User Guide How to use Ancestris to develop genealogies. Install Ancestris Install, re-install or update Ancestris on MacOS, Windows and Linux. Java pre-requisite. Files location, launch settings and user settings. Install and start Ancestris Read license and user rights Ancestris is free software, licensed under the  GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE V3. Ancestris is a free genealogy program, for unlimited time usage , and an unlimited number of individuals . It is made available to you by volunteers . Check our required configuration Ancestris works on all latest macOS, Windows and Linux platforms running Java. If Ancestris does not start , or shows the Ancestris splash screen and stops, it is most generally related to an issue with the Java installation. To use Ancestris, it is required to have the following hardware configuration: 2 Gb RAM 200 Mb of available disk space A big enough screen, 1920 x 1080 minimum recommended Java is a prerequisite To use Ancestris, you need to have Java installed on your system. See  Version compatibility to identify which version of Java is compatible. Ancestris is compatible and has been tested with the version listed above. To identify which Java version is installed on your system, other Java versions available, how to swap between Java versions, or the Java technical requirements, check out the Java installation page . Note to macOS users See macOS version compatibility . Note to Chomebook users Chromebooks do not allow Ancestris to be launched. The limitation is that there is no version of Java that can be installed on a Chromebook and used to launch an application. If you have the option to install Linux instead of the Chromebook OS, you will be able to install and use Ancestris. You can also try these steps to activate the Linux development environment:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9PYMkAQNhk . This activates a Linux console that should allow you to install  Java and run Ancestris. Installation If you need detailed installation steps, we provide you with a step-by-step guide corresponding to your system : ✔ Step-by-step installation guide for macOS ✔ Step-by-step installation guide of the stable version for Windows ✔ Step-by-step installation guide of the daily version for Windows ✔ Step-by-step installation guide for Linux What follows is the general overview of the installation and the links in case of troubles or to change launch settings. Go to Download on the Ancestris site Ancestris can be downloaded for free on our page  https://www.ancestris.org via the DOWNLOAD option. Choose your Ancestris version Two versions are available. Choose the stable version if you are aiming for stability and do not need to benefit from the latest developments. Choose the daily version if you wish to benefit from the latest functionalities . All versions work on any device under any operating system that can use Java. All versions work with all existing translations. All versions are full versions and allow unlimited usage. Download Ancestris This shows the Download section of the Ancestris site. Click on the Ancestris version button of your operating system macOS . It will download a pkg file. Windows . It will download an exe or zip file depending on the Ancestris version. Linux . Hovering over the buttons, a menu will appear where you can pick the AppImage file or a ZIP file. The downloaded file will be specific to the operating system you choose Follow the steps suggested by your Internet browser and save the file The download will take a few seconds and will result in a file of about 95Mb or 141 Mb for Windows exe file. Choose Ancestris folder At the end of the download, the file will be placed in your default download folder. If you don't know what this folder is, check your Internet browser's settings or else click on the downloaded icon of your browser. From that folder, feel free to move the downloaded file wherever you want on your computer. The software platform used by Ancestris is Netbeans. Therefore, accents in the installation path are prohibited. On macOS, the stable version is installed by default in /Applications. On Linux, the AppImage file will implement a launcher in the launch bar. Yhis launcher will be using the AppImage  file so do not erase it later. Make sure you move it to a place where you will keep it. Start Ancestris The way to start Ancestris  slightly differs depending on the OS system you have. Ancestris's files will be inside the resulting ancestris folder. Refer to the Software files page to have the detailed view of the  ancestris folder. To start Ancestris , run the downloaded file or else run the executable in the bin folder that corresponds to the operating system you are using. macOS : click on the package file and Ancestris will install itself in the Applications folder, from which you can start Ancestris. Windows : for the stable version, just double-click on the downloaded exe file  AncestrisSetup.exe . This installation program will assist you in the installation of Ancestris and it will also create the launcher icon. For the daily version, run the ancestris64.exe file in the bin folder. Linux : For the AppImage file: once it is downloaded, move it to a better folder, right clic on it to give it executable right and then double clic on it For the ZIP file, unzip it and then locate the ancestris/bin folder, and double-click on the 'ancestris' file. This is an executable script. Regardless of the version, here is what you will see when Ancestris is started. Troubleshooting If you need detailed installation steps, please read the step-by-step guide below corresponding to your system : ✔ Step-by-step installation guide for macOS ✔ Step-by-step installation guide of the stable version for Windows ✔ Step-by-step installation guide of the daily version for Windows ✔ Step-by-step installation guide for Linux If Ancestris does not start , or shows the Ancestris splash screen and stops, it is most generally related to an issue with the Java installation. Either Java is not installed or Ancestris does not find it or finds an incompatible version or finds a corrupted version . Please check the Java installation page for help. Personalisation Shortcut icon If you need to customize a shortcut with a nice icon to start Ancestris , please check your operating system's documentation on how to create it, and feel free to use the included image file ancestris.gif provided within the softwares files. For macOS, see the step-by-step guide . For Windows, see the step-by-step guide . For Linux, there are several of these procedures, and quite different from one system to another. Launch settings You can personalise the way Ancestris starts such as the memory allocation for instance. In case you need to personalise the way Ancestris is launched, please refer to the Launch settings page . User settings If you are interested in knowing where the user settings files are, please refer to the Software and user settings files page . Versions compatibility The table below shows the versions that are necessary to make Ancestris work depending on the version you choose to install. Ancestris relies on Java and Netbeans platforms Java versions: Java can be installed separately and you need to know which version of java is necessary for each version of Ancestris. The oldest java version to have is indicated under "Minimum Java version". The latest Java version Ancestris can work with is indicated under "Maximum Java version". Netbeans version : The netbeans version is provided for information only.  Netbeans is packaged with Ancestris and you should not worry about it, but this explains the Java version prerequisite. Table of versions compatibility  Ancestris version type Ancestris version number Release date Last updated Minimum Java version Maximum Java version Netbeans version Daily 14 Daily Daily 17 25 26 Stable 13 29 Nov 2025 April 2026 17 25 26 Obsolete 12 8 June 2024 Novembre 2025 8 24 12.5 Obsolete 11 29 May 2021 April 2024 8 17 11.3 Note to Windows users The Ancestris installer for Windows for the stable version automatically installs Java. You do not need to install it yourself. Java 25 for Windows 64 bits Java 17 for Windows 32 bits Note to macOS users Ancestris comes with a native macOS launcher which requires macOS version 10.14.4 at a minimum . For users with a previous version of macOS, refer to this procedure to launch Ancestris . Reinstall or upgrade Ancestris There are several situations where you may need to reinstall Ancestris, but they all end up following the same steps described below. Situations justifying reinstallation Reinstalling Ancestris on the same computer If a new stable version of Ancestris has just been released and you want to benefit from it. If there was a major modification of the same version , usually the daily version. For instance, when the Ancestris team makes changes to the Ancestris platform, they will ask you to reinstall. To be notified of such changes , you will need to subscribe to the discussion list . If a change has happened to your computer, or if some Ancestris files are lost . In this situation, Ancestris might no longer work properly. In all those situations, your action will result in reinstalling Ancestris. When reinstalling Ancestris, you will automatically be able to preserve your customizations. It is up to you to decide if you want to reinstall Ancestris at the same location on your computer or not. In either case, we recommend you to get rid of the former Ancestris instance and replace the Software files . In case you were to keep two different instances of Ancestris on the same computer, Ancestris might get confused as there is only one set of user settings . Installing Ancestris on a second computer If you are to install Ancestris on a second computer, just proceed as a regular first-time installation . If you want to have the same user settings on both computers, you should first copy the user settings folder from one computer to the other one. Alternatively, you can also use the export button of the Ancestris preferences window. Reinstalling the stable version To reinstall the main version, while preserving your user settings, just proceed as a regular first-time installation . It should be much quicker as Java should already be installed and your Ancestris launcher is already set. In practice, it will consist of simply replacing the 5 folders listed in the following steps. Reinstalling the daily version To upgrade from the stable version to the daily version, or reinstall the daily version, follow the instructions below. You have two possibilities: Either erase the previous application and re-install the new one (the preferred choice). Or replace the existing files with the new ones, which lets you keep the launcher that you might have set up (the preferred choice for Linux and Windows). In the first situation, erase the previous Ancestris application and reinstall the new one. In the second situation, follow the steps below: Quit Ancestris, if it is running Download the daily version from the Ancestris web site and install it as per the initial installation. In case you need to replace the files manually, go to the ancestris folder of the previous installation and delete the following 5 folders ancestris bin etc harness platform Replace them with the recently downloaded corresponding 5 folders included in the package or the compressed archive. Restart Ancestris as usual In case some settings no longer work, or are not compatible with the new version, please refer to the User settings page if you want to manage them yourself. When a new stable version is released and you use the daily version, we recommend that you reinstall the daily version and clean some technical directories in the user directory. See here . Troubleshooting In case the newly installed application does not launch or generates an exception (ClassNotFound, etc) or shows the wrong version number, the installation process probably went wrong or there is a conflict with the previous version or that you simply refreshed the daily version using the update menu in the application instead of downloading the new version from the Ancestris web site. In this case, please uninstall and reinstall with a clean set of files and user settings. Uninstall the current version already installed Delete the application directory Erase the following folders from the user directrory .ancestris/trunk/var/cache .ancestris/trunk/modules .ancestris/trunk/update_tracking Reinstall Ancestris using a new downloaded file from the Ancestris web site Update Ancestris The Ancestris team constantly works on improving the Ancestris software. All updates we make to the version you have are available to you automatically, and you do not have anything to do, whether you are using the Stable version or the Daily version. Automatic updates You will receive an automatic notification for updates to the version you currently use, each time you start Ancestris. When Ancestris starts, a small window will open for a few seconds at the lower right corner, indicating the number of available updates. Just click the link in this window and follow the steps.  If you miss this window as it only appears for a few seconds, the little icon will remain available for you to click on it. The window above will reappear again. If you click to get the updates, you will be asked to confirm to download the updates. Click Next and Ancestris will download them. A progress bar will appear on the bottom right corner. Ancestris then asks for your confirmation. Click Continue and then, Ancestris will offer to restart. Click on the link. Ancestris will close and restart. Proactive updates It is also possible to retrieve updates at any time. Just choose Options / Update Ancestris from the main menu bar. The same assistant shown above will open. As explained above, just follow the steps and Ancestris will offer to restart at the end. If no updates are available, the following window will appear. Knowing more about the updates If you use the Stable version When we discover bugs that could impact your use of the Main version, we fix them and the update becomes available to you according to the instructions above . These updates are very rare. If you use the Daily version Regarding the daily version, updates happen almost daily ! Minor updates Most of the time, these updates are evolutions or new functionality. These updates are available to you and happen on a regular basis. You can benefit from them according to the description above . That's it. Structural updates - same version On rare occasions, certain Ancestris updates of the Daily version happen in the core platform of Ancestris. These changes can be simple menu translations or something major. For instance when we upgrade the underlying Netbeans platform on which Ancestris sits, or when we upgrade the stable version.  The Ancestris team will know when that happens, and will notify you through the forum or the  discussion list and in the Recent updates panel of the Welcome window of Ancestris. For instance, the image below shows an update of version 11 that occurred on June 2nd, 2020. As usual, these updates will be available to you through the Automatic updates described above. However, if you only apply these updates automatically, it will not reinstall the whole software. Therefore, either the new evolution will still not be available to you (e.g. menu translations), or maybe you will experience some major dysfunctions. Ancestris might just not work anymore. Do not worry, you will notice if it happens and it will not alter your data. To fully benefit from those changes, you will have to reinstall Ancestris. Please follow the reinstallation instructions in this case. Structural updates - change of version In the specific situation where a new stable version is released and you use the Daily version, we recommend two actions from you. Uninstall and reinstall the Daily version Erase the following folders from the user directrory .ancestris/trunk/var/cache .ancestris/trunk/modules .ancestris/trunk/update_tracking Indeed, in an upgrade, the Daily version becomes the Stable version and a new Daily version is created. For instance, if the Stable version was version 12 and the Daily version was version 13, what will happen is the following: The Daily version is "frozen" and becomes the new stable version. Hence the Stable version would be now version 13. A new version 14 is created and is called the Daily version. As a result, at the time of the upgrade, the automatic refresh will turn your version 13 into version 14 as shown in the About window of Ancestris after the refresh, but the window title of Ancestris  will remain as Version 13 because this title is part of the core, which is only refreshed via a reinstallation. Additionally, the cache, modules and update_tracking directories in the user directory store the status of the extensions. They might change from one version to the next hence the need to clean this status by erasing these directories. Step-by-step installation on macOS This page documents a detailed step-by-step installation of Ancestris on a macOS system. We will show an example that occurred on March 2024, of the installation of an Ancestris version on macOS Sonoma. Installation of Java 1. From the macOS desktop... 2. Open a terminal and type "java -version" to check if Java is already installed or not. If java is installed, the response will indicate that Java is found and provide the version number. Here version 17 is installed. Refer to the Version Compatibility table to check if a compatible version of Java is installed depending on the Ancestris version you chose to install. In this case, all good,  jump to step 5 to install Ancestris . Otherwise, if Java is not installed, the response will indicate that Java cannot be located. So install it by following these next steps. 3. Install Java by going to the Adoptium web site . Here Adoptium suggests to install the LTS (Long Term Support) release Java 21 for macOS. Click the "Latest LTS Release"  button. You should see this page now. Note: If you want to install another version, click the button "Other platforms and versions". Downloading has started... Click the download round button on your browser and wait. After a short moment, downloading is completed.  Launch the JDK package from this download popup. You should see this installation window. Click Continue. Click Continue. Click Agree. Click Install. Validate with your fingerprint or provide your Mac password. The installation starts. Installation is completed. It tells you where it has been installed. Click Close. Finally, you are asked to Keep or Move the installation package to the bin. Do as you wish here. 4. Check that Java now shows up in the Terminal window. Type "Java -version". The following result should appear, indicating Java 21 is installed. At the time of doing this installation, this was a Java version compatible with the available Ancestris version at the time. You are now done with the Java installation. Let's install Ancestris now. Installation of Ancestris 5. Go to the https://www.ancestris.org web site In the menu, click on DOWNLOAD.  You are taken to the Download section of the web site. Click the Ancestris button that corresponds to the version you want under the macOS column. Download starts. Click the Download round button of your browser to see the progress bar and wait. When completed, you should see the Ancestris package is approximately 94 MB. Launch it from this popup window by clicking the little "Open" icon. The Ancestris installation window should appear. Click Continue. Click Install. Confirm with your fingerprint or provide your Mac password. Installation proceeds... The installer asks for your permission to put the files on your computer. Press Allow. The installation completes quickly. Press Close. Finally, you are asked to Keep or Move the installation package to the bin. Do as you wish here. 6. Launch Ancestris from the Application launchpad screen. In your application Launchpad screen, Ancestris should appear among the other applications. Launch it. Ancestris starts. The main Ancestris window then appears. You are done with the installation. The language of the interface should automatically be set to your system language. Congratulations. Special note for users using macOS versions prior to 10.14.4 If you cannot upgrade your macOS version to the required version, you will need to launch Ancestris manually from the Ancestris script itself located here:  /Applications/Ancestris.app/Contents/Resources/ancestris/bin/ancestris If you use the manual way of launching Ancestris, you will not be able to write nor read files located underneath the Documents, Desktop and Downloads folders as per Apple security restrictions even though Ancestris is signed and notarized using the Apple platform. As an alternative, you will be able to store your files under /Public. There are two ways to launch Ancestris manually. First make sure you install Java and Ancestris as per the instructions in this page. Then use one of the following two options. From the Finder Open the finder Go to /Application Locate the Ancestris.app application. Expand it. You will see the Contents folder. Go to Resources Go to ancestris. Go to bin. You should see the "ancestris" file. Click on it. A terminal window opens and Ancestris is launched. From a Terminal Open a terminal Type cd /Applications/Ancestris.app/Contents/Resources/ancestris/bin to go to the bin directory. ("bin" stands for binary files) Type ./ancestris Ancestris should launch. If not, please send us, via the Forum or the Support email, the text returned and displayed in the terminal. Troubleshooting If after having installed Java and launched Ancestris, nothing happens, please open Ancestris manually as described above in the From a Terminal section. This runs the script contained in the bin folder. The terminal window shows the script execution. If the error is not helping, copy the content of the Terminal window to a file and send it to the Forum or the Support email for assistance. Special note for users with 2025 Mac Studio running Sequoia 15.7.2 A user has reported to us that if after a successful installation and a start of Ancestris you get the error message that the program is "broken", try the following. Manually delete Ancestris from the applications folder. As near as I can figure, the new installation either didn't overwrite the old version or the part that the OS was detecting as "broken" wasn't being replaced with the new version. As soon as I deleted it out and re-installed, it worked fine. Step-by-step installation of the stable version on Windows This page shows step-by-step how to install Ancestris stable on a Windows system. Foreword 1 : the installer automatically installs Java.  See the version compatibility page for more information aboàut the versions. Foreword 2 : if you have already installed a previous stable version:  - Uninstall it - Unintall all installed Java versions - Run the installer of the new stable version Install Ancestris stable version Follow the instructions below. 1/4 - DownloadAncestris Go to https://www.ancestris.org Click on 'DOWNLOAD' in the menu Click on the Ancestris 13  button of the Windows panel. Downloading may take 3 to 4 minutes as it is about 131 Mb. If your browser is preventing you from downloading, you can bypass the download by following the procedure at the bottom of the page.   2/4 - Double-click on the downloaded file Ancestris 12 has a setup wizard for Windows. The downloaded file is Ancestris13Setup.exe and its size is 131Mb. Click on Next Accept the agreement then click on Next Choose an install path. The path shouldn't have any accent not special caracters. Then click on Next Define a name for the short-cut in "Start" Menu. You can choose not to create any short-cut with the check-box on the bottom of the screen. Then click on Next Check the box to create a short-cut on the desktop. Then click on Next Click on Install The software is installed on your computer. You can launch directly the application with the "Launch Ancestris" check-box 3/4 - Click the short-cut and Ancestris then starts. 4/4 -The Welcome page then appears. You are now ready to use Ancestris.   Appendix : Unblock downloading with Edge or Chrome 1. Click on the three dots : 2. Choose "Keep" You can also click on "Report this file as safe" to help us to remove this alert. 3. Click on the arrow beside the "Delete" button and select "Keep anyway" 4. You can use the downloaded file and install Ancestris. Step-by-step installation of the daily version on Windows This page shows step-by-step how to install Ancestris on a Windows system. The sections below are independent and do not all need to be done. Screens shown might look different from those of the current Ancestris web site or the current Ancestris software version. Knowing which Java version you use Command prompt Alternatively, these steps let you identify which version of Java is running on your system. 1 - Open a Windows PowerShell window and enter CMD or open a Command Prompt window. 2 - Type java -version at the prompt. You will obtain a display as below, which shows that Java Version 8 (aka 1.8) 64-Bit is installed. Otherwise, it means java is not installed. Follow these instructions to install it. java version "1.8.0_221" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_221-b11) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.221-b11, mixed mode) If it shows "64 Bit", you have Java 64-Bit installed and you will be able to run ancestris64.exe to launch Ancestris If it does not show 64-Bit, you have installed Java 32-Bit and you will not be able to launch Ancestris with ancestris64.exe. It will not find Java. You will need to launch Ancestris with ancestris.exe. 3 - Type exit once or twice to close the command window. Install Ancestris daily version Follow the instructions below from your Windows system. 1/6 - Download Ancestris Go to https://www.ancestris.org Click on 'DOWNLOAD' in the Menu Then click on the ANCESTRIS 14 button of the Windows panel. Downloading may take 2 to 3 minutes 2/6 - Extract the Ancestris file Ancestris does not need to be installed as it runs directly from its .exe file. So right-click the downloaded ancestris-latest.zip file, choose 'Extract All' and select a destination folder where the .exe file can run. On Windows 7 , unzip into the C:\Program Files folder otherwise Ancestris won't run. 3/6 - Check the Ancestris file to run In the destination folder, open the ancestris folder and then the bin folder; there the ancestris64.exe file will run Ancestris on a 64-bit system, while the ancestris.exe file will run it on a 32-bit system. 4/6 - Add an Ancestris shortcut Right-click on the ancestris64.exe or ancestris.exe file and choose 'Pin to Start' or 'Pin to taskbar' to add a shortcut to the Start menu or the Taskbar. Then set the icon of the resulting Ancestris shortcut . For that, you need to right-click on the shortcut and replace the icon with the ancestris.gif file. 5/6 - Click the shortcut and Ancestris then starts 6/6 - The Welcome page then appears. You are now ready to use Ancestris. If Ancestris does not start, it might be related to a Java version issue. You may have to swap the Java version. Please follow these instructions. Step-by-step installation on Linux Installation with AppImage  Download the AppImage file from Ancestris web site hovering the mouse on the Ancestris Stable or Ancestris Daily button Go to the directory where the file was downloaded and move it to a directory where you want to store the Ancestris program Make sure the file is executable by right clicking on it and choosing Properties Make the file executable Double click on it. A menu appears if you install this file for the first time. Choose either to lanch Ancestris or to Install it in the Launch bar. An 'Ancestris' menu button appears in the launch bar and Ancestris is launched. If the Ancestris launcher was already present in the launch bar, the launcher will be replaced. Installation with the ZIP file Dowload the ZIP file from the website similarly to the the situation described above Move the file to the directory of your choice Unzip the file Install a launcher: this is a .desktop file in a directory similar to ~/.local/share/applications that look like this: [Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=Ancestris Icon=ancestris.png Exec="~//ancestris/bin/ancestris" %U Categories=Office;Utility; Run  nancestris either using this launcher or by clicking ion the 'bin/ancestris' script As you may have noticed, using the AppImage file is much simpler and using the ZIP file should only be used to personlize the launcher or have several Ancestris version on your computer. Uninstallation If you installed via AppImage Right clic on the Ancestris launcher and choose Remove Ancestris. If you installed by unpacking the ZIP file Just delete the ancestris folder. Troubleshooting If double-clicking on the AppImage file does not launch it, run it manually from a Terminal window. $ ./Ancestris13.AppImage The response should help you identify the problem. Possible causes: File is not executable libfuse2 library is missing    Java installation Ancestris needs Java. Check the Versions compatibility page . If Ancestris does not start , or shows the Ancestris splash screen and stops, it is most generally related to an issue with the Java installation. Either Java is not installed or Ancestris does not find it or finds an incompatible version or finds a corrupted version . The following sections offer a step-by-step check to ensure Ancestris is using a valid Java version. General principle Ancestris works with all Java versions listed in the Compatibility page . Ancestris has been tested with several versions which are LTS (Long Term Support) versions. We do not systematically test Ancestris with Short Term versions. They are quickly obsolete and cannot be downloaded after 18 months but some users regularly confirm that Ancestris works well with all java versions. Ancestris is compiled with a former long-term version for better compatibility with most users. If a functioning version of Java is available on your system, Ancestris will find it without having to configure anything . Otherwise, you can install Java from any vendor. Our users find it easier to download it from  Adoptium . To know whether Java is installed on your system, follow these instructions . In case Ancestris does not start although Java is installed, please check the Troubleshooting section . You can have multiple versions of Java installed on your system. To tell Ancestris which one to use, you will need to either update the Ancestris configuration file. For this, follow these instructions. or change the default Java version. For this, follow these instructions . Install Java A simple way to get an official Java version is to get it from Adoptium.net - On macOS and Windows , Adoptium provides installable packages that you simply need to run. - On Linux , it may be easier to install it via the command line.    For example, on Ubuntu, you would use the command ‘ sudo apt install openjdk-21-jdk ’ to install version 21. If Java is not installed or if you want the latest or a specific version of Java, just download it from the site above. If you use Windows , when you install Java with Adoptium, install the registry keys Javasoft This allow to all software to detect Java. If you use Linux , another easy way to install java is simply to type the following in a terminal: sudo apt install openjdk-17-j dk ( replace the version number 17  by the version you want to install) Identify if Java is already installed If you don't know if Java is installed or which version is installed, open a command line terminal and type the command line: java -version If you see an error message in the terminal, then Java is not installed on your system. Ancestris cannot run. Please follow the Install section below to install Java. If you see something like this below where Java version is displayed , it means Java is installed with the indicated version. You may have several versions installed, but this one is the one Ancestris will find, unless you configured Ancestris to do differently. java version "1.8.0_251" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_251-b08) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.251-b08, mixed mode) According to the display above, we can see that the installed Java version set by default is version 1.8, aka version 8. If you have a Java version installed as per the example above, and are happy to use this version, you may disregard the rest of this page.  Troubleshooting If Java is installed and Ancestris does not start, either Ancestris does not find Java  or finds an incompatible version or finds a corrupted version . Whether only one version of Java or several versions are installed on your system, you will then need to check and potentially update the configuration file to tell Ancestris where to look for Java. Rather than changing the Ancestris configuration file, and if several version of Java are available on your system, an alternative would be to change the default Java version . The default Java version is the one appearing when you type java -version like indicated in the section above. This is the one Ancestris will use if an Ancestris configuration file does not exist or does not include the instruction of where to find Java. If in doubt, please run Ancestris manually from a terminal window, and send us the trace that is displayed on the screen. Regardless of the OS you use, open a terminal window Go to the application directory called ancestris/bin Start Ancestris manually by typing ./ancestris from macOS or Linux, by typing ancestris.exe or ancestris64.exe from Windows The terminal window displays what it is doing Send us this display Update the Ancestris configuration file  You only need to worry about what is detailed below if Java is installed and Ancestris does not start. You need to update the Ancestris configuration file to tell where Ancestris should look for Java, if Ancestris does not seem to find it. The principle is the following: If a configuration file exists which includes a jdkhome parameter indicating where to find java, Ancestris will use the corresponding java version  Otherwise Ancestris will use the default Java version indicated in the section above Ancestris uses two configuration files, both named ancestris.conf 1/ The first one is the Application Configuration file , which is part of the Application directory and it is created during the installation of Ancestris.  2/ The other one is the User Configuration file , which is part of your User directory, and created when you change some Preferences when using Ancestris. The User Configuration file takes precedence over the Application Configuration file  So the configuration file to check and update is the User Configuration file if it exists, the Application Configuration file otherwise. - If you are installing Ancestris, you will probably need to update the Application Configuration file. - If you have already used Ancestris and want to change the java version, you will probably need to update the User Configuration file.  Chech here to know where the configuration file is depending on your system. The path to Java in the configuration file So open the configuration file with a regular text editor. 1. Check the line defining default_options This line should look like this: default_options="--branding ancestris -J-Xms96m -J-Xmx1g --laf javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusLookAndFeel" If one of the options in this line includes --jdkhome="/path/to/java , make sure the path specified in this option is the path to the Java version you want to use.  If this line does not include a java path, locate jdkhome elsewhere. 2. Check the line defining jdkhome If the line looks like jdkhome="/path/to/java" , then make sure the path specified in this option is the path to the Java version you want to use.  If the line starts with "#", a comment markup, Ancestris will disregard as if it did not exist. If Ancestris does not start, it could be that the jdkhome folder name is incorrectly spelt or points to an incorrect Java version. Whatever your operating system is, if the default active Java version is different from the one to be used with Ancestris, you have to modify the jdkhome line like this: jdkhome="/path/to/java" Case of macOS For macOS, if for example Java 21 and Java 17 are installed on your Mac and you want to force the use of Java 17 for Ancestris, the complete manipulation to force the version of Java would be the following: Edit the Ancestris User Configuration file if it exists: The file is /Users//Library/Application Support/ancestris//etc/ancestris.conf . Replace with the name you use on your Mac Replace with the version number of Ancestris you use: the current stable and official version is a number: 11 for instance ; the daily version is called 'trunk'. To see the Library folder in the Finder, you need to press Command+J. It is hidden by default If the user configuration file does not exist , because you never used Ancestris before, edit the Ancestris Application Configuration file (if this is a first install) /Applications/Ancestris.app/Contents/Resources/ancestris/etc/ancestris.conf Look for the line #jdkhome="/path/to/java" and suppress the starting character # in order to uncomment the line so that Ancestris takes it into account. Replace the value to the Java path you want to use , for instance temurin-17 here, so that the line reads: jdkhome="/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/temurin-17.jdk/Contents/Home" Save the modified ancestris.conf file and check that it has been saved correctly. Restart Ancestris. Case of Windows and Linux For Windows or Linux for example, if the java executable is /usr/java/jdk1.8.0_291-amd64/bin/java, then you must indicate jdkhome="/usr/java/jdk1.8.0_291-amd64/" Note: you have to exclude /bin/java in the path description. Change the default Java versions in case multiple versions are installed If several versions are available on your systems and you need to swap Java versions so that Ancestris uses the default one, the swap procedure depends on your operative system. For macOS For Windows For Linux Swap default version for macOS To swap between different Java versions, open a Terminal window and follow the steps below. In the following example, the instructions let you set Version 8 (aka 1.8) by default, without removing Java Version 10: 1/6 - Check which version of Java is set by default java -version echo $jdkhome You can see the java version you are running. 2/6 - Get a list of all installed versions on your system and check Version 8 or 11 is among them /usr/libexec/java_home -V If the version you want is not in the list, then install it as explained in this section . If it is in the list, but not the one you had above, force the path to the java version with the following step. 3/6 - Type in the following 2 lines in the Terminal echo 'export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.8`' >>~/.bash_profile echo 'export jdkhome==`/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.8`' >>~/.bash_profile These two lines will add the command to set your default Java version in your personal profile. Here, we force version 1.8 (or 8). Replace with your java version. The first line defines the default Java version for all programs (JAVA_HOME, in uppercase). The second line defines the default Java version to use for Ancestris (jdkhome, lowercase). 4/6 - Close the Terminal exit 5/6 - Reopen a Terminal and check that the running Java is now the one you want (version 8 in our example) java -version echo $jdkhome You can now start Ancestris. 6/6 - Start Ancestris When Ancestris starts, a Terminal window opens at the same time. You can see in the title bar that version 8 of Java is being used by Ancestris. Swap default version for Windows You have to create a BAT file per Java version you wish to keep. Use your favourite text editor to create those files, using the code below, and place them in a folder available from your PATH. JAVA8.BAT @echo off echo Setting JAVA_HOME set JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_12 echo setting PATH set PATH=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_12\bin;%PATH% echo Display java version java -version JAVA11.BAT @echo off echo Setting JAVA_HOME set JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.11.0_11 echo setting PATH set PATH=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.11.0_11\bin;%PATH% echo Display java version java -version While creating these files, make sure you specify the correct name for the Java files for the lines JAVA_HOME, depending on your Java installation When you decide to change the Java version, just run the corresponding BAT file: JAVA8 for version 1.8, or JAVA11 for version 11. The Java version at use will be shown on the terminal. To check if the change is really in effect, type java -version on a console or check this page . Swap default version for Linux Type the following on a console : sudo update-alternatives --config java Select from the list the version needed. To get help using this tool : sudo update-alternatives -l Launch settings It is possible to personalise the launch settings of Ancestris. In general, you should not need to set or modify them. However, in some specific circumstances, you may want to tweak them a bit. It is as simple as editing the line in the Ancestris configuration file. Please refer to the location of the configuration file page to know where it is located. Set memory size for large genealogies Ancestris works perfectly fine with genealogies of several dozens or thousands of individuals. You can get Ancestris to work with several genealogies at the same time. We recommend a 4 GB memory for very large genealogies. Ancestris can open and manage a simple genealogy of 600,000 individuals. For very large genealogies, we recommend that you change Ancestris's startup parameters to increase maximum memory size for Java. Parameter to change:  -J-Xmx to 8GB for instance. default_options="-J-Xmx8g --laf Nimbus --branding ancestris --locale fr -J-Xms96m" We also recommend, if needed, to reboot your device and to only start Ancestris and nothing else, so that all memory available will be allocated to Ancestris. Set default language The default language can be set in Ancestris preferences. It can also be initialised to a language of your choice using the launch setting. Parameter to change:  --locale to the 2-digit-language code. Example : "en". default_options="-J-Xmx1g --laf Nimbus --branding ancestris --locale en -J-Xms96m" Set default look and feel The default look and feel can be set in Ancestris preferences. It can also be initialised to a look and feel of your choice using the launch setting. Parameter to change: --laf to the look-and-feel name provided in Ancestris preferences. default_options="-J-Xmx1g --laf Nimbus --branding ancestris --locale en -J-Xms96m" For the standard look and feel, remove the parameter from the line. Set default icon size In very rare circumstances, if you modify the default size of the fonts and icons on your computer or use a very large screen, Ancestris might display its icons in too small a size. It is possible to increase the aspects of the icons with Ancestris using the following method but only with Java 11. Parameter to change: -J-Dsun.java2d.uiScale=2 default_options="-J-Xmx1g --laf Nimbus --branding ancestris --locale en -J-Xms96m -J-Dsun.java2d.uiScale=2" Windows specific instructions Another way to force icon size on Windows with Java version 8 is the following. Right-click ancestris.exe or ancestris64.exe , select Properties and choose the Compatibility tab. Click on Change high DPI settings . Set the choice to System , validate with OK and then restart Ancestris. Software files and User settings files There are two groups of files for running Ancestris. The software files run the application, The user settings files store user preferences. You may lose the software files because you can always get them from the Ancestris website; but you should backup you user settings files as they are specific to you. Software files Ancestris software files will be inside the ancestris folder used during the installation. You can type whereis ancestris on a terminal on Linux , or locate ancestris on macOS , or  dir ancestris /s /p on Windows to find out what that folder is. This ancestris folder contains the following sub-folders. ancestris bin ancestris : executable file to start Ancestris under macOS and Linux ancestris.exe : executable file to start Ancestris under Windows ancestris64.exe : executable file to start Ancestris under Windows with Java 64-bit architecture (recommended) ancestris.gif : Ancestris icon to use when creating an application launcher shortcut other Ancestris icons etc ancestris.conf : application configuration file harness platform When you reinstall Ancestris, you simply replace those software files. User settings files The User directory Ancestris user settings files are in the user directory . You can see the location of the user directory on the About dialogue. This dialogue can be accessed from the main menu / Help / About Ancestris or else by clicking on the About button . Example : This user directory depends on your operating system. Windows : C:\Users\[your name]\...\.ancestris\ macOS : ${HOME}/Library/Application Support/ancestris/ Linux : ~/.ancestris/ Where is the installed version number. 13 : in this case, the stable version number. Check the Versions compatibility page to know which number is the Stable version. trunk : in this case, the daily version. So the user directory, where the personalisation of Ancestris is located, is, according to your system: Windows : Stable version: C:\Users\[your name]\...\.ancestris\13 Daily version: C:\Users\[your name]\...\.ancestris\trunk macOS : Stable version:   ${HOME}/Library/Application Support/ancestris/13 Daily version: ${HOME}/Library/Application Support/ancestris/trunk Linux : Stable version:  ~/.ancestris/13 Daily version: ~/.ancestris/trunk In case your have reinstalled Ancestris from a previous version, and if you want to continue using your previous personalisation, you just have to copy the user directory of the previous version to the  user directory of the new version. The User Configuration file and the log file There are two especially important files in the user's folder for startup and diagnostic of eventual bugs. The configuration file : /etc/ancestris.conf defines the launch settings. The log file : /ancestris/ancestris.log stores all warnings and error messages occurring while you use Ancestris. Here are also located your preferences and customised templates. Your preferences : /ancestris/config Your personal templates : /ancestris/blueprints Your almanacs : /ancestris/almanac Your individual and family record templates : /ancestris/gedart Your history of modifications : /var/cache/ModificationsHistory Please check the user guide to learn what these templates are for. Ancestris uses two configuration files, both named ancestris.conf 1/ The first one is the Application Configuration file , which is part of the Application directory and it is created during the installation of Ancestris.  