Effective backups

We all know that backups are important, right? It's not if your hard drive will fail, it's when. Yet we don't all do them regularly because it's a pain in the butt, right?

Well here's a practical solution, which I use daily. You will need a copy of Nero disk burning software, and MD5 checksum software (Advanced CheckSum Verifier is perfect for this, well worth the modest price).

Here is a Windows batch file that will perform the whole backup automatically, all you need to do is load a blank DVD every day. Just copy the batch file, modify it in Notepad with your specific folder names, save it on your hard drive and schedule it to run daily (or weekly if you don't mind losing six days' work).

:: The DVD burning command-line program
set NERO="C:\Program Files\Ahead\Nero\nerocmd.exe"
:: The MD5 checksum calculator
set ACSV=C:\Program Files\Checksum Verifier\acsv.exe
:: '/p2' = checksum file in each folder, '/s+' process subfolders
set OPT=/f0 /p2 /s+

:: ------------------------------------------------
:: 1- CALCULATE CHECKSUMS of all the directories you will backup
:: '/u' = update (create) checksum files, '/o+' disable prompt for overwriting checksum files
:: Results stored in '\temp\checksum1.log'
"%acsv%" /u "C:\My First Folder\" /o+ %OPT% /a \temp\checksum1.log
"%acsv%" /u "C:\My Second Folder\" /o+ %OPT%  /a \temp\checksum2.log
"%acsv%" /u "C:\Users\John\" /o+ %OPT%  /a \temp\checksum3.log
:: ------------------------------------------------ 

 :: 2- BURN DVD (or copy to disk) ('^' splits command over many lines)
%NERO% --write --drivename D --real --iso "%DATE%_MY_BACKUP" --dvd ^
    --recursive --speed 4 --no_user_interaction  ^
     "C:\My First Folder" "C:\My Second Folder" ^
     "C:\Users\John"

:: ------------------------------------------------  

:: 3- VERIFY CHECKSUMS
%NERO% --load --drivename D
"%acsv%" /v D:\ %OPT% /a \temp\checksum4.log

:: ------------------------------------------------  

:: 4- Eject disc
%NERO% --drivename D --eject

:: ------------------------------------------------ 

:: 5- Display Checksum verification results
notepad \temp\checksum4.log
pause

Here is an explanation of the commands.

The double colon '::' at the beginning of the line makes it a comment.

The 'set' commands at the beginning create shortcuts that make the rest of the commands easier to read and edit.  When preceded and followed by '%' percent, the shortcut is replaced with the fully expanded equivalent. Substitute the drive and folders where you installed Nero and ACSV on your PC.

Step 1 calculates the checksum files on your source (original) disk. The checksum files are small files called "md5sum.lst". There will be one written in each folder. Substitute the name of your own folders in the batch file. You can list as many as you want.

The results of the checksum calculation or verification is written to a log file ('/a' parameter).

Step 2 burns your data, including the checksum files, to a CD or DVD. If you prefer to backup to a hard drive, or over the network, replace this step with one or more XCOPY commands. Change the drive letter in "--drivename D" with your own CD or DVD drive letter. The caret (or circumflex) '^' allows you to spread the command over many lines.

Replace "C:\Users\John" with the name that you sign on with.

Step 3 verifies the checksum on the destination (target) CD, DVD or hard drive. A checksum is a hash total of all the bytes in the file. Every file has a unique checksum. If there were any errors during the copying, the re-calculated checksum of the copy will be different from the original checksum. The checksum verification program won't be able to tell you where the error is, but it will catch it. If there is an error, you know your copy is bad, and you must re-run the backup. In three years of running daily backups over two DVDs, I have had one error.

The "--load" command closes the drive droor, which Nero will have ejected.

Step 4 ejects the CD or DVD, letting you know the job completed. Step 5 displays the result of the verification. You should see zero errors. Again, replace with your CD/DVD drive letter.

Save this file, call it "mybackup.bat", in a folder called "C:\batchjobs".

IMPORTANT: The folder names listed for ACSV must be followed by a backslash ('\'). The folder names for Nero MUST NOT have a trailing backslash.

To schedule the backup in Windows 7, click on Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools. Double-click on Task Scheduler. In the menu, click on Action, Create Task. In the General tab, give the task a name, and Change User to Administrator. In the Action tab, browse to your batch file. In the Trigger tab, set the time and frequency. I run my backup at 3:00 AM.

