Online Help

WARNING! The Online Help in English is not up-to-date! Please use the German Online Help

Overview

The MENUs

FILE

This pop-up menu contains, besides of the menu items Import, Export and Exit, a list of the most recently imported GED files. You only need to click on the file name to import it again.

Import GED

This menu item must be clicked first to import your GED file.
Before this happens other menu items are deactivated.
After the Import (which takes more or less than 1 sec per 10000 persons) a list of all persons in the GED file is presented. Then you can switch between different views clicking on the following, TABs -> List, Pedigree, Branches, Tree, Family, Report

If during the Import you get the error message "Loading of GED file ... not possible" this can have following reasons:


Export GED

This menu item must be clicked to save any changes made so far by corrections or merging, otherwise the changes are lost when you exit the program.
You can save the GED file with the same name or with a different name than your original GED file. Ig you choose the same name (or an exising file name) a backup copy of this file is created with file extension ".bak". If such a file also exiss a different file extension is chosen (.b01, .b02, .b03 etc.)
Also a Log file is saved with each Export, with same name but file extension "log" (or .l01, ,l02, .l03 etc.).
This Log file contains information about all changes and merges made between Import and Export of the GED file.

Output to File

This allows to write the contents of List, Pedigree list or Error list to a file. The columns are separated by tabulator, so it is easy to import this files in Microsoft Excel sheets (use File->Öpen, File type: *.txt, File origin: 1250 (Windows Central Europe charset), Separator: Tabs).

Exit

This menu item closes the program. No data is stored!
Store your changes before using FILE->Export GED.

EDIT

The Edit menu lets you change the data of a person for corrections, unlink a person from a (wrong) spouse or parents, or completely delete a person from the GED file. Within the EDIT dialog you can also add new persons (for example a new spouse, children or parents).

Person

A Dialog is shown in which you can enter or correct personal data like surname or given names, date or place of birth, christening, death or burial. There are also fields in which you can change parents, spouses and children. Clicking with the righthand mouse button on this fields will show a context menu, that allows to edit data of these persons, to unlink them from the current person, or to delete them completely. A right mouseclick or a double-click on an empty field allows to enter new persons (parents, spouse or children).

Unlink from spouse

Chosing this you can unlink the currently selected person (reference person) from its spouse, i.e. the person is removed from the marriage record. If there are children, they are kept in the marriage record together with the spouse. You can also unlink a spouse using the context menu in the EDIT dialog (right mouseclick in the field SPOUSE).

Unlink from parents

Chosing this you can unlink the currently selected person (reference person) from its parents, i.e. the person is deleted from the family record. To unlink a child from the parents you can also use the context menu that you get by right clicking on a CHILD in the EDIT dialog, or right clicking on the PARENTS to unlink the selected person from these.

Delete

This deletes the selected person (reference person) completely from the GED file.

SEARCH

Person

Find persons according to different criteria: All entries are optional. If you enter the starting letters of a name, all matching entries will be found.
For example: Schm -> Schmidt, Schmitz, Schmoll, etc.
Place and period refer to birth, death or marriage.
The results are presented as text in the report view (the List view is not modified)

Couple

Find couples according to different criteria: The results are presented as text in the report view.

Births

Find all births entering the first letters of a place and optionally a period in years
You get a birth regiser of the given place in this time.
The results are presented as text in the report view.

Deaths

Find all deaths entering the first letters of a place and optionally a period in years
You get a death regiser of the given place in this time.
The results are presented as text in the report view.

Marriages

Find all marriages entering the first letters of a place and optionally a period in years
You get a marriage regiser of the given place in this time.
The results are presented as text in the report view.

COUNT

Given names

With this menu item you can count occurences of given names, with an optional search pattern (only given names matching this pattern are counted). The given names are shown in a list sorted by count.

Surnames

With this menu item you can count occurences of surnames, with an optional search pattern (only given names matching this pattern are counted). The surnames are shown in a list sorted by count.

Places

With this menu item you can count occurences of places, with an optional search pattern (only places matching this pattern are counted). The places are shown in a list sorted by count, with different columns for count of births, christenings, deaths, burials and marriages for each place.

Events

With this menu item you can count the number of events (births, christenings, deaths, burials and marriages) for spedific places or periods of time. The search patterm for place name is optional, if not given all places are searched The period is also optional. If it is not given the events for all places matching the serach pattern are shown, if it is given all events for the chosen periods of time are shown.

EXTRAS

Error checking

With menu EXTRAS / Error checking your GED file is checked for error and inconsisencies.
First you get a dialog im which you can choose some thresholds like In this dialog you can also exclude some error types from being reported.
Possible error types are:
The result of error checking are displayed in the report Tab as a List
By click on the header of the columns these can be sorted.
This makes easier to correct error in order of theris type or RIN

By right clicking on an item an Edit dialog opens in which you can correct the person data for the corresponding RIN.