2/ The other one is the User Configuration file , which is part of your User directory, and created when you change some Preferences when using Ancestris. The User Configuration file takes precedence over the Application Configuration file  So the configuration file to check and update is the User Configuration file if it exists, the Application Configuration file otherwise. - If you are installing Ancestris, you will probably need to update the Application Configuration file. - If you have already used Ancestris and want to change the java version, you will probably need to update the User Configuration file.  Detailed description ~/.ancestris/13     or      ~/.ancestris/trunk User directory ancestris User defined templates almanac Almanacs for the chronology view and for chronology reporting. blueprints Blueprints available for displaying genealogy information in dynamic tree view, Gedcom editor, etc. gedart Standard models and user-defined models for the individual and family record / Gedart report. ancestris.log Ancestris log file. This is the file Ancestris support might need in case you submit an error. You can define the size of the log file in the Preferences. config User defined preferences Modules User preferences of installed extensions Preferences User preferences of all views and tools except those of the installed extensions Toolbars Main toolbar settings Windows2Local Position of windows shortcuts.html Shortcuts etc ancestris.conf Ancestris configuration file for Launch settings This configuration file complements the Ancestris application configuration file placed in the software files described above. modules Installed extensions update_tracking Installed extensions update information var cache ModificationsHistory Modification history of Gedcom files opened by Ancestris ... Temporary information stored by Ancestris log Temporary log files When you reinstall Ancestris, user settings files are not modified and you should be able to run the updated version with all your previous settings. However, there could be some changes in the way the new version uses some of the settings. - If this is the case, we recommend you to only keep the ancestris , config , etc and ModificationsHistory folders. - If you have trouble with the windows, we recommend you to remove the Windows2Local folder. Uninstall Ancestris To uninstall Ancestris, just delete the 2 folders of the software files and the user settings files. Privacy Policy The following describes the Privacy Policy of the Ancestris software. License The Ancestris software is free and licensed under the  GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE V3. Location The Ancestris software is installed on the computer of the user, not on a server. Advertising The Ancestris software does not include any sollicitation to promote or buy any product It does not allow to buy or sell any product. Data The Ancestris software stores all user data in Gedcom files in folders indicated by the user It stores user settings in the user settings folder on the user computer It does not store any user data outside of these files The users controls 100% of their data and are free to erase these files or folders from their computer at any time Login The Ancestris software does not require any login of any sort or to any web site, including the Ancestris website. The only existing login that might exist is for the forum in order to get user support but it is not managed from the Ancestris software nor has any connection with the Ancestris software. Connections The Ancestris software works well without any Internet communication. However some functionalities require an internet connection. In this case, the Ancestris software communicates outside of the user computer in two occasions: When communicating to the Ancestris server at startup, when checking for updates, when displaying geographic maps (Openstreetmap service), when looking for location names (Geonames service), and when closing the application. The only information stored on the Ancestris server in this case is the anonymous connection information. It is used by the Ancestris team to get volume traffic information and statistics. The Ancestris website and server is hosted on the OVH cloud and does not contain any user information managed by the Ancestris software. When users use the "Genealogy Compare" functionality in a sharing mode. It then compares their genealogy with that of other users on a deliberate basis. Users consciously share and indicate to include private information or not. In this case, the only information potentially shared with another user is the information the other user already has, which is the common information included in a given genealogy between the two users. The information shared is limited to names, dates, locations and event types as per public genealogy records. Notes are not shared for instance. Publications The Ancestris software includes functionalities to produce reports and genealogy extract. Users are responsible for the resulting genealogy information they are sharing with other parties. Ancestris cannot be held responsible in case of improper information sharing outside of the software.                 Release notes Version 13 - 30 November 2025 We are pleased to announce the release of Ancestris version 13. The daily version will be numbered version 14. Both versions are available from our web site. Ancestris 13 in numbers Over 1,200 commits 18 months of development Runs on all OSes that support Java from version 17 to 25 New features Complete overhaul of all reports. Unification and improvement of report options. Addition of dark look and feel. Overhaul of the statement module. Addition of an AI-based(Mistral) document transcription feature. Feature to change all names to uppercase. Overhaul of the duplicate merge module. Addition of a search notepad Addition of the ability to call up reports using a button in the menu bar Addition of a vertical timeline report Addition of a descending circular report Addition of a report on occupations over time Addition of a star tree report Addition of a label generator Addition of an SVG report viewer Changes, corrections and improvements Cygnus improvements  Ariès improvements GEDCOM editor improvement GedArt additions of functions to export more data Family group module improvements Entity table corrections Anomaly verification module improvements Web book improvements Improvements to the website module Improvements to the common ancestors module Improvements to the tag deletion module Improvements to the Geneanet export Improvements to the graph module Improvements to the graphical tree Improvements to the Geneatique import Improvements to the Aldfaer import Translation update : Catalan Czech Danish Dutch English French German Hungarian Polish Portuguese Russian Spanish Turkish Thank you to all the translators for their constant work, which is so important for the whole community. Thank you ! To conclude, we would like to thank you, the entire community, for your comments, requests and bug reports, all of which help to keep this software alive and kicking. We are counting on you in the future to create buzz, tutorials, ideas and enthusiasm. Version 12 - 08 June 2024 The daily version will be numbered version 13. Both versions are available from our web site. Ancestris 12 in numbers Over 1,700 commits 3 years of development Runs on all OSes that support Java from version 8 to 22 New features Support for GEDCOM 7 (complete for GEDCOM editor and Cygnus editor). Displays all entities (even illegal ones) in the GEDCOM explorer and in the GEDCOM editor. New Hungarian translation Save as: exact or partial copy Possibility of choosing burial instead of date of death for displays. Added option to zoom the entire application. Choice of backup directory Specific imports for: Elie, Aldfaer, RootsMagic, Ancestry.com, Brother's Keeper Addition of a media manager Addition of a GEDCOM converter Redesigned duplicate search module Rewrite calendar report Rewrite narrative report Rewrite 10-generation circular report with SVG output. Addition of an individual lifeline report. Added entity sorting at save time and the ability to sort entity properties by date. Ability to create a new GEDCOM directly from entities displayed in a view (Tree, Graph, Time-line, Map, Search, Family Groups). Family groups module rewritten with new functionalities (marking, grouping, etc.). Added ability to override automatic checks. New inbreeding calculation and loop detection. Addition of a list of default repositories. Export to Genealogieonline.nl Changes, corrections and improvements Divorce symbol added to graphic tree Improvements to Cygnus Improvements to Aries Improvements to GEDCOM editor Improvements to the common ancestors module Opening of a new Ancestris file on SOSA 1 FILE tag added by default for media entities in entity table Preserve sort order in Aries search screens Search without accents Corrected presentation tutorial for multiple screens. Spouse search added to advanced search Added marking by X chromosome Improved use of media links in editors. Geneanet, Geneatique and Heredis import improved. Improvements to Web Book export Website export improvements Sorting on dates in the entity table Addition of separators for bookmark management Improvements and corrections to the geographic map Filters added to graph view Allows you to select a date of change in the explorer to view only subsequent modifications. Improvements to the multi-generation graphical tree report Improves file opening to better detect and explain problems encountered. Geneanet export improvements Addition of a reset to default button for entity table settings. First page of pdf displayed instead of neutral image. File saving options retained from one run to the next. Print current view added to "Tools" menu. Displays JFIF images. Enhanced graph view on high resolution screens. Individuals can be marked from all views. Register module enhancements Addition of a maximum waiting time preference for web link verification Addition of icons to distinguish the addition of a numbering from the display of Sosa 1. Correction of different language display of reports compared to the interface. Use report options before launching them from the context menu. Added a wizard screen for genealogy comparison. Ability to choose the number of generations of ascendants and descendants separately in the dynamic tree. Addition of a new GedArt template. Addition of a gradient by date in the geographic map. Added a parameter to limit the length of a field in a layer. Addition of a menu with the recent opened files. Added the ability to underline fields in layers. Improved management of almanacs. Translation update : Castillan Catalan Czech Danish Dutch German English French Greek Hungarian Italian Polish Portuguese Turkish Version 11 - 29 May 2021 A few days ahead of schedule, we are happy to announce that version 11 is now the stable version. For those who were in version 11, nothing changes except that from tomorrow, you will be in version 12. For those who were on version 10 and up to date with the automatic updates, you will get a small pop-up window telling you that version 10 is obsolete and that you are invited to upgrade to version 11. This will not prevent you from continuing to use version 10, but we really recommend that you switch to version 11. Version 11 key figures 1 year and 4 months of development 790 commits 1 server burnt at OVH A few short nights to get everything back in shape New features Display of images located on the Internet Added the possibility to download the web images linked in the genealogy on his computer Added the possibility to undo/redo with the keyboard in the text fields Added duplicate detection when creating a new person Geneanet synchronization module (files included) Changed the location table to be almost a spreadsheet New GEDCOM comparison module instead of tree sharing Added entity drag and drop Added markers in layers Added module for generating Identifiers Added a module for marking remarkable individuals Adding a module to calculate age New management of the recording of the position of windows Adding the definition of the size of characters in the parameters Visualization of non-standard entities Improvements Technical version upgrade (Netbeans 11), allows to use up to Java 15 Improvement of the toolbar and labels of the graph view Modification of the menus organization Display of Geonames usage rules No creation of empty tags with Cygnus Possibility to delete a tag only if it is empty, visualization of the content of the tags before deletion Move columns in the table of entities, add keyboard shortcuts Adding an input list for the pseudos Replacement of the old help by the online help on the documentation server Added filters on the selection windows of the Aries editor Added a specific import for Ahnenblatt Added specific import for Legacy Added specific import for RootsMagic Updated application discovery Added 15 new reports Added 9 new templates for GEDART reports Added age at death to the age report Improved the genealogy progress report to open easily in a spreadsheet Improved reports when multiple images are linked to an entity Added a font to display non-Roman alphabets in reports. Improved performance of geolocation by internet Possibility to not search for postal codes Removal of the localities in the reports Added the possibility to search on multiple marriages in the advanced search Improvement of the support contact module Search insensitive to accents Search with all names of a person Differentiate between siblings and semi-siblings when displaying common ancestors Added control of isolated entities Added date at the bottom of the printouts Modified the GEDCOM import report Corrections Fixed the use of passwords to encrypt GEDCOM data Management of the cause of an event in Aries Management of events that have taken place Fixed selection of Notes properties in the recording options Fixed parent/child sequence test in GEDCOM controls Correction of the use of the AGENCY tag in Aries Fixed zip code in Aries editor Correction of demo GEDCOMs (Kennedy and Bourbon) Correction of the management of the memory parameters under 1Go Correction of the management of the coordinates Fix @ in names Correction of the narrative report when events are empty Read almanacs in UTF-8 to respect diacritics Adds associations in GEDCOM merge Removes excess line breaks in GEDCOM. (On Windows under certain conditions only) Prevented the systematic search of the Internet to geolocate when modifying a place Re-enabled the display of the Web Book mapping Correction of the Web Book parameters. Correction of bookmarks with a chosen name. Adjustment of sorting when name prefixes are used Selecting an existing place no longer creates another one in Aries. Corrected display of common ancestors Corrected misuse of the ASSO tag with any other tag. Added the possibility to enter a fact (FACT) in the Aries editor And a mountain of translations New documentation in 9 languages (3 complete : French, English, Portuguese; 6 in progress: German, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Danish, Dutch) Added Turkish translation Added Russian translation Many updates of the application translations (German, English, Spanish, Catalan, Danish, French, Greek, Dutch, Italian, Latvian, Polish, Portuguese, Czech) Many thanks to the translators Discover Ancestris Guided tour. Start a new genealogy or migrate an existing one from another software. Guided Tour Welcome to Ancestris ! Ancestris offers a guided tour, allowing you to discover this software in an interactive way, using the Bourbons genealogy as an example. You can start this tour from the Welcome page . Enjoy the visit ! A YouTube video called " Why you might want to use Ancestris to build your family tree " might give you some additional information about Ancestris. Getting started: create or migrate Create your genealogy If you feel like starting your own genealogy, or convert your paper genealogy to a computer as it has become too difficult to manage by hand, a wizard will guide you to create a new genealogy file step by step, including your first individuals. Migrate your genealogy to Ancestris If you already use another genealogy software and aim to move it to Ancestris, it is as simple as opening a Gedcom file exported by this other software. Ancestris will keep all the exported data, analyse it, and display it automatically. If the data is clean, you will not have to do anything more.     Both situations can be handled from the Welcome page , like the one shown below. They can also be done from the File menu , or using the buttons on the Toolbar .   Create your genealogy You will see how simple it is to create a genealogy from scratch with Ancestris. You will create a first individual, the parents and close family, thus having your first genealogical tree with one or two generations. Creating a genealogy usually starts by drawing a first person and specifying information like the birth date and place for instance. Then drawing other persons, the parents, and linking them to the first individual. Then the grandparents, and so on. Well, with Ancestris, you can exactly do the same! Create the first individual During the guided tour , we used the Bourbon genealogy, Bourbon file. This is an example of a genealogy supplied with Ancestris. Let's close it and create a new one. To close Bourbon , just click on the red cross on the toolbar when any of the Bourbon windows is activated. And now, let's create your own genealogy. From the Welcome page , click the button Create a genealogy or click on the toolbar . The following window appears. Fill it in and click OK. Ancestris will then ask you for the location and file name to save your genealogy information. As you can see, the information is directly saved as a Gedcom file. Gedcom files have the extension ".ged". Press Create to save. That's it. Ancestris will now show a genealogy tree in the dynamic tree view . This tree is made up of one person only: you. On the right hand side, the Cygnus editor is also opened. It shows the individual information details of the person currently selected in the tree. Using the Cygnus editor, you can now complete the missing information, e.g. your birth date and place for instance. Add a photograph of yourself by clicking in the respective area. Add other names if necessary. When finished, in order to save the changes made, click on the OK button that will appear at the bottom right corner, as soon as you change your data in the editor. Adopt best practices If you keep on adding people, very soon you will reach hundreds of records: individuals, families, etc. We recommend you to immediately adopt a consistent and harmonised way to write the frequently used information, such as: surnames (1st letter uppercase or not) occupation descriptions witnesses (use husband's uncle rather than Peter's uncle ) to avoid repeating names place names (old spelling or new spelling ?) etc. Also, if you have your birth certificate at hand, document it now as a source, and as comprehensively as possible. Ancestris is very good at keeping all detailed information. Create your parents Creating parent can be done either from the dynamic tree view or from the Cygnus editor . From the tree, right click the desired individual. From Cygnus, we use the buttons for new parents. This is a faster method. The "Father" button is at the top left on the Cygnus editor. In either case, you get two more boxes on the tree, above your own: your parents. Your father is created, but only a placeholder is visible for your mother. The entity corresponding to her is not yet created. Ancestris default settings create only one parent at a time. It could be interesting to try and create both. To do so, go to preferences , using the main menu Options / Preferences / Editing , or click on     at the top right of the main window . In the preferences, select the Editing panel, and check the option Automatically create both spouses when adding a parent. On the father's box, the family name is automatically derived from the individual from which the father was created. On the Cygnus editor, enter your father's information (name, date and place of birth, etc.). Click the OK button once done, to save the data. To create the mother, whether right click on the individual and choose Add a spouse or click the corresponding button on the Cygnus editor, or right click your own box and choose Add a mother . Create your close relatives Next you can create your brothers and sisters, your wife and children, etc. in the same manner. If you make a mistake, it is always possible to correct the information directly or simply undo the creation of the new individual by clicking on Undo button on the toolbar and start over. Once you have created all the individuals of your close family, just click on your box to return to yourself. Add information about your family Let's suppose you want to enter your parents wedding date. Click on the family box, the one between yours and your parents's. It is box number F00001 on the Dynamic tree view below. In Cygnus, you will see your father's information, and Cygnus will select the nuclear family he constitutes with your mother. From there, click on the "Marriage" button on the Cygnus editor. The marriage event is created. Indicate the type of marriage (for example : Religious), enter the date and place, if known. Click OK and that's it. Here is the result: This is the current tree: Let's now generate the Sosa numbering for this 3 people family. Right click on the box representing yourself and choose "Manage Sosa / d'Aboville numbering". A window will open. Just click OK and the Sosa numbering will be created like the following: number 1 for yourself, 2 for your father and 3 for your mother. G1 and G2 codes are the generation numbers. You should now have something similar to the view below, where the Sosa numbering is visible on every box at the top right corner, above the identification numbers. This first tree is now finished. Save it on disk by clicking    on the toolbar. You can now close your genealogy file by clicking the red cross on the toolbar. If you hadn't saved your data before, a window would have  poped-up, asking you to save the file. We will then see the Welcome page again, since it is now the only one opened. From there, your genealogy will show on the " My Ancestris " tab of the Welcome panel, and at the top left on the section "Last opened genealogies". From then on, you will probably adopt the habit of opening your genealogy from the Welcome panel. You are now ready to take advantage of all the other features of Ancestris. The other chapters of this book will help you do so. We wish you all the best. Migrate your genealogy to Ancestris Migrating to Ancestris simply consists in opening a Gedcom file created by another software. The expressions « Migrate to Ancestris » and « Import a genealogy file to Ancestris » means exactly the same thing. There is a slight difference which is not relevant here: a migration assumes that this import is done only once for a user. Importing is an operation that a user would repeat several times. A migration implies two issues: Forego the software you are currently using and learn another one Recover all your data during the transition process. The first issue can be overcome easily. It is just a matter of getting used to Ancestris and its interface : 'What is the name of that action?' , 'Where is that thing again ?' , 'How do we do that?' , and so on. After a few hours using it, you'll get used to it and that is it! On the other hand, recovering all your data at the same place could be much harder to manage depending on your current software. Ancestris is here to make it easy for you. What you should know before importing Ancestris is able to read any file in Gedcom format. This format is an international standard for information exchange between genealogy software. So transferring your data could be very easy if your current software did its job perfectly. However, many programs do not scrupulously comply with this Gedcom standard: they make specific choices with the way they organize their data, which makes it later difficult to convert it to the Gedcom format. This can result in data loss during  exchanges between genealogists. That is why Ancestris chose to be 100 % compliant with the Gedcom standard! You might face two different situations when migrating: Generally, your current software will be able to export most of your data in the Gedcom format. However, genealogy software may generate 3 types of anomalies: they may use official tags at the wrong locations in the Gedcom language structure they may use tags for something else than the norm defines it for they may create new tags, not defining them as user defined, missing "_" at the start of the tag name Ancestris will read all this data without any problem and you will then have to check if everything is there and in their expected places. In the worse case scenario, your current software will not be able to export some important data or even worse will not respect enough the Gedcom format which will generate reading errors later, preventing the file to be loaded. This is quite rare, but in this case, Ancestris will not be able to read the file, and you will have to fix the gedcom file manually. Then, you would potentially have to re-enter some of your data in Ancestris. Most of the software we know fall into the first category. And because we know how these software organize their information, we have built import mechanisms which put the data back to where the Gedcom standard expects it. Ancestris will recover all data read. You can later see 100% of this data. None of your original data is lost. As a result, the migration to Ancestris takes three steps: The export step . From your current software, export ALL your data in Gedcom format. This means the software has to convert the original data to the Gedcom standard, creating a file with the extension .ged . Any good genealogy software should be able to do this, with the variations mentioned above. The import step . From Ancestris, open the resulting Gedcom file (Menu/File/Open). Ancestris will automatically detect what software created the file and apply some necessary corrections if it knows this software. The check step . From Ancestris, control the result. Ancestris cannot correct all anomalies, but will most certainly eliminate most of them. You will have to check if some anomalies remain, where the data has been placed and potentially make some fixes manually. If some data is missing from the original file, you will have to make sure you have not omitted some export settings. Otherwise, you will have no choice but to re-enter any missing information once the genealogy is loaded in Ancestris. Importing your genealogy into Ancestris During the guided tour , you have seen the Bourbon genealogy. Let's close it and import your genealogy now. To close bourbon.ged , click on the red cross on the toolbar when any Bourbon window is active. In this import process, we assume here that you have already performed step 1, the export step : that is to export a Gedcom file from your existing software. Start migrating from the Ancestris Welcome page , click on Migrate your genealogy to Ancestris or, from the menu bar , File, click  Open a genealogy . Ancestris asks you for the name of the Gedcom file to import. Choose it and click Open. A first message tells you that Ancestris has detected a Gedcom file from another software. In the message above, Ancestris recognise the software to open as coming from RootsMagic. Ancestris can recognise the following software, listed in alphabetical order. Ahnenblatt Ancestrologie Family Tree Maker (FTM) Genbox Geneanet Généatique Gramps Hérédis Legacy Mac Family Tree MyHeritage RootsMagic RootsTrust In case it is not recognized, you can still proceed as a generic import. In this message, Ancestris explains you what is going to happen. Click Convert in order to fix known issues. Now, the exported file is processed following the steps below. Ancestris tells you that your file has been transformed and renamed to preserve the original copy. The transformed file will then be opened in Ancestris. The original file is preserved. When completed, Ancestris displays the message below with the result of the conversion. It also allows you to see the changes made. Click ' Full list ' to see all changes made. Because it can be unnecessary and long, Ancestris offers to only show you an extract of the changes made. This is more efficient because it displays all types of correction encountered. Otherwise, click ' No ' to close this message box. Here is an example of the displayed extract where numerous corrections have been made. When the import report is displayed, Ancestris also display the Gedcom editor because it is easier to see the correction in the real data. Just click on the id of the entity in the Import Report and Ancestris will display it in the Gedcom editor. At the bottom of this page we have listed specific software issues identified by Ancestris users during migration that we have not been able to automatically fix. Check your software's paragraph for more details if it exists. Controlling the migrated data Once Ancestris opens the converted file, let us perform some checks, including those reported at the bottom of the previous message, namely: Has all my original data been transferred to the new file? Were the multimedia files stored correctly? Are there any data or format anomalies detected by Ancestris that I need to correct? Checking the data There are two ways of losing data during the import: Either the data was not transferred to the Gedcom file produced by your existing software, Or the data has been transferred, but it is not in the expected location in the Ancestris file. Only you can perform these two checks visually. The first control is to open your exported Gedcom file before conversion by Ancestris, with a text editor. Explore some entities and see if everything is there by visually checking with your original software. The second control is to look at your new Ancestris file using the Gedcom editor. Take a look at entities likely to have very well known information, and see how it is organised and displayed. Since the same types of information were placed in the same places, this will give you an idea of the conversions made. Use the Output window result to help you with this as well (menu Windows/Output). Checking multimedia files File names of the multimedia files used by your genealogy are referenced in 'FILE' lines of the Gedcom file. If the links are broken due to a change of directory or if the export has modified the root of the directory, the media may no longer appear in Ancestris. A quick test is to see if your photo is displayed, in case you had one before. If media files are not visible any more but still present on your disk, Ancestris will be able to link them back. To do this, go to the tool File/Manage media files to reattach the files to the Gedcom with the proper links. Checking anomalies Even after convertion, some data might still not respect the Gedcom standard. It can be the case when data is invalid, wrongly placed or missing. Of course, Ancestris cannot invent data that was not there. Since Ancestris does not delete anything from the original file, but does not complete missing data either, compliance with the Gedcom standard may remain imperfect. More, the genealogical data itself may contain inconsistencies. This check can be performed using the Menu / Tools / Validate Gedcom compliance and data consistency. Please refer to the validation tool for more information. Each anomaly is listed and can be corrected. It is best to do it with the Gedcom editor, because it is the most transparent editor on the information contained in the Gedcom file. Please refer to the Gedcom editor for more information. Modifying or adding information Once imported and the checks carried out, your genealogy is ready to be enriched. You can add other individuals or modify or add information. To do this, choose an individual without parents from your family tree by clicking on it, and see how to create parents and siblings for him by referring to the previous page Create your genealogy for instance. Issues identified by other users after importing For all software recognized by Ancestris, we already performed most appropriate conversions, and you should not encounter any issues, unless there have been changes since our work. For others unknown issues, we welcome your opinion. We will write them down below for the benefit of all users, while waiting to be able to make the corresponding conversion developments if possible. We can only fix problems if they are reported by users. Participate in enhancing Ancestris by reporting issues to us on the discussion list . Migrating from Genealogie.com The files generated by the site genealogie.com do not have information relative to the submitter/researcher. Such indication is mandatory to comply with the standard. Ancestris solution : create the information after the import process from the menu File/Properties and update the author. Migrating from LifeLines With the default settings, LifeLines does not export information relative to the submitter/researcher. Such indication is mandatory to comply with the standard. Ancestris solution : create the information after the import process from the menu File/Properties and update the author. Migrating from Family Tree Builder Family Tree Builder (FTB) generates several proprietary tags that clog the file, rendering it less clear. Ancestris solution : remove the useless tags from the Menu / Edit / Delete. Master Menus and Windows Description of all menus and windows. Views, editors and tools. Main Window Ancestris's Main Window is the one you see when the software opens. In case no genealogy is opened, only the Welcome page appears. If a genealogy opens up, you will see several windows showing different elements of this genealogy. This window has a title, a menu bar, a toolbar, and a workspace that contains the different views of one or more genealogies on which you are working. Title Without genealogy, the title bar looks like this : If one ore more genealogies are open, the title is prefixed with the genealogy name, like this: If you have several genealogies open, the title indicates the one currently selected. Menu Bar The Menu Bar is right below the Title. It lets you access most of the commands, grouped under sub-menus. Please, see Menu Bar for more information. Toolbar The Toolbar is right below the Menu Bar . It contains most commonly used commands, under the form of icons. It is customizable. To do so, go to menu Options / Configure Toolbars. There you can choose which categories of icons to display. Please, see Tools Bar for more information. Workspace The rest of the main window is your workspace. It is the yellow part of the image below. It is organised in different windows, each one with its own specific function. For example : Views display your genealogy along different formats: tree, timeline, charts, lists. By default, these views are located on the left hand part of the screen, or below, which is the case of the entity table. Editors allow you to change your genealogy. By default, we can find them on the right hand part of the screen. Tools : reports, multimedia management, anomalies checking, duplicates search, etc. are usually on the left hand side of the screen.   Workspace and windows Ancestris workspace is organised in tab groups. Tab groups In the example below, we have four tab groups. They have been highlighted with 4 different colours. You can have as many groups as you want . Tab groups can be of various sizes . To change its size, just click and move the border of the group. Tab groups can be placed at various positions in Ancestris workspace . In general, their position is along a border, but it is possible to have a tab group at the centre of the screen. A tab group can be maximized, closed, floating or docked with a right-click at the top border. A context menu will be displayed. See windows menu for details. A tab group can be moved to a different position with a drag-n-drop of the top border just like you move a window. See Moving a Window for details. Each tab group contains one or more windows . Only one window will show up in the group at any point in time. Window A window is a view or a tool applied to a genealogy. In other cases, it applies to several or no genealogy. Here is the Cygnus editor's window, for example, with a view of the Kennedy genealogy. A window is identified by a small tab containing an icon and its name . Different windows can have different shapes, but they all work the same way (opening, closing, moving and resizing). Besides, it is possible to customise certain aspects : which ones to display on startup, their position and size. Following is an explanation of the basics of windows and how to customise them. Tab The tab is the title of the window. It contains an icon representing the nature of the view or the tool used on this window, followed by the name of the genealogy which is displayed in the window. In general, a window deals with one single genealogy, as in the preceding window. In this case, the tab looks like this: Thanks to this tab, we recognise the Cygnus editor by its icon, and the genealogy by its name, fully written. It is the same name displayed on the title bar of the main window, as already described in the Main Window page. You can have the family trees of two different genealogies in two different windows side by side. In this case, the icon will be the same for both windows, but the name of the genealogy will be different. You can also have a tree view and a geographical view of the same genealogy in two different windows. In this case, the name will be the same but their icons will be different. Examples : Here we have 1 Kennedy genealogy with two different editors, Cygnus and Gedcom : Here we have two different genealogies, Kennedy and Bourbon, each with Cygnus open : Here we have two different genealogies, Kennedy and Bourbon, with Cygnus for Bourbons and Gedcom for Kennedy : The tab can be alone or have some neighbours. If it is alone, it means the window is also alone on the group. If there are neighbours, it means the corresponding windows share the same group and only one is filling in the entire space available for the group: the one whose tab is highlighted. To see a different window, just click its tab. Here we have the Kennedy dynamic tree on the same tab group as the welcome page. The dynamic tree is displayed, its tab is highlighted and in front of the Welcome tab. Note that the welcome window does not show a genealogy name because it does not deal with a genealogy. As a matter of fact, if the window does not hold any genealogy (e.g. Welcome, Datulator, Calculator), or when it holds several genealogies (e.g. Genealogy Search), the tab name is the name of the tool. Example : To the right of the name we have also a little cross: ' x '. It is used to close the window. If you hover over this cross, a popup will show some tips on how to close windows of the group. We will get back to this later. The tab of a window is also a handle that allows you to manipulate the window with the mouse, and in particular to move it to another group of windows. The group of windows can already exist on the screen or be created when moving. It is also possible to manipulate the window via Window Menu . Docked window or Floating window A window can have two different states : docked , or floating . It is docked when it is attached to a specific area of the main window. It is floating when it is independent from the main Ancestris window. It can then be placed anywhere on the screen, while the main window could be out of sight. Use the corresponding action from the window menu to dock or float a window. Concealed window The tab can also take the shape of a button. This means the window is concealed, or in the form of a drawer, on one of the edges of the main window. To conceal a window, drag its tab to one of the main window's borders and even beyond that border. Once docked at the edge, the window is in the open position. Simply click on the top right button to close the drawer. This shows the Entity Table window: After reduction, the Entity Table is now concealed: Simply hover over this tab button or click on it to fold/unfold the window. This is the case of the GEDCOM Explorer window, on the top left side of Ancestris, here visible unfolded : When visible, it can be temporarily hidden pressing Ctrl + 0 on the numeric keypad. To anchor a retracted window in an unfolded position, it is necessary to click on the Pin icon (the square button containing a black dot in the top right corner) which will then turn into the Reduce Window icon that will set the window in its initial open state (button already seen above).   Resizing a window The window border is used to resize the window. To do so, simply drag one of the four sides of the border or one of its four corners. If none of the four sides of the border is visible, it is probably because the window is currently full screen: to display them again, simply click on the Restore Window button in the upper right corner. Changing the size of a window also changes the size of the window group in which it is located. Moving a window To move a window, you have to make a drag and drop the tab: left click maintained during the movement, then release the mouse to lock the window position. While moving, Ancestris shows a red preview rectangle shape to indicate its released position. During drag and drop, the future position of the pane you are moving will differ depending on whether you are hovering over the centre of an area or over its edge. When the tab is next to another tab, this tab will move to the new position, in the current window group or in a new one. When the tab is on the edge of a tab group, a new group will be created, this tab will move into this new group, and its window will occupy this space alone. Below is an example where the Kennedy Cygnus Editor window is being moved: a thumbnail image of the window appears and moves with the mouse, while red borders appearing to indicate where it will be repositioned.   Following your attempts to move windows, if you have found the layout that you find most convenient and would like to use it again for all genealogies, save your windows configuration via Menu / Options / Save display settings .   Window Menu This menu will open with a right click at the top of any window. It includes different actions, used to manipulate the window. The list of actions depends on where you click, if it was on the group or on the tab. The Window menu is also available from the Ancestris Main Menu / Window / Configure Window . Examples of window menus Actions for a tab group (right-click on the top border) Actions for a window (right click on the window tab) Actions for a concealed window (right click on the window tab)   Description of the various window actions Close Removes the window from the tab group. To open the window again, you have to go through the menu bar. Be careful if you had uncommitted modifications, they will be lost. If you had validated your modifications without saving them, they will not be lost. If the window you close is the last one to deal with a given genealogy, the genealogy will be closed. If any of the validated changes were not saved, Ancestris will ask you to do so. Close All (the group and its windows) Closes all windows in the group. The tab group will disappear. The other tab groups will then take the place freed by the closed group. The same considerations given for closing a window also apply here. Close Other Windows Only the selected window will remain in its group. The same considerations given in the Close description also apply here for windows that are about to close. Maximise When this line has the check mark, it means the window (and the window group it is in) in displayed full screen. The window occupies the entire screen, but hides the border. If you wish to restore the initial display, simply uncheck the box. Float Releases an anchored window from the main Ancestris window. It can then be visible without the main window or float above the other windows. Float Group Same as for one window, but applied to all windows on the group. Dock Send a previously freed window to its former group. Dock Group Same as for one window, but applied to all windows on the group. Shift Left Move the window tab to the left within the group. Basically, swap tab's position with the one on the left. Shift Right Move the window tab to the right within the group. Basically, swap tab's position with the one on the right. Clone Duplicate the window within the group. Create new Tab Group with this window Create a new tab group and place the window in it. Close Tab Group and move windows in another one Moves all the windows in the group to another existing tab group, and closes the group. Warning: if this action is performed on the last remaining group, the windows will be closed and the considerations indicated for ' Close ' description apply (genealogy will be closed, etc.). Move Moves a concealed window which is in the locked-open position. After you click this action, you will be able to move a red rectangle with the cursor keys.  Press the Enter key to validate the choice or Esc to cancel. Move Group Moves a concealed tab group which is in the locked-open position. After you click this action, you will be able to move a red rectangle with the cursor keys.  Press the Enter key to validate the choice or Esc to cancel. Resize Group Changes the size of a concealed group which is in the locked-open position. Once this action is clicked, allows you to enlarge the window group with the cursor keys. Press Esc and Enter to exit this resize mode. This action is only available for certain groups (example: Entity Table).  Transparent Window Clicking on this action displays an information message about the keys to use to make the concealed window pane transparent: " Press and hold [Ctrl + Numpad 0] key to make concealed window transparent" . This action is only available for a concealed windows.  Tab group buttons To the right of the tabs of a given tab group are four buttons whose functions you can see by tooltip. Scroll the tabs to the left or right Represented by arrows on the left and right, allow you to scroll through the tabs when there are a lot of them and it is not possible to see them all. Show opened documents list Represented by a down arrow, displays a small menu containing the list of windows of the group, and which allows to choose directly the window to be displayed in the group. Maximize or Restore Window Depending on the situation of the tab group, opens the tab group to full screen or restores it to its previous position.                     