

On June 1st, five couples who live in Trumbull will celebrate their
wedding anniversaries. Their surnames are Johnstone, Parker, Watson,
Graves, and Shearer. The husbands' given names are Russell, Douglas,
Charles, Peter, and Everett. The wives' given names are Elaine, Joyce,
Marcia, Elizabeth, and Mildred. Keep in mind that no two couples have
been married the same number of years. From the clues given, try to
determine the husband and wife that make up each couple and the number
of years they have been married.

1.      Joyce has not been married as long as Charles or the Parkers,
but longer than Douglas or the Johnstones.

2.      Elizabeth has been married twice as long as the Watsons, but
only half as long as Russell.

3.      The Shearers have been married ten years longer than Peter and
ten years less than Marcia.

4.      Douglas and Mildred have been married for 25 years less than the
Graves who, having been married for 30 years, are the couple who have
been married the longest.

5.      Neither Elaine nor the Johnstones have been married the shortest
amount of time.

6.      Everett has been married for 25 years.

Using only the information provided above, you need to determine which
husband belongs to which wife, their surname and the number of years
that each couple has been married. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it. Yes
- that's what I thought too. But as good genealogists, we need to
remember to not make any assumptions an don't read anything into the
facts. There is only one solution to this set of facts and I'm happy to
say that the 5th grade teacher gave me an "A+ Excellent - 100%" when I
submitted my work.

If you think you'll need a little assistance, you can View & Print a Logic Grid
for this Anniversary Brain Teaser at
http://www.genealogyworldwide.com/Img/logic_anniversary_puzzle.gif.

 

And The Answer Is . . .
— Russell & Joyce Shearer have been married for 20 years
— Douglas & Mildred Watson have been married for 5 years
— Charles & Marcia Graves have been married for 30 years
— Peter & Elizabeth Johnstone have been married for 10 years
— Everett & Elaine Parker have been married for 25 years
 

 

Among the first problem areas we discussed was the "finicky behavior of Hadley's computer" when he tried to enter a "place of birth" into Ancestry.com that caused his computer to shut down after an error message appeared. The group gave him some suggestions on how to avoid the problem. He admitted that his system perhaps lacked the resources to handle the Internet connection to Ancestry.com and that he didn't have an installed genealogy program with which to download GED files and related data from Ancestry.com.

 

Speaking of Ancestry.com, Greg was asking why he couldn't open Ancestry.com through his Legacy 6.0 program like the rest of us could do. Further discussion revealed that he uses Mozilla's Firefox browser. Legacy 6.0 won't work through FireFox - only through Internet Explorer. Bingo! 

 

We opened a family data file that Hadley saved on a floppy he recorded at Blasco Library and converted the data to a Legacy file so that we could examine the contents of some of his family. Whenever Legacy "saves" a data file, it is converted to a compressed file. His file on the floppy was compressed so that when we opened it, the file was "de-compressed" to a sizeable file that takes up much more room on a disk. Since we could not re-save the opened file back onto his floppy, we left it in Dave's computer until such time Hadley is able to obtain Legacy 6.0 or Family Tree Maker on his computer. We also suggested that Hadley try using FamilySearch.com to record his family data.

 

When Dave was "exploring" Legacy 6.0, he noticed that Legacy announced a new Progeny genealogy software called, "Map My Family Tree" designed to work with Legacy 6.0. We checked this program out to see if was worth the $39.95 to obtain it. Many thought much of the capabilities of the software were already available through the basic Legacy 6.0 program itself. The new software simply put together the "locations" of our ancestral family on geographical maps that showed us where our ancestors had been over time.

 

Speaking of maps, if you are looking for specialized maps, current or otherwise, it was suggested you go to www.livesearch.com for a long list of mapping sources.

 

Questions were raised about "What Happens When We Hit a Brick Wall" in our family research? The new Legacy 6.0 has a provision called a "Research Guidance" tab on its home page. Clicking on this tab leads you to several resources which include: Timeline, Preliminary Survey, Suggested Sources, To-Do List, along with videos that can help you explore possible ways over that "brick wall."

 

We continued the discussion, started at the last SIG meeting, about where we can store our family data and narratives that we sweated long and hard to create. Going online was one idea offered. More and more sites are becoming available for this purpose. But how permanent are those sites and how safe is it? Yes, some sites do encrypt your data but how long will those sites be in business? CDs and DVDs are no longer thought to be as long-lived as they once stated. And we all know what can happen to magnetic media such as floppies and hard drives when exposed to magnetic and electric fields. Someone brought up flash drives. Did you know that they have tiny batteries in them and that those batteries do lose power over time and usually cannot be replaced? 

 

A suggestion was made by Greg that when he fills up a flash drive with data and photos, he transfers the data to CD, DVD or other storage device and re-uses the flash drive. That way, if he can lose some of the data but not all of it. They problem still remains, though - there doesn't seem to be a "foolproof, permanent" means to store digital data!

 

Dave questioned the group about "how can we best serve the needs of our members" who are at vastly different stages and levels in their genealogical pursuits? While observing this Genealogy SIG in action tonight, he concluded that we leave our meetings open for questions, problem-solving, and mutual exploration - pretty much as we've being doing in the past. Yes, in the past, we methodically focused on finding the best genealogy software and the better genealogical research sites. But having done that, we are now branching out into our individual quests for our ancestors. The best way to serve the cause now is to leave the door open for maximum exchange of information and ideas!

 

The next session is scheduled for 7 PM, Tuesday, February 6th at Dave's house.