By left clicking on an item the corresponding RIN is selected. Changing to another Tab (e.g. Family) you are placed on the same RIN.

Please note that changes become only effective when you export the GED file. If you exit the program without export all changes are discarded.

Duplicates

With menu EXTRAS / Duplicates your GED file is checked for duplicates, i.e. persons that have same given and surname and same birth, death or marriage date etc. There are different criteria to compare duplicates. You can influence these by setting some options in the Merge Dialog.

In the Merge Dialog you can choose:

These conditions are not always save enough for an automatic merging specially for short and common names, when the date consist only of year, or in general, when too few personal data items match. The program will help you to find the best selection of possible duplicates, but finally you must decide if they shall be merged
Therefore in a second dialog all possible candidates for merging are presented, and you can check or uncheck which of then shall be merged or not. Initially you can 'check all' and deselect the ones which are not sure.
When you are searching with less restrictive conditions, you can do the opposite, 'uncheck all' and select only the ones which are clearly duplicates. Then you click on 'Merge now' and after that you get a complete report of duplicates merged, which is also saved to a Log file when you export the changed GED file.
You should check this report before exporting the GED file.

Examples of possible duplicates which are unsafe to merge :
[rin_1] Peter Meier *1701 father: Peter Meier mother: Maria Schmidt
[rin_2] Peter Meier *1701 father: Peter Meier mother: Maria Schmidt
In this case the names are too common and the matching dates too short and too few

Start chosing option "Exact spelling" and "Same date", only if no possible duplicated are found chose weaker conditions

Please note that records like
[rin_1] Twin Meier *1.1.1999
[rin_2] Twin Meier *1.1.1999
are considered dDuplicates, because they look identical.
Ich you want to avoid that they are merged, uncheck them, or rename in
[rin_1] Twin-1 Meier *1.1.1999
[rin_2] Twin-2 Meier *1.1.1999
or replace by one single record
[rin_1] Twins Meier *1.1.1999

Please note that changes become only effective when you export the GED file. If you exit the program without export all changes are discarded.

Islands

Islands are isolated trees inside your GED file, which are not connected to the main tree.
A completely compact GED file would have no islands, every person would be somehow related to each other, not necessarily by consanguinity but some indirect kinship.

Islands are shown as a list of

Soundex

This is a mini-tool, that help you to determine the soundex-code of a given name. A good description of soundex codes can be found for example in
http://www.gedpage.com/soundex.html

HELP

Help (Website)

Shows this online Help..

License Update

Here you can enter the license.key when you buy the product.

Info

This menu item shows you the version von "ged-it", a Copyright notice, the Website address and registration information.

The Tabs :

List

The List-Tab presents a list of all persons in your GED file.
You can sort the list by clicking on the column headers:

First click sorts in ascending, next in decending order and so on.
For each sorted column you can select an item line typing the first characters of the subitem in that column.
The lines have different background color, pink for female, light blue for male persons.(this can be useful to find if your GED file contains persons with wrong gender, e,g, a female name with light blue background will stand out immediately between other similar female names with pink background.
With left mouse click you can select an item line. The corresponding person (RIN) is the the 'proband' or reference person, when you select another Tab (e.g. Pedigree, Branches, Tree or Family).

Clicking with the righthand mouse button on a person you get a dialog in which you can edit the data of this person.
This is also the case in other windows and view, and specially usefull for correcting error after Error checking (menu -> Extras).

Pedigree

The Pedigree Tab shows in line 1 the current reference person, and in the following lines their ancestors:
  1. proband
  2. father
  3. mother
  4. grandfather (paternal)
  5. grandmother (paternal)
  6. grandfather (maternal)
  7. grandmother (maternal)
    etc. (each generation with maximum double number of lines as the younger generation)

In a complete tree without any missing person the line number of the fathers of person N would be always 2*N and line number of the mother 2*Nn+1 (so-called Kekule-mumbering or Sosa-numbering).

In this pedigree however we move the lining together leaving no gaps, therefore we provide the columns 'up' and 'down' which allow you to correlate person further down in the pedigree.
The colum 'up' helps to find the line of the child, the column 'down' to find the line of the fathers (or of the mother).

The column Gen/Nr shown the generation nr (1.100) followed by a hyphen and an index number within a given generation:

1-1 proband
2-1 father
2-2 mother
3-1 grandfather (paternal)
3-2 grandmother (paternal)
3-3 grandfather (maternal)
3-4 grandmother (maternal)
4-1 great-grandfather (father of 3-1)
4-2 great-grandmother (mother of 3-1)
... etc.