Relationships between windows Current entity, current genealogy At any point in time within Ancestris, if one or more genealogies are open, a genealogical entity is selected. It can be an individual, a family, a source, etc. This entity is the centre of the action. This entity becomes the " current entity " and the genealogy to which it belongs becomes the " current genealogy ". They are also called the " selected entity " - or " selected individual " in the case of an individual entity - and the " selected genealogy ". Several windows for each genealogy When a genealogy is open in Ancestris, several windows will probably be open, among the following: Views : dynamic tree, entities table, list of places, graph, timeline, geographic map, entity card, etc. Editors : Cygnus, Aries, Gedcom All these windows will be presenting specific aspects of the genealogy. If you have several genealogies open simultaneously in Ancestris, you will then have several instances of these windows : one for each genealogy. Synchronised  windows of the same genealogy Windows of the same genealogy are synchronized: their content is updated according to the current entity being selected. Once an entity is selected in one of the windows, the other windows of the corresponding genealogy will adjust to display the view's specific information about this selected entity. For instance, if you select an individual on the dynamic tree, you will also see this same individual in the editors and in the entities table. This synchronisation behaviour occurs only when the relevant view contains the selected entity. Counter-example : the dynamic tree only shows ancestors and descendants of a given root person. If, let's say, on the entity table, you select an individual that is neither ancestor nor descendant of that root individual, the content of the dynamic tree will not change. Another example, if the selected entity on the dynamic tree is an individual and not a family, and the entity table is in family mode, the table will also not update. This synchronisation behaviour also does not occur when the entity in a view is "pinned". It is possible to block the synchronisation between windows from a few of them (Cygnus editor, Gedcom editor, dynamic tree, for example) by clicking on the pin button  at the top bar of the view/editor. In that case, the entity currently showing in this view/editor will not change even if you select another entity in another view.             Menu Bar The Menu Bar of Ancestris gives you access to all available actions via 7 menus. Logic of the menu organisation To easily find the actions you are looking for, here is the organisation we chose for the menus. File Menu This menu regroups all the actions to handle genealogy files . Create, open, close, save, import, merge, export, change its properties, add to favourites Exit the application Edit Menu This menu regroups all the actions to make global changes to your genealogical data . Undo / Redo Cut / Copy / Paste Find / Replace / Delete Generate Sosa or D'Aboville numbering Change ID numbers Mark special individuals See modifications history View Menu This menu regroups all the actions to access the genealogical views. These views show specific aspects of your genealogy and some let you edit your genealogy as well (e.g. editors, dynamic tree). Tools Menu This menu regroups all the actions to explore, manipulate and analyse genealogical data . Genealogical Search among Ancestris users, Consult registers records and use them to enrich your genealogy Miscellaneous utilities (date calculation, calculator) Verify data (anomalies, duplicates) Analyse data (common ancestors, lists and reports) Publish locally on disk or on the Internet  Print the active view Window Menu This menu regroups all the actions to handle Ancestris windows . Access to special windows Handling windows : open, close, float, dock, clone, set to full screen Options Menu This menu regroups the main actions to customize Ancestris. Preferences Save display settings Configure tools bar Update Ancestris Manage Plugins Help Menu This menu regroups all the actions to get help and to help Ancestris. All the documentation Contact Ancestris support team Make a donation Ancestris website About Ancestris   Using the menus Like the menu bar in many software programs, each menu in the Ancestris menu bar can be opened in two ways. or by clicking on it or by typing the key combination: + the underlined letter in the name of the corresponding menu. For example, to open the Tools menu, type +t. Each action of the menu has: an icon illustrating the action, when this icon exists the name of the action a keyboard shortcut to launch this action without going through the menu, when it exists Here is an example with the File menu Similarly, each action can be initiated in several ways: either by clicking on it in the menu or when the menu is opened by typing the key combination: + the underlined letter in the action name or when the menu is closed by typing the keyboard shortcut of the action (Ctrl-N or Ctrl-S in the example above)               File Menu This menu regroups all the actions to handle genealogy files , to change file properties and to exit Ancestris. In Ancestris, a genealogy file is a Gedcom file. Each of these actions is described below. When the action has its own description page - it is bold - click on it to get all the details about it. Create a new genealogy Starts a wizard to help you create a new genealogy from scratch. Open (check Preferences) Opens the default genealogy file. This file can be set in the Preferences, menu Options/Preferences, Files tab . This option is only available when a default file has been defined in the Preferences. Otherwise, it is greyed out. Open a genealogy Opens an existing genealogy, from a Gedcom file. If the Gedcom file comes from a different software, Ancestris will automatically detect it and start the import process. Open recent genealogies Opens a genealogy recently opened. Just select the corresponding genealogy file or else clear the list. The list is the same as the one displayed in the Welcome panel which only lists the latest 5. Import Migrates to Ancestris a genealogy created by a different genealogy software. Currently we can only import Gedcom files. This action is available to help you choose the original software, when the automatic detection of the Open a genealogy menu action would not detect it correctly. Merge genealogies Merges two genealogies together. This simply adds two different Gedcom files together without analysing potential duplicates. Open repositories references Opens a list of official repositories contact details and internet links. The list is open as part of a Gedcom file. It allows you to quickly visit their respective sites, as well as drag-n-drop the repositories you need to your own genealogy. Modify genealogy properties This opens a window to edit the properties of the Gedcom file : description, language and author. This action is only available if you have a Gedcom file currently open. Modify place jurisdictions This opens a window to edit the place jurisdictions of the Gedcom file i.e. the way a place is stored in terms of place structure (e.g. city, zip code, region, country). This action is only available if you have a Gedcom file currently open. Manage medias files This opens a window to adjust the media file links to the genealogy information they are related to. This action is only available if you have a Gedcom file currently open. Convert Gedcom format This opens a window to modify the Gedcom norm or its encoding. This action is only available if you have a Gedcom file currently open. Add to Favorites Adds the selected Gedcom file to your Favorite links. This window can be accessed from the Menu / Window / Favourites . This action is only available if you have a Gedcom file currently open. Save Saves the selected Gedcom file. If other Gedcom files are open, they will not be saved. For security reasons, Ancestris keeps a number of backup copies : this number can be changed on Options / Preferences / Files, Number of backup copies . This function is only available if the selected Gedcom file was changed and not yet saved. Save as Saves all or part of a file under another name. In particular, you can use this action to extract a branch or part of your genealogy and save it in an independent Gedcom file. Export Exports a genealogy to other genealogy sites, such as Geneanet, Geneweb or CousinsGenWeb. It is important to note that since Ancestris saves the content of your genealogy directly in a Gedcom format, the Ancestris Gedcom file is directly usable by all genealogy software worldwide. Geneanet is a French genealogical data repository. The Geneanet export includes the ability to guide you in the process and opens the Geneanet upload page. The other export actions are French specific and only available as additional plugins to install. Close Closes the selected Gedcom file, without exiting Ancestris . Exit Exits Ancestris. Edit Menu This menu regroups all the actions to make global changes to your genealogical data : undo, redo, cut, copy, paste, find, replace, delete, rename, numbering, mark, etc. Each of these actions is described below. When the action has its own description page - it is typed in bold. Click on it to get all the details about it. Undo Undoes the last change that was made to the selected Gedcom file. It is possible to undo up to 10 modifications. This parameter can be changed in Preferences, Editing, Maximum number of cancellations . This menu item is only available when unsaved changes have been made and are not saved yet. It is not possible to undo saved changes. But, it is always possible to restore a backup copy. Redo Redoes the last modification previously undone on the selected Gedcom file. It is possible to redo all undone modifications. This action is only available if at least one modification has been cancelled. Cut Deletes the selected text after putting a copy on the clipboard. The text can then be pasted somewhere else. This menu item is only available when the cursor is in a text field. Copy Copies the selected text to the clipboard. The text can then be pasted somewhere else. This menu item is only available when the cursor is in a text field. Paste Pastes the clipboard content at the cursor position, in a text field. This can be a content from another software, something copied from the Internet, etc. This menu item is only available when the cursor is in a text field. Find... Opens an assistant to help you find a string of characters, no matter where it is in the genealogical file, anywhere in the file or at a specific location, such as an specific entity or property . Replace ... Opens an assistant to help you replace a string of characters with another one anywhere in the genealogical file. It works in combination with the Find function above. Delete or Rename tags... Deletes a data element globally throughout the genealogy or rename them. When renaming, the properties can be moved within the same entity.  This is particularly useful to delete empty data or clean your genealogy after a migration from another software. Generate Sosa Numbers Generates Sosa, d'Aboville or Sosa d'Aboville numbering for a chosen individual or deletes numbering for the whole genealogy. Generate ID Numbers Generates or modifies Identification numbers, globally or one by one. Mark special individuals Marks or displays certain special individuals in your genealogy such as implex families, top individuals, multiple ancestors, Y-DNA or mtDNA individuals. Calculate ages Calculates ages of all the individuals at their respective life events. Sort properties for all entities Sorts all properties of all entities according to a relevant and consistent order. It directly updates the genealogy. The result can only be seen from the Gedcom editor. No window appears as no settings are required. Capitalize all surnames Updates all individual names to make sure all surnames are in uppercase. See modifications history Displays all changes made to a Gedcom file. If needed, the list of changes can be cleared by clicking on  . View Menu This menu regroups all the actions to access the genealogical views and editors for the selected genealogy. Each of these actions is described below. When the action has its own description page - it is bold - click on it to get all the details about it. These menu actions only apply to the selected genealogy and will therefore only be available if one is open. Otherwise they will be greyed out. To enable them, open a genealogy. The following descriptions relate to the current genealogy . Entity Card Displays the picture, the name and the events about the current entity (individual, family, etc.)   Entities Table Provides the list of all the entities of the genealogy (individuals, families, notes, etc.) with their respective data fields (ID number, firstname, surname, etc.) Dynamic Tree Displays the genealogical tree of the individuals and families of the genealogy, with ancestors and descendants of the selected individual. Timeline Shows a temporal tree representation of all individuals in the genealogy. Geographic map Shows a geographic map with all located individuals' events in the genealogy. Graph Shows an innovative visual representation of all individuals in the genealogy in the form of a graph.   Cygnus Editor Opens the Cygnus editor, an easy-to-use editor focused on individuals and their related events. Gedcom Editor Opens the Gedcom editor, specially designed to see and edit all existing data of the genealogy. Aries Editor Opens the Aries editor, an ergonomic editor that allows all types of modifications in multiple windows.   List of Places Provides a list of all existing places in the genealogy. Each place is associated with their corresponding events . Gives access to the places editor . Table of places Gives access to a table-structured list of all existing places in the genealogy. Gives access to the places editor .   Simple Navigator A simple way to select individuals schematically from a family nucleus. Extended Navigator A way to select individuals from a family nucleus while viewing their respective information and photos. Advanced Search Searches all individuals corresponding to multiple search criteria. Provides a way to select these individuals to display or mark them later.                 Tools Menu This menu regroups all the tools to explore, manipulate and analyse genealogical data . Each of these actions is described below. When the action has its own description page - it is bold - click on it to get all the details about it. Certain menu actions only apply to the selected genealogy and will therefore only be available if one is open. Otherwise they will be greyed out. To enable them, open a genealogy. Validate Gedcom Compliance and data consistency Detects non-compliance with the Gedcom standard and anomalies in the genealogy. Merge duplicates Identifies duplicate entities and merges them.   Registry Records Lets you to enter certificates directly from registry files, or use digitalized registry records, to automatically retrieve records (birth-marriage, death, other) and integrate them into your genealogy. Compare Genealogies Compares genealogies that you have or that are held by other users, to find common geographical areas, with similar cities and lastnames, and similar events. Copy entites across genealogies This tool helps you copy genealogy individuals and complete family branches from one genealogy to another.   Datulator Helps you calculate dates from date intervals for the same or different calendars. Quite useful when you need to estimate dates to be searched from certificates already found. Calculator Displays a simple calculator to avoid having to search for an external one. Research notepad Create notes independently of a GEDCOM file. Common ancestor Identifies common ancestors between two individuals on your genealogy. Quick Reports Runs a reports directly from the menu. Flash List Runs the Flash List report of the selected individual. Family Groups Runs the Family groups report. This report provides the groups of individuals that are related to one another via family links or association links. A information summary is given for each resulting group. The selection button   lets you select groups or subgroups, export them or display them. It is also possible to display generations of groups. The export button lets you export each group individually into a separate Gedcom file. The mark button lets you mark or unmark all groups with the user tag _FAMILY_GROUP and the name of the group. Close Relatives Runs the Close Relatives report. Lists and Reports Provides the Lists and Reports of Ancestris, a large set of reports you can use on your genealogy, in addition to the ones described above. Publication Publishes your genealogy on a file or on the Internet, in a web page format. Ancestris proposes two different possibilities. Web Book Generates a genealogy  under the form of multiple web pages, locally or on a remote server. Web Site Generates simple web site pages. Print current view Prints the selected view. A preview window will open. Most views including the Dynamic Tree view , the Report Output windows and the Editors can be printed. If the content to be printed is wider than a single page, printing can be done in multi-pages , that is to say that the image is cut out on several juxtaposable pages. This is very convenient when printing the Dynamic Tree or the Ascendant and Descendant Multi-Generation Tree in order to post it on a wall. Window Menu This menu regroups all the actions to handle Ancestris windows . Each of these actions is described below. When the action has its own description page - it is bold - click on it to get all the details about it.   Welcome Page Opens the Welcome page. It provides direct access to a number of key functions in a friendly manner. GEDCOM Explorer Opens the GEDCOM explorer, which will display the open genealogies and a tree list of all their respective entities. Document Opens the Document window, which contains the results of the last reports. Favourites Opens the favourites list, a set of files and folders that were selected with  File / Add to favourites . Output Opens the Output window, which contains the result of internal messages. For instance, the import process will return the list of changes made. Configure Window Configure the current window with the already discussed sub-menu that we can obtain by a right click on the window tab. See Workspace and windows for more information. Close Window Closes the active window. Close All Windows Closes all windows on the tab group, the one that contains the active window. See all windows list... Display the complete list of all open windows in Ancestris. This is a way to activate a particular window from its icon and name. The list of currently open windows is on the left hand side. The selected window is highlighted. Its description and data are shown below. It is possible to select several windows: Select the desired window and click on Activate window . Select several windows and click on  Close the selected windows . The radio button Order by will sort the list in different ways. There is another way to go straight to another window. Press  Ctrl+Tab , keep Ctrl pressed and use Tab or Shift+Tab to scroll through the list. This will bring up a small window with the list of open windows: The concealed windows are last on the list and to the right hand side. Above we can see the GEDCOM Explorer window which is a concealed window. The lower line indicates the window description. Active window in full screen Check this option to move the active window to full screen , or place it back to its original position and size. Full screen Check this option to move Ancestris main window to full screen , or place it back to its previous state.                     Options Menu This menu regroups the main actions to customize Ancestris. Each of these actions is described below. When the action has its own description page - it is bold - click on it to get all the details about it. Preferences Sets the user preferences and customises. Save display settings Saves or deletes window settings for one or all genealogies. Configure Toolbars Customises Ancestris toolbar. Just check or uncheck menu items to display or hide the corresponding tool boxes. Please see Toolbar for more information. There are also three other actions: Small Toolbar Icons : reduces the icons size in the Toolbar. Reset Toolbars : resets the default toolbar configuration. Customise : helps you to create your own shortcuts on the toolbar and remove them. Update Ancestris Checks the latest Ancestris updates and installs them. Manage plugins Install or uninstall Ancestris modules.                       Help Menu This menu regroups all the actions to get help and to help Ancestris. It also provides information about the version of Ancestris currently installed. Each of these actions is described below. When the action has its own description page - it is bold - click on it to get all the details about it. Guided Tour Displays the Guided Tour assistant. Ancestris will present to you the mostly used functions of Ancestris in a short and interactive sessions of about 20 screens. All the documentation Accesses this User Guide . Pressing F1 will also open it, no matter where you are in Ancestris. Find answers in the Forum Accesses this Forum . This takes you to the Forum web site. Contact Ancestris Support Team Sends us an email, automatically adding the log file. This file will allow us to assess your issue.     Make a donation to Ancestris Explains why and how to make a donation to Ancestris.     Ancestris Website Access the Ancestris website . Visit the User world map Accesses the Users world map . This takes you to the User Map on the Ancestris web site. About Ancestris Provides information about the current version of Ancestris. Context Menu The Context menu provides actions that depend on an object and that will apply to it. Most of these actions are additional to the ones you can find in the menu bar, keyboard shortcuts , or the toolbar . You access the context menu when you right-click an object, usually an entity (individual, family, source, etc.) or a property in the entity table or the Gedcom editor (NAME, BIRT, OBJE, FILE, etc.) The context menu has a title and a list of action items. The title is the name of the 'clicked' entity. The list of action items depends on the object you clicked on and the window it is in. That is why it is called a "context" menu. Each proposed action applies to the entity in its specific context. Depending on the object clicked, the context menu includes different actions. Some actions are generic to any object selected. Some actions are specific to the selected object. The example above is the Context Menu when clicking on an individual Entity in the Dynamic tree view. Only certain views offer a context menu. They are as follows: The Dynamic Tree , for individuals and families. The right click must be made on an individual box or a family box. The Entities Table , for all entity categories. The right click must be made on one of the cells, preferably in the column including the identification number. The Timeline view , for individuals. First click on an individual and then right-click anywhere on the view. The Cygnus editor , for the individual displayed. The right click must be made on the upper banner giving the full name of the individual. The Gedcom editor , for all categories of entities and the information it contains. The right click must be made on any of the lines of the entity or on the lower panel where it displays the entity's description. The Entity Card , for all entity categories. The right click must be made on the displayed area. The GEDCOM Explorer , for all entity categories. The right click must be made on an entity. Context menu actions Below is a description of all the possible actions when the context menu is called from an entity or a property. The Context menu can also be called from a Gedcom object . This is the case with the GEDCOM explorer . Please refer to the corresponding page to see what the Context Menu looks like in this case. Change display of Individuals / of Families Configures the layout and the data content of the entity's information to be displayed. This is done by creating or modifying a blueprint . This action item only appears when you click an entity in its blueprint. Cut, Copy, Paste Cuts, copies or pastes the elements clicked. This action item only appears when you click an entity in one of the editors. Add property directly Adds a property to the entity. Ancestris will only suggest Gedcom compliant properties to be added at the location clicked. You cannot go wrong there. This action item only appears when you click an entity or a property in the Gedcom editor . Here is an example of properties than can be added to an individual. Add property via the assistant... Adds a property to the entity using the following window to guide you: A list of possible properties is provided. The selection is made by clicking a property item in the left column. The description of this property appears in the right-hand side column. To create a user-defined property , click on the corresponding radio-button, and enter its name as shown in the text field. To automatically create sub properties to that property, check the corresponding box. For instance, a MAP property will automatically add the LATI and the LONG properties. This action item only appears when you click an entity or a property in the Gedcom editor . Propagate selected property... Propagates the property on which you have right-clicked: either, to all entities of the category in the whole genealogy or, to a particular entity, to be selected from the drop-down menu that will appear. The Propagate also the value of this property, check the box. It will automatically propagate the property and its value. This action item only appears when you click a property in the Gedcom editor . Add another individual or a family Links an individual or a family to the selected entity. Depending on the entity or on the property clicked, not all sub-actions will be available. Here is the actions items when clicking on an individual: Add a family of parents: adds the two boxes representing the locations of the two parents of the selected individual Add a brother/sister/sibling: adds a brother or a sister to an individual Add a spouse: adds a spouse to an individual. Add a son/daughter/child:  adds a child to an individual or to a family. For individuals with multiple families, this should be done from the family. From the individual, the child is added to the first family. Add an alias: adds an alias to the individual. An alias is another individuals who is supposedly distinct originally but who might designate the same person.  When the context menu is on a property, the menu shows this: Associate a person: adds a relationship person to the property, usually an event. Add a media, a note, a source, etc. Links an entity, new or existing, to the clicked entity. These are the possible sub-actions, which depend from the category of the entity clicked: Add a media: adds a new or existing shared multimedia element . Add a note: adds a new or existing shared note . Add a source: adds a new or existing shared source . Add a submitter: adds a new or existing shared submitter . Create a global entity Creates a global entity that will not be linked to the clicked individual. It will add an entity to your genealogy. These are the possible sub-actions : Create an individual: creates a new entity individual Create a family: creates a new entity family Create a note: creates a new entity note Create a media: creates a new entity multimedia element Create a source: creates a new entity source Create a repository: creates a new entity repository Create a submitter: creates a new entity submitter Manage SOSA / d'Aboville numbering Allows you to generate or erase genealogy numberings, starting from the individual on whom you right clicked. The selected individual becomes the Sosa or d'Aboville number 1 of the genealogy and a new numbering of all the ancestors and descendants will be numbered from it. Resolve anomalies This action only appears if the entity label is invalid. This usually occurs when importing a genealogy from software that creates labels not recognised by the Gedcom standard. In this case, this action is used to rename the label. Swivel... Replaces the related entity with another entity to be selected. This action is only available for properties related to another entity (associated persons, aliases, child in family, spouse in family, linked source, linked note, etc.). Set places criteria Opens a window allowing to change the places criteria. This window is the same as the one used to define the default places format in File/Properties . This action item only appears when you click a place property in the Gedcom editor . Encrypt the selected properties Allows encryption of all information of the entity. Do not loose the password used for the encryption, it will make it impossible to retrieve the information. This action item only appears when you click an entity or a property in the Gedcom editor . Edit/Modify Opens the default editor on the selected entity or property. The default editor is defined in the preferences . If the Context menu is called from a place property, Ancestris opens the Places editor for all similar places. To only edit one single place, just use one of the editors and directly edit the place fields. Merge with... Allows you to merge the selected entity with another one. Please refer to the Merge duplicate tool for more explanation. Copy entity to genealogy... Allows you copy genealogy individuals and complete family branches from one genealogy to another. Delete the selected properties... Deletes the selected properties. For security reason, Ancestris will ask you to confirm. This action item only appears when you click an entity or a property in the Gedcom editor . Navigate to relatives Navigates easily to close relatives of the individual. Bookmark this entity in the dynamic tree This menu item can be one of two possibilities depending on whether the entity is already bookmarked or not yet. If the entity is not yet bookmarked. In this case, the action creates a bookmark of this entity in the dynamic tree. You will then be able to quickly display the dynamic tree of this individual or family using the bookmark button on the dynamic tree menu bar . If the entity is already bookmarked. In this case, the action removes the bookmark from the list. Choose as preferred family for the dynamic tree For family entity only, sets it as the preferred marriage to display in the dynamic tree view. The action looks like this when the family is not chosen yet, and therefore can be set: And it looks like this, with the little star on the icon, when the family has been chosen, and can therefore be unset: Make root in the dynamic tree Rebuilds the dynamic tree with the clicked entity as the new root. Open... Opens the corresponding file in the default external viewer depending on the type of file. This action is pecific to a FILE properties. Rename file on disk... Renames the file on disk and update the path accordingly. See the corresponding page for details .  This action is pecific to a FILE properties. Show the location of this place on the map Opens the geographic view on the selected location. This action is specific to PLAC propoerties. Run a report Launches any possible report for the selected entity or for the whole genealogy. A number of sub-menus unfolds as you select this menu item. The structure of these menus follows the structure of the List and Reports window. Swap spouses Swaps husband and wife in a family. This is much easier to fix a sex error in the individuals than to re-create the whole family. Register Photo : birth | marriage | death | misc In the act viewer , displays the photo of the certificate corresponding to the event clicked. This menu item is only enabled if the event has a photo coming from an act statement of the Registry records. The Registry Records tool must also is installed, but not necessarily open. Drag-and-Drop Menu The  Drag-and-Drop menu can be used to copy entities across genealogies, or to merge entities within the same genealogy. It can also be used to build a relationship between the two entities involved, to make it much faster for you to build your genealogy. The Drag-and-Drop menu appears when dropping an entity previously clicked and dragged.  You first need to click any entity and start to move it somewhere else, and then you need to drop it on a non forbidden area. On every location where you can access the Context Menu , you can Drag or Drop an entity. Description The Drag-and-Drop menu has a title and a list of action items. The title displays the two entities involved in the Drag-and-Drop gesture. The entity on the left hand side is the entity you clicked on to, and is called the imported entity. The entity on the right hand side is the entity you drop on to, and is called the target entity. The Drag-and-Drop menu differs depending on whether you move an entity across different genealogies, or within the same genealogy. Across different genealogies , Ancestris assumes you want to copy entities Within the same genealogy , Ancestris assumes you want to merge entities Other actions are suggested by Ancestris, to link the two entities together. Actions differ depending on the category of entity. Drag-and-Drop menu actions Below is a description of all the possible actions included in the Drag-and-Drop menu. Make the imported individual the of the target individual When both entities are individuals, Ancestris offers to create a relation ship between them. If you choose such an action, Ancestris will create the necessary links and you will not have to manually contribute. Attach the imported entity to the target entity When the imported entity is not an individual, Ancestris offers to attach it to the target entity. For instance, it can be a NOTE attached to a SOURce, or a media OBJEct attached to an individual event. In the case of an event, Ancestris displays the list of all existing events for that person. You just have to choose which one you want. Copy the imported entity to the target genealogy When the involved genealogies are different, Ancestris suggests two possible ways to copy the imported entity to the target genealogy: Copy without the linked entities Copy with the linked entities The linked entities of the imported individuals are the individuals directly attached to that person (parents, spouse, children), as well as their respective attached media objects, sources, and notes. For non individual entities, attached entities are the repositories, media objects, and notes of sources, notes of media objects. When choosing a copy with attached entities, Ancestris will do all the relevant copies for you. Merge the imported entity into the target entity When only one genealogy is involved, Ancestris suggests three possible ways to merge the imported entity into the target entity: Only adding information to the target entity, and not modifying information which might already exist Add and overwrite information which might already exist Display the assistant to let you choose bit by bit, the information to have on the target entity This action is only shown when both entities are of the same category, i.e. two individuals, or two sources, or two notes, etc. All possibilities... Opens the dedicated tool "Copy entities across genealogies" to have the full possibilities and copy ancestors, descendants and full branches linked to the entity considered. Warning and Disabled actions Warning When an action is possible but subject to mismatch, Ancestris adds an Warning sign at the beginning of the action description. This is the case when adding a spouse to a person who already has one. In practice, this is possible, but Ancestris prefers to alert you in case you might actually thinking of another person. A tooltip explains the reason why the action is risky. Disabled action When an action could be possible but is not, Ancestris displays the action and makes it disabled. This is the case for instance when you could create a father to an individual who already has a father. A tooltip explains the reason why the action cannot be performed. Regardless of the action performed on the menu, it can later be undone. Toolbar The Ancestris Main Window Toolbar is a horizontal bar displaying a number of tools in the form of icons. It is located between the menu bar and the workspace. There are also Toolbars for windows other than the main window. They are described in the corresponding pages of this documentation. Toolbars can also be customized, at least partially. At the bottom of this page you will find a way to define their positions or directions.   Toolbar icons The icons on the toolbar are organized in groups. Each group corresponds to a logical set of similar actions. The actions they execute are described in the corresponding menus. Whether or not to display a group is configurable.   File group The icons below belong to the File menu . Create a genealogy Open  Open a genealogy  Close  Save Clipboard group The icons below belong to the Edit menu .  Cut  Copy  Paste Undo / Redo group The icons below belong to the Edit menu .  Undo  Redo Performance group The icons below have purely technical functions. They are not displayed by default, they do not belong to any menu. Memory usage graph and garbage collection Taking a picture of the application's memory usage Miscellaneous group The icons below belong to the Edit menu and Tools menu . Genealogy Search  Calculator  Web Book  Display the De Cujus individual , or generate numbering if none exists. Aries editor group The icons below allow you to manage the genealogy entities linked to the Aries editor . They do not belong to any menu and are not displayed by default.  Edit this entity: to modify the entity currently activated in the genealogy.  Create an individual: to add an individual to the genealogy.  Create a family: to add a family to the genealogy.  Create a media: to add a multimedia element to the genealogy.  Create a note: to add a note to the genealogy.  Create a source: to add a source to the genealogy.  Create a repository: to add a repository to the genealogy.  Create a submitter: to add an information submitter to the genealogy. Navigation group The icons below allow you to use general search. Their actions are described in the navigation bar and general search .  : to display the previous entity in the navigation history.  : to display the next entity in the navigation history.  : to show the navigation history and select an entity.  Search input zone: general search throughout Ancestris and open genealogies. Help group The icons below belong to the Options menu and the Help menu .  Preferences , to access the Preferences panel.  About Ancestris , to view some information about the software.  Help , to access this documentation.   Customizing the Toolbar The Toolbar can be personalized, for example by moving the groups using the "handle" on the left, the small rectangular area covered with dotted lines in relief. Here, the "Miscellaneous" Tool group is being moved to a second line of tools. In general, windows that have toolbars can be customized in the same way, the menu can change direction, horizontal or vertical, on one of the edges of the window. Because of the rather limited interest of this possibility, few windows with toolbar have this function. For those who have it, the affected toolbars have the small dotted area on their left. Here is an example with the Toolbar of the Gedcom Editor . Gedcom Editor toolbar in horizontal direction: Gedcom Editor toolbar being moved in vertical direction: Gedcom Editor toolbar in vertical direction:   Navigation Bar The navigation bar allows you to navigate forward and backward in the navigation history, i.e. the list of all the entities successively selected since the opening of the last genealogy. Description The navigation bar includes three buttons to navigate in the navigation history. These buttons are disabled when the list is empty. Left arrow button Select the previous entity in the list. Right arrow button Select the next entity in the list. Down arrow button Displays the navigation history in order to directly select the entity you want.   Usage As soon as a genealogy is opened in Ancestris, the navigation bar stores in a list all the entities that you select successively. It is possible to revisit an entity you have selected previously, and then go back to the entity you have last selected. The list is multi-Gedcom compatible: it stores the entities of several genealogies open at the same time in a single list. The list is multi-category of entities: it stores all the categories of entities in a single list. The list resets to zero as soon as a genealogy is closed, even though a genealogy remains open which had navigation history content. Example The following picture shows a navigation history of 12 entities from the Bourbon and the Kennedy genealogies. As you can see, both genealogies are open at the same time. The navigation history can have individuals, families and all the other categories of entity. The current entity showing is the description of Jackie Kennedy in the Cygnus editor . In the navigation history list, this entity appears in bold. A click on one of the lines selects and displays the corresponding entity, without deleting the list. As you can see, the user is apparently choosing now to go back to the Louis XIV entity.                 Search Bar The general search bar lets you to find any type of information anywhere in open genealogy files and in the Ancestris application itself. The search can be run on several Gedcom files at the same time. Description Entry field The entry field is used to enter the text to search for. Hovering the mouse over this field displays an explanatory tooltip and indicates the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + I to display the search history. Results list The search for the text string scans: all the entities of the open genealogies (individuals, families, notes, sources and multimedia files), and the Ancestris application itself: menus and windows, and preferences (also called options). The result of the search is a list which is classified into the following sections: Searches : Results among the search history Individuals : Individual type results Families : Family type result Notes : Note type result Sources : Source type result Media : Media type result Actions : Action type result in an application menu Records : Record register type result Preferences : Ancestris Preferences type result For each item, the first 7 results found are displayed, the eighth line being the continuation of the list "...". A click on a line selects the corresponding entity. The searches are stored in the search history. Subsequent searches performed also search within the stored list. Search Criteria The magnifying glass to the left of the entry field lets you to check or uncheck the type of results you want to limit the search to. You just have to check or uncheck the corresponding categories. Usage Performing a search There are two ways to do this: with the mouse, or with the keyboard shortcut. Use the mouse to go to the general search field of the Toolbar and start entering a text to search for. Alternatively, type Ctrl + I at any time in Ancestris. The cursor will position itself into the field and the result of the previous searches is displayed: As you type, the result is displayed without having to type Enter. If you know exactly in which sections you want to search, uncheck the other sections in the search criteria. For individuals, you can search on any part of the name including nicknames. Select a result At any time, select a result. If you do not see what you are looking for in a result section, you can click on the continuation line "...". In this case, only the matching items are displayed: Results can come from multiple Gedcom files. You can see in the picture above that the list of individuals includes individuals from the Bourbon genealogy and individuals from the Kennedy genealogy. In the case of several genealogies listed, the name of the genealogy precedes the name of the entities found, and the color alternates from one genealogy to the next to make it easier to identify. If too many results appear, refine your search. If the result you expected is displayed, select it with a click. If an entity is selected, it is instantly displayed in the currently open views, and this entity then becomes the active entity. If an Ancestris action is selected, it is immediately launched. If an option (preference) is selected, the corresponding window is displayed. Create a new genealogy This action helps you create a new genealogy. Below is the image of the first page of the wizard that will guide you. This wizard has already been described in this documentation. Please refer to the full description at the page Discover Ancestris > Create your genealogy .           Open a genealogy This action opens a genealogy. In Ancestris, a genealogy is stored in a file in the Gedcom format. Ancestris asks you for the name of a Gedcom file to open. Choose it and click Open. Two cases can arise: Either the file you specify is a file originating from Ancestris Or the file originates from another genealogy software or website.   File originating from Ancestris In case the file is originating from Ancestris, it will open directly and display it in the state you last saved it. Ancestris remembers the last opened genealogies. You can find them in the Welcome window .   File not originating from Ancestris If the file is not originating from Ancestris, you probably want to migrate the corresponding genealogy to Ancestris, or at least import it to see what it looks like and use some functions from Ancestris to manipulate it. Ancestris will detect its origin and will propose to import it, that is to say to "convert" it into a more orthodox Gedcom. Please find the full description of this process in the section Discover Ancestris > Import process .     Warnings when opening If your Gedcom file has got Gedcom anomalies, Ancestris will tell you in a window that looks similar to this one: If some errors are too serious, Ancestris will not be able to finish opening the file and will just tell you the line number that causes the error. You will have to fix it outside of Ancestris. The best way to do this is usually with a simple text editor. In order to fix it, you would have to know the Gedcom file structure . If Ancestris opens the file and shows such a window, it means you may be able to fix the errors from within Ancestris. Each line in this window is an error and is clickable. When you select en error, the corresponding entity shows up in the Ancestris views and editors. The best way to fix these errors is to use the Gedcom editor . You can correct these errors at this time, or later. To display these errors again, go to the Menu > Tools > Validate Gedcom compliance and data consistency . The example above was created on purpose for the documentation. The first warning indicates for example that the label of the places is missing in the header. This format defines the structure of the places of the genealogy. See the Places section for more details. In this case, you can add it immediately using the Correct header button at the bottom of the window.           Import This action imports a Gedcom file. Only Gedcom format files can be imported in Ancestris. Upon clicking Import, Ancestris will launch the import wizard which will guide you in the process. The first screen gives you some explanations.   