The Master Genealogist

[Nota bene: this is the product announcement from 1993 when TMG v1.0 began shipping. On April 21, 1995, TMG v1.2 began shipping. Version 1.2 includes many new features, report formats, printer support, etc., which are not described here. The v1.2 Announcement describes the new features. All registered owners of previous versions of TMG will receive the upgrade to v1.2 free.]

Announcement

Introducing a comprehensive research system representing a revolution in genealogical software!

The Master Genealogist (TMG) is the result of more than five years of design and promises to be the most flexible research environment available to genealogists and family historians today.

TMG breaks through the many barriers normally encountered in record-keeping systems and offers a professional environment for your research.

TMG is intended for the serious historian and encourages good research and documentation habits - beginning, of course, with professional source citations. Every item of data can be documented in as much or as little detail as the researcher chooses. In addition, researchers are no longer forced to make premature conclusions or compromises for the sake of data entry. Every event in a person's life can be recorded in full detail - including multiple variations of the same event.

Uncertain dates? Conflicting data? Multiple spellings? This only touches on TMG's power and flexibility. Search by married names? Uncertain parentage? Multiple lines of descent? TMG handles them with ease.

THE MASTER GENEALOGIST puts the power in your hands.

In addition to the most flexible work environment available, TMG offers all of the standard features you would expect from a professional research tool, including an integrated research log, a full-featured text editor, unlimited text fields, pop-up calendar, GEDCOM import/export, customized reports, and support for multiple date formats. You'll also find long-awaited features like complete source citations and astonishing new innovations like on- screen full-color images!

TMG made its debut at the 1993 NGS Conference in Baltimore, MD, in June, 1993, and received a very enthusiastic response. It began shipping later that month.

An abbreviated list of features:

NO LIMIT TO THE NUMBER OF.....(*)
people per database. (OK, actually it's 1,000,000,000)
events per person (marriages, employment, military...)
occurrences of a single event type (conflicting birth records...)
children per person
name variations per person (married, nickname, spelling)
completely user-defined event types (Educated, Hospitalized ...)
parents per person (conflicting data, adoptive parents...)
witnesses to a single event! Any person can be associated with any event in the database. One application is the capability to link an unlimited number of witnesses to historical events (war, epidemic, migration, politics), in effect defining a person's life in the context of an historical timeline.
characters in a memo/note field which can be tied to any name, event, or parental relationship.
master sources or total citations (see also below)
independent data sets

In addition, TMG offers virtually unlimited field lengths for data entry. No more awkward abbreviations are necessary!

SOURCES

fully customizable master list of sources.
independent source citations for each name, event, and parental relationship.
each citation can be weighted to reflect the reliability of the data.
each element of the data (date, place, memo, etc.) can be weighted independently - even those that come from a single source.
classification of sources by media, fidelity, repository, call number and numerous other categories.
sources and surety features are easy to use but not required.

OTHER FEATURES

automatic prompting/linking of relationships at the point of data entry.
on-screen graphic pedigree (scroll through generations).
customized reporting capabilities, including user-defined report fields and boolean filters (and/or).
13 customizable person flags with user-definable values.
pop-up integrated research log, full-featured text editor, relationship calculator, and pop-up calendar with date arithmetic.
on-screen color scanned images (photos, maps, signatures, original documents) on the same screen with text at a resolution of up to 1024x768 in 256 colors (SVGA). Reads PCX, GIF, BMP, IMG, TIFF and X11 formats.
nine date formats (12/24/1861, 24 DEC 1861, etc.) to choose from
customized screen layout and colors.
GEDCOM import/export
menu driven with hot-keys for experienced users
context-sensitive help
on-screen clock
Microsoft-compatible mouse support
sensitivity brackets {like this} to exclude private data from reports
text macros and other data-entry shortcuts...

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

(Please read carefully!)

IBM compatible 386 or higher
3 Meg available RAM (expanded or extended)
Hard drive
Mono/CGA/EGA/VGA/SVGA monitor
Mouse (optional)
Printer (optional): more than 100 printers including lasers are supported
Scanner (optional)

TMG is a powerful research tool which puts today's technology to work for you in ways that have never before been possible. This is the reason for its rather sophisticated hardware requirements.

Plans are underway for TMG/Mac and TMG for Windows. If you are interested in these products or if you would like to make comments or suggestions about their design, we'd love to hear from you.

(*) As would be expected, your hard drive may impose its own limitations as to file size. If you want to record more than one billion people, then you probably shouldn't be using a PC anyway.

The price of THE MASTER GENEALOGIST (TMG) version 1.0 is $99.00 plus $4 shipping and handling ($8 s&h for international orders). California residents add 8.25% tax ($8.17 per copy).

 
Developed and owned by:                   Distributed by:

  Wholly Genes Software                     Kent Supply Company
  6868 Ducketts Lane                        P.O. Box 4136
  Elk Ridge, Maryland 21227                 Chatsworth, CA 91313-4136

Orders: (800) 982-2103                   AOL: LissaS
         BBS: (703) 823-5216 (8/n/1)         GEnie: L.SOERGEL
Tech Support: (410) 796-2447 (voice)       Prodigy: PSVH91A
  CompuServe: 72450,3473                   Fidonet: 1:109/623
    Internet: Wholly.Genes@permanet.org        NVN: LSoergel

[TMG Page]

L.A.W. 5 May 1995