The index number has the advantage, that is does not grow so much with increasing generation numbers (Kekule numbers grow as a power of 2 in the N-th generation, e.g. 2^20 or 1048576 in the 20.generation, while the index number would be 20-1 to 20-x (x: number of persons in this generation).

The column RIN gives the record identification number in der GED file, followed by the columns name (given and surname), birth, death and marriage date.

The last column indicates if there exist an implex (Ahnenschwund) in this case. This happens when blood relatives marry (e.g. cousins). Then these persons have common ancestors (for example the grandparents) and together not the maximum number of ancestors that would be theoretically possible (2^Generation), Therefore the german designation 'Ahnenschwund' (loss of anvestors).
The implex is indicated in this column in the following way: 

           Line  up down RIN Gen/Nr Name          ... Implex
           44    36  52  776 12-4   Margaret Tudor
           45    37  54  776 12-5   James_IV
           46    37  52  776 12-6   Margaret Tudor    see ->12-4 (Zeile 44)

This means that Margaret Tudor is ancestor of 2 persons, of the person in line 37 (col.'up' in line 46) and also of the person in line 36 (col.'up' in line 44). In this way you can trace back the children#s line until you get to the cousins that have married. The program relieves you from this work, since it can visualize the implex in the 'Report' Tab when you right-click on the line indicating the implex. You will see in the Report window something like: 

           [776]  Margaret  Tudor 1489 -1541               [776]  Margaret  Tudor 1489 -1541
                &                                                                  &
           [834]  James_IV  1473 -1513                     [836]  Archibald  Douglas -1557
                ->
               [835]  James_V   1512 -1542                     [1431]  Margaret  Douglas 1515 -1578
                &                                                                  &
               [1251]  Mary of_Guise  1515 -1560               [1432]  Matthew  Stuart 1516 -1571
                    ->
                   [1247]  Mary  Stuart 1542 -1587                 [1249]  Henry  Stuart 1545 -1567
                        &                                                                  &
                   [1249]  Henry  Stuart 1545 -1567                [1247]  Mary  Stuart 1542 -1587
                        ->
                       [725]  James_I  Stuart 1566 -1625
In the status line you will see a nore like:
[1247] Mary Stuart and [1249] Henry Stuart have common ancestors.
i.e. you see which more or less nearly related cousins have married, and whi is the common ancestor.

Branches

The window 'Branches' shows you a tree with all the bearers of a given surname and their spouses. The surname is determined from the reference person (proband) following up the father line. It is possible that there exist different branches for a given surname that are not connected.
First you will see opened the branch corresponding to the reference person. You can close this branch clicking on the [-] button at the left of '==Branch 1==' and open another branch clicking on [+] (if there are other branches).

Note: If the reference person has no surname the father line is followed up until the top of he tree and the branches are displayed from there.

If you select a person in this vies with a left mouse click, that person becomes the reference person or proband for the other windows (List, Pedigree, Tree or Family).

Tree

The Tree window shows you, starting with the reference person, the ancestors up to the 4th generation.
If you leave the mouse cursor over one of the boxes of the tree, you will see a tooltip, a little yellow window, that gives you detailed informations about that person.
When you click on a person with the left mouse button thar person becomes the reference person, and the tree is redrawn.
So you can move fron one generation to the next, but not back. To go back choose the 'Family' Tab, described in the next section.
As in the other windows, a right-clicking opens a dialog to edit the persons data.

Family

The Family window shows an hourglass.view with the reference person and his ancestors on the right side, and the spouse and ancestors of this on the left side, with the children of this marriage below.

If you leave the mouse cursor over one of the boxes of the tree, you will see a tooltip, a little yellow window, that gives you detailed informations about that person (birth/death date and place, spouses and marriage dates).
If the proband has several spouse, you only need to click again on it to see the other spouses on the left side of the view.

If you click on any person in the family window with the left mouse button, that person becomes the reference person and the houtglass view is redrawn.

Report

The Report window is used to:


The Context Menus Context Menus appear as a Pop-up when the right mouse button is pressed.

List Context Menu

The List Context Menu appears when the right mouse button is pressed in a List, Pedigree or Branches view
It presents the following options:

Tree Context Menu

The Tree Context Menu appears when the right mouse button is pressed in the Tree or Family view.
It presents the following options:

Editor Context Menu


Das Editor Context Menu erscheint beim Drücken der rechten mouse button im Editier Modus on den Textfeldern Spouse, ELTERN oder KINDER.
Es bietet folgende Optionen an:

The Unlink or Delete of persons cannot be undone (unless you exit the program without exporting)!