Then Ancestris will ask you to select the software name which has produced the Gedcom file, and to give the location of this file. If the software is not in the list suggested by Ancestris, simply use "Unknown". In all cases, Ancestris will check the origin of the file. Click on Finish and then Ancestris will start the import. The subsequent import process is described in the page Discover Ancestris > Import process .                       Merge genealogies This action combines two genealogies into one. Please note it does not analyse nor merge duplicates that might appear. Another tool will do this. Refer to the Merge duplicates page for details about this. Description The principle of this tool is to combine two Gedcom files into one. All data present in the two files will be in the resulting file , with the exception of the data of the header of the second file, since the resulting file can only have one header. The header data includes for example the format of the places, the standard used. See the Gedcom File Properties page for more details. To avoid having entities with duplicate numbers, which is not allowed according to the Gedcom standard, the entities are all renumbered, both those of the first and of the second file. On the other hand, if an entity (individuals, families, etc.) is identical in each of the two files, no merger will be performed and the resulting file will contain duplicates. These duplicates can then be managed with the duplicate detection tool .   Usage This tool is simple and works in two steps. A first window asks you for the locations of the two starting files, and the name of the resulting file. The first file must already exist and must be the one whose header data you want to keep. The second file must also exist and you specify its location. The third file will be created. Indicate the directory where you want this file to be created. Then press the Merge button. The result is immediate and the merge result is displayed. This result is used to verify that the number of entities in the resulting file are indeed the sum of the entities of the two initial files. You can then press the Open result file button to open the merged file in Ancestris and work with it normally. Customization There is no customizable element in this tool.                 Modify genealogy properties This window allows you to modify the description, the main language and the author of any genealogy file in Gedcom format. The description and the main language properties are saved in the header of the Gedcom file. The author information is stored in a Submitter entity. This information is therefore specific to each genealogy. Note that other information of the Gedcom file header can be updated using some other menu items of the File menu: Modify place jurisdictions , Convert Gedcom format . The header might also include technical information which is not possible to modify via Ancestris, such as the software name and the last modification timestamp. Properties than can be edited here Description of the genealogy Main language used in the genealogy Author of the genealogy What follows is a description of the panels used to modify these properties. Description This panel is used to provide and modify the description of the genealogy file. This information is a summary of your genealogy intended to anyone you would share your Gedcom file with. The drop-down list indicates the language used to write notes, source texts, etc. The language is indicative only. It is used by Ancestris to define the default place jurisdictions format (see the Modify place jurisdictions page). There is no further translation in Ancestris related to this parameter. Also shown in the screen above are the name of the genealogy file, the last modification date and the software that was last used to edit the genealogy file.   Author This panel displays the submitter found in the Gedcom file that is referenced in the header section. You can update these contact details. Button copies the author information already memorized before. If such information has not been saved before using the button below, pressing this button will just empty all displayed fields. Button stores the displayed author information in case you want to reuse it in other Gedcom files.   Confirm your changes The OK button becomes enabled as soon as you make some modifications in the information. Press OK to confirm your changes. Your Gedcom file will be modified.         Modify place jurisdictions This windows lets you modify the standard place jurisdictions format of any Gedcom file and also align all places names existing throughout the Gedcom file to this definition. This definition is saved in the header of the Gedcom file. It is therefore specific to each genealogy file and there is only one for each file. If you decide to align all place names to the standard format, each place name will be modified accordingly and saved in the Gedcom file. Description This panel shows the existing format at the top under " Current format ". Where does this current format come from? When you first create a genealogy file, Ancestris uses the main language to define the place jurisdictions format. When you migrate a Gedcom file from another software, Ancestris will also define the place format if none already exists, unless you do not convert the file when migrating it from this other software. In this case, Ancestris leaves the Gedcom file untouched, and just opens it. The Current format can potentially be empty if the previous software did not use this feature of the Gedcom standard. Under "Current format" is an indication of how many different locations are found in the Gedcom file, and how many of them are not aligned to the place jurisdiction format. A button appears on the right hand side to let you decide to convert them. The new format is at the bottom under " New jurisdictions format ". If it is different from the current format, a button will appear to let you convert from the current to the new format, by defining the mapping table of the jurisdictions. See below. The middle part of the panel is to create a new format using the buttons Here is how to proceed to define or change a place format. First define the new jurisdictions format Use the Add criteria button to enter each of the jurisdictions one by one in the field to the right of this button. Use the Remove criteria button   on each of the jurisdictions to be removed. Use the arrow buttons   to order the new jurisdictions from the smallest to largest geographic area. By the way, the Empty button   allows you to insert an empty jurisdiction, and the reset button starts all over again. The picture below shows an example when changing from the US to the French place format as an illustration. Next provide the conversion map using the Convert button Make sure the convert box is checked and click on the Conversion button . This will display a mapping table between the current and new format fields as per the screen below. The screen explains what to do. It is shown below after dragging and dropping the first 4 American jurisdictions which correspond to four of the French jurisdictions. If a new jurisdiction does not exist in the current format, it will be empty in the new location. If a current jurisdiction does not exist in the new format, the corresponding place information will disappear after conversion and data would therefore be lost. Once this correspondance is established, the OK button of he main panel becomes enabled. Click OK to make the place modification. If you have changed the place format and filled in the conversion map, two situations can arise: either the number of criteria between the old and the new formats is different: in this case, Ancestris would notify you of an anomaly in all places when checking for anomalies. If you reduce the number of criteria, you will obviously loose the data corresponding to the criteria which have no position in the new format. or the number of criteria is the same: in this case, no data will be lost.   Result By clicking OK on the previous screen, Ancestris will modify all places in the Gedcom file according to the conversion map and will display the following screen.           Manage medias files The Media manager lets you ensure that all media files used in your genealogy exist, either on your local disks or on the Internet, that they are used, and that they correctly link to your Gedcom file events. A typical situation where you need to use this tool is if you have modified your photo folders for instance, or if you have just migrated your genealogy from another software. Description The windows is made of 2 areas: A statistics area providing the number of files by category, the full directory name of the location of the Gedcom file, from which relative path files are to be considered, and a button to see all the media files. An edition area where you can make 3 types of modifications and undo them Swap paths from relative to absolute and vice versa Edit folder's paths Download remote files from the Internet to your local disks and change the link accordingly in your Gedcom file Statistics The indicators have the following meaning. Total number of files is the total number of physical file references in your Gedcom file, either on your local disks or on the Internet. File references are written as FILE properties. Empty file names are included in this number. This number adds up local and remote files below. It also adds up to files attached to media entities and media properties. Number of distinct files is the number of distinct physical files referenced by the genealogy. It can be lower than the number above. Indeed, the same physical file can be indicated in multiple FILE properties. A warning is displayed if some physical files are referenced more than once. It is inefficient because changing the file name on disk will require you to update the genealogy in more than one place. Click the "Show all files" button to identify which are these "duplicate" files and consolidate them into the same media entity. Local files : this is the number of files physically located on your disks (hard drive, USB keys, etc). It is made of relative path files and absolute path files. relative path files start from the location of the Gedcom file. The path string does not start with "/" or "C:\" for instance. absolute path files start from the root disk folder, usually "/" or "C:\". Remote files : this is the number of physical files located somewhere on Internet web sites. A Check existence button lets you check if all remote file really exist. If you click this button, Ancestris will scan all remote files and try to access them. This can take a long time depending on your Internet connection and the response time of the various web sites involved. If there are no remote files in your genealogy, this button will be disabled. Files attached to media entities : the file references (FILE) are sub-properties of media entities, and can therefore be used as references multiple times throughout the Gedcom file. Files attached to media properties : the file references (FILE) are sub-properties of media properties, and cannot be used anywhere else in the Gedcom file. The next information is the full path name of your Gedcom file, from which relative paths will be starting. Finally, the " Refresh " button updates the statistics in case some files have changed locally or remotely, and the " Show all files " button opens the Media viewer with all the pictures of the genealogy. This Media viewer is the same viewer as the one accessed from the Cygnus editor with one difference: the list of pictures in Cygnus is limited to either events media or sources media. Edition This section includes various elements: A table listing all folders used by the genealogy, split into different lines depending on whether the included files are found or not, local or remote, attached to entities or properties, relative or absolute. Above the table are filters to only display certains lines. To the right-hand side of the filters are the Clear and Select buttons to help you select and unselect lines more quickly. You can also select lines using the mouse. Actions field and buttons below the table let you to make global changes to several folders at the same time. Changes made in this editor are made in the Gedcom file and can be undone either via the undo button below, or using the Ancestris main menu bar undo/redo buttons. Folders table Each line in the table correspond to a group of files within the same folder and with the same attributes , found/unfound, local/remote, entity/property, and relative/absolute. The columns on the left-hand side are for information only. Files : number of physical file references included in the mentioned folder, that have the found, local and entity attributes indicated Found : checked if files in this group are found, otherwise they are unfound Local : checked if files in this group are local, otherwise they are remote Entity : checked if files in this group are attached to entities, otherwise they are attached to properties Folder : folder name. This is the FILE property value of the Gedcom file. For empty FILE values, Ancestris will display a blank folder name, as shown in the main window above. Please note empty files will be considered 'unfound'. The columns on the right-hand side let you make some modifications on the folders and identify unfound files in particular. Relative : checked if files in this group have a relative path, otherwise they have an absolute path. Clicking on the checkbox changes this attribute. It swaps from relative to absolute path and vice versa. Action : this button opens a window which lists all the files included in this group to help you search for them when they are unfound. The window differs if the group is made of local files, or remote files. See below an example of each window. Selection : click on the checkbox to select or unselect the line. The Replace button and Download button will apply to this selection. Numbers in column headers of the attributes indicate the number of files with the corresponding attribute. The number in the Selection header column indicates the number of lines selected. This is an example of the Search window for local files. An explanation of this window is provided in the corresponding usage section below. This is an example of the Search window for remote files. In this "Search of remote media files" window, the Internet button opens up your browser on the corresponding web site directory. In the list of media files, clicking on a file will try to open it in your browser. The files are listed in green if they could be accessed, in red otherwise. Filters Unfound : check this filter to only display unfound files. Please note remote files are initially assumed to be found until an action has revealed there are unfound. Such action is for instance the "Check existence" button in the Statistic section, opening a remote file in your browser from the "Search of remote media files" window, or accessing media files via the Media viewer window, which can be opened via the Show all files" button or the Cygnus editor. Local : check this filter to only display local files. Remote : check this filter to only display remote files. In particular used when you want to download them. Relative : check this filter to only display relative path files. Absolute : check this filter to only display absolute path files. Selected : check this filter to only display selected files. Once a filter is applied, the numbers in the column headers adjust themselves to only count the filtered files. Clear and Select buttons These actions apply to filtered lines only. Clear : click this button to unselect filtered lines. Select/Unselect : click this button to swap the selection of mouse-highlighted filtered lines. If no line is mouse-highlighted, swaps the selection box of filtered lines. Action field and buttons Replace subpath field : Applies to selected lines (selection check box). When lines are selected, this field displays the longest common path of selected lines. It can be edited and the new path string will replace the former one when the Replace button is pressed. Replace button : if the subpath string has been changed, replaces the old subpath with the new one. Relative button : Applies to all filtered lines, whether selected or not Swaps all relative paths to absolute paths and vice versa Download button : Applies to selected lines (selection check box). Downloads all remote files in a folder of your choice and modified the path to be the corresponding local one. The local folder structure will be the one of the Internet web site. Undo button : Reverse any change made within this editor, up to the situation of the Gedcom file when the Media manager window was last open. To undo changes made before that, use the Undo button of the Ancestris main menu bar. Usage The main use cases of the Media manager tool are the following. To "reconnect" media files to your genealogy if you are migrating from another software or if you have moved files on your computer. This is the problem of 'unfound files" described below. To check if all your files are still well connected to your genealogy, in particular remote files. To make all files relative rather than absolute To download remote files , for instance when importing your genealogy from Geneanet or any genealogy web site, in order to make a local backup copy. To simply access and view all your media files In case you have your main genealogy on a website like Geneanet and Ancestry.com, it is our topmost recommendation to make sure you have usable local copies of this genealogy, including media files, in distinct locations. A 'usable' copy means a file in Gedcom format with separate media files properly attached to the Gedcom file events and sources.   Best practice A general best practice is to place your media files in directories located under your Gedcom genealogy file. Ancestris uses media files where they already exist. It does not move nor copy your media files. It simply references them by indicating the path where the media is located on the disk or on the internet. Therefore, when you want to transfer your genealogy and the attached media, you must copy all the media files as well as the directory structure in which they are located. To simplify the work, we recommend that you create a ‘media’ directory in the directory that contains your Gedcom genealogy file and place your media files there, creating any subdirectories you deem necessary. An example can be found on this page . Then, associate these media files in Ancestris. Ancestris will automatically detect that the media path is relative to the Gedcom file and reference it relatively to the Gedcom file. When you want to change computers or transfer your data to a USB stick, all you have to do is to zip the whole thing (Gedcom file + media directory), move it to your other computer and unzip it. Since the paths to the media files are relative, when you open your genealogy in Ancestris, everything will be restored exactly as it was.   Problem of 'unfound files' Where can the problem come from? 1. Have you renamed your media folder or your media file? If your photo is in a /mygenealogy/photos/MyPicture.jpg file and your Individual entity references this photo in a FILE tag with value of /mygenealogy/photos/MyPicture.jpg , then the link is valid. Everything is fine. Now, if you rename your photos directory or just the media file, it may generate a broken link. For instance, if your photo file becomes /mygenealogy/media/MyPicture.jpg with media instead of photos, Ancestris will not find it because it still thinks it is in the "photos" folder, not "medias". This is enough to break the link. The Media Manager above will consequently display your photo as an unfound media. 2. Have you moved your Gedcom file? Rather than renaming a media folder or a file, you may have just moved your Gedcom file. Relative position between your Gedcom and your media If your media files are described in relative position with respect to your Gedcom file, the link is lost, because in this case you would have had to move your media files at the same time as your genealogy Gedcom file. We recommend that you only specify your media in relative position of your Gedcom file location as this allows you to move your files without renaming the links. Absolute position between your Gedcom and your media If your media files are described in absolute position, the link to the media is not lost because it is not using the position of the Gedcom file. But the downside is that if you move your genealogy to a USB key, for example, your media will have remained on your hard drive and you will only be able to see your media if the USB key remains on your computer. If it is to show your genealogy to one of your relatives, you will have to move the media to the USB key. But suddenly the links will be broken because the Gedcom file will think that they are still on your computer. You will have to rename them by one in Gedcom or else you use this Media manager tool. 3. Have your files been deleted? Another possible reason for a loss of link between your Gedcom file and your media files can also come from file deletions on the disk. It's more annoying because you have first to get hold of these files before continuing with the media manager or else removing the links in the Gedcom file. The Media manager does not remove the links, it just renames them. 4. Case of remote files In the case of remote files, 'unfound files' can just be the result of the web site being reorganised, or renamed or any other web site structural modifications. Resolution of the 'unfound files' problem for local files Let us consider the following example with the unfound line below where 1 file is missing in the documents folder. If you are confident that your media file is somewhere on your computer, click on the "Search" button in the Action column to locate the corresponding media file. The following "Search of local media files" appears. This window will help you find the lost file. In the window above, Ancestris will search for the missing files in all directories underneath the root directory indicated at the top. You can change it using the " Search from another folder... " button, or ' Pick original folder " to go back to the original root directory where the Gedcom file is located. The files to be found are listed in red in the left column. Otherwise, they will appear in green. In this example, the file to be found is " Herald_Tribune.jpg ". Please note unfound files can also be quickly located using the " Validate Gedcom compliance and Data consistency " tool if you have indicated in the Preference window that files not found are to be considered invalid. However it does not help you find them. The directories where the files exist are listed in the right-hand-side column. If no directory appears on the right, it means the file does not exist in any of the folders underneath the root directory indicated on top. If you change the root folder and still no directory appear, it means the file is either deleted or its name has changed. You would have to use your file explorer on your PC to identify its new name or else recreate the media file. If one or more folder is listed on the right, select one of them. The Pick selected folder button should become available. Press it to set the found directory as the new root directory. You can also directly double click on the directory to be selected. For instance, using the "Search from another folder..." button, I changed the root directory, to myGenealogy and two folders appear on the right-hand-side. It means the missing file - or at least a file with the same name as the missing file - sits within both folders. If I would rather move the missing file from one of these folders to the one it was supposed to be in before (in this example the documents/ folder), I would use my computer file explorer to do that and reopen the main panel of the Media manager, or press the " Refresh " button to refresh the statistics. Otherwise, if I want to leave the missing file in that folder, I have to "re-attach" it to the Gedcom file from where it is. I select the first folder for instance. I get the following window where the "Pick selected folder" becomes enabled. I press the "Pick selected folder" button and then, the root folder is updated to point to the "photos" folder and the file on the left becomes green again.  I click OK to go back to the Media manager window. The line now appears as found. This is the line with 9 found files in folder "photos/". I was showing 8 found files before. Now it is showing 9, and the line with the missing file is no longer there. Done! Downloading remote files Let's look at a use case where you might want to download remote files. For instance, you have been working days and nights for two years on your genealogy and have used a web site such as Geneanet, Ancestry.com or Genoom. You have now more than 5000 individuals and 500 media files referenced on Geneanet for instance. This actually happened to a friend of mine. Of course, you can export your genealogy from Geneanet and open the corresponding Gedcom file from Ancestris. It will work. You will see your genealogy tree with all the pictures as well, even though the pictures are still on the Geneanet web site. Three issues may arise: The first time you display each picture, the response time from Ancestris might be a bit long. This is because the picture is read from the Internet and cached in memory. With many pictures, and depending on the memory size of your computer and the quality of your Internet connection, it might be a bit annoying. Nothing serious though. A bit more serious is if you loose your connection temporarily. Ancestris will not see your picture which are only on a remote web site. Finally, an issue is much more serious. If the web site disappears - this happened to all Genoom users, you no longer have access to your pictures. You have to make a local copy. In this situation, you will want to have a copy of your pictures on your computer or a USB drive. But you need all your Gedcom file links to be modified and link to the local files rather than the remote files. Of course! Here is an example of what you would see and do. The following window shows the Media manager window right after importing the genealogy called RemoteGen from Geneanet and opening it. It contains 430 files linked 567 times throughout the genealogy. As we can see, all files are in separate folders on the web site. We are now going to download them all. By default, all remote files are assumed to be found. First, we will check that remote files exist on the Internet to only download those that do exist. It would not differ much to just download them all right away, and just get the one that exist. Ok, so we press the "check existence" button. The progress bar shows the checking process. Once completed, we can see this on the statistics. All but 3 files exist. Select all files using the "Select/Unselect" button next to the filters. If you want, unselect the unfound ones to exclude them. Then click the Download button. The following window lets you choose the destination folder. Then click the Choose button. The download process starts. Upon completion, the following result window appears. Here, it says that 564 files out of the 567 have been downloaded successfully. The 3 unfound files have been set to unfound in case there were not already. Press OK and the Media manager window now shows 564 local files in their local folders, with the same folder structure as there is on Geneanet. Done! Editing the path of multiple folders Now let's see how to edit multiple paths at the same time. Let's consider the following situation where we would like to tell Ancestris that the three following folders have actually been moved to a "tree" folder which is in the same folder as the Gedcom file. The folders are highlighted with the mouse. So now let's click the " Select/Unselect " button. It will check the 3 corresponding check boxes. The Subpath field is empty. This is because there is no common path between the 3 folders. We will see below another example where it is not empty. In the empty field, type "tree/". Then press the " Replace " button with the pencil. Ancestris has added "tree/" in front of the previous path names. You will notice the " undo " button becomes enabled if it was not already. Press it to cancel the previous change. We are back to the initial situation. Let's now select both lines with the "documents" folders. The subpath field now says "documents/" because this is the longest common string between both lines. Add "Other/" after "documents/" in the text field. Upon pressing the " Replace " button, the paths have changed accordingly. Done! Media viewer The Media viewer displays all the media files of the genealogy in one single window. You can visualize all of them easily with filters and sorting possibilities. You also identify how they are used the genealogy. The Media viewer can be accessed from the Media manager and from the Cygnus editor . Description All media files appear in the list as pictures. For media files like video or sounds, they appear as simplified icons. On top of the list of pictures are some filters and a sorting choice. When a media is selected, its image appears on the left-hand-side with its details . Both the filter panel and the details panel are retractable. List Each item in the list is a Media File, which is the combination of a reference to a file included in a media element. A file is always attached to one media, but a media can include more than one file. For instance, a media with 3 files will appear 3 times, once for each file.  Pictures appear dynamically as you scroll. Once the pictures have appeared once, they are quicker to appear the next time you scroll. Clicks Right-clicking on a picture lets you show it in the other Ancestris editors in their entity contact. Double-clicking on a picture in the list will choose it to include it in the edited entity, and close the viewer. Titles that appear underneath the pictures are the media titles used in the genealogy if you have provided them, or else the name of the entity it is attached to, or else "Multimedia" if it has no title and is not used in the genealogy. A foot note at the bottom of the window specifies how the title was generated and associates it to a color. Filters A number of filters can be used to reduce the list of media files to be displayed, for quicker search. If a filter is on, the filter icon   appears next to the retractable button on the top right corner of the window. The s earch filter lets you enter any string of characters that Ancestris will use to match the title, the file name or the hosting entity of the media files. Expandable / Retractable button - A button next to the search filter unfolds the other filters or hides them. Filters include the type of Event or Entity the media file is attached to. It is also possible to filter on the folder the file belongs to. It also includes seven binary filters such as whether the media file is used or not, whether it is found or not, etc.  These filters apply to the File characteristics of the Media File, or to the Media characteristics par of it. The meanings are listed here.  Files to show Relative, if the file is located relative to the Gedcom file Local , if the file is on your local disks Found , if the file exists on your local disks or on the Internet Singleton, if the file is referenced only one throughout the genealogy Medias to show Entity, if the media file is attached to a media entity - rather than a media property, which means the same file can be reused to various other entities without having to reference the physical file more than once. Used , if at least one entity is referencing the media file Mono-file , if the file is alone in the media property or entity. For information, media properties can be used in Gedcom version 5.5.1 or below, but are no longer possible using Gedcom version 7.0 and above. The filters help you quickly clean your genealogy from unwanted media files. Unwanted media files are generally the ones corresponding to the lower row of the binary filters. Absolute, because you cannot move your genealogy to another disk or computer without having to reattach the media files Remote , because they tend to be slower to appear Unfound , because they are not usable Duplicate, because a file does not need to be referenced more than once. If you change the filename, you would need  to change several media. Property , because files cannot be reused without repeating the attachment of the file. If the file name changes, you would have to change it il several properties for instance. Unused , unless they are there waiting to be used Multi-files , unless the same media has got several type of files to take into account. Sorting choices The list of media files can be sorted based on their Title, their File name, their folder location, their frequency of usage in the genealogy or last modification date of the media. Media file details The details of the media file are displayed under the image. Image The title of the image is calculated: it is the first title found starting from the file and looking up the media and then the entity using it. Please note that in the Gedcom standard, a Media entity does not have any title per se. Under the image are displayed the details for the  file reference  and the media referencing the file . Apart from renaming files, you cannot modify any of the information displayed directly. You would have to use the editors for tha. File reference File value : this is the value of the FILE property referencing the physical file. You can see if it is an absolute path (starting with '/' or 'C:\' for instance), or else is it called a relative path. Title : this is the title of the file in the media (see filters above) Relative or Absolute (see filters above) Absolute path , i.e. the full path of the file. This is the full path of the physical file, either local or on the Internet, which is different from the relative path value.  To the right hand side of the absolute path are 2 buttons Copy the absolute file path to the clipboard in case you need to use it somewhere else.  Rename file on disk . Ancestris will ask for a new name and automatically update the genealogy.  See below for details about this. Local or Remote (see filters above) Found or Unfound (see filters above) Singleton or Duplicate (see filters above) List of medias referencing this file. For property media, these are the entity where this property belongs. Media referencing the file Entity / Property (see filters above) : this attachment of the media file indicates whether the media file is  attached to an entity or to a property . In case it is attached to a media entity, a drop down list box displays all the entities using it. This corresponds to the frequency sort criteria mentioned above. Used / Unused  (see filters above) Mono / Multi files (see filters above) File position within the media: if several files are attached to the same media, this gives its position. When a media content does not fit onto one single file, it is useful to bundle them to the same Media entity (or property). No problem there. Note : this note relates to the media entity or media property and can somethimes be used as the title of the media. Usage Usage is pretty straight forward. The main goal is to select a media to be used by the Cygnus editor. The other goal of this tools is to manage all your media files, and detect anomalies or missing information. It is to be used in association with the media manager when it comes to organising and cleaning your media files. The values and information provided in this window match the information provided in the Media manager window. Regarding filters, you can select multiple filters at a time.  Renaming a file To rename a file, press the Rename button. Renaming a file on disk will rename all the files with that given absolute file path. A warning will be displayed if the new file already exists on disk to prevent you from overwriting it. You can still confirm to proceed. Ancestris will update the genealogy accordingly to maintain the link between your genealogy data and the fiels on disk. Ancestris will propose to save your genealogy at the same time because file name changes on disk are not undoable automatically and you probably do not want the links to break. Alternatively, you can not to save the genealogy at the same time and do it later once several files have been renamed. Customization All filters, sort criteria and fold/unfold of filters are memorised for the next time you open the Media viewer. This customization is attached to a Gedcom file. That means that two different genealogy files have different settings. Convert Gedcom format This window lets you modify the Gedcom norm or the character formatting of any Gedcom file. These characteristics are defined in the Gedcom standard. They are stored in the header of the Gedcom file. They are therefore specific to each genealogy file. Description Gedcom norm The first choice defines the Gedcom standard of the file. Ancestris can manage versions 5.5,  5.5.1 and 7.0. Ancestris can convert your genealogy file from 5.5 to 5.5.1, as well as 5.5.1 to 7.0 and vice versa. Version 12 of Ancestris converts your Gedcom file to the 7.0 standard and allows you to manage your genealogy in the 7.0 format Character formatting The next choice defines the ability to display accented characters. We recommend that you use UTF-8 encoding which covers most cases. You may have in your possession Gedcom files with ANSI or ANSEL encoding. We suggest you change it. Result By clicking OK, Ancestris will transform your Gedcom file to the corresponding norm and character setting. In case of successful conversion, a window similar to this one appears. In case of anomalies during the conversion, a window similar to this one appears. Save as The Save as action either makes an identical copy of your genealogy under another Gedcom file name, or makes a partial copy of your genealogy as another Gedcom file, using several very useful filters. The Save as function can also be used to export branches of a genealogical tree. Description The Save as window is not just a classic file explorer. It has the great particularity of having several filter tabs on the right hand side, which can be combined together to define precisely what you want to extract from your genealogy. As with classic file tools, the file list allows you to choose the directory and the name of the file to save your genealogy, with the possibility of creating a directory that does not already exist. The filters are made of 5 tabs: Filter by Entities : used to include or exclude categories of entities Filter by Properties : used to exclude specific properties of each entity Filter by View : used to limit the entities to those included in the views currently displayed Media and source files : used to indicate whether media files should be copied along as well or not Options : used to indicate whether the file should be sorted, specify the encoding and encryption of the saved Gedcom file Usage The Save as action can be used to: make an identical copy of your genealogy make a partial copy, including extract a branch To make it easier, Ancestris asks you first what you want to do with the following window: If you choose to make an identical copy, Ancestris will also copy your genealogy settings. If you choose to make a partial copy, Ancestris will create another Genealogy and open it as it if were a new one and will not copy your settings. In case some modifications are pending , Ancestris will notify you with the first paragraph in the message above. Make sure you save these modifications before making the copy if you intended to keep them in the current file rather than the copy. The most significant benefit of this Save as function is to export tree branches as part of the partial copy choice. The other possibilities are pretty self-explanatory. Exporting branches is done using the Filter by View tab. In the example below, we have restricted the display of the Kennedy tree to 3 generations and then we have folded a branch. There are therefore 4 individuals and 2 families displayed. Here is what the Dynamic tree looks like as well as the Save-as window Filter-by-View tab: By checking the corresponding box "6 individuals and families", we will create a Gedcom file extracted from the main genealogy, with only the 6 individuals displayed in the Dynamic tree view in this example. Combined with the other filters, we can add the corresponding media, notes, sources, etc. to make it a complete Gedcom file but limited to that part of the tree branch. Views that can be used in a similar way are: the Dynamic tree view, the Geographic map view, where you can display a limited number of events and individuals using geographic filters the Advanced search view, where you can select individuals and families meeting some specific criteria on names, occupations, places, etc. the Timeline view the Graph view the Family group report Here is what the Save-as Filter-by-View tab could look like: This is a powerful way to finely define genealogical exports. Please note it is also possible to export the visible individuals of each view from the view itself, using the Export-to-Gedcom button in the view menu bar.   Example We had the following question from a user. I would like to extract from my gedcom, a gedcom limited to the 5th generation. That is to say a gedcom that would only include my SOSA 16 to 31 and all their descendants. How can I do this? Here is a possible solution for this: You select the 16 SOSA individuals with the Advanced search view. Remember to check "Regular expression". Type in the magic formula for regular expression. It looks for the numbers 16 to 31 in the value of the tag. Include a space character à the end. Choose the tag _DABOVILLE or _SOSA (the one you use for your SOSAs). You then mark all their descendants with the Edit / Mark tool. There are 224 of them here.   Then you select these 224 marked individuals with the Advanced search view again. Uncheck regular expression this time Type "Selected individual" since this is the value used for marking in the previous step. Choose the label "_MYSELECTION" since it is the previous label as well. Ancestris finds the 224 marked individuals. Finally you go to File / Save As... where you select the 224 individuals to be exported.                       Export This function exports all or part of a genealogy to other software or genealogy sites. This software or this site must be able to read a file in Gedcom format. Description Why export a Gedcom file to another Gedcom file? You are probably wondering why an export function would be necessary with Ancestris since the file used by Ancestris to edit a genealogy is already in Gedcom format. In fact, genealogy software and genealogy sites around the world may have slightly different interpretations of the Gedcom standard. It is necessary in this case to modify the arrangement of the data to be correctly interpreted by the software or the site which will read your genealogy. In addition, you may wish to use only part of your genealogy in the site. For these two reasons, the export function has been created, to make your life easier. To date, Ancestris supports exports for 3 genealogy sites only. Geneanet : collaborative French web site for genealogical data, used by over 4 millions people. GeneWeb : specific French site. Exporting for this site requires to install the corresponding extension. CousinsGenWeb site, managed by the FranceGenWeb association: specific French site. Exporting for this site requires to install the corresponding extension.   Usage This tool is launched from the File menu . In the File menu, you select Export and then the site you want to export to. The window presented at the top of this page is displayed. This is where you specify if you want to restrict the data to be exported. This window is similar to the Save window. Once the export file name is specified, press Export. In the case of Geneanet, please refer to the corresponding instructions for the Geneanet export .   Customization There is no customizable element in this export.         Geneanet export The Geneanet export creates a file totally compatible with the expectations of the Geneanet site https://www.geneanet.org This export also synchronizes your online Geneanet tree with the same genealogy in Ancestris. This synchronization sends the data and documents to Geneanet in one step. Usage This is a two-step process: Create the export file Upload the file with all associated media files. Create the export file From the File / Export menu action, you get the following window. You indicate the export file name and the options you want. This is the same window as the Save As window. In the "Filter by View" tab, choose to modify the place names in the Geneanet format, i.e. to use square brackets for subcity names. [Subcity] - City, ... instead of Subcity, City, ... Do not check this option if you use the first jurisdiction of the place names to indicate other information than subcities, like for instance antique names. Geneanet correctly understands antique names as first jurisdictions, without the square brackets. By default, associations are modified to be properly recognized by Geneanet. This behavior is not adapted for Aries users. If you use Aries, check the option " Keep association as they are (Aries user) ". Once chosen, press Export . At the end of the export step, you should get the following window: By clicking Yes, you start the synchronization process described in the next paragraph. By clicking No, Ancestris takes you to the Geneanet page from which you can import the export file. All you have to do is there, is to select it and upload it from Geneanet web page. Geneanet synchronisation The tree actually on Geneanet will be totally replaced by the content of the current file opened on Ancestris If you clicked Yes on the synchronization window above, the following window then appears: Indicate your Geneanet ID and Geneanet Password. The window indicates the GEDCOM file that will be sent to Geneanet as well as the number of multimedia objects detected in the original GEDCOM file. You can choose to: send all media files to Geneanet (check the corresponding box if you want to) force sending all media files, even though they may have been sent already in a previous upload) (check the box if you want to force the upload) Then press the Synchronize button. Synchronization steps At each step, if a problem prevents you from continuing, an error message is displayed. The connection is verified. The presence of a tree is checked. The GEDCOM file is sent The process waits for the end of the update of the file on the account. Media are sent and associated with the sheets. The process ends. 1. Verify connection The connexion to Geneanet is opened using the ID and password provided. 2. Check existence of a tree on geneanet You must have previously created a tree on your Geneanet user account. If no tree exists on your Geneanet account, the process will stop there. 