By Amasa Mason Redd, M.D.
There is nothing like a book to hold, to read, to search and at times to smell. New books give off such a nice aroma especially if bound in leather. Old books have their own recognizable odor as well. Thirty three years after the First Edition of The Utah Redds and Their Progenitors was published there are precious few copies available. I even heard from some one that a copy of the book was for sale on e-bay and the starting price was $99.
The Second Edition on CD sold out quickly. Its main claim to fame was its search-ability and print-ability. I recall copying sections to send to our son by e-mail when he was serving a mission in the Florida Tampa Mission while my wife, Karen and I were serving a mission in Japan. He found the family stories inspirational and enjoyable. Those of you who have the CD and have learned how to use it know that one can search for a name or a photo and find it quickly on the CD.
Jan Garbett and I considered publishing another CD using the Folio Indexing and Retrieval Engine but could not find anyone in Utah licensed to publish the book with this software. I was able to find the corporation that now owns the software but it is no longer geared to family publishing. I could have purchased a license to publish it myself for about $2500. It didn’t seem worth it.
The Third Edition will be the same book as the First Edition except it will be published with a perfect bind (soft) instead of a hard bind by dmt publishing. It will most likely be more durable than the First Edition.
Because the book is the “Redd Bible†and is used to find out where one fits in the family, it needed a complete index, which it doesn’t have. If you have ever tried to find yourself in the index you have learned very quickly that not everyone listed in the book and appendices are listed in the index. One needed to know one’s father, grandfather or great-grandfather in order to locate oneself in the First Edition.
The Third Edition will have an expanded and complete index, improved photos and a few corrected typographical and spelling errors.
In addition, we hope to include in a sleeve a PDF version CD of the whole book including the expanded appendices contained on the Second Edition CD. This will be somewhat searchable and quite printable. This software is much more familiar to most of us and very inexpensive.
I have keyboarded nearly half of the names listed in the appendices and have found it very interesting to encounter the many different families the Redds have married into. It afforded me a glimpse of the great plan to seal families together in one big connected family. As before I am impressed with how much work and dedication Lura put into collecting the family history and writing the book.
