I wasn’t able to make it to the LDS tech talk session a few weeks ago, but Dan Hanks recently blogged about it, and I really wish I’d gone.

The church is also now in the design stages of a new open-source personal record manager that will interface with the new system and will perhaps take the role that PAF plays now.

Very good. It looks like they’ll be writing it in Java (or something similar), which is really quite a pity, but at least it’ll be something. (If only they’d realize how much better Ruby and Python and Perl are. ~sigh~) It’ll be a while before anything comes of this, though — several months at the very least. But since it’ll be open-source, with any luck they’ll keep it open from the beginning so that people can use it as it develops, rather than having to wait until a release.

Anyway, people keep asking me how my “PAF for Mac” (as this project originally started) is coming along, and it’s always disappointing to have to tell them it’s in suspended animation. But hopefully not for long! (And yes, I realize I keep saying that, but someday it’s really going to change. :))

Technorati Tags: LDS, PAF, genealogy, family history

On the LDSOSS mailing list, Gordon Clarke (from the Family History Department) just e-mailed this out. It’s what they can say publicly about the new FamilySearch:

Brief Overview of New FamilySearch Features

1. Temple Ordinances
Family Search is simplifying the process required for Latter-day Saints to prepare names for the temple ordinances.

Imaging being able to manage your personal family history online, seeing at a glance what temple work needs to be done for your ancestors, and easily preparing a name for temple ordinances — all in one place on the Internet!

- Prepare temple names from home over the Internet (no more diskettes)
- Easily see ordinance information and status of work in progress
- Significantly reduce duplication of research and ordinance work

2. Online collaborative Family Tree
The family tree feature will allow people worldwide to create and manage their family histories online.

People from various cultures worldwide will be able to:

- Add, correct, and manage their family histories online
- Correct personal submissions/data in real time
- Dispute the submissions of others
- Work collaboratively with family members and relatives
- Find living relatives they did not know existed
- Reduce duplication of research effort and time

Interesting…

Technorati Tags: FamilySearch, LDS, Family Tree, genealogy, family history

Before long I’ll need some data to work with. The easiest way to get that is to write some code that’ll convert a GEDCOM (which is easily exported from PAF) into XML or, even better, SQL code that will place it directly in a database. And turns out there’s already some stuff out there.

Ruby Quiz #6 is a GEDCOM parser, and there’s plenty of interesting code there to look through. There’s also Jamis Buck’s GEDCOM/Ruby Module, which I downloaded but haven’t had time to look at yet.

Part of me wants to write everything myself, but that’s stupid (unless the existing stuff is poorly done, of course). So I’ll evaluate the existing code and see if any of it fits the bill. Hopefully it does. :) Eventually I’ll have to write a PAF importer/exporter, though, because I’m not aware of any open source projects that do that.

Anyway, the important thing right now is to get some real data into the database (which means designing the database structure…) so I can get the prototype up. Time is the hard thing right now, with school crunching in (midterms are this week) and tight work deadlines. But that’s okay.

One last thing: coding Ruby in TextMate is really fun. Seriously. It’s something I haven’t experienced in a while, but it’s such a pleasant thing that it draws me back and makes me want to code more. That’s good. :)

Technorati Tags: Ruby, GEDCOM, XML, PAF, TextMate

My CD of PAF 2.3.1 (Family Records) arrived in the mail today. It’s an old program. I don’t intend to emulate it, mind you — it’s just for compatibility so that Beyond will be able to read PAF 2.3.1 files (along with 4.x and 5.x files). OS X looks so much better than Classic (OS 9 and before) did. It’s an incredible difference.

Technorati Tags: PAF, genealogy, Mac

Finished the new banner today. I’m satisfied enough with it that I can start coding. :) (I’m the sort of person who has to have a beautiful banner under which to code, otherwise it just doesn’t go as well.)

I’m also corresponding with the Family History Department of the Church (the Church will mean The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by the way) about the PAF file format. One of my new goals for Beyond is as much compatibility with PAF (including older versions) and other genealogy programs as possible.

Oh, I guess I should say what Beyond is, huh. :) Beyond is currently in the design stages and will be a next-generation genealogy program for the Mac. Some of the goals I envision for it (and I’ll write these up on the website once I create the website :)) include compatibility with PAF and TempleReady, very user-friendly (and not just for beginning users but also for expert genealogy researchers), and solid with respect to sources and evidence. I realize this is hardly anything but I’ll get the planned specs up soon.