3. Upload GEDCOM file The GEDCOM file is uploaded to your Geneanet account. The maximum size allowed is 250Mo. 4. Update of the Geneanet tree Depending on the size of the file, some time is needed for Geneanet to update the tree on your account. Every 5 seconds, Ancestris will check if the update is completed. The Geneanet update is made of 5 steps as well: Preparing your data Generating your online tree Process contemporary individuals Updating links between individuals and documents Building the list of individuals This steps has 3 possible completion statuses: In progress Completed successfully Completed with errors The successful completion indicates: Completed 5/5 Building individuals list Ancestris will then proceed to the last step. 5. Uploading media files If the selection boxes asked for it, media files are uploaded to Geneanet. Each file name is displayed next to the Synchronize button one at a time. If a problem occurs with the file, a line is added in the information window indicating the file that has been rejected. Media files can be local files or remote files. Ancestris will download remote files before sending them to Geneanet. If a file is displayed in Ancestris, it can be sent to Geneanet. Each file is treated independently from the others. An error on one file does not halt the process. Ancestris will memorize the files sent. If a file cannot be sent, Ancestris will try again at the next synchronization. Sent files should not generate any quota issue on Geneanet. Files are assigned the confidentiality restrictions of the individuals they are linked to. Image file will be named after the content of the TITL tag associated with the media in the Gedcom file. It is possible to categorize images by adding the tag _GENEANET_TYPE under your OBJE tags. Possible values are : portraits : Portrait archive_familiale : Family document doc_notarial : Notarial document doc_militaire : Military document photo_groupe : Group picture etat_civil : Civil registration recensement : Census blasons : Coat of arms autres : Others By default media attached directly to an Individual entity will have the portraits type. Media attached to any other entity (source, family, note,... ) will have the etat_civil type. 6. End of synchronization Once all steps have been completed, the information panel should say: Synchronization completed . Find / Replace This tool can find or replace any text of the genealogy content. Description In the first two drop-down menus of this Find/Replace window, you indicate the text to search for, and the text by which to replace it. Previous searches are stored in these drop-down menus. The two check boxes on the right can be used to limit the search: match upper and lower case letters exactly, and search only for whole words . You can also provide entity and property filters using the two large buttons described below. This makes it possible to limit the search and replacement to only the entities and properties checked in the two lists that appear. The number in parenthesis indicates the number of corresponding elements in the genealogy. Filter on entities Filter on properties The Limit to main selection check box is used to limit the search to the entities resulting from the Advanced search view. See the Advanced Search page for more details. The search results are then displayed one by one and you can browse them all with the Next and Previous buttons. The Replace button replaces the text one at a time, while the Replace All button replaces all matches in one go. The window displayed at the start of this page is the one corresponding to the Find and Replace function. The Find function does not include the additional line and two buttons which are used in the Replace Function . Usage The main need covered by this tool is to modify data in your genealogy globally , and in one go . The search function searches for a text in the active Gedcom file. This result may be sufficient if you do not want to modify your data. You can access the Find function alone via the Edit menu or the Ctrl + F shortcut. Note that Ancestris also offers two other complementary research tools: (1) General search which scans all open Gedcom files and the application. (2) Advanced search which is a multi-criteria search within the active genealogy. If you want to globally change one word to another, or change a date, a place name, or whatever else, the Find and Replace tool is very useful. You can access it via the Edit menu or via the shortcut Ctrl + R. Fill in your text to replace, the text you want to replace it with and the results should already appear. You can then refine your search using the criteria or filters described above. As soon as you check a filter, it takes a little time to refresh the results. If no results appear, check the filters, they are stored from one search to the next. You can then perform the replacements one by one by scrolling through the data found. Customization The customization that exists concerning this tool is the possibility of memorizing the search criteria and the filters from one time to the next.           Delete or Rename This tool deletes data elements from a genealogy, or rename them. When renaming, you can even move data elements within the same entity. Description Terminology Your genealogy information is stored in a  Gedcom file. In this file, each piece of information is stored in a data element called a Property . Example: Name, date of birth, place of marriage, etc. Each property is referenced by a tag . A tag is the name of the data element. See the page about the tags for more details. The tag is the last part of the tag path. Each tag has a unique address to be accessed which is called a tag path. This is the path from the entity to the data element. WHen data elements have the same tag path within the same entity, the tag path is suffixed by a unique sequence number. Main tool panel This tools is made of one panel only with everything you displayed on it. Entities to be considered These are the entity categories included in your genealogy. Your genealogy is stored in Ancestris as a Gedcom file hence you see the Gedcom categories of entities. The "All categories" check box can be use to select or unselect them all. You select a category to select the types of entities you want to delete or rename tags from. Types of tags The radio buttons help you select the type of tags you want to delete or rename. All tags Includes all existing tag paths of the selected entities. Invalid tags Only show the tags corresponding to properties that are detected as anomaly in the Validation tool. Specific Tag or Tagpath Use this option to select tags or tag paths based on their name. That what you use to select User defined properties (e.g. starting with an underscore liske _SOSA, _MY_SELECTION). Tags with empty values These are tags with no value and with no sub-tags underneath them. These tags are invalid according to the Gedcom compliance Tags with asserted value These tags correspond to event informations where DATE and PLACE are not necessarily provided. They have the value "Y", displayed "Asserted in Ancestris. When cleaning your genealogy, you may want to locate them, delete them or rename them. Tags with specific value Use this button and the provided text field to only select tags based on their value. Use the exact check bo to match exactly the text provided. If the exact box is not checked, tags with a value that includes the text provided will be shown. Tag paths found This is the list of all tag paths matching the Entity and Tag type criteria. Clicking on the list displayed the corresponding values in the right hand side table. You can select multiple lines. Double-clicking on a tag path will paste it in the rename filed underneath. Values found This table shows all the properties of your genealogy corresponding to the selected tag path in the list. The table can be sorted by the entity ID it belongs to, or by the value displayed. For properties that have no value, the sub-tags are indicated. Double-clicking on a row of the table displays the corresponding Enity and property in the Gedcom editor . Select the rows that you want the Rename or Delete operation to apply on. Action Buttons Underneath the list and the table are the two possible actions that will apply on all the table items. Rename action What you rename is actually the whole tag path, not just the tag.  All properties appearing in the table, that correspond to the tag path selected, will be renamed using the new tag path you enter in the text field on the left hand side of the button. If you just change the tag , that is the last part of the tag path, the properties tag will be renamed . You may use it to change a christening to a birth (CHR into BIRT), or an event from FACT to EVEN, etc. If you change the path before the last tag , it ill actually move the properties inside their hosting entities. You may change from OBJE:TITL to OBJE:FILE:TITL for instance. Please note changing the root part of the tag path (i.e. the entity type, the first part) has no effect because Ancestris will rename the tag within the same entity. A confirmation will be requested. Delete action The Delete action deletes the listed information displayed in the right-hand side table. A confirmation will be requested. Usage The top 3 use case for using this tool are: Delete properties from you genealogy, such as empty or invalid tags for instance. Rename properties coming from a previously used software that are not Gedcom compliant and for which Ancestris could not convert during import. Move properties within the same entity. This could be usedful similarly when migraiting from another software which would use official Gedcom tags but at incorrect locations. Start this tool using the Edit Menu > Delete. Use the window from left to right. Select entities: select which entities you want to operate on. Select type of tags and enter relevant information : the tags the deletion or renaming will be limited to. Locate the tag path you are interested in. You can select multiple lines using the mouse. All corresponding properties will be added to the table on the right hand side. You can double-click on any of this property to display it in the editors, so you can see it in the context of your genealogy. Select the rows that you want the Rename or Delete operation to apply on. Press Ctrl+A to select all lines. The Rename and Delete button will be disabled otherwise. Action In case of delete, directly press the Delete button. In case of rename or move, enter the new tag path all the selected tag path will have and press the Rename button. In either case, a confirmation will be asked, and a window will let you know when it is finished Completion At completion, a message is displayed to let you know it was successful or not. The output window will display the trace of the operation where you will see all the entities and properties impacted by the operation. If you want to go back, press the Undo button on the toolbar or hit Ctrl + Z. Example of Delete action Select the tag path you want to delete.  In the window below, we select all entities, all tag paths, and choose INDI:NAME. It shows 210 properties in the table list. Let's press the Delete button. A confirmation is asked. Let's press OK. Ancestris tells us the operation was successful. Then the Output window is shown to let you see what was deleted in detail. Example of Rename action Select the tag path you want to rename.  In the window below, we select all entities, all tag paths, and choose INDI:BIRT. It shows 156 properties in the table list corresponding to a birth. If we want to change the Birth events to Christening events, we type in INDI:CHR in the New tag path field. Then we press the Rename button. A confirmation is asked. Let's press OK. Then the Output window is shown to let you see what was renamed. Customization There is no customization of this tool. Generate Sosa numbers This function generates or erases genealogical numberings of individuals in a genealogy. The possible numberings are the Sosa-Stradonitz, d'Aboville, and Sosa-d'Aboville numberings. In genealogy, these numberings make it possible to easily identify, for a given individual (the " De Cujus "), his ancestors (Sosa numbering), his descendants (d'Aboville numbering) or both (Sosa-d'Aboville numbering). The term De Cujus comes from the Latin expression whose entire formula is "Is de cujus successione agitur" and designates that of the succession of which we are debating. The term Sosa-Stradonitz refers to two famous genealogists: on the one hand Jérôme de Sosa, a Spanish Franciscan monk, who in 1676 used this system (invented, it seems, by Michel Eyzinger at the end of the 16th century), on the other hand Stephan Kekulé von Stradonitz, who, from the end of the 19th century, took up and popularized the system advocated by Sosa. The d'Aboville numbering  owes its name to the genealogist Jacques d'Aboville (1919-1979) who invented it. The Sosa-d'Aboville numbering is an Ancestris invention and combines the two previous numberings. Several numberings can coexist at the same time in the same genealogy. Ancestris allows you to add and remove them as you wish. It is also possible to maintain dynamic numbering each time an individual is created or deleted. We do not recommend this possibility on large genealogies because it is both unhelpful and resource intensive. Description From a reference individual - the De Cujus -, the Sosa numbering goes back in the past. It is generally associated with a numbering of the generations. De Cujus The De Cujus is the individual taken as a reference in the Sosa numbering, the one who receives the number 1, and which is also called root . In Ancestris, do not confuse the root Sosa (i.e. the De Cujus ) with the root of the dynamic tree. Indeed, the fact of changing root in the dynamic tree does not modify either the choice of De Cujus nor the Sosa numbering which results from it. The “Sosa” De Cujus should not be confused with the De Cujus of the Aboville numbering, they can be distinct. The choice of the "Sosa" De Cujus is arbitrary. It can be yourself, your spouse, your elder child, your grandson, etc. The younger the person chosen as the De Cujus , the more individuals will carry a Sosa number. In Ancestris, this choice is not definitive: as we will see, this tool makes it possible to change of De Cujus easily and instantly. Numbering principle The numbering principle is simple: regardless of the individual with a Sosa number, his father carries twice that number,  and his mother carries twice that number plus one. In other words, the mother's Sosa number is equal to the father's Sosa number plus one. Example. An man has the Sosa number 14. Therefore, his father carries number 28 (i.e. 14 x 2) and his mother carries number 29, i.e. (14 x 2) + 1. With the exception of the De Cujus,  whose sex can be either male or female, all even numbers designate men, therefore, fathers, while the odd numbers designate women, therefore, mothers. Example. Number 15891 designates a woman, while number 59948 designates a man. The two members of the same parent couple, respectively bear two consecutive numbers, the even number for the husband (the father), the odd number who immediately succeeds. , for the wife (mother). Example. The numbers 6 and 7 represent the maternal grandparents of the De Cujus , namely: the father (6) and mother (7) of the mother (3) of the De Cujus (1). Generation indication Each generation, i.e. each degree of ancestry, can be calculated and numbered from the Sosa number. For each generation, the smallest number is the same as the theoretical number of this generation. The smallest Sosa number of the first generation is 1. This generation therefore includes only one individual, the 1 (the De Cujus ) The smallest Sosa number of the second generation is 2. This generation therefore includes two individuals, the 2 and the 3 (i.e. the two parents of the De Cujus ) The smallest Sosa number of the third generation is 4. This generation therefore includes four individuals, the 4, the 5, the 6 and the 7 (i.e. the four grandparents of the De Cujus ) The smallest Sosa number of the fourth generation is 8. This generation therefore includes eight individuals, the 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 (i.e. the eight great-great parents of the De Cujus ) Etc. The Sosa numbering and this method of calculating generations therefore produce an ascending tree always having the same structure: an individual in the first generation (the De Cujus ), two in the second (both parents of the De Cujus ), four in the third (the four grandparents of the De Cujus ), eight to the fourth (the eight great-grandparents of the De Cujus ), and so on. When Ancestris displays the Sosa number, it also displays the generation number calculated in this way. Example. Paternal grandfather of paternal grandfather is Sosa 16. This would be generation number 5. Therefore, the complete Sosa number displayed in Ancestris would be "16 G5". Sosa and Ancestris Computers have made the Sosa system much less critical. Genealogy software are obviously capable of managing, in an automated and secure manner, the various links between individuals of 'a single file, without any recourse to this numbering method. This is why the Gedcom standard has not provided any particular tag to store the Sosa number. However, as this numbering system is still very popular among genealogists, and very useful to identify relatives, Ancestris decided to use it. Certain views will display the Sosa number of the individual if it exists for that individual, and if it has been generated in the genealogy for at least one De Cujus individual. To store the Sosa number, Ancestris uses a special user-defined tag starting with the character "_" (underlined): the _SOSA tag, which indicates the Sosa number, followed by the generation number of the individual. Generate Sosa numbering In order to generate the Sosa numbering, select the to-be De Cujus individual and open the Context Menu with a right click on it. Another alternative: go to the Edit menu and select Generate Sosa numbers . Alternatively, press the button in the main toolbar . The Generate Sosa / d'Aboville numbering panel opens up and displays the various numbering possibilities.  Make your choices and press OK to start numbering. When a direct ancestor of number 1 De Cujus is added to the genealogy, the Sosa number is not automatically attached to this new individual. You would have to generate again the numbering. Likewise, if you decide to modify the choice of the De Cujus , you must erase and regenerate the numbering again from the newly chosen De Cujus .     D'Aboville numbering The Aboville numbering designates a method of numbering all the direct descendants of an individual taken as a reference. Overview From a reference individual, the d'Aboville numbering is carried out in descending generations, that is to say from the past to the present. De Cujus In the d'Aboville numbering, the De Cujus is the individual taken as a reference, in other words, the common ancestor from which this numbering starts. It is assigned number 1. Numbering principle A d'Aboville number is made up of several numerical elements separated by dots, the first element (or prefix) relating to the De Cujus , the last (the one on the right), to the individual himself. It is for this reason that the De Cujus number contains only one element: the number 1, the latter possibly being accompanied by a letter (1a, 1b, 1c, etc.) Apart from the De Cujus , each individual receiving a d'Aboville number is necessarily a direct descendant of this De Cujus . The number of each of these descendants always includes: first of all the d'Aboville number of its immediate parent (the father or mother of this individual) then the birth order number of this individual, within the siblings to which it belongs Examples. 1.1 means the first child of the  De Cujus 1.2 means the second child of the  De Cujus 1.3 means the third child of the De Cujus , etc. 1.1.1 means the first child of the eldest of the  De Cujus 1.1.2 means the second child of the eldest of the  De Cujus 1.1.3 means the third child of the eldest of the De Cujus , etc. 1.2.1 means the eldest child of the De Cujus ' second child, etc. 1.4.2.1 means the eldest child of the second child of the  De Cujus ' fourth child, etc. When a "d'Aboville" person (a descendant or the  De Cujus ) is part of several families (in the event of remarriage, for example), the numerical element which represents him is accompanied by a lowercase letter. following the chronological order of these different families: a for the first family, b for the second, c for the third, etc. Examples. 1b.3 means the third child from a second marriage of  De Cujus 1.3a.2 means the second child from a first marriage of the third child De Cujus , etc. Generation count If the d'Aboville numbering is unable to indicate the sex of the individuals - unlike the Sosa numbering, it does, however, make it possible to know the generation to which the individual belongs. It is in fact the number of elements contained in the number of an individual which indicates the number of generations separating this individual from the De Cujus (including the extreme generations, that of the  De Cujus and that of the individual). Examples. 1.3 means 2 generations 1.2.1 means 3 generations 1.5a.2.3 means 4 generations 1.3.2.4b.2 means 5 generations D'Aboville and Ancestris Just like the Sosa numbering, computers have made the d'Aboville system much less critical.  This is why the Gedcom standard has not provided any particular tag to store the d'Aboville number. However Ancestris decided to use it. Certain views will display the D'Aboville number of the individual if it exists for that individual, and if it has been generated in the genealogy for at least one De Cujus individual. To store the d'Aboville number, Ancestris uses a special user-defined tag starting with the character "_" (underlined): the _DABOVILLE tag, which indicates the d'Aboville number. Generating the d'Aboville numbering Choose the d'Aboville numbering in the Generate Sosa / d'Aboville numbering panel. The same considerations as for the Sosa numbering apply. Check the corresponding section .     Sosa-d'Aboville numbering As the name suggests, the alternative numbering Sosa-d'Aboville is a hybrid of the two systems Sosa and d'Aboville. In a genealogy, it identifies all the individuals having common genes with the De Cujus , while maintaining a distinction between, on the one hand, the direct ancestors (the "Sosa" individuals), and on the other hand, the collaterals (brothers, cousins, small-cousins, etc.) From a "Sosa" De Cujus , the Sosa-d'Aboville method generates a double numbering. 1. Each direct ancestor of the  De Cujus (each "Sosa" individual), receives a regular Sosa number. 2. Each “non-Sosa” individual descending from a “Sosa” ancestor receives a “d'Aboville” number, generated from the closest Sosa ascendant. The prefix (the first numeric element) of this particular number is not 1 - as in the “strict” d'Aboville numbering, but the number of the nearest Sosa person. This is how among the children of Sosa 6, we will find, the Sosa 3 (the mother of the De Cujus ), but also the numbers 6-1, 6-2, 6-3, etc. (the brothers and sisters of the De Cujus ). Example: the individual carrying number 4-1.2 is a cousin of the De Cujus on the paternal side, in other words the second child of his uncle and aunt. In Ancestris, the property tag associated with this numbering is _SOSADABOVILLE. When you use Ancestris, we recommend you use the hybrid Sosa d'Aboville numbering - _SOSADABOVILLE - as it includes the benefits of both Sosa and d'Aboville numberings. This is also a visual way to identify "blood-related" individuals at first sight.                   Generate ID numbers This function renumbers the entities of your genealogy by redefining their identification number. Description The window that appears presents two main choices. Mass renumbering for a category or all categories of entities. Renumbering on one single entity. In mass numbering, it is possible to define a numbering format. This will always start with a letter. In Ancestris, entity numbers always start with a letter. I for individuals F for families M for media N for notes R for repositories S for sources B for submitters Then it is possible to define a prefix, then a number of a chosen number of digits, then a suffix. In the case of the numbering of the entities one by one, you enter the ID of the entity to renumber, and the new ID number. Usage The renumbering of the entities sorts the selected entities in alphabetical order of their name and then allocates number "1" to the number of entities, without leaving any number empty, and according to the the formatting provided. For single entity numbering, use the red arrow button to choose the current entity. If you indicate an existing ID, Ancestris warns you with a message to the right of the button. For the new identifier, Ancestris tells you if the chosen identifier is free and is not already allocated to an entity in your genealogy. Whether in case of mass or individual renumbering, Ancestris displays the following message when it is completes successfully.   Customization There is no specific customization for this tool.       Mark special individuals This feature marks or displays certain special individuals in your genealogy such as implex families, tree top individuals, Y-DNA related people, etc. Description At Ancestris, we have identified several types of populations in your genealogy that might be of great interest to you. They are listed in this window and described below. Tree top individuals : these are the individuals without parents at the top of the ascending tree of a given root individual taken as De Cujus. Tree bottom individuals : conversely, these are the individuals without children at the base of the tree descending from a root individual taken as a starting point. They can be single or married, and they do not have recorded descendant. Implex families : these are "couples of cousins", i.e. individuals forming a union and having at least one common ancestor. Their union generates the implex , that is to say a reduction in the number of ancestors of their descendants . They may or may not already have children identified in the genealogy. Multiple ancestors : these are the individuals who have implex families among their descendants. Each multiple ancestor can be a multiple ancestor of different couples. Advanced research : these are the individuals found and resulting from the Advanced search , or persons relating to them in a certain way. Hence we can choose to mark: the found individuals themselves the parents of the found individuals the children of the found individuals the spouses of the found individuals the ancestors of the found individuals the descendants of the found individuals the carriers of the Y-DNA of the found individuals the carriers of the mt-DNA of the found individuals the potential carriers of an X chromosome of the found individuals Views : these are the individuals who appear in the various Ancestris views (dynamic tree, geomap, chronology, etc.). For each of these populations, Ancestris lets you define a user-defined tag to mark them and find them more easily later, for example in the Advanced search view itself. You can name the tag as you like. Ancestris will make sure it starts with the '_' character. Ancestris also lets you define the value for that tag. The screen above suggests possible tags and values. Finally, the check boxes at the bottom of the window let you choose whether to erase, mark, or display only the corresponding individuals. Once the individuals are marked, you can see the tags in the Gedcom editor . Usage Marking individuals can be very useful to easily locate individuals and do some analysis. The tree top individuals and the tree bottom individuals represent the outer perimeter of your genealogical progress in terms of individuals. - Tree top individuals are the ones from where you search for ancestors. - Tree bottom individuals are the ones from where you search for descendants. Implex families and multiple ancestors provide a better understanding of filiations in your genealogy. As you can see in the following example, Ancestris quickly highlights you the implex couples in your genealogy and their relationships via their common ancestors, thanks to this tool combined with the Common Ancestors tool. You can also see 5 tabs in the Documents window. The first one, "Special individual marking" is a summary of what was found and marked. Each of the other tabs corresponds to a special individual population. To get there, first we have selected an individual in the genealogy. Then we have opened this "mark special individual" tool from the Edit menu, then we have checked the populations we were interested in, filled in the tags and values we wanted, and finally pressed OK. The choice of a reference individual is only useful for tree top and tree bottom individuals. For implexes and multiple ancestors, Ancestris searches the entire genealogy. For each of the special populations, Ancestris creates a tab in the Documents window. What follows is a description of each population marking. Tree top individuals In the case of the Bourbon file used here, we asked for the marking and display of the top individuals after first selecting the individual Louis XIII. Ancestris found 34 tree top individuals in the ascendant tree of Louis XIII. These individuals are listed in the tab. Just click on them to display them in the views of Ancestris. Each individual name is preceded by a Sosa number generated for the occasion, but not stored in the genealogy. This number is constructed like the other Sosa numbers in Ancestris, that is to say with the generation number and the Sosa number itself. The list is sorted in ascending order of Sosa number. By clicking on one of the individuals and viewing it in the Gedcom editor, we see that the _TREETOP label has been added. Tree Bottom Individuals In the case of the Bourbon file used here, we requested the marking and display of tree bottom individuals by first selecting Louis XIII. Ancestris found 4 individuals at the bottom of Louis XII descending tree. These individuals are listed in the tab. Just click on them to display them in the views of Ancestris. Each individual name is preceded by a d'Aboville number generated for the occasion, but not kept in Gedcom. This number is constructed like the other Ancestris d'Aboville numbers, that is to say with the generation number and the actual d'Aboville number. The list is sorted in ascending order of d'Aboville number. By clicking on one of the individuals and viewing it in the Gedcom editor, we see that the _TREEBOTTOM tag has been added. For tree bottom individuals who belong to families without children, the family ID is added to the value of the tag, to make it easy for you to identify the family from the individual. Implex families In the case of the Bourbon file used here, we requested the marking and display of the implex families. This marking does not require specifying a reference individual. The result of the marking tool is the same regardless of which individual is selected. Ancestris found 5 implex families in the entire Bourbon genealogy provided. These families are listed in the tab. Just click on them to display them in the views of Ancestris. Each family name is followed by a number between parentheses. This is the number of common ancestors to both members of the couple. Note that these individuals will be themselves in the Multiple Ancestors tab ! The list is sorted in descending order of the number of common ancestors. By clicking on one of the families, the Common Ancestors viewing window appears and shows the visual path between one of the common ancestors and the two members of the couple. In the Gedcom editor, we see that the _IMPLEX tag has been added to the family, suffixed with the number of common ancestors. Multiple ancestors In the case of the Bourbon file used here, we requested the marking and display of multiple ancestors. This marking does not require to first select a reference individual. Ancestris found 79 multiple ancestors throughout the Bourbon genealogy provided by Ancestris. These individuals are listed in the tab. Just click on them to display them in the views of Ancestris. Each individual name is followed by a number in parentheses. This is the number of couples among its descendants who are implex families. Note that these families will be in the previous Implex families tab. The list is sorted in descending order of the number of these implex families. Clicking on one of the individuals displays it in the views of Ancestris. In the Gedcom editor, we see that the _MULTANC tag has been added to the individual, followed by the list of all the descending implex families. Multiple ancestors are displayed in black if they are related to the current De Cujus of the genealogy - that is to say, they hold a _SOSA or _SOSADABOVILLE tag, or they are displayed in purple otherwise. Advanced search In the case of the Bourbon file used here, we asked for the marking of the parents of individuals who had an occupation of Abbess. In the Advanced search , we have selected the Abbesses individuals. Then in the marking tool, we have checked Advanced search and chose the relation "Parents of individuals found" in the dropdown list. Ancestris found 6 abbesses in the Advanced search, who have together 11 parents as we can see in the marking tools. The individuals are sorted in alphabetical order. Clicking on one of the individuals displays it in the views of Ancestris. In the Gedcom editor, we see that the _MYSELECTION tag has been added to the individual, followed by the value defined. Views Marking the individuals of a view can be particularly useful. For instance, it can be used to mark the individuals of a genealogical branch of your tree. From the Dynamic Tree view , you first unfold the branches you want to mark, and fold the other ones. Run the marking tool on the Dynamic View using this option and selecting the view in the drop down list box. Feel free to indicate the TAG and the value to mark these individuals. Check the "Mark" check box below and press OK. Repeat the operation if other individuals from other branches need to be marked as well, by changing the individuals displayed on the Dynamic Tree View. Ancestris will make sure individuals are only marked once if they have already been marked with the same TAG and value. Once all the desired individuals are marked, you can use the Advanced Search view to select all of them by TAG and value, and then from the view menu bar, you will be able to either export them or run reports with them. Special individual marking tab In order for you to know the marking request you did, the first tab generated is a summary of your request and the list of results. Customization There is no specific customization for this tool. Age calculation This function calculates ages of all the individuals at their respective life events. Description All individuals of your genealogy have life events that are usually dated. It is often useful to document directly the age of the individual at each event. This is done using an age attribute, which is a tag added to the event. The age information is either automatically added when a date event is added or modified (please refer to the Edit tab of the Preferences) ; or else you can use this tool if you want to force all AGE tags to be added or updated. The Age calculation function is a tool to updated all AGE tags in your genealogy. For an individual, all individual and family events are considered to calculate ages. In a family event such as a marriage, ages appear under the HUSBand and the WIFE tags of the event tag. The above window explains the basic of what the tool does. 4 settings are available: Use christening when birth is not provided : if checked, the age will be calculated assuming the christening and the birth happened on the same day (please refer to the Data tab of the Preferences) Overwrite text values : a text value is the result of a manual input. Therefore is option prevents the Age calculation function to inadvertently erase your manual inputs. Any text value is possible for ages but only 3 values are valid and part of the Gedcom standard. CHILD = age < 8 years INFANT = age < 1 year STILLBORN = died just prior, at, or near birth, 0 years Only display ages after death events : naturally ages stop progressing at the death event. During the automatic calculation, ages are calculated for any event except birth. If you are OK to display them after death, but do not want to keep them in the Gedcom file, use this option. Only display ages, do not store them in the Gedcom file : if you only use automatically calculated ages, it might *not* be necessary to store them in the Gedcom file. If you check this box, all ages for all events will be displayed only : ages ill appear in grey background. If you uncheck this box, ages ill be changed to white background, meaning they will be saved in the Gedcom. All ages that are in grey background are displayed only and not stored in the Gedcom file. As a result, next time you open the genealogy, the corresponding age tags will not be displayed unless you recalculate the ages using this tool. Usage Ages are generally useful in the editors: In the Cygnus and the Aries editors, ages are calculated upon editing the events, even though they are not necessarily stored in the Gedcom file itself. In Cygnus, ages are visible in the events list itself In the Gedcom editor ages are all visible at once as well. Ages can also be used when sorting the entity table. Generate the ages then sort the entity table on the Age column.   To generate all ages: Start this tool using the Edit Menu > Calculate ages. The window shown above appears. Make sure you read the instructions and select the options you need and press OK.   The modifications apply immediately. Press Undo in the menu bar, or hit Ctrl + Z, to cancel your changes and try other settings.   For example, you can see below that: The BIRTh event does not have any age which is normal. The DEATh event shows the calculated age The BURY age is calculated and is in grey background, meaning it will not be stored in the Gedcom file. The OCCUpation has got an age calculated         Customization The "Use christening" options is part of the Preferences. (please refer to the Data tab of the Preferences)               See modifications history This function gives the history of modifications made to a genealogy within Ancestris. Description If you want to trace precisely what happened in your Gedcom file, modification by modification, this table gives it to you. In 7 columns, this table gives you the date and time of the modifications, the entity involved, if it is a creation of data, a modification or a deletion. It also gives the modified data, its old value and its new value. It is possible to reset this history because the number of lines can indeed be important. The information provided is therefore logged since the last reset of this history. Changes that were rolled back - undo & redo - remain in the history. Their cancellation appears as an additional modification. Usage You can sort the table by clicking on the column of your choice. The table can only be sorted on one column at a time. You can move the columns with the mouse. You can reset the history with the button at the top right. As soon as the button is pressed, the data is erased without the possibility of recovering them, unless a backup of the parameters file has been made. In this case, be aware that the files containing this information are located in the User directory , in the var/cache/ModificationsHistory , with one history file per Gedcom file. Customization There is no specific customization for this tool.       Entity card The Entity card gives an overview of the current entity . The content of the card shows the key elements of information regarding this entity. It depends on the entity. Essentially dedicated to consultation, this view does not allow navigation, but has a number of commands accessible from the Context menu , available by right click. Customization Everything displayed in this window can be personalized using blueprints : the presence and position of the photo, information elements, background color, font (type, color, size), etc. The blueprints defined for this view can be much more detailed than what you see here, or than in the Dynamic tree view, where it would require too much resource given the large number of individuals and families to display in the tree. You can define your own if you access the blueprint manager using the Context menu > Change the display of individuals / families .                 Entities table The Entities table lists all the entities of the genealogy and provides detailed information for each of them in columns. This view is the one that best allows you to list and navigate through the entire genealogy. You can also create, modify, and delete entities from this table using the Context menu . Description The entity table displays a table of entities. At the top of the table is a specific toolbar. Data table Rows and columns Each row represents an entity, which belongs to the category currently selected using the selection buttons in the toolbar. Each column represents a property associated to this category of entity (individual, family, note, source, etc.). Sorting entities The header of each column shows its title. It corresponds to the name of the property associated with the category of entity selected. These column headers are also buttons to sort the table. To sort the table on a specific field, just click on its corresponding header. A small triangle is displayed on this column header shows the sorting orientation : ascending or descending (pointing upwards : ascending direction, pointing downwards : descending direction). This direction is immediately reversed with a new click on the header. When sorting columns, a serie of cursor buttons appear on the toolbar, between the Search window and the Export button. These buttons have letters or date labels. Clicking on a letter or a date takes you directly to the first entity whose first letter or date corresponds to the clicked cursor button. Context menu The Table View allows you to display the Context Menu by right-clicking on any cell of the table.   Toolbar Entity selection buttons Located on the left hand side of the bar, these buttons materialize each entity. One button is always selected, and only one at a time. Each of the 7 buttons displays the table of the 7 different types of entities in a Gedcom file.   Individuals   Families   Media   Notes Sources   Submitters   Repositories Shortcuts: the < Ctrl+Left > or < Ctrl+Right > keys select the entity to the left or the entity to the right of the selected button. Search field At the right of the selection buttons, you can type a text in the search field to look for a name in the table. As soon as a character is entered in the field, the number of corresponding entities is displayed at the left of the field. To the right of the field, a check box Exact Match forces the search to distinguish upper case and lower case. Cursor buttons These buttons work in correlation with the entity selection buttons, and adapt to the selected column. If the selected column is a text field, the cursor buttons are labelled with letters. If the selected column is a date, the cursor buttons are labelled with dates. If the search field is used, only the cursor buttons corresponding to the search results are displayed. These buttons directly access the first line of the table whose columns value starts with that letter or that date range. Export button This export the table to a tab-separated text file that you can save on your computer. Freeze Table View Button This locks the current selection on the highlighted line. If another entity is selected in another Ancestris views, the highlighted line will remain. Configure View Button It opens a panel to set the Table display preferences. Refer to the customization section .   Usage This table provides an efficient way to quickly select any entity in the genealogy. Once selected, it is displayed in all Ancestris views. From this table, you may as well create, modify or delete an entity. Select an entity To select an entity in the Table, first click on the selection button for that type of entity or press or to scroll through the entity categories. Then use the table as a spreadsheet and use the search bar, sort or cursor buttons to find the entity you are looking for. You can sort across multiple columns by holding down the control key and clicking on the column headers. You can also, from a sorted column, type the first letter of a name or the first number of a date to go directly to the first row that begins with that letter or number. You can also move the columns with the mouse if it makes your search easier. Once the entity you are looking for is visible in the table, a simple click in one of the cells of the row selects the entity. This selection will be instantly reflected in the other views of Ancestris. A double click on the identity number will make this entity appear as the root of the Dynamic Tree. Create an entity To create an entity, right-click anywhere in the table to open the Context menu and choose Create a global entity and choose the category of entity you want to create. Modify an entity To enter or modify an entity from the entities table, first selected it. Then open the Context menu and choose Edit/Modify . Delete an entity To delete an entity from the entities table, first selected it. Then open the Context menu and choose Delete the selected properties. To delete an entity, the right click must be made very precisely on the cell of the column corresponding to the ID number column of the entity to be deleted. If this right click is made on another column, the command will not delete the entity, but will simply erase the content of this cell.   Customization The Configure view button open the panel to customize the Entities table view. This settings will apply to the entity category currently selected by the selection buttons. This panel lists all the possible data element (tags) that can be displayed. This panel has two horizontal areas displaying the tags related to the selected entity category. Columns selection The upper area (Columns Selection) shows, in a tree structure and in an indented presentation, the tags containing the information that can potentially be displayed. To the left of each of them, use the checkbox to  display the corresponding information or to hide it. Column order The column order can be changed directly with the mouse by dragging and dropping the columns one by one. It can also be changed in this panel. The lower area (Column Order) lists the tags currently enabled from the above section. The order of the columns from left to right, will be the order in the list from top to bottom. To modify the order, click an item in the list and use the Up and Down buttons. To remove a column, click on the Remove button. About the check box " The Table view must follow the selection of another type of entity made in another view " : when this box is checked, the selection, from another view, of an entity of a different category from the one currently selected in the entities table, will switch the table to this category. Width of the columns The width of the columns can be changed directly from the table itself, by moving the edge of the columns with the mouse.                 