Family Relations
Foreword
Family Relations was designed for simplicity and reliability. It stores all information in text file format. Text files are the most basic of all PC formats and can be viewed by virtually all word processors and text editors. Importing and exporting using GEDCOM ensures that your data can be shared with any other genealogy software that recognizes the GEDCOM format.
System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems: Windows 10 and operating systems that can accommodate software written for Windows 10
Screen Resolution of at least 800 x 600 is recommended. This program has features that are facilitated with Windows® Notepad or any other Windows® compatible word processor.
Getting Started
When running this software for the first time, please follow the menu prompts to Create a family and then establish a name of a person within that family. See Loading or Creating a New Family Tree in this manual.
Loading or Creating a New Family Tree
Under the File menu, select the Load Family Tree option to see a family tree that you have already created. If this is your first time using Family Relations, you will see the Load Family Tree window immediately and you won’t see anything listed.
If there were several existing family files, you would see them in the larger list box. When starting a new file, type the identifying family name you wish to use in the smaller box where it says “Enter new family here…”. Hit the Create button to establish the new family file.
Enter the name of a family member and hit the Apply button. This step is required to initialize the family file.
If you have previously established a family file, select it from the list and press the Open button.
To return to the main window without opening or creating, select the Cancel button.
Entering the Family Structure
The Person of Interest is the center of attention on the main window. Family Relations uses it to identify the person whose family you want to view. All other relationships shown extending from the Person of Interest are entered specific to that individual. Family Relations does not assume, for example, that children or dependents entered in the list at the bottom are related to both the Person of Interest and the Spouse. All relations can be edited when an individual is set as the Person of Interest.
Note that the Father and Mother fields are lists allowing for more than one entry. Some people identify with having more than one father, or people who were like fathers to them. Alternatively, someone may actually have two legal guardians who are either both male or both female and consider those relationships as having two fathers or two mothers.
Entering Personal Information
Press the center button in the main window to enter personal information about that person of interest.
If the Person of Interest already had personal information entered, the fields in the tabbed menu would be populated as shown above. To make a new entry for a new family member, select the New Entry button at the bottom left.
The Update Personal Information window shows all existing family members in the database. If none exist or if you are entering a new name as shown above, use the upper-leftmost field as shown where ‘Thomas Andrew Smith’ is typed. Enter that person’s information on the right within the tabbed menu. When you are finished, you may select the Apply button if you wish to save your entries and remain in this window. After you press the Apply button, the new name will appear in the existing family member list.
Selecting Return will save your entries and return you to the main window putting the person you were just entering data for in the center of the diagram as the person of interest.
When you have a list of names or existing family members, you can edit an individual’s name by highlighting that person in the list and selecting the Change Name button.
Sample entries for our fictional Smith family member, Thomas Andrew, are shown as follows.
Use the + and – buttons next to Occupation, for example, to enter or delete items in the list.
To add to any list, use the + button to add something new or the – button to delete after highlighting the list item.
The last tab, Photos, will allow you to scroll through each picture you have imported that is associated with the family member you are viewing. If no pictures have been imported yet, you will see the tree picture shown above. Return to the main screen and find the Import A Photo option under File menu to add photos for the Person of Interest.
After you hit the Apply button, the new entry will appear in the Select Existing Family Member list.
When you press the Return button, you will be taken back to the main window with the highlighted person’s name showing in the center of the diagram as the Person of Interest.
Enter Spouse Name
Press the Spouse button if applicable, to enter the person of interest’s spouse. Family Relations only tracks one spouse at a time for any particular individual.
The drop-down menu will show a list of all previously entered persons entered into the family database.
If you enter a name that exists in the drop-down list, that same name or person will be used. You should consider using a unique name to avoid confusion if two people in your family have the same name. Adding a numeric suffix such as (2), for example, is possible.
Remember that within the Update Person Information tabbed menu, there is a place to add prefix and suffix to someone’s name. However, you may decide to add the suffix as part of the regular name if that helps alleviate possible confusion. For example, there might be a John Smith and a John Smith, Jr.
Populate Family Relations
Proceed to use the + and – buttons next to each list to add fathers, mothers, and siblings relative to the person of interest at center of the main window.
Shown below are some examples.
When you are done, the main window will look something like this
You can continue up or down the tree entering ancestors or descendants by pressing the center button and proceeding to the Update Personal Information window previously shown. Highlighting a name in the list and using the Return button will bring that person back to the main window and at the center as the Person of Interest. Shown in the example below is Thomas’ father, Jonathan:
In the next example, Thomas’ mother’s family is shown.
You can see in the two examples above that Thomas is in the Children / Dependents list along with his sibling Jean.
When entering Siblings, make sure all common parents are present in the Father and Mother lists so that each sibling is automatically matched to those parents. If the parents are not present when entering Siblings, then each sibling will need their parents entered manually.
Import a Photo
It is possible to associate up to 99 photos with an individual. Import a Photo is found under the File menu option.
Select the Browse button to open the Windows Open File dialogue window where you can navigate to the drive and folder location on your PC where the picture resides that you need to import. This picture will become associated to whomever is set in the middle of the main menu as the Person of Interest. Check the Use as default photo option if you want this picture to appear each time that person is set as the Person of Interest. Also, this photo will appear when using the relationship analyzer.
Press the Import and Save button when you are satisfied with your selection.
Change Photo
You can change the default photo for any Person of Interest by selecting the Change Photo option under the File menu.
This feature works very much the same as importing a photo. Use the Browse button to open the Windows file dialogue. A list of pictures that have been previously imported for the Person of Interest will be listed as shown in the example above. Select the picture file and hit the Open button.
