Richard A. Pence was among charter inductees to the Genealogy Technology Hall of Fame, it was announced Feb. 2 by Beau Sharborough, president of GenTech, an organization dedicated to effective use of technology in genealogical research and record keeping, at GenTech 2001 at Mesqiote, TX.

Pence, who has been using a personal computer to assist in his genealogy research since 1978, was cited for his early work with the genealogy conference on FidoNet, an amateur computer bulletin board system network, for his writings on computer genealogy and his efforts in helping to found the Computer Insterest Group of the National Genealogical Society.

Other charter inductees were the GEDCOM group of the Family History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who created a system which has allowed transfer of genealogical data between different platforms and programs; Paul and Sarah Andereck, founders of the journal Genealogical Computing and activists in other early computer genealogy efforts; and Dick Eastman, founder and moderator of the genealogy forum on CompuServe and long-time editor and publisher of a weekly on-line computer genealogy newsletter.

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