Dynamic tree The Dynamic tree shows a genealogy in the form of a tree. You can quickly select any individual in the tree, and you can also use this view to build the tree. The view is the closest to that of a traditional family tree, and it best captures the simple relationships between individuals and their families. Description The Dynamic tree is displayed below a toolbar. Tree The tree is structured around a root individual . The tree is actually a "double-tree". Ancestors form a tree on one side of the root individual, and the descendants form another tree on the other side. Individuals and their families are represented by boxes. These boxes are joined together by lines of filiation, and organized in an ascending and descending tree-like manner. The tree is a partial view of the genealogy and it does not show all the individuals of the genealogy. Only ancestors and descendants of the root individual are visible All spouses of a descendant are visible, because they all have originated - or will originate - other descendants. Only one spouse is completely visible at a time though. See below . Not all spouses of an ancestor are visible. Only the one who is the ancestor of the root individual is visible. All the other individuals of the genealogy are not visible in this tree, but they can be visible in other trees, when you change the root individual. The tree can be displayed vertically (ascending at the top) or horizontally (ascending on the left). When the tree is too large to be displayed in its entirety, scrollbars at the bottom and on the right allow you to move over the entire tree. You can also use the green minimized-tree to move around the tree. Root Individual The root individual is the one around which the double tree is built. The root can also be a family which does not fundamentally change the display of the tree. For this discussion, we will therefore call it the root individual or simply the root. Th name of the root is indicated in the tree toolbar . By default, it is the individual -or the family - inside the brown frame, except when it is the selected individual, in which case the border is yellow. The tree changes each time another individual is chosen as root. This is why the Tree is called dynamic . Please note that the root individual can be a different person from the selected individual . Indeed, in order to be able to move in the tree to select one by one the individuals and display them in the views and editors, it is preferable that the tree does not change at each selection of an individual.  Selected individual The selected individual is the one that appears by default in a yellow frame. Individual and family boxes Each box displays information about the individual or the family it represents. Aspects of the boxes (fonts, alignment, colors, dimensions, etc.) as well as the categories of information they display (name, dates, locations, etc.) can be customized using the blueprints or the Configure view button. Boxes can be right-clicked to call the context menu . This is how you add individuals or families to the tree. When an individual has entered into multiple unions, the box on left or right hand side, depending on where the box is, has a button with a clickable 'plus' sign on it. Each click on this button displays successively all the spouses of the individual. When the person is not a direct descendant of the root individual, the root of the tree will be changed and the tree redrawn in order to see the corresponding spouse. Use the root navigation buttons to come back to the previous root individual. Colors By default the outlines of the boxes have the following colors. Yellow for the selected individual - and the root individual if it is the same one. Brown for the individual or the root family if different from the selected entity Blue for men, pink for women, dark grey when sex is unknown Light grey for families It is possible to change these colors. See the paragraph on customization . Union Symbol This symbol is located between two spouses and indicates that the tree displays families and spouses. It is possible to hide spouses and families. For divorced couples, the symbol is . Buttons for contracting or extending a branch Buttons are placed at both ends of branches. These are branch contraction and branch extension buttons that allow to fold or unfold a branch. This is to optimize the display of certain parts of the tree. Toolbar The toolbar of the dynamic tree lloks like the following:. Hovering over a button with the mouse gives you the function of the button. Zoom slider The zoom slider changes the zoom level of the tree in the display area. Towards the left, the zoom level moves backwards: more individuals can be seen in the display area. Towards the right, the zoom level moves forward: we see fewer individuals but the information is more readable and the boxes are likely to display more information. Thanks to this cursor, you can instantly adapt the scale of the display area to your needs. You can also use the Control key and the mouse wheel to change the zoom level. Show/Hide Overview Button The overview shows the entire tree as a miniature tree that you can use to move quickly anywhere in the tree, in case the tree does not fit entirely in the display area. When the overview button on the toolbar is activated, a small overview appears at the top left of the display area. This window displays a scaled model of the complete tree. We see in yellow and brown the selected and root individuals. Here, they are the same, therefore in yellow. A new click on the button hides this overview. Inside this overview, a green rectangle represents the currently visible area of the tree, depending on the size of the window or the size of the screen. Moving this colored rectangle with a mouse drag immediately affects the entire display area, so that some areas that were not visible until now become visible without having to manipulate the scrollbars. A click on a mini-box inside the overview repositions the tree: the corresponding individual is placed at the center of the display area. This movement of the tree in the overview or the repositioning click does not modify either the root individual nor the selected individual. Moreover, it is possible to modify the size taken by the overview, by means of a drag and drop of the mouse from its lower right corner. Show vertical or horizontal layout Button This button toggles between vertical and horizontal display of the tree. Vertical display : according to the meaning usually associated with the opposition ancestors / descendants, the ancestors are placed at the top, and the descendants at the bottom. Horizontal display : according to the usual representation of a time line (from left to right), the ancestors are placed at the left, and the descendants at the right. Show or Hide Families and Spouses Button This button toggles between two display modes regarding spouses of the root individual and those of his/her descendants. This choice is only possible when the root entity is an individual, and not a family. Family mode : shows spouses and families Individual mode : hides spouses and families Hiding spouses and families saves space in the display area. Each click on the icon button immediately switches the display to the other mode. Show fold/unfold symbols Button This button toggles between two display modes for the branch contraction or extension buttons. Visible mode : shows the symbols for branch contraction or extension Hidden mode : hides these same symbols Hiding these symbols saves space for the display area. Each click on the icon button immediately switches the display to the other mode. Fold/Unfold branches Button This button toggle between two display modes regarding tree branches, once you have contracted at least one previously. Extended branches : unfolds all the branches that may have been contracted before individually. Contracted branches : folds back all branches that were previously unfolded This is a way to remember the folded branches, and to switch more easily between the two modes, if it is always the same branches that you want to fold. Each click on the icon button immediately switches the display to the other mode. Screenshot Button This button makes a screenshot of the display area and puts it in the clipboard or a file. In the example below, the captured part will be the green area, and it will be put in the clipboard. This green area can be moved and modified with the mouse (drag and drop or stretch lower right corner). Center the tree Button This button includes two actions, both of which allow you to re-center the tree. A click on the button performs the first action. A click on the small down arrow to the right of the button selects one of the following two actions. Center the tree on the selected entity : places the current selected entity at the center of the display area. Center the tree on the root : places the root entity at the center of the display area. Stick current view Button This button fixes the display of the selected entity in the tree when you select another entity in another Ancestris view. If the pin is not pushed, the yellow frame follows the selected entity in Ancestris. If the pin is pushed, the yellow frame sticks to the individual it was on regardless of the selected entity in other Ancestris views.. Change Root Entity Button This button includes three actions to set a new root entity. A click on the button performs the first action. A click on the small down arrow to the right of the button selects one of the following three actions. Rebuild the tree from the selected entity : makes the current selected entity the new root of the tree. Rebuild the tree from an entity of your choice: offers to select an indivudual or a family from the genealogy and makes it the new root of the tree. Rebuild the tree frm the DeCujus : makes the DeCujus, if it has been generated, the new root of the tree. If no DeCujus has been generated, using the Generate Sosa Numbers tool, this action is disabled. Bookmarks Button This button sets the root individual from a list of entities previously registered as bookmarks. Clicking the button opens up a dropdown list with the bookmarks. Here is an example of dropdown list with 5 entities that have been bookmarked previously: This menu is a quick way to rearrange the tree according to the main individuals you most frequently work with. As bookmarks are fully user-configurable, this menu is empty if you have never defined any bookmark. To create a new bookmark, use the context menu on the entity you want to bookmark. Open the Context Menu by right-clicking on the visible entity. Select the Bookmark this entity action. A confirmation window let you define a name for the bookmark. After validation, the bookmark is created and then appears in the dropdown menu. You can only put a maximum of 16 bookmarks in the list. If the user tries to create a 17th bookmark, it will replace one of the 16 already saved, which will be permanently deleted without any warning. The Manage bookmark choice helps you sort the list of currently saved bookmarks, or remove bookmarks.It can also be done in the Bookmarks tab of the Configure View window. Check the Customization section at the end of this page. Navigation and Name of the root entity button In the toolbar is next displayed the name of the root individual - or family - of the tree between two arrows to navigate in the root history: a backward arrow to move back to the previous root that was defined during the session, and a forward arrow to move to the next tree root in the root history. Export a branch or a tree of individuals into a new Gedcom file button This button exports the visible entities to a new separate Gedcom file. It is therefore possible to export a branch or a tree to a file that can then be sent to another person. You just have to choose the root individual from whom to build the tree and then fold the branches you do not want to export. This can also be achieved using the " File/Save as " menu. Change display of individuals/families Button This button changes the blueprint of the individuals or families. The type of blueprints will depend on whether an individual or a family is selected when the button is pressed. A click on the button opens the list of blueprints corresponding to either an individual or a family. Ready-to-use templates allow the user to adapt the display to its personal taste. See the Blueprint instructions to change them. Configure View Button This button customize many elements about the presentation of the dynamic tree. It opens the customization panel of the Dynamic tree view. Usage The main goals of the dynamic tree view are to : Visualize the relationships between individuals , publish parts of the tree to share it, or partially export branches Navigate in the genealogy to quickly display and edit an individual or a family Build the tree , by adding or removing individuals Visualize the relationships between individuals The Tree displays the ancestors and the descendants of a root individual. As already mentioned above, the other individuals will not be visible. Your first choice is therefore to choose this root person in such a way as to have the maximum number of individuals in the tree, or at least to make sure you will see the branches you expect to see. Once chosen, there are several ways to change the root individual. The Change Root Entity button on the toolbar The Bookmark button in the toolbar, provided you have defined bookmarks beforehand A double-click on the box of the chosen entity in the dynamic tree view A double-click on the chosen entity in the entity table or the Gedcom editor The context menu and select "Make root in the dynamic tree". As soon as a new root is defined, the displayed tree changes and redraws the corresponding ancestors and descendants. The root entity also becomes the selected entity until another entity is selected. In order to see or hide elements to optimize the presentation of your tree, use the buttons of the toolbar. You can also customize the way the tree is displayed and use styles. Refer to the customization section below. Once the tree looks the way you want, you can print it or make a screenshot of it to keep an image of it. It is also possible to export the visible individuals to a new Gedcom independent file. To export a branch of the tree, make sure then that only the corresponding branch is unfolded and visible. Then refer to the save as function for the extraction details. Navigate in the genealogy From the root individual, you can navigate through family relationships within the ancestors of the root entity, or within the descendants and their spouses. In general, navigation within tree entities is done using the mouse. Press and hold the mouse anywhere on the tree to move it around until you see the desired individuals A double-click on the box of an entity to make it the new root entity , which then makes you see its ancestors and descendants. A single click on an entity's box to select it and display its information in the other views and in particular in the editors. To navigate within the ancestors of an ancestors of thee root individual, or the descendants of a descendant of the root individual, you do not need to redraw the tree with another root. You will have to redraw the tree if you want to see the descendants of an ancestor, or the ancestors of a descendant. For example, to see the brothers and sisters of an individual, set the root individual to their father or any of their ancestors. Whatever the way of operating, the selection of an individual or a family in the dynamic tree is instantaneously reflected in the other windows. Selecting an entity does not modify the choice of the root, and therefore has no effect on the structure of the displayed tree. The root entity is in the brown box. If the brown box is not visible, it is probably because it is also the selected individual. There are indeed two situations resulting in the selected individual and the root individual being the same: it is when the root is selected, or when the selected individual is double-clicked. Build the tree The dynamic tree view can also be used as a sort of editor, to add or remove relationships and the corresponding individuals and families. You can build a tree visually directly from the dynamic tree using the context menu , with a right-click on the individual from which you want to add an entity, or which you would like to remove. Creation of an additional individual In the Dynamic Tree view, the creation of an individual or a family is done by means of the context menu which opens with a right click on the box of an entity chosen as reference. Here, you can see the context menu from the individual Jacqueline Bouvier : To create or add an individual related to Jacqueline Bouvier, choose the action Add another individual or a family , then, in the sub-menu that is displayed, choose one of the desired actions Add a family of parents , Add a brother , etc.). You can also directly add other categories of entity with the action Add a media, a note, a source, etc . For the creation of an entity without any link with this reference entity, choose the action Create a global entity When adding an entity, Ancestris asks you via, the following window, to confirm whether you want to create a new entity or link an existing one. Example here to add a brother, as indicated in the last sentence: In case of a new entry, Ancestris will put you in the default editor on a new individual to start entering its description. You enter the corresponding information, validate it, and the individual is then added in the tree, provided that the added individual is an ancestor a descendant of the root individual. Otherwise, it has been created but does not appear. Modification of an individual or a family information The modification of an individual is either done by selecting on it and then using the editor if one is already open, or else by opening the context menu and chose Edit/Modify . Make your modifications. They will appear immediately after your validation, as long as they are part of the information displayed in the boxes. Deleting an individual or a family Deleting an individual or family is done through the Context Menu. Choosing the Delete the selected properties action then confirm your choice. If the deletion is confirmed, the tree updates its structure immediately. This can significantly change the tree display if the selected entity was the root or the middle of a branch. If the root individual is deleted, the tree disappears completely. If an individual in a branch is deleted, the whole end of the branch disappears. Customization Customization of the tree can be done using two buttons in the toolbar: Change display : changes the Blueprint which is what is displayed inside the boxes Configure View :  changes the structure of the tree, the colors of the borders and the size of boxes. You can also save your display settings in your own style. Here is the Configure View window. Make your modifications in the various tabs.  The tree is modified instantly. Main Tab This tab allows you to change navigation settings and display style. Navigation Automatically center view on selected entity: forces the tree to position the selected entity at the center of the display as soon as one is selected. Behaviour on a double-click : defines the action to be performed when double-clicking on an entity: None Center Set root (default choice) Maximum generations around root : displays only the corresponding number of generations. When changing this parameter, the tree changes immediately, and folds or unfolds branches so respect that constraint. The maximum is 99 generations on either side of the root. Show key information on each entity : displays a tooltip window when hovering over an entity with the mouse. This window includes basic information about the entity, in case too little information is displayed in the boxes, or if this information in the box is not visible enough. Style Three styles are predefined by default, and a fourth allows you to define your own. When you choose a style, the tree changes immediately. To create your own style, select My Style and then go to set the blueprint, the colors and sizes you want. These will be stored as your style. If you want to set different styles depending on the orientation of the tree, vertical or horizontal, check the corresponding box.  Bookmarks tab The Bookmarks tab is used to manage bookmarks: order and deletion. It consists of the list of currently saved bookmarks, under which there are three buttons: Up , Down , Delete and Separator . The order of the bookmarks in this list is an exact reflection of the order in which the bookmarks appear in the Bookmark button on the toolbar. To change this order, select the bookmark to be moved from the list, and use the Up and Down buttons. To delete a bookmark, select it and then click on the Delete button. The Separator button allow you to create a visual separation between your bookmarks to organize them more precisely. This tab does not allow you to create or rename a bookmark. To create a bookmark, see the Bookmark Button paragraph. To rename a bookmark, you must first delete it, then create another one from the same entity and with the appropriate name. Colors tab This tab customizes the colors of the connectors between boxes, the borders,  and the background of the tree. Zone of choice of the element to be colored The upper area of the Colors tab lists the elements in the tree view whose color can be changed, each line ending with a square of the currently selected color for that element. When one of the above items is selected with a mouse click, its color can be changed in the lower area. Color Selection Area The lower area of the Colors tab itself contains a number of tabs that are different ways to choose colors. Choose the color you want, this will update the small square in the element in the upper area. Tuning tab This tab allows you to choose the font and its size, a display modes, and the size of the boxes. Fonts The Font menu allows you to select the type of font from a drop-down list. The Font zise is changed using the entry field on the right. Display Use angled connectors: turns the filiation links between the boxes into broken or angled lines, rather than straight lines. Union symbol: d isplays a double ring between the two individuals making up a family. Enable antialiasing: produces a smoothing of the pixel display for images. Box content zoom behavior: allows to choose the behavior of box content when zoom slider is used. No zoom Zoom respect ratio Zoom to fit in box Boxes The Boxes area allows you to choose the shape and size of boxes for individuals and families. Timeline The Timeline shows all the individual of the genealogy along a timeline of events that occurred in different countries. Individuals can be displayed as a genealogical tree. Description This view displays a menu bar, a timeline frieze and the individuals' events. The timeline The timeline looks like the following: The timeline lists the years and for each of them, marks its exact time with a grey cursor. The timeline also displays blue markers: these are important events that occurred in the countries of the Ancestris' almanacs. Below the timeline, the view offers two modes of displaying events over time. Individual mode : events are grouped within individuals' lifespans, these being arranged in a horizontal genealogical tree: the ancestors on the left, the descendants on the right. Event mode : events are listed in bulk from the oldest to the newest, and packed vertically to take up the least amount of space possible. Individual mode All individuals in the genealogy are displayed, which is not the case for the Dynamic Tree view. For each individual, the sequence Birth, Marriage, and Death are displayed. The other events are not displayed. Individuals are listed in a genealogical order. Representation of an individual In the following picture, we see 4 individuals : Women are represented by a red line, men by a blue line. If the gender is unknown, the line is grey. The line begins on the left with a small triangle marking birth, then follows a diamond marking marriage, and finally an end triangle indicating death. If dates are unknown, an approximation is used and the line is dotted over the uncertain period. Above the line is the individual's icon and full name. The individual in yellow is the selected individual in Ancestris. Order of Individuals Individuals are listed one below the other in chronological order of births and in genealogical order. This representation of a timeline is an Ancestris invention. It is a genealogical timeline-tree. As the set of individuals is displayed, you will find individuals from the same family as well as individuals from more distant branches. Ancestris therefore lists the individuals in order of births, and for each individual, scrolls through all the branches of his/her descendants, then moves on to the next individual in the births. If the next individual is part of another tree, a line is skipped. The descending branches of each individual's tree are traversed by the descendants in chronological order. As soon as the youngest descendant is reached, the display resumes from the next siblings. As soon as all siblings have been displayed, the display goes back to the siblings of the parent already displayed, then the spouse, descendants, siblings, etc. This implies that: below an individual is usually his/her descendants or siblings in the descending direction (to the right), or his uncles and aunts or other relative in the ascending direction (to the left) if there is a line break, it means that we skip to another tree two spouses of the same couple are therefore separated by all their common descendants Event mode All the events of the genealogy are displayed. For each event a diamond is displayed showing the date of the event, the icon of the type of event and the name of the individual to whom the event relates. The events are listed in chronological order vertically. As soon as there is enough space to display another event to the right of an event already displayed, a column starts again. This results in the following type of display: Of course, it's a bit "cramped". You will then understand the usefulness of the Zoom slider, which allows you to stretch the timeline and put a little space between each event. Toolbar The toolbar presents the following tools : Zoom slider The zoom slider allows you to change the zoom level of the display area: Towards the left, the display moves backwards: more individuals or events are seen in the display area. To the right, the display moves forward: we see fewer individuals or events but the information is more readable and likely to display more information. Hovering over this cursor displays a tooltip giving the scale of the current area in number of centimeters per year. With this slider, the user can instantly adjust the scale of the display area. Display Mode Button This button toggles between the two display modes : Individual mode : toggles the display to individual mode   Event mode : toggles the display to event mode Center the tree Button This button moves the tree in order to display the selected entity in the middle of the display area. Change root individual Button This button allows to rebuild the tree starting from the selected individual as root. The structure of the displayed tree can completely change. Please note that this button is only available during the individual display mode. Screenshot Button This button makes a screenshot of the display area, and puts it in the clipboard or in a file. In the example below, the captured area will be the green area, and it will be put on the clipboard. This green area can be moved and edited with the mouse (drag or stretch lower right corner). Name of the root individual Button This part of the toolbar displays the current name of the root individual, whether the mode displayed is individual or event. Export visible individuals into a new Gedcom file button This button exports the visible entities to a new separate Gedcom file. It is therefore possible to export visible individuals to a file that can then be sent to another person. This can also be achieved using the " File/Save as " menu. Configure view Button This button displays the customization window. Its use is described in the Customization section. Usage The Timeline view is used to compare the life periods of individuals in relation to each other and in relation to historical events happening in the countries where they lived. Navigation and selection To move around in the display, simply click and drag the mouse over the display area or use the scroll bars of the window. To select an individual, simply click on it, it then appears in the other views of Ancestris and becomes the selected individual. This view can be used in combination with the Dynamic tree view. If you want to rebuild the dynamic tree with a new root individual, just double-click on an individual in the Chronological view and it becomes the root individual of the Dynamic tree view. It is possible to choose the events to display or to add a grid in the display area for a better identification. See the customization section. Display of the almanac To display the important events that have taken place during the life of an individual in the history of his country, simply hover over the blue markers of the chronological frieze. A window appears listing the most important events recorded by Ancestris in the language of their country. Here is an example where the mouse hovers over the marker of the year 1917. The popup displays the different historical events in the almanacs selected by the user in personalised colors. Customizing the display area and the almanacs is described in the next section. Almanac Utility There is also an Almanac utility available from the menu bar Tools > Lists and Reports > List > List of Almanac events . The output of this report is a text file to be saved. An option offers to have the results grouped by years. If you launch this report from the menu, the result will contain all the events between the two extreme dates of the genealogy. If you launch this report with a right click on an individual, from the context menu, the result will contain all the events between the birth and death dates of this individual. Customization It is possible to customize the display area, the almanacs and the colors. Choice of events and display settings This tab allows you to choose the events to be displayed in the two display modes knowing that only birth, marriage and death are possible for the Individual mode. It also allows you to choose other aesthetic or practical parameters to improve the visibility according to your needs. Choice of almanacs The left column allows you to select the almanacs to be used in Ancestris, including the Almanac utility. The "All" checkbox selects them all at once. The right column allows you to select the categories of events to remember, among the selected almanacs. The checkbox "All" selects them all at once. The number below on the right is the level of importance of the events to be selected. 0: Only the most important events will be visible. 9: all events will be visible The two buttons at the bottom left allow you to add or delete an almanac. The files are placed in the User Directory . When they are deleted, they are permanently deleted. Creation of an almanac It is possible to create and add your own almanac. To create your almanac, you will need to create a list of events for a given country. There is a certain format to be respected so that Ancestris can read the list of events. To respect this format, we suggest you use the spreadsheet fr-modele-almanach.ods which is an OpenOffice file. This will help you to enter the events and create the file for Ancestris in the right format. Once downloaded, open this file by activating the macros (guaranteed virus-free), follow all the instructions in sheet 1 "Parameter" to complete sheet 2 "Events". Once completed, you click on the Validate button in the sheet and this will copy your data in text format to the clipboard. The text looks like this : 1110;;fr;;;4;a;fr=Le sarrasin est ramené d'orient par les croisés. On appellera cette plante aussi, improprement, blé noir (biéna);;;; 1636;;fr;;;4;a;fr=L'évêque de Rennes, Pierre CORNULIER, possède dans son jardin de son manoir de Saint-Armel en Bruz, 15 variétés de poiriers. On peut penser que parmi celles-ci figure la variété Bon Chrétien, obtenue dès le XV° siècle;;;; 1649;1652;fr;;;3;a,h,g;fr=Mauvaise récolte de grains. Disettes et épidémies. La population rurale diminue.;;;; Paste this text in a file you will call country.name.almanac where country is a two letter code for the country corresponding to your almanac (it can be England, so "en" for England), name is a specific name you give to your almanac, and ' almanac ' must stay written like that. For example, you can call it en.my.almanac . Then open the almanac' tab in the settings, click on the Add an almanac button, use the file manager to select your almanac. It then appears in the list of almanacs that Ancestris can use. You can define several description for the same language. If you put TITLE: at the beginning of a short description, you can display an untruncated description in the individual time line report. Choice of colors This tab lets you choose the color of the almanacs and the color of all the elements in the timeline display area. Four tabs are available to help you choose your colors in classic color modes. Did you know that? The Swatches mode allows you to choose a color according to a color palette. The HSV model (Hue Saturation Value) is a computer color management system. The HSL model (Hue Saturation Lightness) are the three parameters for describing a color in a psychological approach to this perception. The RGB model (Red Green Blue) is the computer color coding system closest to the hardware. The CMYK model (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key) is a process of quadrichromy of printing making it possible to reproduce a broad range of colors starting from three elementary colors. Geographic map The Geographic map displays all the genealogy events at their location on a map. You can visualize where the events you are interested in took place. In particular, you can apply filters to see only certain events and thus make geographical analyses of your population. Description The Map The map is an OpenStreetMap over which Ancestris plots the events. The blue dots represent places where the events of your genealogy took place. Up close, a marker is a circle with a cross in the center. From a distance, it can be reduced to a point. Two visual tools appear on the map: the zoom slider at the bottom left with buttons the mini location map at the bottom right. The red frame represents the visible part in relation to a larger area of the main map. Toolbar A toolbar at the top allows you to modify the display and apply filters. Display the list of places Button This button opens the List of places view. Show/Hide zoom Button This button shows or hides the zoom slider . Show all markers Button This button adjusts the zoom level and centers the map so that you can see all the genealogy markers. Show/Hide overview Button This button shows or hides the mini card. Screenshot Button This button takes a screenshot of the displayed geographical area. A screenshot window appears allowing you to choose a green area to capture, and to keep the image in the clipboard or in a file. Show/Hide markers Button This button shows or hides the markers. Toggle markers Button This button toggles between two marker display modes. Marker in the form of a circle with the cross : Marker in the form of a label with the city name : Place filter field This input field is a quick location filter. It allows you to display only those markers whose location includes the entered string. To use it, type characters and then press the Enter key to apply the filter. Clear the characters and press Enter again to remove this filter. Show/Hide non-geolocated places Button This button shows or hides the marker for non-geolocated locations. A non-geolocated place is a place with no known geographic coordinates. It is placed by default off the coast of Bordeaux in the Atlantic Ocean. In order to alert the user that places cannot be located, and rather than placing them on land, which would not distinguish them from well-located places, we chose to place them in the sea! Clear filters Removes all filters and displays all places on the map. Filter indicator This symbol tells you whether a filter is being applied or not. A filter is being applied when at least one marker is not displayed. Hovering over this symbol brings up a tooltip indicating which filter is in effect. For example, here a filter is in effect to show only the markers for Joseph Kennedy's ancestors' events. Next to the filter is displayed the number of places displayed out of the number of total places in the genealogy. Refresh places from the Internet Button This button triggers the search for places on the Internet. See the section Searching for coordinates of all locations for details. Run reports Run reports using the individuals involved in the displayed places. Export visible individuals into a new Gedcom file button This button exports the visible entities to a new separate Gedcom file. It is therefore possible to export visible individuals to a file that can then be sent to another person. This can also be achieved using the " File/Save as " menu. Format places structure Changes the structure of the place jurisdictions of the genealogy. Configure view Button This button opens the filters and marker customization window. See the Customization section below. Usage The Geographic map is used to: Navigate and visualize a particular geographic area of your genealogy Identify events in a given location Update genealogy locations Filter particular events to analyze possible geographic relationships between individuals Navigate on the map The map is moveable and zoomable, and can be moved by dragging the mouse with the mouse button pressed at any point on the map. To recenter the map, double-click on the location to be placed in the center of the window. The zoom level can be applied with the wheel of the mouse, if it remains above the map. by moving the slider cursor with the mouse, step by step by clicking on the buttons next to the slider, or by clicking on the slider and using the up and down cursor keys. Impact of the zoom change on the center of the map : When zooming with the scroll wheel, the geographic point under the mouse remains fixed. When zooming with the buttons, the center of the map remains fixed. Identify events in a given location From a place marked by a marker on the map, it is possible to identify the events that took place there. To do this, simply hover over the marker with the mouse. A small blue window appears like this one: If several locations are very close, this window contains a vertical scroll bar on the left. By activating this scroll bar you can scroll through each of the locations in the area. This window displays two buttons at the top followed by the full name of the place and the information about the place : The first button is to Edit this place . The second button is to switch to the List of places view , and select the corresponding place in the list. The full name of the place is displayed in the format defined by the formatting of the places from the List of places . Then is displayed the population and the coordinates of the place The window then displays the events that occurred there, a bit like a flash report : The number of individuals in relation to this place in your genealogy The most frequent lastnames in this place, and the number of times it is mentioned. The number of events that took place there, detailed below by type of event: births, marriages, deaths and others. The period in years covered by these events. Update places It is possible to update places in two complementary ways: By right-clicking on a point on the map, to identify surrounding locations or to capture the exact coordinates of a location using a location pop-up menu. By editing the place, using the place editor that opens from the blue window button described above. Place pop-up menu This menu appears with a right click anywhere on the map. Two actions appear: Copy one of the locations to the clipboard: you can retrieve one of the places from the list in order to use it later. Copy the coordinates XXXXX YYYYY to the clipboard: this retrieves the exact coordinates of the place to use it later. Place Editor From the Edit this place button in the blue window above, you can edit a place. See the Place Editor for more details. Event Filters One of the main interests of the map is to be able to apply filters to identify and analyze possible geographical relationships between individuals. To apply filters, go to Configure View Settings. This window appears: There are 4 groups of filters : Filters on the relationship of ascendancy or descent in a reference to a root individual which is defined only for this occasion. The checkboxes allow you to apply the filters. The corresponding groups of individuals will be included in the displayed markers Three buttons allow you to change the root individual directly if the current one doesn't suit you Its name is displayed above the check marks No numbering or data changes result from this choice of root individual Filters by type of event and by date of the event. This will display all events that correspond to the checkboxes and that fit within the period entered if any. Filters on individuals. Gender : only displays the event locations of individuals of the specified gender. Name of selected individual : displays only the places of the events of the selected individual whose name is displayed Search for individuals : displays only places with events of individuals from the advanced search Filter on the spot. Simple filter on non-geolocated locations Any action on a filter in this window immediately updates the map. Filters from different groups are combined with each other so that the displayed markers will have to match all conditions. The use of filters is particularly interesting. It allows for example to answer the question: where are all the people of my genealogy whose occupation is a baker ? To do this, simply search for all individuals with a baker occupation in the Advanced search window. Leaving this window open, go to the geographic filters above and check the "Search for individuals" box. The map will then display only the places that have had an event from a baker. You can also check the "Birth" box to have only the places of birth of the bakers. Customization It is possible to change the appearance of the markers : Their size Automatic adjustment of their size with the zoom level Their color To do this, from the Configure View Settings, go to the Markers tab and make your choice of size and color. By default, the size of the markers adjusts to the zoom level used. The closer the map is, the larger the markers are, as they are more easily visible and do not overlap each other. The further away the map is, the more markers there are and the more you need to reduce them in size. On the other hand, since the map gives less detail of the topology of the places, they are also more visible and therefore do not need to be as large. If you do not want Ancestris to change the size of the markers, uncheck the "Resize to fit zoom" box. Ancestris can use a color gradient to reflect the distance in time. The darker the color, the older the presence. To do this, check the Use generation scheme color box. In this mode, you can choose : Number of years by generation : duration between two color changes. Year limit : the year chosen for colorimetric information is either the oldest year of presence in the location, or the most recent year . For places whose presence is attested over several centuries, the color will vary. Use root individual for reference year : The reference year from which the gradient is calculated is taken from the date of birth of the root individual defined in the Filters tab of the map view settings. If no date of birth is available, the current year is used. If the box is unchecked, the current year is used. Graph The Graph shows a view of your genealogy in the form of a graph, where all individuals are displayed only once, and are related to each other according to their genealogical relationships. You can create your genealogy graphs as you wish. The shape of the graph can vary from one time to the next for the same genealogy, and also with each addition or deletion of individuals. Description This view displays the graph of your genealogy and a toolbar allows you to make the settings you need. The graph The graph materializes all the individual and family entities of your genealogy as points. Other entities are not represented. These points are connected by arrows. The points of individual and union Individuals The De Cujus individual, if it exists, is a point of larger size and pink color. If Sosa numbers have been generated in the genealogy, one or more De Cujus individuals may exist and you will see several pink points. If no pink point is visible, it means that you have not yet generated any Sosa, or Sosa-d'Aboville numbers. All other individuals are materialized by green points if they are in a Sosa lineage of a De Cujus, or by black points otherwise. Sosa individual Non Sosa individual Each individual is displayed only once, even if he or she is implexed , i.e. if he or she is the common ancestor of a married couple. Unions All unions of Sosa individuals are materialized by yellow points, the other unions are orange points. union Sosa Union non Sosa Each union is displayed only once. The term union rather than family is used in the graph because it better explains the simple bond between two individuals than the term family which generally means a group of several people. Nevertheless, a union point does materialize a family entity. In addition, the selected individual or selected union is shown as a blue point. Arrows Individuals and unions are connected by arrows of 3 possible colors according to three different meanings.  