Hi Carol, I'm very impressed with your use of "voice recognition" software in writing your e-mail message to this PBS site. You, clearly, are far more successful with using it than I have been. I suspect that most readers on this PBS site have never used "voice recognition" software to write a text message and have little or no idea of the effort required to do so. You're to be congratulated. Your e-mail is quite readable. Although I do not have a physical handicap that would require me to use "voice recognition" software, I have tried using it to convert audio recordings of family history interviews to text so that I can edit them and print them in Microsoft WORD. However, I have not been sufficiently successful in doing so and keep hoping to find "newer" software that will permit me to do that. And, hopefully, with a minimum of editting. I probably have over 200 hours of such recordings that I would like to convert to text. I'm curious to know what "voice recognition" software you are using and whether in writing your e-mail you had to "spell-out", letter-by-letter, many words not found in the software's dictionary, like Chmielewski, Breman, Stanislas, Faustyn, etc.? I understand your frustration in trying to locate the name of the town/village from which your grandmother came. I had the same problem years ago when I first began my family search. However, my breakthrough came through cousins in a small town in NE PA, through whom I met and interviewed an elderly lady, only distantly related to our family through an early second marriage. >From her I learned the name of her mother's ancestral village in Poland. Because most of the immigrants in that NE PA town appeared to come from that same area of Poland, I assumed my family also came from that area and had genealogists in Poland search the B-M-D records in the Polish archives for that village and others nearby. As a result, I "hit paydirt", as they say, and found my family in those records. Because of that "stroke of luck", I have since found family in Poland and Ukraine that I never knew I had and have traveled there five times since 2003 to spend time with them and to further my family history search. Perhaps, you too, will have similar luck. I look forward to hearing from you again. Andy Pittsburgh, PA **************Stay up-to-date on the latest news - from fashion trends to celebrity break-ups and everything in between. (http://www.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000024)

Hi Andy! Thank you very much for your nice e-mail. Sometimes, really most of the time, voice systems are really a pain. I would be more than happy to share my discovery with you and others. First of all, does your computer have Windows Vista? This is the most important thing because I found quite by accident that Windows Vista has a built in word recognition system. Do you believe? I couldn't believe it up when I accidentally discovered it. First of all, go to your control panel and put it on classics view and look for the icon which says speech recognition. Basically, you want to open it up. I honestly can't remember if I right or left clicked. Secondly, the other most important thing I discovered is to purchase a couple of good headsets from the company that makes dragon naturally speaking. It's called Nuance and you can look it up on your computer. You might spend a little Bit more for the headsets,----- however, they are worth every nickel. I've found that you might have to wait a little but convince the salesperson how much you need a headset. When you get the speech opened go to the help section and search for basic commands and print off the sheet. This will help you tremendously in getting a feel for the system. It is much easier and user friendly than dragon. Yes, you still have to spell things, however, you won't believe the difference. I wish you luck was the system. Be sure to e-mail me back and let me know how much it works for you. If you've used dragon then I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Remind me to tell you this story about Microsoft and the disabilities division-= happy typing! Carol From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 3:00 PM Subject: Re: [PBS] Born? > Hi Carol, > > I'm very impressed with your use of "voice recognition" software in > writing > your e-mail message to this PBS site. You, clearly, are far more > successful > with using it than I have been. I suspect that most readers on this PBS > site > have never used "voice recognition" software to write a text message and > have little or no idea of the effort required to do so. You're to be > congratulated. Your e-mail is quite readable. > > Although I do not have a physical handicap that would require me to use > "voice recognition" software, I have tried using it to convert audio > recordings > of family history interviews to text so that I can edit them and print > them in > Microsoft WORD. However, I have not been sufficiently successful in > doing > so and keep hoping to find "newer" software that will permit me to do > that. > And, hopefully, with a minimum of editting. I probably have over 200 > hours of > such recordings that I would like to convert to text. > > I'm curious to know what "voice recognition" software you are using and > whether in writing your e-mail you had to "spell-out", letter-by-letter, > many > words not found in the software's dictionary, like Chmielewski, Breman, > Stanislas, Faustyn, etc.? > > I understand your frustration in trying to locate the name of the > town/village from which your grandmother came. I had the same problem > years ago when I > first began my family search. However, my breakthrough came through > cousins > in a small town in NE PA, through whom I met and interviewed an elderly > lady, only distantly related to our family through an early second > marriage. >>From her I learned the name of her mother's ancestral village in Poland. > Because most of the immigrants in that NE PA town appeared to come from > that same > area of Poland, I assumed my family also came from that area and had > genealogists in Poland search the B-M-D records in the Polish archives > for that > village and others nearby. As a result, I "hit paydirt", as they say, > and found my > family in those records. > > Because of that "stroke of luck", I have since found family in Poland and > Ukraine that I never knew I had and have traveled there five times since > 2003 > to spend time with them and to further my family history search. > Perhaps, you > too, will have similar luck. > > I look forward to hearing from you again. > > Andy > Pittsburgh, PA > > > > > **************Stay up-to-date on the latest news - from fashion trends to > celebrity break-ups and everything in between. > (http://www.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000024) > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >