Louis Kessler’s Behold Blog

RootsTech 2018 has started. This year it is a 4 day affair running from Wednesday to Saturday. They added on Wednesday, which last year, was an Innovator Summit day and an extra you had to get a ticket to separately. This year, the day was part of the package.

Last year there were a lot of people on Wednesday, and swarms of people from Thursday to Saturday. This year, the swarms started on Wednesday. Registration for attendees opened on Tuesday and the lines were hundreds of people long. If you weren’t a RootsTech Ambassador or otherwise an insider, you’d have up to 2 to 3 hours in line to register.

The number of people also filled up many of the talks. I read a number of reports of people wrote that they couldn’t get into some of the talks they wanted to. Unfortunately, that’s what success brings. There’s the old joke about being told how terrible a restaurant is because you can’t book a reservation as they’re always full.

I had the pleasure (honour) of going to RootsTech in 2012, 2014 and 2017. This is my off year, so I am what’s technically called a #NotAtRootsTech-er this year. LDC of Ottawa has a wonderful #NotAtRootsTech Survival Guide and made buttons for those of us not there to display:

Having been a past participant of RootsTech, I know what it’s like. I gave a talk to the Manitoba Genealogical Society on Monday, and one person couldn’t be there because they were at RootsTech. I asked how many others had been. Not one of the two dozen there had. So I spent the next 20 minutes expounding upon how they must make the trip at least once.

With the experience of RootsTech fresh in my mind from last year, I didn’t need much to get in the RootsTech spirit. Between the Live Feed yesterday, social media Twitter tweets under the hashtag of #RootsTech and #NotAtRootsTech, Facebook posts, Blog posts and YouTube videos, there was enough to make me feel totally immersed and involved all day. At 8:28 a.m. RootsTech time, I tweeted:

It’s impossible to keep up with the #rootstech and #notatrootstech twitter feeds today.

— Louis Kessler (@louiskessler) February 28, 2018

Day 1 was a bit of a different day. The Keynote by Steve Rockwood was at 4:30 pm, rather than first thing in the morning, so people got to attend talks prior to that all day. Also, the Exhibition Hall did not open until the evening, which likely contributed to the overfilling of the talks, because the huge hall was not available as an alternative. I’m sure it will be easier getting into the talks on Thursday and Friday.

On Day 1, I enjoyed the live feeds of “Family History in 5 Minutes a Day” by Deborah Gamble, “DNA—One Family, One World” by David Nicholson and Hannah Morden of Living DNA, “Organizing and Preserving Photograph Collections” by Ari Wilkins, and the General Session and Innovation Showcase to close the day.  I have to admit I didn’t watch the WWII talk since I personally have little interest in WWII research. I went to the online RootsTech app and downloaded the handouts for each of the talks as I listened to them.

Jason Hewlett was again the entertaining host. It was a pleasure meeting him (albeit clean shaven) last year:

There were several announcements that I found very interesting, most on a DNA front:

Living DNA was making the biggest splash. They are all-in this year, being a major sponsor of RootsTech. And they are working to put themselves on equal footing with Family Tree DNA, 23andMe, Ancestry DNA and MyHeritage DNA and turn the big four into a big five.   

Above: Hannah Morden and David Nicholson of Living DNA

One thing they showed in a video during their presentation just blew me away:

They did it! @Living_DNA got DNA from a postage stamp. It took them 4 tries, but they did it!!! Save all your great-grandparent’s letters! #rootstech

— Louis Kessler (@louiskessler) March 1, 2018

David and Hannah during the day announced that Living DNA had a new “Family Networks” offering. As part of this, they will be making match data and a chromosome browser available.

Later during the Innovation Showcase section, 5 representatives from the 5 DNA companies were on stage together, which might be a first:

Ran Snir (MyHeritage DNA), Jim Brewster (Family Tree DNA), David Nicholson (Living DNA), Robin Smith (23andMe), Sarah South (Ancestry DNA) and Scott Fisher moderating.

