Yes, absolutely. What you've done would be well beyond me. Tony 9967 On 28/07/2008, ROGER RUSHTON <rogerofgoostrey@btinternet.com> wrote: > Well done Marion you really are a star. > I am sure that all SFHG members will join me in thanking you for all your hard work > Kind regards > > > Roger > > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Marion Woolgar <listmail2008@btinternet.com> > To: SFHG Post Messages <SFHG@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Monday, 28 July, 2008 5:16:01 PM > Subject: Re: [SFHG] Old Family History Programs Needed > > A couple of weeks ago, I posted a message asking for help with a new project > that I had undertaken for the West Sussex Record Office. This was to build > a computer that was capable of running some very old genealogy programs. > Over the past 20 or so years, WSRO have received genealogy data deposited by > individual researchers, many of whom have passed away in the intervening > years. Of course, this data should have been deposited in GEDCOM format so > that it can easily be transferred to a modern program, but much of it is in > an old program's native format and now cannot be retrieved without the > parent program. Some people have found it strange that GEDCOM was not more > widely used, but 20 years ago, not every programmer had signed up to the > idea of making their software compatible with other programs that were in > the market. Also, many family historians didn't use purpose-built software > because it wasn't very easy to obtain and also because it wasn't very > powerful. So, many family tres were built on spreadsheets or within word > processors. > > The response to my appeal, made on just the SFHG and Sussex-Plus Mailing > Lists, was most generous. I have been offered items from List Members in > the UK, Sweeden, Canada and Australia and jiffy bags have been arriving in > my post at intervals within the past 10 days. One day, I had 5 such > envelopes contaning a variety of CD's, floppy disks and also a 56k modem. > On behalf of WSRO, I would like to thank everyone who responded, it really > has been a magnificent effort by all concerned. The last of these items > arrived this morning. > > Now that the "first wave" of programs have been received and loaded, I have > today been able to accept further offers of genealogy packages that have > been made in the past 10 days. I wanted to see what arrived from the > original offers before accepting any new items because two people sent me > different CD's which were a compilation of programs and I wanted to see > precisely what they were and if they still worked, before accepting new > offers. > > The computer is now in proper working order and has been built entirely from > components that have been donated, so is a good example of how unwanted > electrical goods can be recycled to a new purpose. The operating system is > Windows 98SE which is the last version of windows where switching between > that and MS DOS is relatively simple. In addition to a variety of genealogy > programs, some word processors and spreadsheets, such as MS Works and Lotus > SmartSuite (amongst others) have been loaded. Hopefully, the final few > donations will arrive in the next couple of weeks and then I will be able to > deliver the machine to WSRO with the compliments of us all. > > Best wishes > > Marion Woolgar > Bognor Regis, West Sussex > SFHG NO: 3323 > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SFHG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > > __________________________________________________________ > Not happy with your email address?. > Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SFHG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message