Creating magazines is a lot like doing genealogy — only in reverse. In the magazine-publishing world you're always looking forward. So, for example, it's right before Thanksgiving and the premiere issue of Family Tree Magazine has been on newsstands for only a few weeks as I write this. But you'll be reading this in the future, after the first week in February, when the new millennium has already arrived (mathematical and historical nitpickers notwithstanding) and we've survived the dawn of Y2K (or not, in which case perhaps you're reading this by candlelight).

In genealogy, by contrast, we're always imagining ourselves into the past: What was it like for Great-Grandpa to come over from Italy? Who is the missing link in the chart who must have been born sometime between 1810 and 1815? What could have become of those courthouse records after 1867?