Family Tree Analyzer Guide Part 1 Installation And Loading GEDCOMx GEDCOM
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Family Tree Analyzer – Part I – Introduction and Loading GEDCOMs What does the program do? Family Tree Analyzer is a completely FREE tool that allows you to analyse your family tree to find where you have gaps, to find errors, and to view your family tree in new and interesting ways. At present it only runs on Windows (XP or later), it can run on a Mac if you have a windows emulator or host program such as Parallels (how to set that up is beyond the scope of this document). Getting Started First you need to download and install Family Tree Analyzer (hereafter referred to FTAnalyzer). In order to do this you need to visit the website http://ftanalyzer.codeplex.com/ The installation is simple, just click on the big purple download button on the right hand side of the page. If you are using Internet Explorer as your browser this will launch the Microsoft “Click Once” Installer and install the program with one click. If you have another browser you may have to save the file first and then run it. Note this requires the Microsoft .Net 4.0 Client Profile installed which should already be on your machine. If you get an error you may need to visit the Microsoft .Net site and install the .Net Client. Running Windows update after this .Net installation and rebooting will ensure that it is patched to the latest version. This should ensure the install of FTAnalyzer goes smoothly. Note if you previously had a version of FTAnalyzer and are getting an error you should remove the old version first before clicking on the button to install fresh. To remove any old versions of FTAnalyzer go to Control Panel, “Programs and Features” and select FTAnalyzer and click uninstall. Note if you have Windows XP then “Programs and Features” will be called “Add or Remove Programs”. Once you start the install you should see a window similar to the one below This will then launch the installer and download and install the application Once this has completed you should see the FTAnalyzer window open And a shortcut icon should appear on your desktop Congratulations you have now installed FTAnalyzer and are ready to use it to analyse your tree. You can use this shortcut at any time to run the program. Updates and New Versions From time to time new versions will be made available. If you run the program from the shortcut that was created it will automatically check the website when you run it and will automatically install any updates or new versions as soon as they are available. You don’t need to do anything special to update the program. It is all automatic so you will always be using the very latest version. From time to time when users suggest new features I produce beta versions that allow individuals to test new features before they are available, if you are interested in suggesting new features and helping test then you can use the issues section of the website to make suggestions. Creating a GEDCOM File Family Tree Programs There are many, many family tree programs out there. They all have different strengths and different features that suit some users better than others. Instead of restricting FTAnalyzer to just users of one product, it has been written to work for users of any of these programs as well as users who only have online trees. The key to this flexibility is the international standard for exchanging family tree data called GEDCOM. By exporting a GEDCOM file from your family tree program or online tree you have everything you need to analyse your tree in FTAnalyzer. The documentation website has various pages dedicated to explaining how to export a GEDCOM from the most popular family tree programs. If you can’t find instructions for your program there or are struggling to export a GEDCOM file from your family tree program or online website please raise an issue on the FTAnalyzer support site. You can also look at the help for your family tree program or online website and search for exporting GEDCOM. All family tree programs written in the last 20 years should have a feature to export GEDCOM files. Online Website If your tree is online for example with Genes Reunited or Ancestry then you can use the export function from those websites. The websites all have help functions that tell you how to export the GEDCOM from your online tree. From Ancestry for example when you are viewing your tree you can click on “Tree Pages” dropdown and select “Tree Settings” from there you will see a green “Export Tree” button on the right. Click this to export your tree. Full detailed instructions can be found here under “Export your tree”. Genes Reunited is simpler from the “Family Tree” menu click “Export GEDCOM”. Once you have exported your tree using FTAnalyzer is exactly the same for online trees as it is for people with family tree programs. General Advice Once you have exported the GEDCOM file from your tree you are ready to load it into FTAnalyzer. NB. If you make changes to your tree and want to see how the changes affect the analysis you will need to export the GEDCOM file again. The GEDCOM file is just a specially formatted text file. For most programs you will need to create a new GEDCOM to re-analyse the tree after you have made changes. It is also worth noting that FTAnalyzer will never make any changes to your family tree program, it will only report things it finds and leave you in FULL CONTROL of your data to make changes as YOU see fit. Also your GEDCOM file will never leave your machine. FTAnalyzer simply loads the file and presents various reports; none of your data is ever exposed online. FTAnalyzer does have reports that can search the web but this is done in the same manner as if you had typed in the forename, surname, date of birth etc. into a