Originally
published in
The Maine Genealogist
Journal of the Maine Genealogical Society
23 (February 2001): 46-47.
THE CHADBOURNE FAMILY IN AMERICA: A GENEALOGY, compiled by Elaine
Chadbourne Bacon for The Chadbourne Family Association (CFA), 2000 Edition,
CD-ROM (Wheat Ridge, Colo.: Search & ReSearch Publishing Corporation,
2000), $35.00 plus $3.00 shipping (note that CFA members are eligible
for volume discounts described at <http://www.chadbourne.org>).
Order from CFA, c/o Howard Kaepplein, 33 Jacob Gates Rd., Harvard MA
01451, or call 978-456-3637 (after 7 PM).
[System requirements: CD-ROM drive; Folio Views(tm) 4.20 software included
on each CD-ROM; Windows and Macintosh compatible.]
The first edition of The Chadbourne Family in America:
A Genealogy was favorably reviewed in this journal in August 1998 (Vol.
20, No. 3, pp. 141-42). Compiled over many years by Elaine Chadbourne
Bacon, with editing and research help from a team of professional genealogists,
the book was a major contribution to Maine genealogy and gave outstanding
treatment to an important early family. However, by time the review
appeared, the book was sold out and the Chadbourne Family Association
(CFA) was considering printing a second edition. The second, or 2000,
edition is now available on CD-ROM.
There are pluses and minuses to publishing a book on
CD-ROM. The problem with many CD books is a certain amount of inconvenience
and navigation difficulties. With a printed book, it is a simple matter
to grab it off the bookshelf, look up a reference or chapter using the
index or table of contents, and quickly turn to the indicated page.
Also, books are portable and they can be read at any time or any place.
On the other hand, CD books require the user to have access to a computer
with the appropriate software installed, it takes time for the computer
to boot up and the CD to load, and often there is a lack of a good index
and navigation aids, making it difficult to find the page where the
desired information is located.
Navigation, fortunately, is not a problem on this CD
because of several innovative and powerful tools that help the user
find information efficiently. Using the Folio Views(tm) software (provided
with the CD), a toolbar on the left side of the screen lists the chapters
organized by Chadbourne generation starting with the immigrant, William1
Chadbourne. Double clicking on a generation provides a list of all family
heads of that generation who are treated individually. A double click
on one of these names then brings up the page where that person's sketch
is found. Genealogists who read a compiled genealogy such as this one
are usually interested in a particular ancestor, including his or her
line forward to the present and back to the immigrant.
On this CD, once an ancestor's sketch is displayed,
it is easy to follow the lineage through the use of internet-style "hotlinks." In accordance with standard Register style, all of the family sketches
include the line of filiation back to the immigrant. For example, William5
Chadbourne's lineage is given as (William4, Humphrey3,
Humphrey2, William1). In
William5's sketch, his father's name, William4,
is formatted as a hotlink within the line of filiation. By double clicking
on the hotlink, the page containing William4's sketch is instantly accessed.
In William4's sketch, his father's name is also rendered as a hotlink,
giving instant access to the sketch of Humphrey3, and so on back through
the generations.
Likewise, the names of any children carried forward
into the next generation are similarly hotlinked, and it is therefore
a simple matter to navigate forward and backward through all of the
generations. Additionally, the text on the CD is "every word searchable."
By entering a word or phrase in a search box provided at the bottom
of the screen, all occurrences of that word or phrase are displayed
as a list of "hits," which can then be reviewed one by one.
This second edition includes a number of additions
and corrections to the first edition and a clearer numbering system
for female lines. The latter change was suggested by the current editor
of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register as a better
way to provide the Chadbourne lineage of female descendants of other
surnames. For example, Patience Goodwin, a Chadbourne descendant of
the fourth generation, is listed as PatienceC4 Goodwin (MargaretC3 Spencer,
Patience2, William1). The superscripted "C4" indicates that
she is a fourth-generation member of the Chadbourne as opposed to the
Goodwin family.
The CD offers several other bonuses, including all
31 back issues of The Pied Cow, the biannual newsletter of the CFA;
a slide show in Microsoft Powerpoint format with photographs detailing
the archaeological dig at the site of the original Humphrey2 Chadbourne
homestead in South Berwick; a beautifully drawn and colored map (circa
1665) from the British Museum Crown Collection entitled "Pascatway
River In New England," which even shows the location of the Humphrey2
homestead; and a gallery of 36 photographs depicting persons, houses
and places of interest to Chadbourne descendants.