As the points represents individuals and unions, and because the arrows go down the timeline, the arrows can only represent the two different manners that links a individual and a union. Either the link is the "parent to union" or the link is "union to child". And there can be two variations : either in the Sosa lineage or not. The green arrows show the Sosa paths . They start from the ancestors at the top of your genealogy and go down to De Cujus, alternating between individuals and unions. Links alternate "parent to union" and "union to child", and they are Sosa. So the union is yellow. Example here :   The orange and black arrows show the non Sosa paths : The orange arrows are "parent to union" links, non sosa. So this is a couple and their union with no children: The black arrows are "union to non Sosa child" links. Non Sosa child from a Sosa union Non Sosa child from a non Sosa union In addition, the arrows connecting the selected individual or family are blue lines. Interpretations Isolated Individuals, Isolated Unions, Isolated Trees Isolated individuals are isolated black points. These are usually people in your genealogy who have witnessed events, or people you have captured and have not yet identified relationships for. Using the settings, you can view the relationship in the case of witnesses or associated persons. In such a case, a grey link appears with another individual or a union of the graph. You can then see the relationship of this witness to the person or events it relates to. Single individual at the top left In fact, it is a witness of a non Sosa wedding. If you find isolated unions, they are probably errors or family entities being entered. Here, two isolated unions next to an isolated individual : You can finally find isolated trees of all sizes. Here, a small tree consisting of 3 unions and 4 individuals : By the way, you can see here that even if the 3 unions are Family entities, we can hardly speak of "family" in the sense of a group of people made of parents and children.  One can moreover detect an error there because the individual in black on the right is resulting child from 2 different unions in orange, which is not possible. Large families Large families are clusters with many black points around them. Here are two examples: Large Sosa family Large non Sosa family Treetop Ancestors The individuals at the top of your genealogy are the green points from which only an arrow starts. They are thus 1 or 2 green points (the parents of ancestors) that go to a yellow point (their union). Here are a few examples: Couple of treetop ancestors with a child Treetop ancestor alone with 3 children Treetop ancestor as a single parent of a family of 7 children (6 of which can be seen here) Treetop ancestors only and a non Sosa child. Implexes Because of the construction of the green arrows, all the green loops you see are actually the result of the implexed ancestors at the top of these loops. The implexes are in fact ancestors that appear several times in a classic family tree. In the graph, they appear only once. We therefore propose another definition of the implex: it is the union from which a consanguineous marriage will be born a few generations later. For each implex, we thus find ourselves with a loop in the graph, with the union of the implex ancestors at the top of the loop, and the consanguineous union at the base. Here is an example from the Kennedy genealogy (the top of the loop reads in the direction of the arrows, it is at the bottom here) : Case Study Here is an example summarizing several of the interpretations above. In the following example from the Bourbon genealogy, we see our De Cujus in pink who happens to be Louis XVI. To his right is his marriage with Marie-Antoinette whose ancestors are not shown. If we go up the green arrows, the long branch is his ancestor line, where in each generation there is only one spouse. The other children are not shown if there were any. We notice that this branch reaches a green individual, who is Louis XIV, from whom a first loop of implexe starts. It is Louis XIII who had as children Louis XIV and Philip I whose two descendants married each other. We find a second loop of implexe upper in the ancestor line. It is surrounded by two large families: at the base of the implexe, that of Henri IV. At the top, that of Henri II. We also locate an isolated individual who is not a witness, and probably shows that we have not finished grasping his relationship with the Bourbon. The graph is an Ancestris invention and like you, we had never seen our genealogy in this form before. We are still discovering possible interpretations to this form of visualization. Let us know what you discover ! All colors are customizable. See the paragraph on customization below. Toolbar The graph toolbar allows you to customize the appearance of the graph. Hover over each icon to display the tooltip explaining its function. The toolbar presents the following controls: Zoom slider This slider is used to adjust the zoom level of the graph display. Pause automatic arrangement Button At each opening of the graph view, the graph is built progressively until all the points are spread and visible. This button is used to stop/restart the construction of the graph. Center graph on click Button This button allows you to center the graph where you click. It switches the mouse to "centering mode" when it is pressed. It works in three steps: First you click on the button to activate the "centering mode". Then you click on the point of the graph that you want to put in the center of the display area. You press the button again to quit the "centering mode". Show / Hide names Button Click here to show or hide the name of individuals and unions at each point. For names display, several choices are possible. Refer to the Configure View parameters . Show / Hide association links Button This button shows or hide with a grey line, the relationships between isolated individuals and the rest of the graph. Filter Button This button is used to filter the data so that only those individuals matching a filter criterion are displayed. Several filters are possible. Close relatives of the selected individual. This is the default choice. Ancestors of the selected individual. Descendants of the selected individual Individuals from the advanced search result. Hide branches Button This button is used to hide branches of the graph. It switches the mouse to "Hide mode" when it is pressed. It works in three steps: First you click on the button to activate the "Hide mode". Then you click on an Individual point or a Union point. A menu appears to select if you want to hide the ancestors or the descendants branch. You press the button again to quit the "Hide mode" After your choice, the graph adjusts accordingly. The impact on the display is quite logical: a branch disappears. Sometimes the result can be quite curious: your tree can be separated into several pieces and individuals can be isolated. You can re-display the hidden branches by clicking on the " Reset " button. Shortest path Button This button shows the shortest path between two points on the graph. It switches the mouse to "Shortest Path mode" when it is pressed. It works in four steps. First you activate the "Shortest Path mode" Then you click on the first point Then you click on the second point You press the button again to quit the "Shortest Path mode" After your choice, the shortest path between the two points appears in blue and a window lists all the individuals between the two selected points. Clicking on an individual displays it in the other views of Ancestris. Open Button This button loads a previously saved graph. This will save you time when you reopen the graph by preventing it from rebuilding itself or to make sure you get back to a look you liked. Save Button This button saves your graph at any time in the current form. The file will be saved with the name of the current tree and can only be opened with this Graph function. Print Button This button prints your graph. Ancestris will open it automatically with your svg file viewer (SVG is a vector image format.). You will be able to print it from there. Export Button This button exports your graph to GEXF, Graph Exchange XML Format, which is a language to describe networks of complex structures, and developed by Gephi since 2007. Gephi is a free software for network analysis and visualization. Export visible individuals into a new Gedcom file button This button exports the visible entities to a new separate Gedcom file. It is therefore possible to export visible individuals to a file that can then be sent to another person. This can also be achieved using the " File/Save as " menu. Reset button This button resets the zoom, name display and hidden branches. Configure view Button This button allows you to change the display preferences of the graph. See the Customization section below for more details. Usage The purpose of this view is twofold: To present your complete genealogy visually in an esthetic form that you like Understand your genealogy and identify the parts that are sufficiently complete or conversely the parts that deserve further research. Present your genealogy As soon as the Graph is launched, the graph organized itself progressively. Generation of the graph With many individuals, this can take a little time. If you have already built and saved a graph previously, simply click on the Pause button to stop the construction, then click on the Open button to fetch a previously generated graph. While building the graph, Ancestris tries to find a way to arrange all branches so that each one is clearly visible. For example, here is the construction of a graph with 4200 individuals and 1300 families: Start 1 minute 2 minutes 3 minutes 3.5 minutes To the first seconds, the graph looks like a "big ball of dots". Your graph looks better. Branches are forming. The branches are now better detached. The changes are much less frequent. The graph is almost finished. The graph "stops moving". It is finished. Modification During construction, you can manipulate the graph or customize it if you wish. Once the construction is complete, it is still possible to move points to better arrange the graph. When you do this, it stretches the point corresponding to where you are moving it, and by inertia to maintain a sufficient distance between each point, it has the effect of a rubber band. In the pause position, the points move one by one without the elastic effect. If your graph suits you, remember to save it. It is difficult to find the exact same position from one time to the next. Selection Clicking on a point on the graph selects the individual or family in other windows. Conversely, a click on an individual or family in another window will refocus the graph on this entity, provided it is not in a hidden branch. Analysis of your graph This is the most interesting moment! You had never seen your tree like this, neither had we. To analyze and understand your graph, you can proceed in different ways. First there is a global macroscopic view, where you can see whether your tree is made up of a single family group or several. Each family group is in fact disjoint from the others. In the example above, there is a single family group, with isolated individuals who are probably associations (witnesses, etc.). Here is a larger view to see better: From the De Cujus in pink, we see a few ascending lines in green/yellow, and many descendants or "cousins" in black/orange. The longer the green lines, the more generations of ancestors. We can also guess that there are a few implex loops, but we will have to get closer to be sure. You can draw many more conclusions from this macro analysis, but let's move now to a closer view. You have to realize that we have here about 5500 points in front of our eyes, the 4200 individuals and 1300 unions, and if you manage to see more, let us know! By using the cursor button and the mouse to move the graph, we can get closer to De Cujus. When we are close enough, we can then display the names to know who we are talking about, using the toolbar button. You can then hide the branches that might interfere with the view with the Hide Branches button or show them again with the Reset button. Your analysis can then be done from branch to branch, successively from De Cujus to the most branches and to cousins or to ancestors. To have the details of each point, just click on it and the other views will tell you which individual or family it is. Shortest path As you navigate through your graph, you may want to identify the link between two individuals. You can do this by using the "Shortest Path" feature, available through or the corresponding button on the toolbar. In the window that lists the individuals on the path, you can click on each of the names to make them appear in the other views of Ancestris and thus analyze this path in detail. Update The update is done in real time. Any change in your genealogy that leads to the creation or deletion of a family or individual, or the creation of a relationship between them, will update the graph instantly. Customization The customization of the graph is done with the Configure View Settings Button. Colors The left-hand column represents the current colors of the graph elements. By simply clicking on these buttons, you can change the color of the corresponding points and arrows, and the background color of the display. Clicking on a color will open the color selection window. See the instructions for choosing a color in the Timeline view which has the same color. A change of color in the settings window immediately happens in the graph  but does not generate any modification of the graph structure. Modification of the graph structure It is possible to modify the apparent structure of the graph. These changes lead to the reconstruction of the graph, they do not immediately affect the graph. It is necessary to click on the Modify button. The middle column sets the size of the points. The right column sets the size of the arrows. The checkbox Use generation scheme color uses color gradient by generation helps distinguish the generations by color. The checkbox Better positioning improves the automatic positioning of the edges but takes more time to stabilize. The checkbox Center on entity selection automatically centres the graph on the selected entity when it is selected in the editors. This setting does not affect the click on a node which also selects the entity but does not repositioned the graph. This function colors each generation with the same color gradient from the selection color to black. For the gradient to be clearly visible, it is necessary to approach light pastel colors, as in this example : The two drop-down menus allow you to indicate the labels of the points and arrows to be applied. The algorithm drop-down menu allow you to choose the layout of the graph. Spring string : Force directed layout (Spring box, Fruchterman and Rheingold) Smart magnet  : Adaptative force layout (mix of Spring box and Force Atlas) Hierarchical : Layout by generation (Sugiyama) Modify Button This button validates the above structure choices and refreshes the graph display without closing the parameters window. It modifies the display of the names according to the choices in the drop-down menus if the labels were already visible.  Default values Button This button updates the structure of the graph to its default values. OK Button This Button closes the settings window. leaving the graph as it appears. Tutorial There is a tutorial on graphs. It is in French and in PDF format. You can download it here . Cygnus editor The Cygnus editor is one of the three main editors of Ancestris. The philosophy of the Cygnus editor comes from the need for simplicity of use. The simplicity of being able to manipulate individuals and everything that relates to them, at a glance Without worrying about how information is stored behind the scenes, All other information, families, sources, notes, etc. are ultimately only complementary information relating to the life of the individual. For instance, the individuals' marriage should be listed with the other events. This is what Cygnus does. The advantage is to see almost everything at a glance, like a bird watching the earth from the sky. Did you know that? Its name comes from the large and brilliant constellation of the Swan. With its stars mainly arranged according to a large cross, it is represented as a bird spreading its wings. Cygnus efficiently does a lot of work for you behind the scenes. Creating a spouse, for example, takes just one click, whereas it requires more steps with the other two editors. The compromise is that only the most important genealogical information can be edited with this editor, but still covers 80% of users' needs. There is a solution for everyone, and Ancestris users often choose to use two main editors: Cygnus + Gedcom, or Aries + Gedcom. Some prefer to use only the Gedcom editor. Here is a comparison of the 3 editors if you still had to make a choice. Cygnus Gedcom Aries Focus The individual and his close environment The Gedcom standard Completeness of information Ease of use ++ +++ + Ergonomics +++ + +++ Coverage of needs 80% 100% 100% Data transparency + +++ ++ Efficiency +++ + + Editable Gedcom entities Many All All Compliance with Gedcom standard 100% 100% 100% Description and Usage Cygnus displays the individual in the upper part of the window with the Title bar, his family nucleus just below, and the details of his/her life in the lower part, with the associated life events. Title bar The title bar displays the name of the selected individual and some buttons. Hovering over a button displays a tooltip. Pin Button Freezes the editor on this individual even if another entity is selected in Ancestris. Cursor Button Keeps the focus on the editor when changing entities. A mouse selection of an individual in the entity table or in the tree, for example, normally causes the focus on the Cygnus Editor to be lost. If you want to keep the focus on the editor, this button brings the focus back to the first name of the individual and positions the cursor there. Warning sign When the warning sign icon appears, it means the information included in the individual data includes an invalid piece of data or an invalid value.. Press the icon to display the source of the invalidity. Anomalies are detected according to criteria defined in the Ancestris preferences, Extension selection, Validation tab . Create a new individual Button Creates a new individual and places him/her in the editor. Delete this individual Button Deletes the individual displayed with a confirmation request. Contextual menu Right-clicking on this title bar displays the context menu . Separation bar The separation bar shown in yellow below can be moved with the mouse. It allows you to adjust the respective sizes allocated to the family nucleus and to life events. The position of the separation bar is set for each genealogy. Family nucleus Above the separation bar is the individual's family nucleus. Photo frame This frame displays all the photos and other media (video, soundtrack, etc.) of the individual and of his or her life events. The photos displayed at each moment are those of the event selected in the life events section . Photos not related to a particular event are attached to the General event. Birth photos are linked to the Birth event, etc. Media included in the sources are not displayed here, but in the Source photo frame . The media displayed for a photo is the photo itself. For other media (sounds, videos, documents), the media displayed is the corresponding media icon. A horizontal scroll bar allows you to scroll through the photos of a given event. You can specify a short description for each photo. There are 3 buttons in the photo frame. The button sets the preferred photo to be displayed by default for the individual, in all Ancestris views, in particular the Dynamic tree view . The button adds a photo, which will be placed in the selected life event. The button deletes the displayed photo Several actions are possible regarding the displayed media. A single left click changes the media, whatever it is Right-clicking displays the media in your computer's media viewer. If it's a photo, the photo will be displayed in large size in your image viewer. If it is a video or a soundtrack, it is played in your default media player. When the media is a photo Drag and drop with the mouse to crop the photo The mousewheel allows you to zoom in and out. A Ctrl+Click save the photo cropping The choice of a photo is made by clicking on the image. The Media viewer appears to only display medias of individuals and families, with specific buttons at the bottom. The Choose this media button associates it with the individual and closes the window. The Look for media files button is used to get a file from your computer, not yet used in the genealogy. The Look for Internet files button is used to get a file from the Internet, not yet used in the genealogy. Description of the individual This panel section is used to edit the name and gender of the individual. First and last names are edited with two drop-down menus. The Firstname drop-down menu selects a firstname among those already used in the genealogy. The Lastname drop-down menu selects a lastname from those already used in the genealogy. The button   specifies the other elements of the individual's name via another panel that appears. The radio buttons  set the gender of the individual. The checkbox  marks this individual as private. For more details on this subject, see the Privacy page in the Preferences . Above the first and last names is indicated the identification number of the individual and the Sosa number when it is generated . Around this description are arranged 6 relationships buttons for the parents of the individual, brothers and sisters, spouse and children. Relationship buttons There are 6 relationship buttons displayed around the name of the person to act on the "related" individual. Father (top left) Mother (top right) Brother, Sister, Spouse, Children (bottom) These Relationship buttons have multiple functions. A left click on the button will act differently depending on whether the related individual already exists or not yet. If the individual already exists, it is selected and the editor will navigate to this individual and display it. If the individual does not exist, it is created. A right-click on the button displays a menu with the choices that seem most relevant to that individual and for the corresponding relationship. These choices are arranged in four categories: Navigation to the related individuals , if there are several brothers, sisters, spouse or children Creation of the related individual in the genealogy and creation of the relationship with him/her Creation of the relationship if the individual already exists Detachment of the relationship if the relationship already exists Family Tree This tree structure presents: in yellow, the selected individual , his/her parents at the upper level his/her siblings at the same level in the chronological order of births his/her spouse(s) are listed below and the corresponding children at the lower level A double-click on any of the individuals selects it. Life events This part of the Cygnus editor details the events of an individual's life. A vertical separation bar delimits the list of events and the media of the associated sources on the left, and the details of these events on the right. It can be moved and its position is memorized from one time to another for each genealogy. Events List of events We distinguish the General event from the others. It is a particular event that allows you not to define a particular event precisely. It can associate notes and sources to the individual to characterize the whole of his life, without attaching them to a particular moment of life. All other events are those that the Gedcom standard allows to define. They are numerous (birth, marriage, profession, residence, death, burial, etc.). All events are listed in a single lifeline, including unions . You can therefore create a baptism event and a wedding event in the same place and in the same way. Indeed, unlike the other two editors, Cygnus being focused on the individual, there is no distinction to edit all events, whether they are the individual entity events or the family entity events. The list displays the default events in chronological order, using event logic when a date is not indicated (i.e. a death occurs after a birth). The list can be sorted by clicking on the column header, in ascending order with one click, or descending order with a second click. The width of the columns can be adjusted with the mouse. Selecting an event displays its details on the right hand side, and its associated photos in the photo frame at the top of the editor , and source documents in the source media frame at the bottom left of the editor. Buttons for creating or selecting events A set of 10 buttons manage the most common events more efficiently. The first 10 buttons on the left are the most common events used in genealogy. The first is that of birth. A click on this button creates the birth event if it does not already exist, and selects the birth event otherwise The one underneath is that of the occupation. As there can be several occupations for the same individual, a click on the button displays a drop-down menu asking if you want to create an occupation or offers you to select one of the existing occupations. When there are none, it creates it. The last of these 10 buttons, the button with the flag, is a button that displays all other possible events in a list. It is up to you to choose the one you want to create The top right button replaces the event by another one while keeping all the information in the event. For instance, you can change a birth event to a christening event without having to delete the event, create the new one, and enter everything again. The bottom right button deletes the selected event. The General event cannot be deleted Details of an event For each selected event, the right hand part of the panel allows you to enter the same information, except for the General event which does not need some of it. All this information is aligned to the Gedcom standard tags . The image below shows the detail of an event such as Occupation. Event description It is a dropdown list of already defined descriptions, in case the description can be reused. The field name is the name the the tag. In the image above, this is "Occupation". This field is only visible for events where a description is allowed by the Gedcom norm, and actually needed. For instance, a diploma, an occupation need a description. Birth, Death do not need any. Type of  event It is a dropdown list of already defined types of the selected event, in case the description can be reused. The type is a way to classify the event. It is optional to fill it in. This field is always visible for all events. Date and time See the dates page for more details. Below the date is displayed the day of the week if it is dated, and the age of the person at the time of the event except for the day of birth. Place The drop-down menu allows you to choose an existing place from the ones known in the genealogy. The first characters entered display a filtered list of places containing these characters. If the place does not already exist or if you want to modify it, click on the place button next to it. See the description of places or the Place Editor for more details. Notes It is possible to enter one or more notes, specific or shared. See the difference in the Shared Information page . Cygnus can recognize, display and edit both shared and specific notes, but will only create shared notes. The mouse wheel is used to scroll through the note text if it requires more lines than there is room to display. The right scrollbar allows you to do the same. It appears when all the lines cannot be displayed. By pressing the key and using the mouse wheel, you can scroll through the notes. The other scrollbar on the right allows you to do the same thing.  Hovering the right scrollbar with the mouse displays the rank of the displayed note in relation to the total number of notes attached to the event. The first 3 buttons allow you to create , change  and delete a note. The last button  allows you to enter the note in a large window in which it is possible to enlarge the font size. The scroll buttons  display the previous or next note for the event. The creation and change of a note opens the note selection window: The right part lists all the known notes of the genealogy. They are of three origins. In black, the notes used in the genealogy and contained in Note Entities (shared notes) In blue, the notes used in the genealogy and contained in Notes specific to certain entities. In red, unused notes. Sources It is possible to enter one or more sources, specific or shared. See the difference in the Shared Information page . For example, here is a source of the baptismal certificate of Louis XIV. The information for the sources is as follows: The name of the source A text that is generally used to present a transcription of the source text. Indeed, it is better to make the effort once to decipher a handwritten text that is difficult to read, rather than to do it every time you need it. The name of the repository where the source can be found Media associated with the same source (on the left) Sources work on the same principle as notes in terms of : the 4 buttons   which create, change, delete a source and edit the text a source. the scroll buttons  which display the previous or next source for the event. the use of the mouse. Clicking on one of the source buttons or  displays the source selection window: The photo frame of the source of an event works on the same principle as the photo frame of the individual. Clicking on the image helps you choose which image you want to associate with a source. The Media viewer is shown. It only displays media files of sources, with specific buttons at the bottom. Clicking on the Quality button sets the quality of the source. Clicking on the Page button   sets the page of the source in the register where it was found. The string displayed after the button is this page number (page or reference number). Clicking on the Extract Information button launches a tool to generate a source from an image. It uses the Registry Record automatic transcriber . If the source has a media with an image, it will be used. Otherwise Ancestris will ask you for a file. Repository The attachement of a repository to the source can be done using the Repository button at the bottom right. . This window contains all the information of the repositories already created or to be created. As this window appears in relation to a source of an event, its goal is attach this source to a repository. The source and the repository it is potentially already attached to are displayed at the top of the window. This window can be use for two main needs: Use this window to attach the source to a repository, to reattach it to another repository or to detach it from its current repository. Use this window to also change the information of other repositories and their corresponding sources by first selecting a repository from the list on the right hand side, and then by selecting the source in the list on the left hand side. The information Call number, Media type and note are information that belong to the selected source in relation to the selected repository. Relations This is where we enter other individuals in relation to an event, such as witnesses at a wedding or the godparents of a baptized person. The relationship field is actually a drop-down menu that lists all the relationships currently entered for the selected event. It is possible to select one of them and then click on the button  to navigate to the corresponding individual. The button allows you to manage individuals in relation to the selected event. Clicking on this button brings up the following window: In the upper part, this window allows you to add, modify or delete relationships. For each relationship in the list of relationships that appears, it is possible to define the event to which you wish to associate a relationship, the type of relationship (witness, declarer, etc.), the name of the relationship, its sex and occupation. In the lower part, it displays, for information only, the events of other individuals for which the selected individual is himself or herself associated. Time stamp of last modification of the entity The last information visible in the Cygnus Editor is the last modification date of the information. This date is updated automatically at each update. Synchronization with other views As we have seen, in Ancestris, at every moment an entity is selected. When this entity is an individual, this one appears as the main person in the Cygnus editor. When this entity is not an individual (a family, a note, etc.), the Cygnus Editor displays the individual related to this entity. You can then edit the selected entity as per the various screens described in this page. The selected entity will be related to the event automatically selected in Cygnus. Example: if a family is selected in the Entities table, Cygnus will display the husband, select the spouse in the family tree in Cygnus, and select the marriage event. Gedcom editor The Gedcom editor is one of the three main editors of Ancestris. The philosophy of the Gedcom editor comes from the will to be transparent and to be based on the way the Gedcom standard structures genealogical information. Information transparency where the user sees 100% of the information stored in his genealogy, which makes it easy to store and control all of the data. Willingness to comply 100% with the Gedcom standard for a better sustainability of ones work The advantage is to have all the information for any entity in a structured form. While both the Aries and Cygnus editors are visual and graphical, the Gedcom editor displays information in a text mode. This can be confusing for a beginner but it provides a lot of trust later on. This is because the Gedcom editor directly manipulates the hierarchical organization of the different entities in the Gedcom file using Gedcom labels and syntax. It gives access to all the possibilities of the standard. It displays only one entity at a time, from any category (individual, family, source, etc.). It allows you to modify the current entity (individual, family, etc.) as precisely as possible. This makes it extremely simple to use, but requires time to adapt. There is a solution for everyone, and Ancestris users often choose to use two main editors: Cygnus + Gedcom, or Aries + Gedcom. Some prefer to use only the Gedcom editor. Here is a comparison of the 3 editors if you still had to make a choice.   Cygnus Gedcom Aries Focus The individual and his close environment The Gedcom standard Completeness of information Ease of use ++ +++ + Ergonomics +++ + +++ Coverage of needs 80% 100% 100% Data Transparency + +++ ++ Efficiency +++ + + Editable Gedcom entities Many All All Compliance with Gedcom standard 100% 100% 100%   Description The Gedcom editor is divided horizontally into two areas. The upper area displays the tree structure of the different properties of the currently selected entity and allows you to select one of them. The lower area displays the details of the property selected in the upper zone, for consultation or edition. At the top of the editor there is a specific toolbar.   Property Tree The upper area displays a succession of lines, each of which corresponds to a property. These different lines are organized in a tree-like manner: properties can depend on a superior property to describe its characteristics. Tree structure In accordance with the Gedcom standard , the entity's main line is placed at the top of the list. It displays the reference containing its ID number, and the label corresponding to the category. All other lines depend on this main line. It is imperative to make sure that each line keeps its place in the tree structure because each line: qualifies its higher level line. Example: birth qualifies an individual, date of birth qualifies a birth. potentially carries lower level lines. Example: birth is described by a date and a place. is in a particular order in relation to other lines of the same level and the same higher line. Example: the order of children for a family. Horizontal and vertical scrollbars are displayed when necessary. However, in order to facilitate reading without having to use them, the tree structure is equipped with flaps allowing to show or hide certain properties.  It goes without saying that hiding a line also hides the lines hierarchically below it. Property Icons For a better visibility, each beginning of a line in the tree displays the icon corresponding to the label associated with this line. Then follow the tag itself and its value. If the icon has a navigation indicator like this : , i.e. a small white square containing a short arrow pointing to the upper left corner, this means that the property is a link to another entity, and it can be double-clicked to display the related entity (individual, family, source, etc.). For more details on the different icons associated with the properties, see the Tags page. Italic properties Some properties may appear in italic. These are properties that are not actually in the Gedcom file but are inferred when Ancestris opens the genealogy. Example : you can see below that the GIVN label for the first name, and the SURN label for the last name, are in italic. They do not exist in the Gedcom file, but Ancestris derived them from the NAME label, which is in the Gedcom file. Unknown or misplaced properties When the icon is a question mark, it means that the label of the property is unknown or misplaced in the tree structure, according to the Gedcom standard. Invalid properties When the icon is an warning sign , it means that the value of the property is not valid, in accordance with the Gedcom standard . Anomalies are detected from criteria defined in the Ancestris preferences, Extension pane, Validation tab are only visible from the Cygnus editor. In the following example, the date and place of death are invalid because their values are empty. Indeed, in the Gedcom standard, a line with a label cannot be without a value. Getting information on a property When hovering over a line with the mouse, a tooltip appears describing what the property is used for. In the following example, hovering over the line PLAC Brookline, , Norfolk displays this: Details of the selected property The lower area displays the details for viewing or changing the values of the property selected in the upper area. It can display several elements: The description of the entity, via the blueprint corresponding to the type of entity The events of the individual's name to be entered on several fields A value to be entered for the type of event where it applies A date A small text to enter for a note The gender of an individual to be indicated among a given choice A multimedia file Etc. The first line in the details area of the selected property is the name of this property, the tag name. For example here, the property birth: When the selected property is a link to another entity, this first line is actually a button, as here for a link to its parents: In this case, a click on the button selects the property in the related entity, the child in the parents' family in the example above. A double-click in the lower area has the same effect.   Toolbar The toolbar has a " handle " on the left hand side which allows to move it, and to put it in vertical or horizontal position , on one of the sides of the window. Then there is a pin button that can be in the raised or pressed position. This freezes the editor on the displayed entity when another entity is selected elsewhere in Ancestris. The next button is the cursor button : When it is pressed, the selection of another entity or property in Ancestris will force the focus on the relevant input field in the property detail panel of the Gedcom editor.  Example: pressing the TAB key to select the name (NAME) will place the cursor on the last name field in the details panel. Also, clicking the name field in the table view will do the same. Clicking a date in the table view will place the cursor in the first field of the date in the details panel. In this case, it is possible to move from fields to fields with the TAB key in the tree view of the Gedcom editor. Conversely, if the cursor button is not pressed, when selecting a property, the focus remains on the entity clicked, or the property clicked in the tree view of the Gedcom editor. It is then possible to move with the up and down keys of the keyboard. In this case, it is possible to move in the table view from one entity to the next using the arrow keys as well. Then the toolbar displays the full name of the selected individual.   Usage The main usage of the Gedcom editor is to visualise the entity data and to change it: you can select, navigate, add, move, copy or delete a property. The actions to be carried out in the property details area at the bottom depend on the selected property: enter a place, date, simple value, etc. or modify the display blueprint of the entity. Selection of a property The selection of a property line is done naturally by clicking on it. The lower area instantly displays the details of the selected property, with a view to edit it, or simply to visualize it. Navigation to another entity A navigation is possible in the Gedcom editor. When a property line has a navigation icon , a double-click on this line displays in the entity related to that property. To return to the display of the previous entity, you can use the navigation arrows in the toolbar . Adding a property Adding a property can be done using the Context Menu , action Add Property , and selecting the label in the sub-menu that appears. The right click must be made on the line which is up one level in the hierarchically, so that the new entity will be attached to it. When the sub-menu does not contain the property you are looking for, it is probably because it is not allowed there. Some sub-properties are automatically added. When you need a sub-property, you have to redo the manipulation with a right click on the corresponding property. Once a property has been added, its fields must be filled in with the appropriate information. Multimedia file - Add a media property using drag and drop It is possible to add a Media property directly from the file explorer of your computer through drag-and-drop. It is actually possible to drag-and-drop a media from other software too (e.g. digiKam, etc) To do this, simply drag and drop the file from the file explorer to the Gedcom Editor tree. You see below the black line just before releasing the mouse. Once the click is released, the property will be added as a sub-property of . Multimedia file - External disk Whatever your system, if you use drag and drop above, you should see how to specify the name of an external file. On Windows, it is also possible to write the file with 3 slashes as follows: file:///E:\images\image.jpg where E is the external drive. On Linux, it is enough to indicate the name of the disk as it is mounted on your system, which may vary from one distribution to another. For example : Multimedia file - Internet link You just have to indicate the classic URL of the file:  https://www.siteweb.com/images/image.jpg . Multimedia file - Local and found Ancestris helps you quickly identify is a file is local and if it exists on disk. Two user defined tags are used for this _LOCAL is '1' if file is local, '0' otherwise. _FOUND is '1' if local file exists on disk or is file is remote, '0' if local file is not found. These values are read only and are updated when the Gedcom file is opening and when the FILE property is edited or checked for validation.   Moving or copying a property Classically, moving and copying a property is obtained via the Context Menu , whose right click must be made on the line concerned by the current processing, or by Drag&Drop. Through the context menu To move a property, command Cut, then command Paste, with a new right click on the line to receive the moved property. To copy a property, command Copy, then command Paste, with a new right click on the line to receive the copied property. By Drag / Drop Order of children, and properties in general You can order the children in the desired order this way. Ancestris will keep the order displayed in the file. This method applies to the order of all properties. Deleting a property To delete a property line, right-click on the line to be deleted and choose Delete the selected properties . As usual, a confirmation window is displayed before the command is executed. It is obvious that the deletion of a line also deletes the lines hierarchically placed below this line. Confirming an entry and saving the genealogy Changes made in the lower part of the window need to be confirmed in order to be saved. As soon as a piece of information is modified, the following buttons appear at the bottom right of the editor. Simply click OK to validate, or Cancel to cancel:  These buttons may not appear. This is the case for users who prefer to automate this confirmation when navigating to another entity. This is a setting in the Preferences, Edit pane and in the Editor section . Warning: in both cases, with or without clicking OK, your changes are not yet saved in your file on disk. But if you try to quit Ancestris, it will warn you and ask you to save all your changes. Modification of a place When you want to modify a place selected in the properties of the Gedcom Editor, there are two ways to enter or modify this place. This display mode is chosen in the Preferences, Editor pane , in the section concerning places. Display all places jurisdictions on a single line: Display the place with one jurisdictions per line: Auto-complete As you can see above, for each field it is possible to display the list of values already entered by using the drop-down list. The other possibility is to start typing a place name, and Ancestris will offer you all the places starting with these first entered characters. This is called "auto-complete". This makes sure the same places get spelt the same way and it saves typing time. You can also see why displaying on a single line can be more efficient. It then allows you to enter all the jurisdictions of the place in one go. Global change of all identical places It is sometimes necessary to apply a place correction to all identical places. The Gedcom Editor not only tells you how many places are identical, it also lets you spread a correction to all the others at the same time. To do this, check the box below the place fields: The confirmation window asks you to confirm. Then validate your modification by clicking on Yes.   Modification of the display of entities When the entity first line is selected in the upper part, the one with the identification number, the corresponding blueprint is displayed in the lower part. To change this blueprint, just right-click on the current blueprint and choose " Change display ". Here is the part of the window corresponding to the change of the display in the Gedcom Editor for all individuals. The Blueprint window appears. Follow the instructions in the corresponding blueprint page.                     