Why and How Do You Use Other Software?

[Bob White]

Two things, Ryan...

First, whether you choose attachments or from URL, the upload will land wherever your cursor is. So, if you want the image or URL amid text, get your cursor in place first.

Second, as far as I know (could be wrong), the URL situation you describe can only happen if you choose from URL. I'm going on memory; I was admin of a vBulletin installation for a homeowner's association for several years in the 2000's. I've also done ProBoards, Telefinder and BlueHost.

[Ryan_N]

Bob,
I wrote a post the other day here on ReunionTalk concerning the forum platform ("Discourse" my title). That standalone space is probably best for this topic, but to answer briefly: the "upload to server?" question (from vBulletin) presents when the user clicks the image icon, which in the editor is two "buttons" left of the quote button in the header. I should note to you, that the "upload attachments" option is preferred by me, which is below the editor of course. However, when I used it last, as I recall anyway (and I might be wrong on this?), my uploaded screenshot did not show up in the body of my post, as anticipated, but rather as a URL that others would have had to click on.

Grant and Michael T.,
I very much enjoy ALL conversations about historical research workflow, logging and so on. My lifelong obsession with genealogy triggered a somewhat later-in-life masters degree in History, now in progress. I'm constantly interested in topics surrounding content discovery and improved workflow/logging on the part of the researcher. We will continue to see immense changes on this front. Some of these will be welcomed by genealogists--others not.

Grant, your follow up is great! Glad you found a workflow you're happy with.

[gathompson56]

When I first started this thread I was overwhelmed in the software options and possible workflows. I was curious about what others on this forum were using and how they used them. Since I started in this thread my use of software has changed a little bit, with a couple of changes this fall. Now, for the first time, have a workflow that I am comfortable with.

My Software:

Reunion13 - my primary tree builder and documenting tool.
Ancestry - my primary research tool. Also building a full family tree that will mirror my Reunion family file
Mac Finder - my primary filing and storage system for my family history files
FTM2019 - my tool to sync with Ancestry
iCloud - backup and storage of my family history files.

Devon Think 3.0 - on my Mac but not being used. Someday I will figure out how to use it.


My hardware has been modified:

2017 version of 21" mac - my primary work station
2009 version of 21" mac - my 2nd screen


I have now settled into what is a pretty simple workflow, which is much easier with a 2nd screen:

- Reunion is open on my 2017 Mac on my left
- on my right is the 2009 Mac where I have Ancestry open. Also open on this screen are documents open in Preview which have been downloaded from Ancestry or scanned at home.
- Now I have a double screen setup which allows me to transcribe into Reunion on the left screen while reviewing documents on the right screen.
- I only use FTM2019 to sync with Ancestry. I found FTM2019 so cumbersome to use that it was easier to make updates and corrections in Ancestry than in FTM2019.

After struggling to find a means of "linking" my two Macs together, using iCloud is the first solution that has worked. Yep, there is a storage fee but that costs a lot less than other services and saves me a lot of aggravation.

Grant

[Bob White]

...............Uploading a screenshot on vBulletin 5.6.4 is arduous. It's asking me if I want to upload it to the server? Much too complicated and far too many editor buttons in my own humble opinion.

Thanks nevertheless Bob. You're such a dynamo on here. I've learned a lot from your posts as a lurker. Cheers!

I am also a lurker. I read darn near every entry on the forums less some of the ones that go on ad nauseum about some fine point. As an old IT guy, one of my goals in life is to help users become independent users. Thus, that is a nice compliment.

I do not understand why you are having such a problem uploading. When one clicks on the Upload Attachments button (lower left), one should get a Finder navigation window. Navigate to the file and click Choose in the navigation window. Upload starts immediately. If the file is too large or an unacceptable format, an error message will pop up right away. Once the file has uploaded, one can both choose a size and preview the posting.

I don't recall Reunion ever asking me if I want to upload to server. Perhaps Mark or Frank may have some insight on this issue.

[Michael Talibard]

My process is a bit different. I use Ancestry only as a research tool. What I find is entered into Reunion, but I don't bother adding it to my Ancestry tree, which is very small and basic and rarely updated. I am content to build the full tree in one place only, and that's Reunion.

[Ryan_N]

Ryan.... Look in your user settings for this.

You mean the prompt to share my AOL Instant Messenger handle from the year 1993?

Kidding aside, I was all set up like this beforehand with direct-messaging enabled from guests, etc. That said, i'm not a fan of Google's crawlers potentially indexing my everyday email address on my profile page, and other oddities with this particular forum software.

I made a post on here earlier today about my strong desire to see this forum migrate over to Discourse, which is open-source (free),. much more secure, easier to use and direct-message others, and frankly just a lot more enjoyable.

Uploading a screenshot on vBulletin 5.6.4 is arduous. It's asking me if I want to upload it to the server? Much too complicated and far too many editor buttons in my own humble opinion.

Thanks nevertheless Bob. You're such a dynamo on here. I've learned a lot from your posts as a lurker. Cheers!

[Bob White]

Ryan.... Look in your user settings for this.

[Ryan_N]

eric.vanbeest I was unable to find any way to private-message on here, which is very frustrating if a case of user-error on my part . I very much want to chat with you at your convenience re: DEVONthink workflow. I too use this software. More than 95% of my research and genealogy work occurs in that space. If you're willing to ping me by regular email, perhaps we could offline this discussion? I set up a separate gmail account for genealogy stuff, which I don't mind posting here publically: noyesancestors@gmail.com. Love to connect with you if you're willing to reach out. Thanks!

