Software Nightmares!

A Cherry Tree!

I cannot tell a lie~Software makes me crazy sometime!
For that matter so does Hardware!

For the past year I have had a software nightmare on my hands.  I adore my Mac but I do not adore the software developers for the Mac when it comes to keeping track of your genealogy in a windows world.

I am so-so on Reunion software for the Mac but the fact that they do not even show up at the genealogy conferences and have shown no apparent interest in syncing to Family Search Family Tree does not bode well with me.  I am sitting here at my desk surrounded by four devices.  I want to streamline this somehow.  iMac, iPhone, iPad, and PC laptop.  I have put my information on Family Tree, some of it on an Ancestry Tree and some of it in My Heritage as we are getting ready for the smart matches and records matches coming this year due to the strategic merger with FS/FT.

All of this seems to be a huge undertaking just to be able to keep my records that I know are 100% accurate someplace.  Oh I forgot to mention we have PAF, Legacy, Ancestral Quest version 14, and a disc for Roots Magic in the closet...all windows based personal software promising a Mac version "soon!"  Are you beginning to see the nightmare?

As much as I love the Internet I do not trust it completely.  Most experts agree that it is not wise to keep all your information only online on a database like Ancestry or My Heritage or even F/S Family Tree. The software program of your choice guarantees that you can always have access to your hard work and information assuming you back-up regularly.

This is probably a good place to interject that you should never use just a flash drive as your back-up.  Some of those little devils can get lost or corrupted and ...zap you have nothing left but a broken heart. Have more than one for sure and back up to an external hard drive as well as your computer, and possibly a cloud or two.  You can never be too cautious at this stage of the game in genealogy and technology.  The work is too hard to ever want to redo it.  Every once in awhile I like to print a report with everything on it as well from a software program.  And don't forget to keep some paper files of the very essentials at least.

I would imagine in a few years this won't be necessary but keep in mind we are at the doorway with all this technology and we just want to be certain we have our bases covered.

So I was frustrated because I knew I needed a perfect copy at home and didn't have one since Family Search/Family Tree went live.  I wanted to somehow use my Mac with a parallels program but that got too complicated.  I didn't want to be running two operating systems on my machine.  I checked into a program called Crossover at the Rootstech Conference and it was reasonably priced but offered no tech support.  So if there was a problem no one was there to help.  How is this good?

So I finally decided to revert back to the laptop for my software much to my chagrin.  I chose Ancestral Quest as my permanent official backup until that permanency is undermined by the next better idea.  So the first thing I had to do was find someone to help me update all that and connect it to Family Tree for syncing.

Saturday I came into the Library and met with Rich, or Mr. Genealogy as some of us refer to him. He was absolutely amazing and has helped me get everything where it belongs.  He spent a lot of hours going over my stuff and ever determined we are ninth cousins!  It feels so good to be all backed up and secure again.  Ancestral Quest says they are hoping for a Mac version by this coming fall.  That might be about the time I need to replace my desktop computer.  We'll see where it goes from here.  But for now...all is well.  Rich Mc C.  is a wonder person and so willing to help.

Sometimes I feel I wouldn't know a thing were it not for people like Steve E... and Rich Mc C.  So giving and helpful.  I want to be like them as soon as I know enough for it to matter.

Back up!  So important!