They were asked if they’d be able to work together. David Nicholson said: “I think it’s great that we’re all onstage together. That’s a start.” But then Robin Smith said that competition is healthy and good for everyone,. I agree that both of them are correct. Both cooperation and competition is needed.

Another big announcement was from MyHeritage announcing a New FamilySearch Tree Sync, allowing FamilySearch users to synchronize their family trees with MyHeritage.

Prices for DNA kits at the Conference are as low as they’ve ever been. No better place to pick up a DNA kit than at RootsTech. Which company? Why not all of them?

It was also nice to see Curt Witcher, Judy Russell, David Rencher and moderator Scott Fisher on the Innovation Panel.

Being a contestant (and 3rd place winner) of the Innovator Showdown in 2017, and someone very interested in DNA software, I wanted to know what was going on with the DNA Innovation Contest this year. This was a somewhat last-minute thing announced by Grow Utah in December. This is a $30,000 cash and $20,000 in-kind contest with 3 prize winners ($15K 1st, $7.5K each runner-up).

That did not give contestants much time, but they still got a really good group of entrants together. The six finalists were given space to display in the Exhibit Hall:

Finalisten DNA Innovation Contest #RootsTech : Match Compare, @dnapainter, Gno-mine, ItRunsInMyFamily, @RootsFinderApp en Origins. Prijs $50K pic.twitter.com/h59emcWA5r

— Rob van Drie (@RobvanDrie) February 28, 2018

The six finalists include:

• DNA Painter - Jonny Perl https://dnapainter.com/
• MatchCompare https://sortingdnacousins.blogspot.ca/
• Gno-mine http://gno-mine.com/
• ItRunsInMyFamily http://www.itrunsinmyfamily.com/
• Origins (Lillian and David Mann) http://www.heirloomsoftware.com/origins/
• RootsFinder (Dallan Quass) http://www.rootsfinder.com/

The winner was Jonny Perl of DNA Painter. Jonny had to fly in from England for this and it was quite an adventure. He has really done an amazing job in adding useful and easy to use features in his free online offering.

The two runners-up were RootsFinder and ItRunsInMyFamily. I was very happy for Dallan, who was in the 2012 Developer Challenge with me (I had entered Behold, Dallan was a top-6 finalist with his GEDCOM parser) as well as Heather Henderson who works with Dallan. They had entered RootsFinder in the 2017 Innovator Showdown and I got to meet Heather as she was the presenter for RootsFinder in the semifinals.

That was quite a first day. I look forward to what else comes out of RootsTech over these next 3 days.

And be sure you read what everyone has to say about RootsTech. Randy Seaver is keeping up his Compendium of Blog Posts for RootsTech 2017.  Each person has a unique perspective and you get a different taste of RootsTech from every post, so pick some to read and enjoy.

GenSoftReviews reached a milestone and now has 1000 different genealogy programs listed at the site.

The numbers have been creeping up over time. GenSoftReviews started in Sept 2008 with the 355 programs I transferred over from my my old genealogy software links page. The number grew to 466 by the end of 2009.  556 for 2010, 595 for 2011, 702 for 2012, 765 for 2013, 862 for 2014, 936 for 2015, 980 for 2016, and 992 at the end of 2017.

I’m always on the lookout for new programs that can be considered to have a genealogy aspect to them. There are a number of people who suggest new programs to me from time to time, which I’m very appreciative of. If the program is active and supported and it’s not already on GenSoftReviews, I add it. If you know of any current programs not on GenSoftReviews, please let me know.

Early on, I used to delete programs from GenSoftReviews that no longer were available. But now I just mark those programs as “unsupported” and point their web address to an archive.org snapshot of what their site was, or to some other information about the program that’s still on the web. Many unsupported programs still have active users as well as reviews on GenSoftReviews, including such programs as Family Tree Maker by Ancestry, The Master Genealogist (TMG) and Personal Ancestral File (PAF).

