This article can be viewed directly from Eastman Genealogical Newsletter July 29, 2014 at http://blog.eogn.com/2014/07/29/the-master-genealogist-to-be-discontinued/
IF ANY OF YOU HAD TMG AND ARE LOOKING FOR A NEW PROGRAM, PLEASE EMAIL ME AND I CAN SEND YOU A COMPARISON CHART OF 3 MAJOR PROGRAMS WITH 3 FREE TRIAL VERSIONS AND OR LET YOU TRY ALL 3 AT OUR FHC
The Master Genealogist to be Discontinued
Sad news! The following announcement was made today by Bob Velke, the owner of Wholly Genes, Inc.:
I am sad to report that the decision has been made to discontinue The Master Genealogist (“TMG”).
While thousands of TMG users appreciate
the program’s many powerful features that are unmatched in other
software, the market for those advanced features has proved to be
insufficient to support the infrastructure that is necessary to support
it and continue development. A variety of my own health issues have also
contributed to this decision as I have fewer opportunities to focus on
the things that would be necessary to develop and market the program.
There is every reason to believe that TMG
will continue to work for existing users for the foreseeable future but
official support will end at the end of 2014, although we may release
some more bug fixes (but no new features) before that. In the interest
of those who may want to communicate their data to family members or
upgrade to the latest release, we will continue to sell the full product
and updates through September with the understanding that product
development has been discontinued.
After the end
of the year, I expect to maintain the support forum which would be
available for user-to-user support. Other online support forums,
including the TMG-L mailing list, are also available to users.
For 25 years, TMG has repeatedly pushed
the boundaries of genealogical software and promoted the highest
principles of scholarship in record-keeping and reporting. It has
encouraged users to expect more from their family tree software,
especially in the area of source citations, and the industry has
responded by setting new and higher standards in its suite of “standard
features.” To lesser degrees, programs have begun to emulate some of
TMG’s other innovative features, including its powerful
filtering/searching functions, flags, customizable screen layouts,
shared events (i.e., witnesses), and narrative output options.
As genealogical data has become more
sophisticated, researchers have been increasingly confronted with the
many limitations of GEDCOM in transferring that data. For more than two
decades, our GenBridge technology has demonstrated that much more
complete and accurate transfers can be achieved through direct imports.
Other family tree programs have implemented the GenBridge technology or
developed similar direct-import strategies, resulting in the
preservation of precious data for countless researchers.
I am proud of the leadership role that TMG
has played in the evolution of genealogical software and I encourage
TMG users to continue to press developers to raise their standards and
implement features that allow researchers to do the same.
In the interest of preserving users’ data,
I have released a document that details TMG’s internal file structure
and I will make GenBridge available for free to developers who wish to
produce a direct import from TMG insofar as their programs support the
same features.
It goes without saying that this has been a
painful decision and is a significant milestone for me. TMG has been a
major part of my life for more than 25 years and it is not easy to let
it go. I recognize too and regret the degree to which it may leave
researchers uneasy about the future of their data and the prospects for
their research tools. I am taking a necessary step back from the
genealogical community but with the hope that my contribution to it has
left researchers better equipped to accomplish their research goals.
Bob Velke
Owner
Wholly Genes, Inc.
Owner
Wholly Genes, Inc.