It is obvious that a lot of good planning and organization
went into the design of this unique CD-ROM. Any person or organization
considering electronic publishing would be well served to study this
product carefully. The CFA indicates that the design and setup cost
to produce the CD was comparable to that of publishing the printed book;
however, the cost of making additional CDs will be negligible, as more
can be burned at only the cost of the blank CD.
Reviewed by Joseph C. Anderson II, Dallas, TX, Editor
Dick Eastman Online
6/27/2001
The Chadbourne Family in America: A Genealogy on CD-ROM
Dick Eastman
I generally do not write about books or CD-ROM disks of specific families.
I prefer to write about items that are of interest to lots of people
rather than those items for only one family. However, this week I explored
an outstanding family CD-ROM disk and decided to write about it. "The
Chadbourne Family in America: A Genealogy" is an excellent example
of a computerized genealogy on CD-ROM that many other family organizations
might like to emulate.
This CD-ROM contains every word from the 1994 book entitled, Descendants
of William Chadbourne of Tamworth, England and in 1634 Kittery/Berwick,
Maine including all known males for fifteen generations and female descendants'
families for the first five generations, together with an appendix of
unlinked Chadbournes" as compiled by Elaine Chadbourne Bacon for
The Chadbourne Family Association. This was a monumental book that is
certain to be the standard reference for Chadbourne research for the
next several decades.
The CD-ROM
version includes every word from the original book plus many additions
and a few corrections. Unlike many other CD-ROM disks I have reviewed,
this one is text-based. You see words, not images of the original book.
Best of all, you can copy-and-paste paragraphs or even pages of information
directly into your word processor or favorite genealogy program. For
instance, here is one such "copy-and-paste" that illustrates
the kind of information you may find on this CD-ROM disk:
CAPT JOSEPH HALEY (Hollis VR) of Phillipsburg or Little Falls, b York
1772, d 11 Jan 1809; m2 (int) 16 Mar 1811 (NEHGR 9:253, she of Phillipsburg)
DANIEL SEDGLEY, d 1 Apr 1815; m3 Waterborough 1 June 1820 (NEHGR 91:15)
DARLING HUNTRESS JR, b 9 Mar 1756, d Shapleigh ME 26 May 1839, son of
Darling (32.ii.2) and Love (Hearl) Huntress of Newington NH; no children.
Darling Huntress had married twice before: Mary Warren and Dorothy Hubbard,
d 1800 and 1818 ("Nathan Goodwin's Book of Remarks" MHS).
Phebe was buried in a small family cem in N Waterborough with her Hill
nephews & nieces.
118
vi. JOHN, b Coxhall 17 Apr 1780.
119 vii. JEREMIAH, b Coxhall 22 June 1782.
viii. JOANNA, b Coxhall 20 Apr 1784; bpt 23 July 1790; d Waterborough
22 June 1875; m 2 July 1805 by Rev Edmund Eastman (NEHGR 90:229)
(NOTE: Depending upon which e-mail program you use to read this newsletter
and whether it uses proportional or non-proportional fonts, the alignment
of the above text may look "funny." However, it looks great
in the word processor I used to prepare this newsletter. It will look
equally good in your word processor if you copy-and-paste directly from
the CD-ROM.)
The format
is typical of Register format: brief, but with all the required information
and references included. In this case, you can see that the sources
of this information include the New England Historic Genealogical Register
Volume 9, page 253 (NEHGR 9:253), "Nathan Goodwin's Book of Remarks"
as found at the Maine Historical Society and the New England Historic
Genealogical Register Volume 90, page 229 (NEHGR 90:229).
The information
is stored in a database format, not as images. The result is that printing
works well; you can print one record at a time, that is, all the information
about one person. The resultant printout looks as if it was created
by one of the modern genealogy programs. These printouts are nicely
formatted.
The same
CD-ROM disk also contains a copy of every edition of the Pied Cow Newsletter,
as published by the same family association. You can search for articles
in the full file of thirty-one issues dating from 1984 to 2000. You
can view the newsletters on-screen or print them on your local printer.
The Chadbourne
Family in America CD-ROM was created with Folio Views software. All
the required software is included for the 32-bit Windows systems, including
Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000. It probably works on Windows ME also, but
I did not test that. Macintosh users will be delighted to find that
this CD-ROM also includes software for use on Macintosh with operating
systems through version 9.X.
The Chadbourne
Family Association created this CD-ROM disk in association with Search
& Research Publishing Corporation. It sells for $35 (U.S. funds).
However, if you join the Chadbourne Family Association for $10, the
price of the CD-ROM drops to $25. As that still is a total of only $35,
you probably will want to join the Association.
For more information about this CD-ROM disk, or about the Chadbourne
Family Association, look at: www.chadbourne.org.
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