Use the Change and Save button to save the selected picture as the new default photo for the Person of Interest.
Relation Check
The Relation Check feature is found under the Analysis menu. This will help you identify how any two individuals in the same family database are related to each other, if at all. For example, the spouse of a distant cousin will not be recognized as a relationship, whereas that same spouse would be recognized as an aunt or uncle.
If you are not seeing a relationship between two individuals and you are certain there is one, you may need to review your entries and verify that each individual has been identified with at least one parent. Make sure each person in your tree has the correct parents, spouse, siblings, and dependents, as applicable. Doing this will help alleviate confusion from the Relation Check algorithm.
Choose any two individuals from the drop-down menus. Here are some examples.
Keyword Search
Keyword Search allows you to enter one or more words to match with any family member’s data file in the database.
Here is a sample search:
Correct capitalization is not required. Both Christina and Thomas both have the word ‘archer’ mentioned in the personal information. Clicking on either name in the list will bring up a read-only tabbed menu of that person’s information.
Descendants
The Descendants feature shows all of the children and grandchildren of any individual in the family database. This includes those considered dependents because they are entered in the same list with children. Only direct descendants are retrieved.
Clicking on a name in the list will show the relationship of the family members in the lower text field.
You can save these results by using the Save button on the right. To include the relationships in the saved file, be sure to check the box at the bottom of this window as shown.
The output file, Tabatha Jacqueline Patton_Descendants_001.txt, is saved in the same location as the data files and associated picture files:
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Family Relations\Smith
Here is an example of a saved descendants file:
Here is another example of a Descendants search:
Export to GEDCOM
If you are familiar with GEDCOM, you know it is a universal text file format used to make family databases interchangeable among genealogy software. A glossary of which GEDCOM syntax this software recognizes is available in the Appendix of this user manual. If you require Family Relations to recognize attributes not shown in the appendix, please contact tech support for assistance.
Contact Information is your name and address, etc. that is optional to include in the GEDCOM file. Otherwise, the only step to take here is clicking on the Export button.
The GEDCOM file is automatically named with the same family name as your current database. If the file exists, you will receive a warning.
Otherwise, the GEDCOM file will be created and you will be notified.
The new GEDCOM file is placed in the Family Relations program folder:
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Family Relations
Import GEDCOM
Importing from a GEDCOM file can be time consuming if there are in excess of over 1000 name entries. This process has been tested to take on approximate average 1 minute per name to process when there are close to 4000 entries. A GEDCOM file of this magnitude was tested successfully but required several sessions because it was undesirable to leave the PC on for such a long time. Smaller family tree files will not be a concern for time or sessions.
First, locate your GEDCOM file by using the Browse button. If this is your first attempt at importing, go ahead and select the Import button to continue. However, if you are continuing to import from the same file from a previous session, be sure to select the Resume option first.
When Resuming, the program will find the last name entry it processed and begin from that point forward or downward in the GEDCOM file. For this reason, it is very important not to tamper with the files or folder where the new Family Relations files are being created and stored.
If you have a large GEDCOM file to import, you can watch the progress of new Family Relations text files being created by using your Windows File Explorer. Go to the C:\Users\Public\Documents\Family Relations folder and then open the folder name that matches the GEDCOM file you selected. Sort the list by Date Modified.
It is difficult to define what excessive time could be based on the size of the GEDCOM file if you are concerned that the program is hung or frozen.
GEDCOM files take a long time to read because of the way they are organized. While a minute doesn’t seem long, multiplying that by several thousand name entries translates to days.
You can press Ctrl+Alt+Del to activate the Task Manager and monitor whether or not the Family Relations program is still actively using the CPU. If you wish to shut down the import process and resume later, use the Task Manager with ‘End Process’ to end the program. No harm will be done to the program or the import. Later, re-select the GEDCOM file and use the Resume option as described earlier.
Appendix
List of GEDCOM categories that Family Relations Imports:
Birth Date and Place
Immigration Date and Place
Death Date and Place
Residence
Burial Date and Place
Notes
Sources
Alternate Name
Name
Name Prefix
Gender
Occupation
Religion
Education
Health
History
Date Entry was Last Changed
Spouse
Children
Parents
Siblings
E-Mail Address
Program Not Responding
This message often appears in programs that use text files. You may see it while using the Import GEDCOM function depending on how much data is in that file. You may also see it when doing a keyword search. Again, depending on how many name entries you are dealing with, the longer you will have to wait and be patient. The program is still working.
Appendix
License Agreement
SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR Family Relations FOR WINDOWS
PLEASE READ THIS SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT ("LICENSE") CAREFULLY BEFORE USING Family Relations SOFTWARE. BY USING Family Relations, YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE, DO NOT USE THE SOFTWARE.
1. General. Family Relations software, documentation and any fonts accompanying this License whether on disk, in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively Family Relations ") are licensed, not sold, to you by The Author for use only under the terms of this License, and The Author reserves all rights not expressly granted to you. The terms of this License will govern any software upgrades provided by The Author that replace and/or supplement the original The Author product, unless such upgrade is accompanied by a separate license in which case the terms of that license will govern.
Title and intellectual property rights in and to any content displayed by or accessed through Family Relations software belongs to the respective content owner. Such content may be protected by copyright or other intellectual property laws and treaties, and may be subject to terms of use of the third party providing such content. This License does not grant you any rights to use such content.
2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
A. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to install and use Family Relations SOFTWARE. You may not make Family Relations SOFTWARE available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time. You may make one copy of Family Relations SOFTWARE in machine-readable form for backup purposes only; provided that the backup copy must include all copyright or other proprietary notices contained on the original.
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