GENDEX Database and The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding
January 17, 2006
Dick Eastman has written an article about the GENDEX Database features of The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding.
You can have a look at the GENDEX Database here.
Here’s a brief summary of just what it is (from Dick Eastman’s article):
GENDEX was a method of indexing genealogy information spread across many web sites. It was created by Gene Stark. His web site, www.gendex.com, was a genealogy search engine that indexed more than 22,000 online databases of genealogical information on 60 million people. That means you could search the data from many Web sites by visiting only one site. When you found something that looked worthwhile, you clicked on the name on www.gendex.com and then got transferred to the original source of information on another site.
The GENDEX site was shut down on April 22, 2004, apparently due to financial issues. I see that the domain name of gendex.com has now been re-issued to another company that is not involved with genealogy.
Now there is new hope for GENDEX; it has been “married” to The Next Generation. Multiple web sites running The Next Generation software are now supplying RSS feeds of their data, which is then merged together into one GENDEX site.
This is a very interesting development concerning GENDEX and genealogy information on the web in general.
Behold: Windows 98 and Genealogy Software Development
January 11, 2006
Louis Kessler, developer of Behold, a Windows genealogy application, brings up an interesting issue about the future of genealogy software development for Windows - namely, should developers still be supporting Windows 98. Other genealogy software developers have had a few issues crop up with Windows 98.
Louis writes:
…which makes me think: How many people out there are hanging onto Windows 98? Should I continue developing Behold for it? Microsoft is pulling their support of Windows 98 after this summer. So should I continue support for Windows 98 into the future or not?
You can discuss this with him and others in this Behold Discussion Forum thread.
It’s a very gray area - Windows 98 is creeping up on 10 years old, and when you look at the other major genealogy software community - the Apple/Mac community (not that Linux doesn’t have a genealogy software development community - they do have an active one and it’s growing, but they aren’t facing the issues that Windows and Mac developers are facing), they are facing a very interesting situation: With the release of the new Intel Macs, Mac software developers are going to have to drop “classic” support - from here on out, unless a third party does something or Apple does something, Mac developers will have to move to 100% Mac OS X only, rather than supporting Mac OS 9. Mac OS X applications that aren’t written to support Intel can still be run on the Intel Macs under some kind of emulation layer, but anything beyond that won’t run. In the past, you could run Mac OS 9 stuff under Mac OS X.
I may pop over to the discussion, because it is an interesting question - after all, any PC bought in the past several years is going to have some form of Windows XP or Windows 2000, and I think many genealogists that are running Windows would have been feeling pressure to move up, not from the demands of genealogy software, but from the demands of things related to genealogy - photo/multimedia editing, etc.
The Genealogy Guys Podcast - GenSmarts
December 19, 2005
In this week’s The Genealogy Guys Podcast, they take a look at GenSmarts, a windows-based genealogy research tool, that uses the genealogy data you have compiled to put together suggestions on new avenues of research.