search website. You have full control of your data and it never leaves your machine. Loading your GEDCOM File In FTAnalyzer click on the file menu and select “Open GEDCOM File…” this will open a standard windows file open dialog box, note it doesn’t matter where you saved the GEDCOM file in the previous step it is up to you where you store your GEDCOM file, in this example I’m loading my file from an FTAnalyzer folder I created in my Documents Library. Browse your machine to find the GEDCOM file you saved in the previous step. In this case I’ve shown the window above after I’d browsed to the right location and selected the GEDCOM file NB. If you can’t find the file from the previous step, note that GEDCOM files typically have a .GED extension but your program may have saved them as a .TXT file in which case change the drop down bottom right that says “GED files (*.ged)” to say “All files (*.*)” this will make sure you can see the file you saved in the previous step. Now click on the Open Button to Open the file and start the analysis. First Steps After you click on the open button the program will attempt to read the file. It may throw up some warnings or errors depending on what it finds in your file. The most common form of error is dates that aren’t understood, or custom fact types that aren’t recognised. Don’t worry about these for now they will be covered in part 2 – Getting Started with FTAnalyzer. Once the file loads you will get a popup box telling you it is loaded and asking you to click ok to acknowledge this. Clicking ok allows you to view the first tab – GEDCOM stats. Since this is your first time using the program, start by having a look at the GEDCOM stats page below: In the example above you can see my tree and the statistics about the tree including the number of individuals and families loaded and the number of people and how they are related to me. I have a one name study in my tree which is why half of my tree is showing as unknown relationship. The stats also show the number of census & residence facts found and the number of Lost Cousins facts found. Don’t worry if these are zero just now the guide on analysing census data will explain what to do if you have no census or residence facts as well as explaining how to add Lost Cousins facts. Finally the stats show information on the locations in your file. Since this is the first time you have loaded your tree you should see as above that all the values are zero. This reflects the fact that you haven’t yet asked the program to analyse your locations ready to be plotted on a map. This will be covered in the guide to mapping in FTAnalyzer. NB. It is extremely important that you check the root person text. Most of the reports will fail if this is wrong. In the tree shown above you can see the bold text that says: Calculating Relationships using I1: Alexander Bisset as root person. Please wait This root person should be the person in your tree from whom all the relationships are calculated. Almost always this is you. If this text doesn’t say the right name as the root person then many of the reports will be wrong as they will wrongly calculate relationships. If this is the case please see the “Setting the Root Person” section below. Setting the Root Person If you need to change the root person click on the Individuals tab after you have loaded your tree. This will show you a list of people in your tree sorted by individual ID (which is how your family tree program numbered the people in your tree). Find the right person in this list (note you can click the headings of the columns to sort them if that makes it easier to find people). Once you have the correct person right click on their name and select the option “Set as Root Person” from the popup menu. This will then reprocess your file and recalculate the relationships. Note the GEDCOM stats page will be updated with the new details added so you can check it did it right. Note if you have to change the root person then you may wish to investigate changing the root person in your family tree program. FTAnalyzer is simply using what has been set in your program or website as the root (or home) person. Exporting again will revert to the root person in your tree so you would need to set the root person every time if it is wrong in your tree. You are now ready to read Part Two of this guide which will introduce you to the functions of the various tabs and the reports they produce. For the Curious: About GEDCOM Files A GEDCOM file is a text file that contains Family Tree information; you can save the GEDCOM file anywhere you like although a lot of people have suggested they find it helpful to create a directory where they save GEDCOM files so they know where to find them. GEDCOM files are just plain text files formatted in a special way; you can even view them in a text editor such as Notepad. A typical record for an individual in a GEDCOM file looks like this: 0 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 2 1 @I5556@ INDI NAME Anne /Bisset/ SOUR @S284@ SOUR @S2@ SEX F BIRT DATE 20 JUN 1804 PLAC Banchory Ternan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland SOUR @S284@ SOUR @S2@ CHR DATE 24 JUN 1804 PLAC Banchory Ternan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland SOUR @S2@ CENS DATE 1851 PLAC Broomhillock, Banchory Ternan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland SOUR @S284@ CENS DATE 1851 PLAC Broomhillock, Banchory Ternan, Kincardineshire, Scotland SOUR @S2@ OCCU Agricultural Labourer DATE 1851 SOUR @S2@ DEAT DATE BET 1851 AND 1914 FAMC @F1524@ Don’t worry though it is not at all important to know how a GEDCOM file is formatted FTAnalyzer takes care of that for you. All you need to do is to save the file from your tree and load it into FTAnalyzer.
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