[comp.sys.amiga] Genealogy?

nschultz@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Ned W. Schultz) (02/04/90)

Has anyone found a good genealogy package for the Amiga?  I have used
Your Family Tree 1.1 and found a couple of bugs in it.  I've also seen
the PD/Shareware program, Peopletree, and it also is too buggy to use.
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who is using a package and has
found it to be satisfactory.  Thanks...

Ned Schultz     nschultz@polyslo.calpoly.edu

dueker@xenon.arc.nasa.gov (Chris Dueker) (02/06/90)

In article <25cb7c5e.38a0@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, nschultz@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU
 (Ned W. Schultz) writes...
> 
> 
>Has anyone found a good genealogy package for the Amiga?  I have used
>Your Family Tree 1.1 and found a couple of bugs in it.  I've also seen
>the PD/Shareware program, Peopletree, and it also is too buggy to use.
>I would appreciate hearing from anyone who is using a package and has
>found it to be satisfactory.  Thanks...
> 
>Ned Schultz     nschultz@polyslo.calpoly.edu

I've been using a package called Norgen from Norris Software, and it's kinda
buggy, too.  I'm not all that happy with it.  I've also tried YFT, also, and
I find that there's just too many windows, requestors, and menu items to deal
with.  It's all so confusing.

Norgen is somewhat painful to use, the main thing being that the user must
enter the same information in many places.  For example, my father has six
siblings.  Six names must be entered for each of the seven siblings as well
as seven names as the children for each parent.  In other words, the display
of an individual shows not only the info for that individual, but also his/her
siblings and children.

I must say, however, that "traversing" through the "tree" is very easy.  All
you have to do is to click the mouse over any of the names displayed, and
press a function key.  The program then displays that individual, and so on.
You can click on child after child, then to a spouse, then parent, etc.  It
is very nice and quick.

The report generation is somewhat odd, however.  Selecting a report (by menu
selection or by an AMIGA key) brings up a display where you enter a letter
which selects the type of report (A for an ancestry report, D for a decendant
report, and a couple of other letters), and then the name of an individual or
whatever is needed for the selected report.  It's almost as though that part
of the package came from a text-only kind of environment.  (The reports, by
the way can be sent to the screen, a printer, or a file.)

One other nice feature is that many of the fields are expandable. I.e., if you
run out of room for a name, just punch a function key and, <ding> you got some
more room for the name.  The same is true of the Notes field (up to 4000 chars
for each individual.  The individual's display starts with one Child field,
and you can get as many child fields as necessary by pressing another function
key to duplicate the field.  The Sibling field, Spouse field, and even the
Notes field can be duplicated.

I have gotten into a situation where a record (for an individual) could not
be added, yet could not be found.  I ended up just starting over.  I've sent
a letter to Norris Software ('bout 2 weeks ago.) that was 3 pages long listing
the problems I've had and suggestions to improve using the package, and I'm
about ready to call them to find out what's happening.

Guess this is getting a bit long.  I'd better quit now before I get flamed.
If you want to correspond more, Ned, or email me, I'm:

dueker@ames.arc.nasa.gov
duke@well.sf.ca.us

dueker@xenon.arc.nasa.gov (Chris Dueker) (02/07/90)

>
>dueker@ames.arc.nasa.gov
        ^^^^               Oops!  Corrected addresses below.
>duke@well.sf.ca.us


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