Genealogy Goals for 2008, and a few Legacy surprises

As I reflect on the fresh start a new year brings, I am excited about my personal genealogy goals, as well as the goals our company has for the future of Legacy Family Tree. (If you read closely, you will find some never-before-seen surprises.)

Find Samuel Miller BROWN
I have a few good leads on Samuel Miller BROWN, Asa Clark BROWN's younger brother. Asa BROWN is the main person in the Legacy Family Tree sample database. Using Legacy's Split Screen View, it has been easier to compare the known Samuel BROWN with the potential match I located in Nebraska. Click here for a side-by-side comparison of the two. The proven Samuel BROWN is on the left. The Samuel BROWN I located in Nebraska is on the right. What do you think? Are they a match?

To use Legacy's Split Screen View, click on the View menu, and click on Split Screen View.

Index 15,000 names in FamilySearch Indexing
On April 10, 2007, this Legacy News blog announced that the FamilySearch Indexing project was now available to the public. This is one of the most exciting advances in genealogy technology ever. Huge progress has been made, thanks to over 100,000 volunteers. Indexes of the 2.5 million rolls of microfilm will be made available to search at no cost at www.FamilySearch.org. Completed projects are currently accessible via http://labs.familysearch.org. This year I indexed 13,922 names (only 38/day). In 2008 I hope to reach 15,000. For more information about FamilySearch Indexing, or to volunteer, visit http://www.FamilySearchIndexing.org.

Try to enjoy the 2008 Legacy Genealogy Cruise to Europe
It's one of my mandatory job requirements. I have to travel to England, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Finland, Estonia, and Sweden with nearly 200 enthusiastic genealogists, including internationally-known speaker, DearMYRTLE. The toughest part of the job will be to decide which of the 13 restaurants to eat at. If you are considering joining us, be sure to bring two sizes of clothing - one for the beginning of the cruise, and a bigger size for the end. For more information, visit www.GenealogyCruise2008.com.

Make room in my office to hang one of Legacy 7's new wall charts
Although it is not yet available to the public, I had to test Legacy 7's new wall chart feature. I created a beautiful, full-color family descendancy chart that I gave to my parents and wife's parents for Christmas. I was stunned when I received the printed chart from our chart printing service. I knew it would look good, but honestly did not know it would look as great as it did. Click here for a small version of the chart.

Clean up and standardize my sources with Legacy 7's new source templates
If you are like me, then you too may have started doing genealogy without being the best recorder of sources. When I started entering my sources, I was not consistent about how I entered them. So I created some templates on paper to follow, which we published here to help other Legacy users attain consistency.

Then Elizabeth Mills published her book, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, a huge book (885 pages) with lots of good information, but it was still difficult to achieve the desired output. At the time of this writing, we are nearly done developing source templates that adhere to genealogical standards. I am so anxious to start using these templates for my own research I can hardly contain my excitement. With these new templates, you no longer have to wonder what information should be recorded for a source to be thorough. Legacy 7 gives you the exact fields and hints on how to fill them out. All you have to do is enter the information, and Legacy shows you what the bibliography, footnote/endnote, and subsequent footnote/endnote will look like.

Click here for a preview of what the citation and bibliography looks like using a death certificate found online (using Legacy 7, yet to be released).

Contain my excitement for Legacy 7's biggest new feature
If you thought wall charts and source templates were big, wait until you hear about Legacy 7's biggest new feature....We haven't leaked the news to anyone yet....and I didn't get permission to do it here....

There you have it - a few of my personal goals, a few company goals, and a couple of glimpses of what the future holds. From everyone at Millennia, we wish you a happy new year.

Comments

[Lee]

You know some of us are barely hanging on to the edge of our seat as it is, and now this...If I weren't old enough to be the parent here, I'd have a temper tantrum right about...

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I want Legacy7 nnnooooooooooowwww!

LOL...Happy New Year!

[Dan Jones]

When is Legacy 7 going to be released?

[Geoff Rasmussen]

Dan, we're working really hard to get it done in the next couple of months. It always seems to take longer than we'd hope, and we thank everyone for their patience.

[James McKane]

I would like to wish everyone at Legacy the Best for 2008! Gosh, you guys/gals do a GREAT job for us!

Keep it up...........while we await Legacy 7!

Jim

[Barbara Weed]

Gosh! Sourcing and Charting! and now you tell us there is more!!!!! How can you tease us like this.
Happy Happy New Year
Barb

[Dan Jones]

Thank You, Geoff. Legacy is the best program that I have used for my family history. I am really looking forward to Legacy 7. You guys do an awesome job! Thank you.

[MIke Roman]

Thanks for creating and continually improving such a powerful yet easy to use program. I am really looking forward to the sourcing templates for Legacy 7, and anything more will just be icing on the cake!

[Michele Simmons Lewis]

I am so looking forward to the new source templates! I can't wait to get all of my sources standardized. I know it will be a lot of work to go back and fix all my mistakes but it sounds like the templates will make it fairly painless.

michele

[Jeannine]

I love using Legacy! I've been a user since version 2.0 and I am really excited about the release of the newest version. If I had my way, FHCs would encourage patrons to use Legacy instead of the one they do. I have "converted" several!

Great job!

[Michele Simmons Lewis]

"If you thought wall charts and source templates were big, wait until you hear about Legacy 7's biggest new feature....We haven't leaked the news to anyone yet....and I didn't get permission to do it here...."

