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Archiver > APG > 2006-12 > 1165883931


From: Bob Velke <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Analyzing evidence
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:38:51 -0500
References: <000001c71ce5$70d27e00$70114c0c@its-temp1.worldnet.att.net><200612111722.kBBHMELR027460@mail.rootsweb.com>
In-Reply-To: <200612111722.kBBHMELR027460@mail.rootsweb.com>


Melinde said:

>Mr. Brady, you miss the point. I agree emphatically with Helen, and I think
>you would find that leading genealogy program vendors do, too. They continue
>to work toward a "smart" system, but its still far away. Mimicry is not
>analysis.

I don't speak for any other genealogy program vendors but The Master
Genealogist (TMG) is not designed to do any kind of analysis of
genealogical evidence -- nor will it ever do so. It is designed to
give the researcher the _tools_ to analyze his/her data and then to
generate reports which do mimic those of the journals (where further
analysis/review could take place resulting in revisions to the
database). I understand that some researchers prefer to do their
analysis only from the narrative form but suffice it to say that not
everyone agrees.

In TMG, you can record your research purely in narrative form if
that's your preference. As I've said here before, if your narrative
output from TMG doesn't read _exactly_ the way you want, then it
isn't because the software prevented it. Then you have a lot of
flexibility for generating reports, including different content or
formatting for different audiences, automatic indexing, and
accompanying lists with custom filters/sorts that can help with your
analysis. Researchers who compose their narratives directly in a
word processor are no doubt most comfortable in that environment and
that's fine - but they don't have the same number of analytical tools
available to them.

Describing a database as being less helpful for analysis than a word
processor is rather like saying that WordPerfect is more or less
helpful for analysis than MS/Word. It is a question of what
environment a particular researcher finds most comfortable. I think
that was James Brady's point.

Bob Velke
Wholly Genes Software


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