Wish List - Document Management

[MMj 0]

Hi

 

Even as a relative newcomer to the genealogy arena, I am finding myself faced with a rapidly ballooning wealth of documentation. I've been playing around with the idea of using a software like Clooz as an electronic filing cabinet, especially for things like census, birth, marriage and death records.

 

As of yet I'm still in the Clooz trial period, and haven't actually purchased it.

 

1. Are there any other similar softwares that I might want to consider? It would be especially helpful if such a software could be used on my Palm LifeDrive.

 

2. Are there any of these document management softwares that TMG works and plays with better than others?

 

3. Has WG given any consideration to the idea of incorporating a document management module into TMG?

 

Number 3 would be a really cool thing to have!

[elevator 0]

I personally just attach the documents you mention to the corresponding sources. For example the digital scan of the birth certificate of whomever get's attached to the particular source for that document. It works great I think. I have an intricate folder system where every source and every person has his or hers own folder where all the documents are stored. That way they are easy to find.

 

A separate document manager feature, would in my opinion make the whole system harder to use. Maybe if we could replace the current system with a more robust and feature rich system; that would be something to consider? But having the possibility of storing digital documents both in a document manager and in a source/pesonal file seems a little redundant to me. Maybe I misunderstood your question?

 

I'd definitely like to see an improvement in many areas of the current exhibit management system though :-)

 

Ken.

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

I only use TMG. In my Master Source List is one source per document. I can then attach a scan of the document if I have the original (or photocopy). In my Source output I added the source element SOURCE NUMBER (which I created) and FILE REFERENCE.

 

This allows me to have any source tell me the place to find it in my filing cabinet, like:

Billy Bob Jones, Birth certificate.....Jones Births, #1429.

 

This means it is in the Jones Birth folder, and it is TMG # 1429.

 

It has worked fine for me since I created it in UFT and migrated to TMG about 4 years ago. No double entry. YOu can then use GEDSTAR PRO for you PDA, or Pocket Genealogist for your palm and have your Master Source list with you all the time.

[MMj 0]

Thanks for the inputs. I really haven't decided what I want to do as yet. I currently use TMG in conjunction with GedStar Pro to view my data on my Palm when I'm away from home. That has been a great investment. It weighs practically nothing, and I don't have to lug my 9lb. laptop with me everywhere I go. I avoided handhelds like the plague itself for years, and now that I have one I don't know how I got along without it. What really sold me on the Palm LifeDrive was the 4 Gig internal hard drive, because I can download pictures from my digital cameras straight to it while I'm in the field, and it doubles as an image viewer.

 

But I only see a document management application as partly redundant, and that is the part that relates to the digital images and their source locations. But it can also contain transcription information from the original documents, and that information can be searched, filtered, analyzed and reported on just like the information in any other database. And those are the things about an application like Clooz that I find appealing. I think something like that could be useful if you want to know how many and what types of documents you have that relate to "John Smith", and what they contain.

 

But for the people-relationship-centric portion of what I want to do, TMG is the clear King of Softwares. I tried out a rather large sampling of competitive softwares over the past 6 months or so, and I didn't encounter a single other genealogy database that came close to TMG for functionality and flexibility. Ease of use is another matter, but I'm not particularly concerned that it will take a great deal of time to master the software.