That is just plain cruel, Geoff!

michele :)

[Bob Rowe ~ MN]

I think about Legacy 7 every single day! I have wanted to send an email inquiring about its release date - then decided you were probably inundated with similar requests. I decided to just wait. We were all hoping for November or December. Now it is January and you are telling us a couple more months? I agree with the person above - I want it now!! :-)

. . . OK, I will wait.

A very satisfied customer,
Bob Rowe

[Helen Ayers]

Happy New Year and thanks to all at Millenia for your great programme and your prompt help when I have needed it. May your brick walls fall soon.
I too am waiting patiently (at least I am trying to be patient) for Legacy 7 but in the meantime - while I wait - I can do a bit more indexing. I have truly benefited from many indexes and databases so it helps to make me feel I am returning some of the past effort put in by others.
Have a great year.

[Sholom Simon]

So, why is it that you can tell us some features, but not the biggest one?

[Phil Husband]

Most of us can't wait until Legacy 7 comes out. However, we don't want the fiasco that FTM 2008 created. Do it right folks.
A Legacy user since version 2.

[Pete Ambler]

in the next edition, how about including the option of 'say' as a date identifier the way NEHGS often does? For example: 'say 1848' - 'Circa' and 'About' and 'Between' all imply a strong basis for estimation of the date; 'say' makes it clear that the person creating the record has made an assumption for timeline purposes or to separate generations, etc....

Love Legacy and want it to continue to be the best!

[Pat Peoples]

Just want to second all of the above comments. Legacy is an awesome genealogy program -- I don't know how you all manage to anticipate just about any and all questions or problems faced by your faithful followers! Can't wait for Legacy 7 (well, yes, I suppose I can) :-)

Pat Peoples

[Carol Amore]

Happy New Year Millenia staff!! Geoff I love your teaching style and am anxiously awaiting Legacy 7 and Deluxe version and you teaching tools. WOW what a motivator to get more active in the hunt!
You and the Millenia staff are a true inspiration.
Hugs to you all!
Carol Amore

[John Bayle]

Well, I for one am very glad that Legacy 7 will be adding significant charting capabilites. I also agree that Millenia should not create the "fiasco" with Legacy 7 that Ancestry has done, and continues to do, with what they call "FTM 2008". However, the chart that Geoff teased everyone with looked pretty impressive to me. I say clean up Legacy 7 now and make it nice and releasable by the end of January. Then add the rest of the new features to a subsequent release 7.5 that can come out a few months later.

Then watch the customers roll in as folks switch from FTM even faster than they have in the past. IMO Ancestry/TGN has blown it badly and poisoned their own market. There is a real opportunity for Millenia to "steal a march" on TGN and become the market leader, but only if they get signficant charting capability on the market with Legacy 7 before TGN fixes "FTM 2008".

[Chris Hill]

Yes, charting within Legacy 7 will be usefull - especially if it will work with large printers, as I have access to a HP 1050C which will printout to A0 size, or even to 841mm (33 inches for you in the USA) by as large as you need it to be.

As a developer, the one thing that I would like is a set of interfaces, so that my own programs can access the Legacy database without need to use a GEDCOM as an interface. I know that MS Access can open the Legacy database, so I suspect that it is actually a .mdb file format, even though called .ldb. But an interface and documentation would be much more useful.

[Tara Maggard]

Legacy is an awesome program and just seems to get better every time it's released. I'm still waiting on one feature I requested a while back...to be able to find a woman by married name (Ex. find all Mary's who married a Mr. Smith)Right now, that option doesn't exist in Detailed Search, but would be incredibly helpful. Please consider it for Legacy 7....please???

[Robin Peterson]

I am also pleased with Legacy and am looking forward to the update. My suggestion is more flexiblity with GPS coordinates. Keep up the good work.

[G. Lloyd]

In the new examples for sourcing will there be one for surname-driven sourcing rather than location or source-driven sourcing? It would be nice to be able to choose if you wish to use location or surname. I prefer to index sources by surname rather than location or source.

[Woody Trosper]

I second the request for a method to sort all female entries by their married names. This is the only feature of Family Tree Maker that I have truly missed. I know this can be done by sorting by the first name, then checking each woman's marriage data, but the simpler way would be great!

[A. Langford]

There was a post a few weeks back about Calendar Creator and the request that holidays be added. Your comment was that this might be added in the next version. I also would like to see holidays added, and in addition, would like the opportunity to send the calendar to my word processor as well as create a PDF file. We have this option for many of our reports. I like to personalize the dates, i.e. red color for my immediate family birthdays, blue color for our siblings, nieces, nephews etc. At the moment, I create my calendar in Word which makes doing this very easy. If this option were in Legacy, it would be wonderful. Thank you for your consideration.

[Kathy]

I second the developer who would like to use this information in my own files. I would love it if Legacy 7 can import/export GEDCOM 6.0 files so the files would automatically be in an XML format.

No matter what, I love this product and can't wait for the new version! :D

[Dave Beakhust]

I support the married name request, at least for searching and listing. It's something that is present in some other products.
There are those on my tree who have changed by deed poll, and I'd also like to select a different "AKA" as the "display name" for different stages of a person's life - automatically.

[Jill]

As a Software Test Analyst - I don't suppose this would allow me a sneak preview of Legacy 7? Please? I could be a Beta tester? Please nicely?

Like everyone else... I'll just keep waiting...

Luv ya work!

Jill