Answering a Comment: More on SmartDraw

Today in my comments to be moderated, I found this from Ben Sayer:

Hi, Karen. Thanks for sharing news of this tool's application to genealogy.

What would you say are the reasons one might use SmartDraw instead of the capabilities of their existing genealogy software to create diagrams?

Why are computer fillable forms the "holy grail" for you?

I find the forms in genealogy programs to be rigid; they cannot be edited, or if they can, it isn't easy for me.  SmartDraw forms can be edited, modified, changed around.  And easily, too!  Besides, which -- heresy of heresies -- for my St. Augustine project, I'm not using a program, I'm using paper forms.  I am an old-school scholar who responds best to paper.  

My St. Augustine project has specialized needs: for instance, I needed a form which would show a godparent and all the children he or she had been godparent to, with their parents.  I didn't find anything I thought suitable in a genealogy program, but was able to create one in SmartDraw in a very short time with very little effort.  

As for why computer-fillable forms have been my holy grail:  my handwriting is horrible!  That is one of the chief reasons.  For another, I have arthritis, and it is impossible for me to write small enough for some forms -- that's another complaint I have about forms in general, that often they do not have enough room for what I need to enter into a particular blank.  With SmartDraw, if I feel that a blank or an area in a form is not large enough, I can change that.  And with some of these Spanish names, I need LARGE blanks on the forms! 

Thanks for your comments, Ben; gave me fodder enough for another blog post!  And thank you for reading my blog.

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I know where I was 39 Years Ago Today!

I was in the hospital, having given birth to our older daughter!  Happy birthday, kiddo!

The picture shown here is one I had done at what was then (December, 1971) Jacksonville's premiere department store, Cohen Brothers.  When I went downtown to pick up the prints, the manager asked me if it would be all right if they displayed a very large (something like 2 ft. x 3 ft.) poster-sized print in their department, on the wall.  I said it would be all right -- especially when they told me that when they were ready to change the display, they would give us the poster-sized portrait!  So my beautiful baby was highly visible to the elite of Jacksonville for a while.

Software for Genealogists: SmartDraw

Someone on a forum I participate in recommended the program SmartDraw when we were talking about creating genograms, which are used particularly by health professionals in plotting family health histories.  Genograms can have other applications, and I thought they might be useful in my research project.

I downloaded the trial version of SmartDraw and discovered that in addition to genograms, there are family group sheets, pedigree sheets, individual record sheets, and various forms for genealogists to track their research progress, such as correspondence record sheets.  The beauty of these forms is that they are all computer-fillable!  This has been a holy grail of mine for a long time.

With SmartDraw you can modify each of their pre-stored forms to fit your own situation.  You can also create your own templates, as I did in creating the form I am using for tracking compadrazgo -- the godparent relationship -- in the population of St. Augustine, FL, during the Second Spanish Period.  What I am finding there is leading me to investigate the importance of the patrón in St. Augustine society.

SmartDraw also has maps.  Lots and lots of maps.  And again, you can modify the maps to fit your needs.  I may try my hand at creating some meaningful maps, especially if I can import formats from scanned images. 

I was disappointed to discover that SmartDraw's timelines are completely business-oriented, and I am having a difficult time modifying that particular template.  I will have to try more experiments when I have a little more time.  But overall, I am very pleased with the usefulness of SmartDraw, its flexibility and its ease of use in connection with my project.  I anticipate further uses later on, as well, when I am finally able to get back to doing my own family's genealogy once again!

Required disclaimer:  I was not given the copy of SmartDraw; I paid for it with my own money.  I was not asked by anyone connected with SmartDraw or with any other entity to write this review.  Views expressed herein are mine and mine alone.  Neither I nor any member of my family is employed by the company which created and sells SmartDraw, nor do we have any other connection with them.
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The records do not always give us what we want

I have recently had an inquiry concerning a Spanish marriage record from the middle of the 1800s.  The individual who sent me the copy of the record wanted to know why the prospective groom's grandparents were not mentioned in the record, to see if the page she sent me revealed any information on that score.

Alas, it did not.  It often happens in these records that there is a variation -- sometimes a wide variation -- in the amount of information provided.  You would think, for instance, that a will would name any heirs to an estate, or that an inquiry into an intestacy would reveal the names of heirs.  Not always.  I had one probate case -- in fact, it was the one I have discussed here before, of the doctor who committed suicide in St. Augustine in 1809.  The rather lengthy packet of documents mentions, more than once, the doctor's two daughters.  Nowhere in the documents are their names revealed.

And in the marriage record in question, there is no information as to why the groom's grandparents were not named, nor would there be.  It is often the luck of the draw in how much information we find in a particular document.

I am currently dealing with baptism records in my research into the families of St. Augustine, FL, during the Second Spanish Period, and I find a tremendous variation in the amount of information provided.  Some records list not only the parents and godparents, but both sets of grandparents as well.  Some reocrds list the profession of the father or the godfather, and sometimes both.  Others are mute on the subject. 

One tactic I intend to employ, once I get all the transcriptions done, is to see whether it was one particular priest who entered the more complete information into the records.  That may or may not have been the case, but it has my curiosity up.  It could very well be that one of the priests was more prone to gather more information than the other one was.  It could also be that parents just did not reveal a great deal of information about the family.

We just have to understand that we may not always find what we want to find in the documents.
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