Louis Kessler’s Behold Blog

Well, I got a few things out of the way and my slate has now been cleared until RootsTech in February. So now I can concentrate again on getting Version 1.1 of Behold out before the end of the year.

These are major changes that I’m making for 1.1. I think they are necessary and innovative, but it’s a radical departure from the way any existing genealogy program currently displays data. I’m hoping (and expecting) that people will embrace the new format, but I won’t know for sure until I release it and get feedback. I think I’m going down a one way street. I’ve convinced myself that this has to be done, and I’d be crushed if it became necessary to revert back.

So what is the “this” that I’m talking about. Well, there are several departures from the norm here.

First, I’m getting rid of the “family” data section. Currently, Behold displays partners together. One partner comes first, then the other partner, and then comes their data together. The latter is traditionally called the “family” data. It includes information about the two of them together, such as their engagement, marriage, residence, children, divorce and family notes.

What will be in Version 1.1 is that the family information will be repeated and added into both partners’ data. This is necessary to be able to see the joint events in each person’s timeline. The context needs to be there, and the context isn’t there when the information is separated. You may think this will cause duplication, but in this case it is good, as the events will now be in the context of the lifetime of each of the two individuals, allowing customization of that information for each person.

This first step will result in the formation of event timelines for each individual. You will immediately be able to see each person’s life clearly displayed for you.

Second, these individual timelines will incorporate the important events of significant others. Spouses, children, parents, siblings, in-laws, grandchildren, grandparents, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces will all be included into each individual timeline. The births, marriages, deaths and certain other selected events are important to the research of any individual, as these events shaped their lives and influenced what happened to them. Where these events are in a person’s timeline gives you clues and insights, such as easily seeing that a person emigrated shortly after their parents passed away to join their older brother who emigrated earlier.

Third, at certain important events in each person’s life, the significant others who were living at that time will be listed. When a person is born, you’ll want to know that they had 3 older siblings. When someone is married, it’s important to know if their parents and in-laws were living and maybe attended the wedding and which siblings may have been there. Were any siblings married at the time? Were there any nephews or nieces who may have been the child in a picture of the wedding party that you’ve never identified. And at a person’s death, those who were living will be displayed. You’ll be able to match these people up to those listed in the obituary and try to figure out why certain people were or weren’t listed. All of these are wonderful thought provokers for you.

Implementing these three things into Behold will gives a comprehensive overview of every person’s life and lots of insights about who may have attended or had knowledge about the events of their lives. With this information, you’ll be led directly to the people you’ll want to investigate to get more information about your primary person of interest.

If that’s not enough already, let’s add a couple more things:

Let’s always display the person’s relationship: older brother, mother-in-law, aunt/m (aunt through marriage), and let’s include their age, and their years of marriage at the time of each event – all important information that gives you even more context.

Let’s then offer (with a toggle to turn on and off) the detailed information and notes about the relative’s events, along with the sources of that event. Putting the sources of related events of significant people in line with the events of your person of interest will be quite incredible. It will keep you bombarded with clues and ideas until the cows come home.

So that’s what I’m trying to get into 1.1.

I was hoping to get consistency checking into 1.1 as well, but I’d sooner get all the above out first and get a chance to hear the reactions to it. Then I’ll make consistency checking the key feature of Version 1.2.

The consistency checking in Behold will be so neat! The design of the timeline of events, as described above, provides all the dates and ages of every person’s relatives. These can so easily be checked for consistency, and inline warnings – highlighted right there in the Everything Report where you’ll want to see them -  will display the problems to you. There will be no need to run a report. This will always be there for you – exactly where you’ll want them.

When Version 2 comes out with editing, you’ll be able to correct the inconsistencies as soon as you see them, right there in the report, just by typing the correction and watching the warning vanish - simple as pie. I expect this may become known as one of the most amazing features of Behold.

That’s the plan. Now I’ve got to finish 1.1. There’s not much left if you look at my Future Plans page. It’s just a matter of doing it.

Haven’t had a blog post in over a month. Better post one.

Missed Behold target release dates (again). Better update them.

I guess I’ve been very busy with Life, the Universe and Everything.

My 8 page Software Reviews article has been published in the Family Tree Tracker magazine.