As genealogy software expert Tamura Jones tweeted:

#genealogy #software One Thousand different genealogy programs listed at GenSoftReviews. How many have you tried? https://t.co/hVXqp9b9jF

— Tamura Jones (@TamuraJones) February 17, 2018

That’s an excellent question. There are a lot of hardworking developers out there who have created programs with their own ideas of what’s needed to help a genealogist. They all deserve a look at. Taking Tamura’s question a step further, I’d ask: “How many have you even heard of?”

Here’s a breakdown of the 1000 programs:

• 466 Windows programs
• 116 Mac programs
• 105 Unix programs
• 132 handheld programs (phones or tablets)
• 389 online programs

These total 1208 because some programs run on multiple platforms.

• 355 full featured programs that can edit and save your genealogy data.
• 404 utility programs that read in genealogy data and do something with it.
• 233 auxiliary programs that do some genealogical task for you.

Hmm. These total 992 and should total 1000. I’ll have to find the 8 unclassified.

• 627 free programs
• 287 programs you have to purchase to use.
• 65 programs you have to pay a subscription to use.
• 71 programs that are unsupported.

This totals 1050 because some programs have both free and purchase versions.

The 1000 programs as I write this have acquired 4926 user reviews, or an average of about 5 reviews per program. The top 10 are:

• 560 reviews: Family Tree Maker 2008 – 2014
• 474 reviews: My Heritage
• 343 reviews: Family Tree Builder
• 223 reviews: Ahnenblatt
• 205 reviews: RootsMagic
• 200 reviews: Geni
• 185 reviews: WikiTree
• 173 reviews: Legacy Family Tree
• 150 reviews: The Next Generation (TNG)
• 147 reviews: The Master Genealogist (TMG)

These top 10 make up 2660 or 54% of all the reviews.

270 (27%) of the 1000 programs have had at least 1 review. So that means 730 which is 73% have not had any reviews yet. What uncommon genealogy software do you use? Does it have a review at GenSoftReviews yet? If not, why not consider adding your review?

55 programs have had at least 10 reviews which is the minimum needed to qualify for a GenSoftReviews Users Choice award at the end of the year.  Of those, 39 have been a winner of the award at least once. That means they had averaged a rating of at least 4 stars out of 5 from their users.

Next time you wonder if there’s a genealogy program out there that might be able to help you do something a little easier, why not take a browse through the 1000 programs listed at GenSoftReviews. You might just find the gem you’ve been looking for.

A programmer develops an original idea for a program and spends time writing it. Once you’ve got it working to some point, you put it online and test the waters. If it’s well taken, you go out on tour.

A songwriter develops some original ideas for some new songs and spends time putting the tracks together. Once the album is published and the tunes are liked to some point, they go out on tour.

One year’s the writing year. The next year’s the touring year.

I worked for many years until Version 1.0 of Behold was ready. I released it in 2011. It was time to test the waters.

In 2012, I entered Behold as a contestant in the 2012 RootsTech Developers Challenge and it was accepted. 2012 then saw me “on tour” as I attended the 3rd RootsTech in Salt Lake City, presenting Behold and meeting with other developers, genealogy bloggers and BetterGEDCOM folk as well as being on a panel discussing Sources where a few statements I said about source-based genealogy were to my surprise met with huge applause. Early 2013, I picked up my genealogy “tour” as a speaker on the 3rd Unlock the Past genealogy cruise where I met my Australia genie friends for the first time.

During 2013, I continued work on Behold, and by the end of the year got it up to version 1.0.5.1.

2014 was another a touring year. It was back to my 2nd RootsTech where I was a speaker. In October, it was over the pond to Leiden, Netherlands where I spoke at the Gaenovium Conference organized by Tamura Jones.

During 2015, it was back to work, I finished and released Behold 1.2.

