Chadbourne Family Association

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Last Update 8/27/2003

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Review of the Chadbourne Family CD

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.

Review of the Chadbourne Family CD

Originally published in The Maine Genealogist Journal of the Maine Genealogical Society 23 (February 2001): 46-47.

Originally published in
The Maine Genealogist
Journal of the Maine Genealogical Society
23 (February 2001): 46-47.