I have a basic love-hate relationship with database programs in general, and even more so with genealogy programs.
Genealogy is a “data based” activity, and the advent of personal computers and software should have meant a better method to collect and store the data. The problem has been that the major program, Family Tree Maker by Ancestry.com is like that old nagging aunt you have in your Gedcom: it constantly nags you. Internet searches, once the domain of free and open access, invariably lead you to a search box that announces thousands of “hits” for your brick wall ancestor only to lead you to a sign up page for a “free trial” ending with, of course, a recurring monthly payment of $19.95.
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Genealogy, Tech
I finally found a PHP-based program to handle on-line display and collaborative editing of a gedcom (genealogy database). TNG – The Next Generation genealogy software has the ability to handle gedcoms over 2MB, a limitation found in most of the open source programs such as phpGedView. And TNG comes with a full set of features that make it a definite winner.
Hagan genealogy is a challenge (but then, most families face the same challenges!) Most of the Hagan’s in America are from Irish descent, but all indications are that our line of Hagans are German. That’s been the family oral tradition, and my forays into the settlement of Clarion Country in western PA in the early 1800’s, where my earliest known ancestors lived, reveals baptisms in the German Reformed Church and “German-script” variant spellings (“Hegen”). Marriage into other documented German families, such as my g-g-grandmother’s Heasley family … Samuel Heasley is her brother … also help support that oral tradition.
A program that allowed collaboration was important, as several family members have contributed to my gedcom. In fact, the one I have now is my daughter’s. Leah Hagan Lefler expanded on my original gedcom with more information on the Heasley line, and her husband’s family as well. After my catastrophic computer crash in 2005, I snatched a copy of her updated gedcom and now call it my own.
Genealogy, Tech