GENBOX-L Archives

Archiver > GENBOX > 2004-03 > 1079043574


From: "Cheri Casper" <>
Subject: RE: [GENBOX] sourcing wizard
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 14:19:40 -0800
In-Reply-To: <20040311203141.950B9385C4@apate.telenet-ops.be>


Michel - Apparently we are going to have to agree to disagree. I have
taught hundreds of people of all ages to use computers and I've found that
even my senior citizens who have never touched a computer before quickly get
the hang of it as well as of a variety of software programs. My genealogy
software class focused in how to pick a software that met individual needs
and students experimented with data entry & source creation in both Legacy
and PAF (primarily because they were free programs and not because I felt
they were better than other programs) and my students were quickly able to
translate from one to the other--students who had never seen a genealogy
software program, let alone use one. I would also venture to say that most
people doing genealogy migrate through a few programs before they settle on
one that meets their needs. No one was there with "dummy" options when I
learned FTM, nor when I learned Legacy, nor when I learned TMG, nor when I
learned Cumberland Family Tree, nor when I learned Relatively Yours, nor
when I learned GenBox. The best learning is always experiential -- trial
and error -- hands on -- checking out the references. Throughout my
teaching career I have always been adamantly opposed to spoon feeding
anyone. The purpose of any educational endeavor is not to learn all of the
answers, but to learn how to use the resources at hand to find the answer.
And that doesn't mean that the resources have to be at your immediate beck
and call; you need to determine what information you need, where you can
best obtain it, and then go after it to solve *any* problem.

My scenario stands: Perhaps I am one of those individuals who, by
preference, would prefer to attach a source to *every* fact for an Event,
even if that means every fact for which there is a field in the event. Or
perhaps I am a person who prefers to, in that situation, add the source to
the Event level. A wizard would only serve to confuse: if automatic
conversion to an Event level citation occurred where every fact was cited to
the same source, how would I override that if I choose to? But what if I
did have every fact cited to the same source and preferred an Event level
citation? To have a wizard explain all of this (when the user should be
sticking their nose into the Help file in the first place) is going to take
away from the oneous on the user. It is like putting warning labels on lawn
mowers that you should keep your hands & feet away when the motor is
operating. People need to use their brains. We, as a society, have dumbed
down everything in life to the point where people not only don't want to
think, they don't know how to.

I think at this juncture what is needed more than a bunch of bells &
whistles is for a good user's manual/tutorial to be in place. Or, as some
other programs have done, development of some videos. While some of these
spoon-feed-me toys *might* be useful, I think it is far more important for
the user to understand the principals behind what they are doing . . . both
software and genealogically speaking. In this reference I speak to my first
attempts at learning accounting -- I could preform the steps required to
enter a transaction, but I did not understand the *why* behind doing so.
Until I did, accounting made no sense to me. If you take away the *why* for
a user, the ability to grasp concepts will come -- not sooner -- but rather
later -- if at all.

If someone can't think through the operation of a program to figure out the
nuances, then I would question how capable that person was to think through
the intricacies of bits of information to form hypothesss, disprove or prove
those hypotheses, and reach a genealogical conclusion. Which is why there
is so much bad "genealogy" (and I use the term very loosely) out there.
Good Lord, people need to use their brains! And if they can't figure out
what pieces of information they obtained from a source and then cite back to
that source, then it is high time they take responsibility for working
through it and not having a wizard hovering over them telling them to click
on the box. Make *people* responsible for what they enter; not the program.

CheriC



-----Original Message-----
From: Michel Vuijlsteke [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 12:32 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [GENBOX] sourcing wizard


Cheri,

I think you're confusing a number of different ideas :)

The scenario for a wizard I proposed is just for adding *one* citation, to
whatever assertion, be it a complete event or just a date, a place, etc.

Then there's Paul's idea to have a list of possible items to be found on a
given source type. That is indeed a very culture-bound thing, but that
doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered. As far as I understand it, it's jut
a simple checklist, to make sure you haven't missed any information.

My personal opinion is that Genbox is incredibly user friendly, totally
straightforward and very easy to use. But I can understand that that's just
because I'm a IT professional. I can see that for an inexperienced user, let
alone a novice genalogist, the program is going to be *way* too difficult.
And then you've got a very limited set of options: dumb down the interface,
make a newbie/experienced user switch, alienate new and inexperienced users,
or provide them with excellent context sensitive help and a number of
wizards.

Michel

-----Original Message-----
From: Cheri Casper [mailto:]
Sent: donderdag 11 maart 2004 21:12
To:
Subject: RE: [GENBOX] sourcing wizard

Paul - I think even for adding citations, that a wizard is going to be
impractical. Michel listed several items that could be found on a marriage
certificate, however, I've not seen any of those items on a US marriage
certificate, certainly not mine. Again, I think accounting for cultural
differences is going to make this impractical. Additionally, supposing that
one could devised and used. Will this yield a citation to every fact or if
all facts are cited, will this revert to an Event citation? How will the
program know that you indeed want a separate citation for every fact for an
event (which might be someone's preference) versus an event-level citation?
What if you forget and add it to every fact but really only want an Event
level one? I just see a lot of questions and ramifications.