[Bob White]

.......... after doing your research on Ancestry, don't you then have to do a double entry to get that information into Reunion?......If it makes any difference, my tree is slightly north of 3400 persons. You are one of the "old hands" with Reunion. I'd appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

Yes and no. At the Ancestry end, it's mind work plus a couple mouse clicks. At the Reunion end, there is actual physical work -- pounding the keyboard. In saying this, I'm really generalizing but it's basically how this works. Having a large 27" monitor is pretty much a necessity as I can have Reunion and Ancestry side by side for easy comparison and quality checking. Also makes it easy to copy/paste text from one to the other in either direction.

[Herb]

Reunion is my main guy. However, I always keep the current version of FTM installed. The reason is twofold.

First, the majority of my research either is on Ancestry or I end up uploading items from all kinds of places to my tree on Ancestry.

This leads to my second reason ---- which is the synching of media between Ancestry and FTM. Do a synch and, voila, I have copies of all the media on my Mac. The only media that I include in Reunion's multimedia is photos of people. Everything else is easily found in my copy of FTM without my having to maintain a sensible filing system as I used to do for many years.

Those things are a very substantial "pro" but there is a "con" and that is, when adding new persons to my trees, I do double entry. (e.g., Add the person on both Reunion and Ancestry) I find this to be a small "con" which is far outweighed by the convenience of storing media in FTM. (Note: I do almost zero work in FTM as, while it has improved over time, it is still pretty clunky when compared to the elegance of Reunion.)

As a New User with Reunion, I'm trying to understand your process. Please don't take anything that follows as critical, I'm simply trying to understand. You say that you do most of your research in Ancestry and the sync (and backup) on FTM. I get that, if for no other reason than to have a copy of your Ancestry tree on your own computer (I do the same thing). What I don't understand is how you work between Ancestry and Reunion. You noted that when new persons are added to your trees, it then involves double entry work in Reunion. Understood. But if you add facts, events, or pretty much anything after doing your research on Ancestry, don't you then have to do a double entry to get that information into Reunion?

Research is, at least to me, much more easily done on Ancestry than in Reunion. It seems that I'm endlessly comparing various genealogy programs and that each one has pros and cons. Like you, I don't really like FTM, but it does serve a valuable purpose with the backup function. I like Roots Magic, but don't like the fact that it is a Windows program that struggles from time to time to work properly on a Mac (RM8 is, in my opinion, vaporware). I really like the RM support available on Facebook and the videos that are available on YouTube. I like the look of MacFamily Tree, but find it very difficult to work with and really dislike its alliance with Family Search, and find their support system lacking. Probably because I'm new with Reunion, I have difficulty understanding how it works - I'm constantly consulting the User Manual for even the most basic processes. Support from Reunion has been very responsive.

If it makes any difference, my tree is slightly north of 3400 persons. You are one of the "old hands" with Reunion. I'd appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

[Ryan_N]

eric.vanbeest and gathompson56 Ha! ..I clicked the link to this thread being 99.999% sure I the only Reunion user who also uses DEVONthink. Clearly I was wrong!


I too use DEVONthink as my primary everyday database for all-things genealogy. Reunion serves the exact role it should serve, as a tree-builder--a place to assign facts, narratives, images and so on to individuals. DT--for those not aware--is a database platform built on artificial intelligence--so what you get from it is sort of similar to what Amazon might throw at you when you scroll way down and see "you might also like."

My use-case scenario is probably a little different from most genealogy enthusiasts, in that I'm sort of obsessed with early New England history, and have a lot of book projects in mind--the types that would take decades to research and produce. These would be properly footnoted in the old-school (von Ranke) style and so on. So in short, I'm dealing with thousands of persons and hundreds of thousands of facts. It's impossible to remember it all. DT is therefore essential. I use that to assign various "things" to various other "things"--which a tree-builder simply can't do. In tree builders, we're assigning things to persons and that is all. In DT, I have categories for epidemics, hurricanes, ships by owner name, ships by ship-name, infrastructure projects, poetry contests, and the list goes on.

Where DT is a godsend, is in scenarios like books with bad (or no) index. I import hundreds and hundreds of these out-of-copyright books into DT as tiny text files, which DT then indexes word-for-word. Sometimes, I actually re-OCR the high-res PDF's of the book using ABBYY v.12, which is integrated within DT3 itself. It's fabulous. I then convert these 300-400MB files to plain text, and as crazy as this sounds, I then convert the 1MB-ish .txt into a 1MB-ish PDF, so I can highlight hits in the text files right-click, and assign those hits to whatever category I wish--be that a person, or something else.

The fun part is after the database starts getting big, DT's embedded AI circuitry then presents a list of "See Also" documents, which is astonishingly good! I'll attach below a clip from Joe Kissell's Take Controle of DEVONthink 3 which explains a scenario of this in action;
scr 2020-06-30 at 1.13.48 PM.jpg

Cheers!

[eric.vanbeest]

Roger– the posted file still works.

[RWells]

Eric Could you repost a link to the apple script file. I tried the one posted in December but it did not work. Maybe I have come here too late? Thanks Roger

[fjvanbodegom]

Thanks for sharing, will take a closer look at this script.

[eric.vanbeest]

For those of you interested, attached the zipped AppleScript I use to sanitise external data for use in Reunion. I have annotated with some comment but offer no support.