Every morning, all you have to do is pluck the disc from the CD/DVD drive, label it, file it in a paper sleeve for the cheapest storage.

Another benefit of this solution is that the checksum files remain permanently in the backup directories. You  can run the checksum verification any time to confirm the validity of the backup, long after the original has been modified.

You can compare the CD/DVD to the original hard drive with the best utility ever designed to do this: Beyond Compare, worth many times its price.

Occasionally, the automatic Windows upgrade might mess up the job by rebooting in the middle of a backup. Not a problem: just run the batch job manually as Administrator.

The advantage of CD/DVD over cycling a set of hard drives or "thumb drives" (memory sticks), is that by the time you discover one of your files is corrupted, it might be too late, as the corrupted copy will have been spread over all available media.

BTW, I also backup to Mozy, I do a full disk backup to an external drive with Acronis, and I copy to another PC over the network.

Pedigree + Family Group Record + Index: a dynamite combination

The nitty-gritty of genealogy is gathering information. Charting Companion offers great tools to get the job done:

• The classic Pedigree chart
• Matching Family Group Record
• A comprehensive Index

Five-generation Pedigree

The Pedigree is a rigid, fixed-format chart that differs from the Ancestor in that blank spaces are reserved for missing ancestors, instead of compacting the chart.

Index for Pedigree Charts

An Index is a nice touch to quickly locate people, if you have a lot of Pedigree charts.

Family Group Record

The Family Group Record makes a great worksheet for family and relatives to fill in missing information, or correct errors. Easy to hand out a family reunions.

All three of these charts are generated automatically when you select the "Pedigree Chart" option.

Charts for Genetics

The Charting Companion Descendant and Outline Descendant charts provide some interesting genetic options: Y-chromosome and Mitochondrial. Both are useful for tracking the inheritance of genetic traits, passed on from ancestor to descendant.

Here is a chart of all the members of a family. The males are colored blue, and the females pink:

All the descendants

The Y-chromosome option shows all the male descendants who inherit this chromosome which determines gender. The Y chromosome can be used to determine paternity.

Y-chromosome - male descendants

The Mitochondrial option shows the female descendants who pass on the mitochondrial DNA to their daughters, and the sons who inherit, but do not pass it on:

Mitochondrial - female descendants (transmit), male (carry)

Unlike the other chromosomes that can recombine, The Y-DNA and Mitochondrial both pass down unchanged except for mutations, which makes them valuable for research and genealogical identification.

Tell the story of your family genetically!

The "Outline Descendant": compact and complete

The Outline Descendant is a unique report that lists a person's descendants, indenting for each generation.

Charting Companion's Outline Descendant has a special feature: an optional recap header.

Outline Descendant with handy "recap" feature

How often have you waded through page after page of a Descendant report, only to lose track of where you are in the pedigree?

Charting Companion includes a recap at the top of each page, a summary of the connection between the patriarch and the current person, so you can "keep your bearings" and know where you are in the tree.

The Outline Descendant includes a convenient index at the end, so the reader can quickly find persons of interest.

Telling the story of your family in a Book

Charting Companion is the only program[1] that can create a book from your genealogy data, and output it in a format that is truly compatible with your word processor: MS Word, WordPerfect, Open Office, etc. There are several benefits to this approach.

First page of a Descendant Book (aka "Register")

You can fine-tune the font type, font size, margins, page layout, etc. to suit your tastes. You can add photos to the book, in addition to the ones that Charting Companion automatically includes for you.

Charting Companion embeds special indexing codes throughout the book. These codes are unseen by the reader, but they guide the word processor into creating an automatic index at the end of the book. This is important because, as you change the format of the book, the page numbers will change and will need to be re-calculated. The word processor does this simply and quickly, giving you the option of a single- double- or multiple column index.

Three-column index with multiple page references for each person

The index includes years of birth and death, to differentiate between all those "John Smiths". Women are indexed under both their maiden and married names. The index can be configured so that surnames are only shown once; only the given names appear of all the people with the same surname. This improves legibility, and reduces the number of pages.

Charting Companion also embeds special "footnote" codes for your source citations. This provides maximum flexibility for the word processor to place the footnotes at the bottom of the page (or the end of the book), a complex balancing of text and footnotes that the word processor will perform for you.

If you want to take your family history to a printing company to be published as a bound book, your printer will need the special format created by Charting Companion.
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[1] Other programs can output RTF, but do not include an index and footnote codes which are required if you want flexibility.