I just see too many issues for this to be implemented in a practical manner.
IMHO there are other places that I would like to see Bill focus his
attention . . . namely making the search/query feature more user friendly
and adding some items to the search capabilities.

CheriC


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul J. Harris [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 7:53 AM
To:
Subject: RE: [GENBOX] sourcing wizard


Cheri,

I have to agree with you here. I think a Wizard approach to 'creating' a
source is too structured for the requirements. That task should probably be
left to us non-wizards. <g>

Much of this discussion has actually centered more around a Wizardly
CITATION. What I think might be more useful to all levels of users would be
a wizardly approach to 'mining' a source. That is a term I have used to
describe what it is I do WITH a source. I 'mine' information from it, then
document that 'mining' process by creating citations. I use a checklist to
make sure I don't overlook anything in the source and that I create all of
the necessary citations. If the user could define their own 'Wizards' for
each source type that would prompt you for the citations you define for that
type, and track your progress on creating them, that could become an
invaluable tool.

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Cheri Casper [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 10:01 AM
To:
Subject: RE: [GENBOX] sourcing wizard


Michel - How would a wizard accommodate the various types of sources that
are culturally unique? For example, UK censuses are -- it is my
understanding -- quite unique from US censuses. Likewise with a variety of
records. I think there are monumental implications of trying to create a
wizard to handle such a breadth of sources and allow for such differences.
CheriC

-----Original Message-----
From: Michel Vuijlsteke [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 3:18 AM
To:
Subject: [GENBOX] sourcing wizard


I don't have that much else to do :) so I thought I'd flesh out my wizard
idea a bit.

Here's how I would see a wizard that would guide a user to add source
information to an assertion.

Step 1. Explain the process, choose existing source or new source.
For existing sources: show last x used (10?) + "More...", and/or allow
typing in the combobox, continue with step 2.
For new sources: create the new source first (see below), then continue

Step 2. Format the citation
a. Show what the citation looks like (as in primary citation on formatting
tab). Ask if this is specific enough to find the necessary support for the
assertion. If not, add "where in source" information + refresh preview b. Do
you want to add an introduction to the citation, e.g. "Birth date can be
deduced from" or "Name variation as seen in signature on"? If so, add "lead
text" + refresh preview.
c. Do you want to add an annotation, e.g. "Additional information in the
margin" or "Very poor quality copy"? If so, add "annotation" + refresh
preview.

Step 3. Support level and credibility
a. How much does the source (name) support you assertion (detail)? Radio
buttons for the differrnt support levels + short explanation b. How much
credibility do you attach to the source? Radio buttons for the differrent
credibility levels + short explanation c. Do you want to briefly explain why
you believe the cited source is relevant to the current assertion? This
information is for your own personal research purposes, and does not
normally appear on output reports. You can store here the reasons why you
assigned a low/high support level or low/high credibility, or the facts
extracted from the source that you think make your case, or personal
reminders of work yet to be performed. If so, add "rationale" info.

Step 4. Surety
Show the assertion and list all different citations for the assertion
(highlight the latest one).
"With all these citations, how sure are you of this assertion?" Radio
buttons for surety levels + explanation.

Step 5. The end
Showa final preview of the assertion + footnotes.
Offer the chance to manually fine tune: open citation and source window.

Now there are a few obvious problems, mostly because in "normal use" you
tend to sometimes go back and fort between the citation and the source, so
if you see there's something wrong in step 2 you'd have to be able to go to
the source definition to change the formatting-- and the wizard should
abviously be in a modal window, so you can't do anything else than the
wizard unless you close it.

I also don't really see how you could make a good wizard to add new sources,
because any (hard coded) wizard is going to have to depend on the
(non-modified!) existence of certain sources.

What I *can* see however, is source wizards for certain common types f
sources. In Belgium those would be birth/death/marriage civil records,
baptism/burial/marriage church records, photos, interviews, books, etc.

Michel


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word "subscribe" as the subject line. Then email your messages to
and they will appear on this list.

==============================
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Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more.
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237



==== GENBOX Mailing List ====
To join this list, send an email to with the
word "subscribe" as the subject line. Then email your messages to
and they will appear on this list.

==============================
Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration
Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more.
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237


==== GENBOX Mailing List ====
To join this list, send an email to with the
word "subscribe" as the subject line. Then email your messages to
and they will appear on this list.

==============================
Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration
Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more.
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237




==== GENBOX Mailing List ====
To join this list, send an email to with the
word "subscribe" as the subject line. Then email your messages to
and they will appear on this list.

==============================
Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration
Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more.
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237


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