Creating a Family Tree

To create a tree isn't that difficult. The steps in order are:- Start with yourself and your immediate family and build it up from there.

Everything has a name, a specific type of name called an ID, so firstly:-

What is an ID?

All the objects in this family tree system have an ID. The ID is a string of alphanumeric characters. An alphanumeric character is any letter or number. So that qwerty, allenc, xyz123, AllenC are all ID's. The ID's of a collection of objects of the same type must all have individual and unique ID's. So that all the trees, all the users, all the people and links must each have their own ID's. However a user, a tree and a person or link, may all have the same ID; so my user ID is allenc, and my family tree ID is also allenc, as is my person ID in the family tree. Not only that but in the cindyc family tree, there is a link with an ID of allenc pointing to me in the allenc tree. If this seems complicated, it isn't - it just means that things of the same type have to be named differently, that's all.

Registering

Before you can create a family tree, you must register. This entails supplying a name, email address and a username. The username is an ID and must be unique, no other user may have that ID.

Signing On

After you have been registered you will need to sign on to have access to the options for modifying your family tree. Anyone can view your tree, but only you will be able to modify it.

The registering process will automatically sign on you on, so that it will not be necessary the first time.

Once you have signed on you will see additional links and buttons appear on the screens:-

Navigation Window

Links to other trees
This will show the links, if any, that connect a tree to other family trees.
Add a person
Shows a form in the Details Window enabling you to enter a person's basic details.
Link to person in another tree
Shows a form in the Details Window which enables you to create a link to another family tree.
Sign Off
To exit from editing mode.
Start a new tree
To enable you to start a family tree.

Details Window

When showing a persons details for someone in one of your trees:-
Modify basic details
To enable you to change any of the details entered when the person was first created.
Set parents
Shows a form which enables you to select the parents of this person. The selection can only be made from people who were alive at the time of the persons birth. This does mean that a female child of 1 or a woman of 100 can be a mother... Silly but where are the actual limits?
Add an event
Add an event to this persons life. If another person is involved then they are selectable from a list of people who were alive at some point in this persons life.
Delete this person
After making sure that you really mean it the person is erased from the family tree.
Mod (this event)
Brings up a form enabling you to modify the event details, or if you really want to, to delete the event altogether.

Creating a Family Tree

Once registered you can create one or more family trees. Each tree must have an ID which like your username must be an alphanumeric string. A long name must also be supplied. The long name is what will appear on screen. You are the owner of the trees you create. No other user may modify them.

Who is included in your family tree is up to you. In principle spouses from other families should be included as members of another family tree, and a link created to that person from your family tree. However, unless such a family tree exists, or you intend to create one then this is most probably pointless. In general then spouses will be included in your family tree.

For example:- My wife's family tree already existed when my family tree was entered, and so I made a link to her from my tree. The spouses of my brothers and sisters were not so fortunate and so, taking pity on them, they are included in my family tree.

Adding people

Once the tree is created you can add people to it. The only information that you must supply is the person's ID. This is an alphanumeric string which must be unique within your tree, ie the same ID can be used in other trees, but not in this one. Any other information can be added as and when it becomes available to you.

Connecting people

Once people have been added to the tree you can then connect them by specifying the parents of a person, or more loosely by specifying events such as marriage, divorce and adoption.

Events

The software allows for six different types of event:- For all events, the date can be specified, the other person or people involved, a comment, and a reference for any official document.

Dates

A date need not be entered, or a partial date, any part of it can be entered. For example if you happen to know that someone was born in December but not know in what year, then you can enter just December for the date of birth. More commonly, you can enter just the century for a date; if you do the date will be displayed as the century, eg 18-hundred somthing will be displayed as '19C' indicating the 19th century.

Connecting trees

If you want to refer to someone in another tree, you create a link to that person. The link must have an ID and you must specify the ID's of the tree and person in that tree that you wish to connect to.

So if Allen Copsey in the Copsey family tree should marry Cynthia Springer in the Springer family tree, the owner creates a link with an ID of cindyc to Cynthia Springer with an ID of cindys in the Springer family tree which has an ID of 'springer'.

To complete the connection, the owner of the Springer family tree would have to create a link to Allen Copsey, 'allenc', in the Copsey family tree, which has an ID of 'copsey'. That will be the choice of the owner of that tree.