The irreparable loss of time to which Virgil referred to in his poem, Georgics, is a universal fate, and the cause of a malady which all of us either endure or succumb to depending upon one’s personality and the strength and compassion of the community that may offer us support. Time is always fleeing; and we attempt to forestall its exodus with conscious activity or we drift along, perhaps seeking to avoid introspection and the horizon which once seemed indistinguishable from eternity now looms before us with foreboding proximity and clarity. Perhaps, one must reach a certain age before the notion of an end point is significant enough to invade one’s consciousness or force one to attend to the unfinished business banished to the dust bins of procrastination.
About a year ago I went through a process of evaluating genealogy programs for Macs which I documented in a post at the time. While I tended toward Reunion 9 because of its venerable status and reputation within the Mac community, its steep price tag forced me to consider alternatives before I made my choice. Ultimately I opted for iFamily For Tiger, as it was known at the time. The price was certainly right; however, the real selling point for me was the quirky, engaging personality of the developer, Keith Wilson. iFamily was a shining example of Keith’s skill as a programmer; it was also a platform for his approach to and abiding interest in genealogy. Because Keith was engaged in his own genealogical search he was an advocate for genealogy first and a programmer second; although, the product of his efforts or his ability to translate the needs of the genealogist into code were always first class. Have a question about genealogy, iFamily; want a function, report, or chart added to the program; found a bug; just ask Keith. In most instances the feature would be added almost as quickly as the request was made. The lively interaction with Keith both on the user forum and through personal email was invigorating for iFamily users and responsible for its rapid, feature-rich development.
While activity on the forum seemed to lag noticeably, the change to a new host for the forum had not gone as well as Keith would have liked. While the problems were being ironed out, as he frequently did, Keith notified registered users personally by email regarding the difficulties and instructions for rejoining the forum obtaining version updates–once one purchased iFamily all updates to the program were free, forever. Nearly a month of inactivity preceded the shocking news delivered to registered iFamily users: Keith died suddenly in November while on vacation.
Keith’s son, Warwick, has pledged to continue the work his father had begun. While Warwick expressed both his intention to continue development of iFamily and competence as a professional programmer to achieve that end, the forum exchanges have almost disappeared and the last update which was prepared by Keith has still not been released. The grief of losing one’s father is indescribable, the effect on one’s life is unimaginable so I presume that the jaunty wit, the devil-may-care attitude, the celebration of life that Keith exuded in almost every email, post, or response may be as painful to emulate as it is difficult to duplicate. Keith’s incredible work ethic translated into an unbelievably robust genealogy program; however, I am certain he would be the first to admit that there was still much more development and refinement planned for iFamily. While patience may be the apothecary’s potion for the present, time still flees, families reunite and their numbers may increase even as their generations fade away; I hope iFamily is not one of those disappearing generations.