I’m speaking on Saturday on Ideas and More Ideas for your Genealogy Society.

I submitting a unique and unorthodox syllabus for my Windows Phone for Genealogy presentation (RT1118)  that I’ll be giving at RootsTech 2014.

Why kind of crazy pdf is it that RootsTech made that can’t be printed or viewed on a mobile device because it’s too small?

Why doesn’t RootsTech think of me as a possible Official Blogger? All they have to see is how I blogged each day during RT12 and RT13.

Every day I’m thinking about the work I’ve got to do to get Version 1.1 of Behold out. If I’d do as much work as thinking, it would be out already.

I’d love to do the Unlock the Past Genealogy Cruise in early 2016 for Australia and New Zealand that is still being finalized.

The Genealogy Q&A site is picking up steam!

GenSoftReviews is now getting about 2 new reviews each day.

I’ve updated my About.me page.

The U.S. government shut down for two weeks. Did anyone notice?

Update on my most popular blog post that continues to result in emails. Two years later and it’s totally 100%.

Looking forward to the first ever YouTube Music Awards on Nov 3.

I’m very excited for the World Chess Championship Nov 7 - 28. Carlsen is amazing. At the age of 22, will he win?

And of course, looking forward to getting Behold Version 1.1 out when its ready.

I’m pleased I was able with my last post to goad James Tanner into responding: Respond? Who Me? Of Course.

I do respect his writings. He writes how he thinks and always makes great points and does not demand that everybody agree with him. I thought he did a fabulous job as a last-minute fill-in keynote speaker at RootsTech 2013. He makes it hard to stay up to date with his genealogical posts as he writes several comprehensive articles a day on all sorts of interesting topics. I’m happy if I can get out one post a week.

So the ping pong ball is back on my side of the table. I’m adding a little spin to the ball:

1. There are people who want a fingerprint identification system on their iPhone. Apple wouldn’t bother adding it unless they thought some people wanted it. If you don’t want it, don’t deride Apple for giving other people what they want. As long as Apple adds new features in a way that basically keeps the features you don’t want hidden from you, then it shouldn’t matter to you. But if the iPhone becomes harder for you to use because of a feature they added that you don’t use, then the problem as I stated earlier is bad design by Apple to implement this new feature.

2. You bring up another point and it is a good one. Features are added in order to sell new versions of the software. Yes, that is what they do. Developers try to add enough features so that every current user will find at least one “must have” feature that prompts them to upgrade. They make more money every year or two off their existing customers that way, in addition to the new people attracted to their program. And yes, they also do things to make older versions obsolete. It’s the usual pattern for most software companies. And as you say, it is frustrating when they do this.

   This is a marketing method to increase revenue. But this type of feature creep “problem” does not imply that the program is made worse. More often, the program is improved each version. With good design, the new version can still be as easy (or even easier) to use than the previous. But the developers have to stick to putting good design first before the willy nilly adding of features just for the sake of getting another release out.

3. Microsoft’s Ribbon does not fix poorly designed features. It does not help you figure out the use of features. What it does do is present the features to you in logical groups as you need them. This is a radical improvement over menus and toolbars that are static and inadequate for access to the hundreds of features programs now have.
4. You want a genealogy program with a workable merge function. Currently they are all hit-and-miss. Well, you’ve hit upon one of my biases. I am totally against the whole concept of merging other data with your own. I feel you should keep other people’s work separate. I believe the concept of virtual merging (keeping the data separate and letting a program display them together) is the correct way to do it. Promoting the merging of other people’s data with yours is one of the 6 Bad Things About Today’s Genealogy Software.

   However, if in fact you happen to have another dataset that you need to merge, I do not believe you should let any automated technique do it for you. I feel the only correct way is to inspect the people/places/things in the files to be merged and manually deciding yourself on which items are the correct or incorrect ones. Maybe both are needed. Maybe one will give you more ideas and clues. At each step, you must verify all the information yourself anyway. So you might as well do it the correct way the first time. Merging mechanically is allowing a computer to do a person’s work. There is no call for it. And if you say that you’ve got hundreds or thousands of people to merge, then see the previous paragraph.

5. You say: “Let’s hope someone makes a really good, simple, elegant, functional genealogy program that can become the new standard.”

   Behold: I’m working on it.