Ideal Present Club

Software for Family Historians

Welcome to the Ideal Present Club web pages.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Peter Cooley and I am a sole trader who writes and markets a Family History program called Biographer. Biographer is an extremely flexible record input and maintenance program with a unique feature: all enhancements and improvements are suggested by users. Hence the Club motto

Biographer is the program that you want!

Why is it called Biographer? Well, many years ago I wrote an article for Computers in Genealogy in which I proposed a records-checking device that I dubbed a 'biograph'. The biograph of an individual is a three column display with dates in the life of the subject and their kin arranged in chronological order. From left to right the columns contain:

Age of the Subject

Date

Narrative of the event

Apart from the subject, a biograph always contains details of these close kin:

Parents

Siblings and Half-Siblings

Spouse(s)

Children and Step-Children

There are options to include more distant kin such as:

Great-grandparents

Grandparents

Uncles & Aunts

First Cousins

Nephews & Nieces

Grandchildren

Great-grandchilren

Parents-in-law

Siblings-in-law

Children-in-law

A typical biograph looks like this

Peter Cooley

____ 22 May 1897 His mother, Elsie Victoria REYNOLDS was born at Barham, Kent

____ 11 Feb 1899 His father, Charles Thomas COOLEY was born at Camberwell, London

____ 11 Sep 1924 His father, Charles Thomas COOLEY married mother Elsie Victoria REYNOLDS

____ 19 Mar 1929 His sister, Jean Elsie COOLEY was born at Islington, London

______________________________________________________

____ 3 Mar 1938 He was born at East Barnet, Hertfordshire

____ 1 May 1938 He was christened at St. John's, Friern Barnet, Middlesex

23 21 Jun 1961 His father, Charles Thomas COOLEY died at Hampstead, London

24 1 Sep 1962 He married Margaret Jean COWARD

26 3 Dec 1964 His son, Robert Peter COOLEY was born at Luton, Bedfordshire

28 26 Sep 1966 His son, David Graham COOLEY was born at Clifton, Bedfordshire

32 15 Jul 1970 His daughter, Alison Ruth COOLEY was born at Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire

49 1 Sep 1987 Silver Wedding with Margaret Jean COWARD

50 18 Nov 1988 His mother, Elsie Victoria REYNOLDS died at Harefield Hospital, Middlesex

56 5 Nov 1994 His daughter, Alison Ruth COOLEY married Steve BERRY

60 16 May 1998 His son, Robert Peter COOLEY married Caroline OWEN

The biograph format fulfills three important functions:

1. Incorrectly input dates stand out 'like a sore thumb'

2. Missing dates are drawn to the user's attention by being bunched together at the start of the biograph

3. A printout provides a focus for comments from living relatives and a good place to make written notes while you are researching.

You can enter data directly into a new data set that you create within biographer, or do a GEDCOM import. The data structure provides four types of records:

1. Individual

2. Family

3. Source

4. Census

Each record type has a large number of fields and all of the records are interlinked so that you can navigate easily from one to another. Biographer automatically maintains a picklist of Individuals, Families, and Sources. You can have multiple instances of events. If, for example, you have some evidence of date of birth from a Census Return and other evidence from a burial record, you record both dates and sources by creating two separate instances of the Birth event.

Other programs with this sort of power cost £60. Biographer costs just £15.00! For £17.50 you get Biographer and Club membership for one year with quarterly enhancements to the program! How do we do it? Simple - the software is written and distributed by the same person, so there are no middlemen taking a cut and I have very low overheads.

Please visit GENfair for more information about Biographer and how to join

The Ideal Present Club.