That was followed in 2016 by the 10th Unlock the Past Genealogy Cruise around New Zealand and Australia. It was there that Judy Russell coerced me into DNA analysis, so I took the leap and found that DNA now occupied and took over every spare moment left in my life. I needed something to analyze this mass of data, so I developed Double Match Triangulator for my own needs. When RootsTech later that year announced the Innovator’s Showdown for innovative genealogy products, I thought: “what the heck”, and submitted DMT, went to RootsTech 2017 and DMT took 3rd place.

Thus started the biggest “tour year” of my life, with me giving a workshop on DMT at the 37th IAJGS Conference in July in Orlando, with me giving DNA talks at the 2nd Great Canadian Genealogy Summit in October in Halifax, and then my attending the 13th Annual International Conference on Genetic Genealogy put on by Family Tree DNA in Houston in November.

My “songs” are different from everyone else. Programs are like music. You can either like my style or not. Everyone has their own taste as to what type of “music” they like and what soothes their soul. As a “writer”, I choose to “write” what I want to “listen” to. If others happen to like my “songs” as well, then that’s great. If not, I completely understand.

There are a lot of genealogy programs out there, as the almost 1000 programs at my GenSoftReviews site can attest to. Choosing the right program and what works best for you is a personal decision, just like buying a car, clothing, or anything else. We are all different. All I can say is, I’ve got my little niche here of what I’m trying to do and where I’m going with Behold and DMT and maybe I’ll pop another surprise in there.

Songwriting and programming can be a lonely task. Stuck in an office for hours on end, only coming out for that caffeine break, or a walk to the mailbox to get some fresh air and clear the mind.

Just like a songwriter, programmers can get stuck on a line for a few hours, for a day or two, or sometimes even for a week or two. The best inspiration comes in bed at 3 a.m., in the shower, or out for a walk.

It takes motivation and inspiration to keep going sometimes. And other times, the ideas just come and the code just flows and you look forward to the sun rising on a bad-weather day so you can get right back to it.

Innovation is the bottom line. We don’t need “same old”. RootsTech got it right when they say they’re looking for innovation. There are so many ways the genealogist’s work can be enhanced and made easier. It’s only a matter of figuring out how to do it. I’ve lost count of how many neat and imaginative features I’ve added into Behold and DMT. I challenge all other genealogy/DNA programmers to go do it. Think outside the box.

I recently added the following “philosophies” to my DMT Thanks page:

• Part of the imagining … is imagining what to do
  when something’s not been done before.
• The person who says it cannot be done
  should not interrupt the person doing it.

So after my big 2017 tour year, I’ll be taking it “easy” in 2018, staying at home and programming. Here’s my ribbon this year, courtesy of Christine Woodcock:

2018 is my year of “writing”. I just released DMT 2.0. I’m now working on Behold 1.3 and my New Year’s Resolution is to release Behold 1.5 by the end of the year (Saving GEDCOMs and its own database).

If I can then do some more imagining towards the end of the year, then maybe DMT 3.0 will actually map your chromosomes for you – at least that’s my hope.

And the year after that 2019 could start with a beta of Behold 2.0, when I attempt to finally turn it into the full featured genealogy data editor that I’ve always imagined it would be.

Maybe then, I can actually start to use it to get back to my own genealogy, which has been in abeyance for 20 years. Wouldn’t that be something!

A 2019 genealogy cruise with Unlock the Past would be a wonderful way to celebrate that.

So I’m busy. And I won’t be touring this year. However, that doesn’t mean I won’t be active.

On Monday February 26, I’ll be giving a talk called: “DNA, the Journey” to the Manitoba Genealogy Society here in Winnipeg.

Of course, February 28 to March 3 is RootsTech 2017, and I’ll be watching the live streaming and I’ll be staying involved on the social networks.

And on Saturday March 17, I’ll be answering questions in a #genchatDNA session about triangulation on Twitter:

Life is good. Enjoy the music!