Aries editor The Aries editor is one of the three main editors of Ancestris. The philosophy of the Aries editor comes from the need for ergonomy and exhaustiveness. The possibility of being able to provide all the information allowed by the Gedcom standard . In a user-friendly interface with ergonomic windows The advantage is to be able to do everything, from A to Z, from Alpha to Omega. Did you know? Its name comes from the constellation of Aries, the first constellation of the zodiac, crossed by the sun in spring. The horns of Aries, in the shape of spirals, also symbolize the impulse towards life, the eternal restarting or rebirth of life, of light, also corresponding to the beginning of spring in the cycle of seasons. The possibilities of Aries are numerous and cover 100% of the needs. The compromise is that adding the same information can be done in several ways and you will have to choose your most efficient mode. There is something for everyone, and Ancestris users often choose to use two main editors: Aries + Gedcom, or Cygnus + Gedcom. Some prefer to use only the Gedcom editor. Here is a comparison of the 3 editors if you still had to make a choice.   Cygnus Gedcom Aries Focus The individual and his close environment The Gedcom standard Completeness of information Ease of use ++ +++ + Ergonomics +++ + +++ Coverage of needs 80% 100% 100% Data Transparency + +++ ++ Efficiency +++ + + Editable Gedcom entities Many All All Compliance with Gedcom standard 100% 100% 100%     Description and Usage The appearance of the Ares Editor depends on the entity category selected. The following therefore describes the Aries Editor for editing each of the 7 existing entity categories in the Gedcom standard. For each of these categories, Aries uses editing features such as lists, edit buttons and tabs that are used in the same way. These common editing devices are described only once. Aries toolbar The Aries editor offers a group of buttons in the Toolbar of the main window, for greater efficiency. The first button is a shortcut to open an Aries editor on the current entity. The other buttons open an Aries editor to create an entity of each of the corresponding entity. Individual Entity When the selected entity is an individual, the Aries Editor is divided horizontally into two areas: its description at the top, events and relationships at the bottom, with tabs. Description of the Individual The upper area is dedicated to the description of the individual. Photo On the left, you find a placeholder to associate an image with the selected individual. Click on the image to edit it, or on the blank placeholder to load one. Right-click on the picture to add one. The photo displayed here will the first one found in the entity. To change the order of the photo in the entity, use the Gedcom editor and move the corresponding property with the mouse. To delete a photo, delete it from the Gedcom editor as well. Right-clicking under the photo displays the Context Menu for that individual.   Sex The Sex drop-down menu allows you to enter one of the values Unknown, Male and Female. ID number On the top right corner, you will find the identification number of the selected individual, possibly preceded by his/her Sosa number if it was generated. Padlock At the top right is also a Padlock button . It marks the entity as confidential if pressed. Name Tab The Name tab contains the following fields: Name type : leave blank or choose one of the items from the drop-down list. First name : choose from a list of first names already known in the genealogy. Family name : choose from a list of names already known in genealogy. Nick name : type in a nick name for the individual if he/she has one. The Display Prefixes and Suffixes check box displays the following 3 fields you can also fill in: Name Prefix Family name prefix Name Suffix Notes Tab Notes can be added at the individual's name level. This tab is used in a similar manner throughout the Aries Editor. Apart from this difference in name attachment, you will find its use in the Notes Tab of an individual . Sources tab Sources can be added at the level of the individual's name. This tab is used in a similar manner throughout the Aries Editor. Apart from this difference in name attachment, you will find its use in the Sources Tab of an event . Other names tab This is a list to add alternative Firstnames and Lastnames to the selected individual. Here is an example: Editing other names is done with the Edit buttons and brings up a window similar to the whole Name tab already seen above, with three tabs (name, note, sources).   Events and Relationships with the Individual The lower area is dedicated to the events of the individual, and to the relationships of this individual with other entities. Events tab This tab allows you to manage a list of events. It is displayed above. It has a drop down menu and a list of events on the left, and the description of each event on the right with several tabs: Details, Sources, Notes, Gallery. The separation bar between the two can be moved and its position is remembered from one time to the next. List of events The Add Event drop-down menu offers a choice of events to add to the list underneath   The menu lists the most common types of events, both those that can happen only once in a person's life (such as birth or death...) and those that can happen several times (such as occupation, residence or union).   If you don't find what you are looking for, choose the Event type. It is generic and allows you to add a category of events not provided for in the menu. Next, specify the nature of the event in the Event drop-down menu located on the Details tab below.   The list of events displays the different events of the individual, but does not display those of his family, which are in the Family entity . Clicking on an event selects it and displays its details on the right.   Details tab It displays the details of the selected event in the event list. The drop-down menu at the top appears only for certain types of events, such as Religion, Occupation that justify some additional specificity. It lets you specify the event specificity This information is the value of the event tag itself (see tags and values ) Examples : for a Religion, it specifies the type of religion: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, etc. for an Occupation, it specifies the occupation: farmer, baker, civil servant, cooper, merchant, etc. for an Event, it specifies the type of event.   The button Associate a person to this event , located at the top right, appears only for individuals. It allows you to add another individual related to the event. Example: for a baptism, this button associates the godfather, the godmother, the priest, the witnesses. This button only allows you to add, not to modify As soon as the association is added, the associated individual is displayed in the selection list of the Associations tab described just below. The Padlock button marks the entity as confidential if pressed. Date is the date of the selected event, in the usual format . Place is the place of the selected event. To the right of the field, the Edit place button associates or searches a place to this event by bringing up the Place Editor. For more details, see the Place Editor . Responsible agency allows you to enter the name of the person responsible for the event. This can be the registrar, the director of an institution, etc. Examples For a French civil status act: the mayor since 1792, the priest before that date For an identity card: the mayor For a diploma: the headmaster, etc. Event cause allows you to grasp what caused the event when it is an accidental event, an unforeseen event. Examples: cause of Death, cause of move or immigration, etc. Event descriptor allows you to enter additional details. Warning notice: this is *not* a note. This field corresponds to the TYPE tag. Age displays the calculated age of the individual at the date of the event. Sources Tab Sources can be added to the selected event using the Sources Tab. This tab is used in a similar manner throughout the Aries Editor. It is described here. It is in the form of a selection list with the Edit buttons . Each line corresponds to a source citation. A source citation usually refers to a shared source and specifies one of the events, its date and the individual's role in the event. The 5 columns' values are derived from the source citation information window that appears when you click on the edit buttons. Source Events : this is the type of event mentioned in the source. Source Description : This is the name of the referenced Source entity. Page(s) : The number of the page in the referenced source. Has multimedia object(s) : "yes" if a media is attached to the source. Has Note(s) : "yes" if a note is indicated with to the source. The two buttons at the top right are the Edit buttons : The Link button attaches the Source entity to the event. For example, a birth certificate at a birth The Edit button edits the Source entity. The source needs to be attached at the event level, via these 2 buttons. You can attach for example birth and death certificates, after having previously entered and documented them in Source Entities . The other fields are: Role in event : this is a free text but roles such as husband, wife, father, mother, wife, child are proposed. Certainty assessment : qualifies the quality of the information according to the following predefined criteria: Recording date : date when the vent was recorded, and therefore not necessarily the date of the event of the individual we have been talking about since the beginning. Text from source : extract of the source text justifying the individual's event. If the text of the source has already been transcribed in the Source entity, it is not worthwhile to put it here. The Notes Tab and Gallery Tab of the window modifying the quotation characterize the source quotation. These tabs are used throughout the Aries Editor like the other Notes and Gallery tabs. Apart from this difference in how they are attached to source citations, you will find their use in the Notes Tab and Gallery Tab of an individual. Regarding the photos of the sources (deeds, certificates, etc.), they'd rather be put in the gallery of the source than the gallery of the individual. Notes Tab Notes can be added to an individual's event using the Notes Tab. This tab is used throughout the Aries editor. Apart from this difference in the attachment to events, you will find its use in the Notes Tab of an individual. Gallery tab Media can be added to an individual's event using the Gallery Tab. We will put here, at the level of the event, the photos of the individual at the time of these events. This tab is similarly used throughout the Aries editor. Apart from this difference in the attachment to events, you will find its use in the Gallery Tab of an individual.   Parents and Siblings tab This tab manages the parents and siblings of the selected individual. This tab is in the form of a Tree list with Edit buttons . Their principle is the same as described in the corresponding paragraph, namely : The button Add parents to that person allows you to add the father and mother of the selected individual. A new window of the Aries editor opens on a Family entity, where you can specify the parents. The Link to an existing family button allows you to create a genealogical link between the selected individual and an existing family in the genealogy. A new window is displayed with a list of already registered families. The Edit Selected Family button edits the family that is selected in the list underneath.  Aries opens a new editor positioned on the family. The Delete Selected Family button deletes the family that is selected in the list underneath. Spouses and children tab This tab manages the different spouses of the selected individual as well as the children he or she has had with each of them. This tab is in the form of a Tree list with Edit buttons . Principles are the same as the tab described above. Sources Tab Sources can be added to the individual directly through a Sources Tab. This tab is used throughout the Aries Editor. Apart from this difference in the attachment to an individual, you will find its use in the Sources Tab of an event . Notes Tab This tab is in the form of a selection list with the Edit buttons . The notes created or attached qualify the selected event. We can see that there can be two types of notes in the list: Notes Entities , therefore shareable with other entities of the genealogy, identified by an ID number. Specific (embedded) notes , not shareable, without ID number. See shared information for more details. With the create button it is possible to create a shared Note Entity or a note specific to the event (therefore embedded) as indicated by the check mark in the window that appears. With the edit button it is possible to modify a note. In this case, if the References tab is visible and if the window shows an identification number for the note, it is a shared note (window below). Otherwise it is a specific note (similar to the window above). The References tab is described below. Gallery tab This tab is in the form of a selection list with the Edit buttons . The media created or attached qualifies the individual independently of any event. We will put here, at the level of the individual, and not at the level of the events, the pictures of this individual that will be displayed in the Dynamic tree . Note here the blue star which allows you to specify the media to be displayed by default in the family tree, in case there are several media to choose from for the individual. The buttons for creating, linking or editing a media displays the media editing window. Aliases Tab This tab manages the different aliases of the selected individual. An alias is a relationship between two individuals who are supposedly distinct a priori but who perhaps designate the same person.  Their identification numbers are different   Their names may or may not be identical, indicating that there is a possibility that these two individuals are in fact one and the same person.   When such a possibility exists, the user can create an alias in order to bring the two individuals together, so that the Aliases tab of the first individual will mention the name of the second, while, conversely, this same tab of the second individual will mention the name of the first. The presence of an alias expresses a simple hypothesis. If later it turns out that the two individuals are two distinct physical persons, the alias must naturally be removed. If, on the contrary, it is proven that the two individuals are one and the same natural person, the two records must then be merged. The Alias tab is presented in the form of a selection list with the Edit buttons . The Add an Alias button associates the selected individual with another individual by means of an alias.   The Edit selected alias button edits the record of the individual whose alias is selected in the grid below.This command opens a new editor window inviting you to modify the data of the individual. The Delete selected alias button allows you to delete the alias selected in the list below. The deletion does not remove the individual itself but the link between the two individuals. An alias is a reciprocal link between two individuals. Consequently, the deletion of an alias from the first individual, induces the automatic deletion of the same alias from the second individual. Associations Tab This tab manages associations between the selected individual and other individuals in the genealogical. An association is a link put between two individuals to indicate that one has been involved in one of the other's events. Example: the godfather of a baptism, the witness of a groom. An association is a separate link from parental relationships or aliases. The Association tab is in the form of a selection list with the Edit buttons . This list of associations contains the events of people in which the edited individual has been involved and the role of the edited individual in these events. In the example above, if we assume that the individual referenced being edited is called Jacqueline Bouvier, this means that Jacqueline Bouvier was witness of Caroline Lee's blessing (and not that Caroline Lee was informant of Jacqueline Bouvier's blessing). The associations listed here have therefore been added: Either by using the Associate a person to this event button on the Event Details tab of the associated person. In the example above, it is therefore by editing the individual Caroline Lee, selecting her blessing event, clicking on the association button, choosing the individual Jacqueline Bouvier and specifying "Informant".   Either by using the Add Association button in this tab: As you can see, it's the same window and only the person's name changes. It is therefore the starting point that indicates the meaning of the involvement of an individual in the event of the other. Either we start from the event that took place, and we go and look for the individual involved, Or we start with the individual involved and point out the event of the other.   Family Entity When the selected entity is a family, the Aries Editor is divided horizontally into two areas: the description of the couple at the top, and the events and relationships of the family at the bottom, with tabs. Description of the couple The upper area is dedicated to the description of the two individuals of the couple currently selected in Ancestris. ID number Before the couple, at the top right, the family ID number is displayed. Privacy padlock There is also a Padlock button . It marks the family as confidential if pressed. The couple The husband is on the left and the wife on the right. For each of them there is a description, which can be modified with the Modify button: Photo Last and first names Date of birth Date of death Depending on whether this description is occupied by an individual or not, the following buttons appear. Buttons The Add button creates an individual, male or female, in order to add him/her to the selected family. This button appears only when no individual is in the description . The Link button allows you to select the person you are looking for from the list of individuals already registered in the genealogy. This button appears only when no individual is in the description. The Modify button modifies the description of the couple's individual. Aries opens the edit window for an individual, as described above. This button only appears when an individual is already in the description. The Delete button removes the individual from the family. It does not delete the individual, it simply removes him/her from the family. This button appears only when an individual is already in the description.   Events and relations with the Family The lower area is dedicated via tabs to the events of the Family entity, and to the relationships of this family with other entities. The Events, Sources, Notes and Gallery tabs have been described in the Individual section . Children Tab This tab manages the children of the selected family, their respective spouses, as well as the children they have had with each of them. This tab is in the form of a Tree list with the Edit buttons and works as described in the corresponding paragraphs.     Multimedia Entity When the selected entity is a multimedia entity, the Aries Editor displays the exact name of this object in the Title field and, below it, the Image, Note and References tabs. The Note and References tabs are common to all entities. They are described in this page. Image Tab It displays the image associated with the currently selected media. Clicking on the image or on its location modifies it or loads another one. The Please choose an image window that appears prompts you to choose the file corresponding to the image to be displayed.     Note Entity When the selected entity is a Note entity, the Aries editor displays two tabs. For the purpose of the demonstration, we have created a note entity out of the note property provided in the Kennedy file example. The References tab is common to all entities. It is described below. Note text tab This tab displays the text content of the selected note, for consultation or for modification. This tab should not be confused with the common Notes tab present in the other entities. Indeed, the latter is used to list and manage the notes associated with these entities, while the Notes tab of the Notes entity displays the value of the note itself.     Source Entity When the selected entity is a source ensity, the Aries Editor displays four fields describing the source and then a few tabs underneath. The Notes , References and Gallery tabs are common to all entities. They characterize the source but their use is the same as described in the Individual section. Description of the Source Author : this is the name of the author or creator of the source. Title : this is the most important field in the record, since it is the one used by other entities to refer to it. Consequently, the user is strongly encouraged to fill in this field in a very precise and sufficiently detailed manner, so that the source can be identified without risk of confusion. Abbreviation : this is the abbreviation of a source, or an organization associated with it. Agency : is the person or organization responsible for managing that source. Source Text Tab This tab lets you enter or modify the source text as it appears on the original document or physical support. It is displayed above. It is by far the most useful information of the source. Repository tab It indicates the repository or storage location containing the currently selected source. There can only be one repository. This tab displays the name of the repository, followed by the Edit buttons : select the repository with the Add repository button or Link existing repository button edit delete it The buttons appear depending on the situation and work as described in the corresponding section. Buttons for selecting or modifying the repository One - and only one - repository must be indicated in order to locate the selected source. Whether you are creating or modifying a repository, the following window for editing a repository appears. We will see it in the Repository Entity section below. Once the repository is filled in, two tabs, Call number and Notes , appear underneath. The Notes tab is common to all entities. It characterizes here the attachment of the source to the repository, but its use is the same as the one described in the individual section. Call number tab The Call number tab lists the different references and media types used in the repository to specifically identify the source in that repository. Example: call number referenced Ref 192/3-17801 for parish registers in a regional archive building, in electronic format. For each item in the source, if there are several, indicate the name of the call number and the type of media (audio, card, electronic, card, film, newspaper, book, magazine, manuscript, photo, tombstone, video, etc.). Use the Edit buttons to add, edit or delete a call number / media type line item. Recorded Events tabs This tab lets you describe the list of different events in the selected source. For each date and location mentioned in the source, it consists listing the types of events that took place on that date at that location. The Create Source Event button creates a new row. It opens a window that allows you to define events for a given place and date. Check the corresponding events Enter the date of these events Enter the location of these events   The Edit Source Event button opens the same window for editing the information.   Publication data tab This tab allows you to indicate the publication details of the source, at least where and when the source was created. These indications are made by entering a free text. For published sources, the city of publication, the name of the advertiser, and the year of publication must be indicated. For unpublished sources, the date and place of the source must be indicated.     Submitter Entity When the selected entity is a submitter entity, the Aries Editor displays the description of the submitter and three tabs underneath. The first field, Name and First name, indicates the identity of the information submitter. The three fields below allow you to enter the three preferred languages of this submitter. The Gallery and Notes tabs are common to all entities. They characterize the Information Submitter here, but their use is the same as described in the Individual section. The Address tab is used in the same way as the tab for a Repository.     Repository Entity When the selected entity is a repository or storage location entity,  the Aries editor displays the following window: You enter the exact name of this repository in the Name field, and underneath, three tabs Address, Notes and References allow you to complete the description. The Notes tab is common to all entities. It characterizes the repository here, but its use is the same as that described in the Individual section. Address tab It allows you to enter the precise adress of the repository. It presents the fields of a classic address form (zip code, city, country, etc.). See picture. You can also enter the Internet details (e-mail address and website) as well as telephone numbers. References tab The References panel is in the form of a selection list with three columns. The table lists all the sources that use this repository. This References tab is also used in other circumstances, for other entities than for repositories. So more generally, the table is related to a given entity, and it lists all the entities that use that given entity. The Identifier column, which indicates the ID number of the entity using the given entity   The Type column, which indicates the category of entity   The Value column, which indicates the name of the entity (for example, for an individual entity, it will be the name of the individual). This tablee is for information only. It cannot be edited or modified. Examples : In the image above, the repository being edited is used by Sources S1, named Site Internet Achives. If a record individual I1, contains in his birth certificate a link to a source S2, this entity S2 will display in its References tab a line corresponding to the individual I1. When you are about to delete an entity such as a media file, note, source or repository, it is strongly recommended that you first check that the References table of this entity is empty. When this table is not empty, a deletion will generate a broken link of the entities using it to an entity that no longer exists.     Common editing controls The following controls are used in the Aries Editor in several places. Selection list This list is for consultation and selection of the displayed data. Selection : a simple click on one of the lines selects it. Edition : when the line represents an entity, a double-click opens an aries editor window to edit the entity clicked. Sorting : column headers can be clicked to sort. A new click reverses the sort direction. Move column : the columns can be moved with the mouse by clicking and dragging the column header. The column order is memorized from one time to the next. Tree list This is a list of individuals ordered in an certain way according to the genealogical hierarchy. It has a flap to unfold or fold the branches. This type of list is present for the editions of the Individuals ( Spouses and Children and Parents and Siblings tabs ) and Families ( Children tab ) entities. Selection : a single click selects the line. Edition : when the row represents an entity, a double-click opens an entity edition window. Sorting : This list is not sorted since it would disorganize the tree structure. Moving column : Columns can be moved with the mouse by clicking and dragging the column header. The column order is not memorized from one time to the next. Edit Buttons The Edit buttons allow you to create, link, modify, delete, prefer data. They are used by most categories of entities. These buttons work in conjunction with the selection list displayed below them. They appear according to the status of the list. Add Button The Add button adds an item to the selection list by creating it from scratch. Link Button  The Link button adds an item to the list without creating it, but linking it to the shared entity already existing in the genealogy. Edit Button The Edit button allows you to modify the indicated item. Delete Button The Delete button deletes the indicated item. When the item is an entity, the deletion does not delete the entity itself, but the connection only. Favorite button The Prefer button designates the default media to be used if there are several. This button is only used for the media of an individual (Gallery tab) and is used to designate which one should be displayed by default in the dynamic tree.                 List of places The List of Places is a list of all places and corresponding events of the genealogy. All places found in the genealogy are listed, with their geographical coordinates. For each of them, it is possible to see the events that occurred there. The sorting or filtering of the list can be modified, as well as the display format. It is also possible to merge places that should be identical, and to define or fix the geographical coordinates of those that are wrongly positioned. Description List of places The  List of Places is a two-level tree list: Places The events that occurred there The event level can be unfolded or folded by clicking on the flap : Places Each place line displays the following characteristics: An icon whose color indicates if it could be located by Ancestris or not Its name In square brackets, its geographical coordinates In brackets, the number of events that occurred there Places are sorted in alphabetical order. Green place icons A green place icon indicates a place that was found by Ancestris. In this case, the coordinates can be displayed in blue or black. Coordinates displayed in blue (example: [N40,0 W75,3] ) mean that Ancestris found the coordinates of this place on the Internet. Coordinates displayed in black (example: [N53,2 W1,6] ) mean that Ancestris found the coordinates of this place in the Gedcom file itself. You probably did save the coordinates in the Gedcom file at some point. Sometimes, some places might not be properly located, despite the presence of the green icon. To remedy this, see the instructions below to "repair a place" . Red place icons A red place icon  indicates a place whose coordinates Ancestris did not find. In this case, the coordinates are always displayed in red (example: [N45,0 W4,0] ). To remedy this, see the paragraph below to "repair a place" . Events Each event line displays its characteristics : The type of event in the form of its symbol (birth, marriage, occupation, etc.) The type of event The name of the individual involved in the event, followed by his or her ID number in brackets (Ixxxxx). If the event applies to a family (marriage, contract, divorce...), the line displays the name and ID number of each of the two members of this family, as well as the ID number of this family (Fxxxxx). The different event lines are sorted alphabetically by the name of the event and the name of the individual. Toolbar A toolbar at the top allows you to modify the display and apply filters. Display the map of places Button This button opens the Map of places view. Place filter field This input field is a quick location filter. It allows you to display only those places whose location includes the entered string. To use it, type characters and then press the Enter key to apply the filter. Clear the characters and press Enter again to remove this filter. Filter valid places Button Displays only valid places, that is places with the green world map, corresponding to places that have coordinates indicated in the Gedcom file. Filter invalid places Button Displays only invalid places, that is places with the red world map, corresponding to places that do not have coordinates indicated in the Gedcom file. It also includes places with coordinates in blue, that is places which have been "guessed" by Ancestris. Remove filters Button  Removes all filters Filter indicator This symbol tells you whether a filter is being applied or not. A filter is being applied when at least one place is not displayed. Hovering over this symbol brings up a tooltip indicating which filter is in effect. For example, here a filter is in effect to show only the markers for Joseph Kennedy's ancestors' events. Refresh places from the Internet Button This button triggers the search for places on the Internet. See the section Searching for coordinates of all locations for details. Run reports Run reports using the individuals involved in the displayed places. Export visible individuals into a new Gedcom file button This button exports the visible entities to a new separate Gedcom file. It is therefore possible to export visible individuals to a file that can then be sent to another person. This can also be achieved using the " File/Save as " menu. Format places structure Changes the structure of the place jurisdictions of the genealogy. Configure view Button This button opens the "change display formatting" window. See the  Customization section below.   Usage The List of Places covers several needs, which are as follows, from the most frequent to the least frequent : Search for a place in the list, directly by typing on the keyboard the place to be searched. Act on a place , with a right click on a place to display an actions menu, including the modification of the place. Act on an event of a place , with a right click on an event to display an actions menu, to select it or modify it. Search for coordinates of all locations . This is done at the first launch of the List of Places view, or from the Geographic map view. Search for a place The search for a place is done by first selecting an item from the list and then typing the first letters of the place you are looking for. A search window opens at the bottom left of the list, with the search string in it. The first line in the list that matches the string is then highlighted automatically. You can see above the first letters of "New York" that were entered, the search field appeared in the lower left corner, and the New Haven location line was highlighted. In order for the search field to appear when typing, first click on a place. Act on a place The Place List offers a specific context menu when you right-click on a place line. The context menu looks like the one below, identical whatever the location. Here, if you right-click on Hyannis Port: The following describes each action of this context menu. Show the location of this place on the map This action opens the Geographic Map view and shows the location of the place on the map: The same result would have been obtained by double-clicking directly on the Hyannis Port place in the list. For more details on its use of the map, see the page dedicated to the Geographic Map . Show place details found on the Internet This action displays useful information about the place: Edit this place This action opens the Places Editor to edit the place. This is generally how you will also "repair" your places: Reposition places that are poorly or not accurately located Find places that were not found (places with red icon). Note: when the Places editor is called from the list of places, it will edit all places of the genealogy that have the same name and coordinates. If you only want to edit the location of a particular event, use the Cygnus, Aries or Gedcom editor to edit this particular event, and then edit the single place from within the event. For more details on how to use it, see the Places Editor page. Copy this place to later erase another location The purpose of this action is to merge two places. The action copies to the clipboard the full name with its coordinates of the clicked place. You will later be able to paste it onto another place using the actions described next. The first place is the one you wish to keep. Copy the first one onto the second one to overwrite it with the first one. For example, I copy here the Jefferson place, which contains the event Residence of Rosemary Kennedy: Replace this place by the previously copied place This action is the counterpart of the previous one to merge two places. The place from which this second action is performed will be erased. At the time of this action, this place disappears from the list and the events that were attached to it are placed under the first place next to the events that were already there. In the following example, if I replace the place Hyannis Port with the one I have just copied:  I then find the following list of places, where Hyannis Port has disappeared, and Jefferson contains 4 events resulting from the merging of the two places: Refresh the list This action forces the refresh of the list and associated events. Modifying a place updates the list immediately, but it may be necessary sometimes to force this refresh. Change place display formatting This action lets you customize the way the places are displayed in the list and therefore to sort them differently. Refer to the Customization section below. Act on an event of a place After unfolding the list of events of a place, a right-click on an event shows a specific context menu for events. The following describes the actions of this menu. Select this event This action, also accessible by double-clicking, selects the individual in all Ancestris views. Edit this event in the editor This action opens the default editor, here it is Cygnus on the example, in order to make changes to the entity associated with the selected event. You can change the default editor in the Preferences . The name in the context menu of the event will then reflect the change. Help Displays this page. Search for coordinates of all locations How does Ancestris find geographic coordinates? When launching the Place List view or the Geographic Map view, Ancestris checks the presence of the geographic coordinates of the places in the genealogy. If more than half of places do not have coordinates, Ancestris offers to retrieve them from the Internet: If you agree, Ancestris will retrieve the geographic coordinates of all the places in your genealogy on the free geographic database https://www.geonames.org/ . This search can also be triggered from the Geographic Map using the "Search for location coordinates" button in the toolbar. Depending on the number of places, this may take a few minutes. The progress of the coordinates retrieval is indicated by a progress bar in the Ancestris status bar at the bottom right. This bar grows when you click on it and you can stop the process. In case of connection problem or unavailability of geonames, you have this alert message: " Error searching on the internet. Use of the information of the places kept locally ". In general, the blue coordinates [N40,0 W75,3] are temporarily stored in a parameter file in the User Directory and not in the Gedcom file itself. The reason is that Ancestris is only suggesting geographic coordinates. It is up to you to choose the right coordinates to be saved in the Gedcom file. The impact of this is that if you delete your preferences, the temporary coordinates are erased and Ancestris will offer to retrieve again the geographic coordinates from the Internet. This temporary parameter file enables you to have the geographic coordinates without necessarily being connected to the Internet. The WebBook uses it in particular to generate the geographical map on its pages. Most of the time, the coordinates retrieved from the Internet are the right ones. If on the other hand the place is not referenced in geonames, or if the place suggested by Ancestris is incorrect, you have the possibility to correct it.    Green places but blue coordinates : suggested coordinates which remain to be confirmed by you.   Red places : coordinates not found. They are clearly highlighted so that they can be corrected later. In the list of locations, the locations appear in red. In the map view, they are placed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, at the latitude of Bordeaux and the longitude of Santander in order to attract your attention.   Empty places : also in red, empty places are not found. They are located at the beginning of the list of places and their marker is placed with the unknown places, in the Atlantic Ocean. In all 3 cases, it is preferable to confirm the correct coordinates via the Places editor, by right-clicking to show the context menu, and choose the action Edit this place. Geonames limit reached By default, Ancestris uses the "ancestris" account on Geonames to identify places. It is the same account for all Ancestris users worldwide. Geonames has an hourly usage limit. If you are under this limit, you will get the following message: All you have to do is : Create a free account on Geonames Activate geonames web services Indicate the identifier geonames in the ancestris options You may reach the limit if you do a search for many places, but in general, you should not be limited. To change the geonames account, go to Preferences, Extensions panel , Geo tab: Instead of ancestris , you will put your identifier when you have it. To create it, click on the button " Create a free Geonames account " which corresponds to this link https://www.geonames.org/login , and you will arrive on the Geonames account creation page: You create your personal account and a screen tells you that an email has been sent to you. Go to your emails inbox and click on the account activation link. Then you have to activate the geonames webservices. To do so, log in to Geonames and go to your profile (link on the top right of the screen).  Otherwise, it is here: http://www.geonames.org/manageaccount . At the bottom you have an area marked "Free web services". Click on the link and you should see this screen, where XXXXXXXX represents your Geonames.org account: Finally, indicate your Geonames.org account in the preferences, Extensions panel, Geo. tab shown earlier. Customization The only available customization is the places display formatting . You may indeed want to sort the places by country in this list, and from the largest to the smallest jurisdiction. As this list is sorted alphabetically, this means that you have to display the jurisdictions in the reverse order in which they are stored. This display order does not change your data. Customization can be done through the context menu of places: The following window appears. For example, by default, places are formatted in this order and without formatting effect: 0,1,2,3,4: If we want to reverse the order, we will therefore enter 4,3,2,1,0. If we also want the Country in bold and the County in italics, we will write this: By clicking on OK, we get the list sorted by country with our bold and italic formatting effects:  This customization also affects the display of places in the place popup on the map: Indeed, the jurisdictions of the city name are displayed as per the new formatting. Please note that the title is forced bold regardless of the html non bold style you may have designed. Table of places The Table of Places is a global place editor used as a spreadsheet, to help you edit and clean all the places of your genealogy. Description The Table of Places lists all the locations of your genealogy. Each line represents a place, and each column represents a jurisdiction. If a place is used several times in the genealogy, only one line will appear. Two columns with the stored coordinates are added after the jurisdictions. If places have different formats, Ancestris will display as many columns as the place with the largest number of jurisdictions, regardless of the place format defined in the genealogy (Gedcom header). For more details on the format of places, see the Places section . The list can be sorted on multiple columns , by clicking on the header of the column and maintaining Ctrl pressed. The columns can be moved with the mouse by dragging the header. A filter bar above the table can be used to filter the list for the places you are interested in. Column's order and sizes, as well as sorting criteria and filtered column are memorized for each genealogy. Toolbar The toolbar displays a number of filter and buttons to display the desired places. Filter by The  Filter by drop-down menu selects the jurisdiction column on which to filter. The list differs for each Genealogy since the list of jurisdictions is read from the Gedcom header file itself. The choice "*" filters on all columns at the same time. Text search field The input field is the string criteria to filter places. The filtered places have to contain this string in order to be displayed. Ancestris uses regular expressions to filter, letting you indicate smart filtering. Filter button The Filter button executes the filtering once a string has been entered. The Enter key can be used as well. Filter valid places Button Displays only valid places, that is places with coordinates. Filter invalid places Button Displays only invalid places, that is places with no coordinates. Remove filters Button  Removes all filters and displays the full table again. Filter indicator This symbol tells you whether a filter is being applied or not. A filter is being applied when at least one place is not displayed. Hovering over this symbol brings up a tooltip indicating which filter is in effect. Run reports Run reports using the individuals involved in the displayed places. Export in CSV format Export the displayed table in a CSV file. Export visible individuals into a new Gedcom file button This button exports the visible entities to a new separate Gedcom file. It is therefore possible to export visible individuals to a file that can then be sent to another person. This can also be achieved using the " File/Save as " menu. Format places structure Changes the structure of the place jurisdictions of the genealogy. Usage The Table of Places can be used to visualize all places, to edit them as you would in a spreadsheet, to search for a place on the Internet and edit it in details, or to export places. Visualization The table simply gives a global overview of all your places and let to classify, analyse them, etc. as in a table. Context menu / Show related events From each place, you can also identify quickly which individuals and events are association with a place. For that, a context menu accessed by right click can show you these related events. Select one to display the corresponding event in the Ancestris editors. Global editing You can edit places by directly editing the table cells. Either directly enter text in the cells, drag-and-drop other cell content or paste some text in cells. Validating changes When a cell is modified, the OK and Cancel buttons appear at the bottom right corner of the Table Places. For this, you need to have set your preferences to confirm changes (please refer to Preferences / Edition / Confirm changes for more details). Press Enter or click OK to confirm changes, or else press Esc key to cancel. If a change is confirmed, the cells of the Table of Places will be refreshed, potentially changing the order of the lines. In the editing mode where the modifications are automatically taken into account without confirmation, the simple fact of going to another cell validates the modification made to the previous cell. This displays the table again and is likely to change the order of the rows. For greater efficiency when modifying cells, it is best not to automatically accept changes in the Editing preferences. Drag-and-Drop You can drag and drop one cell or several cells at a time. When dropping cells onto other cells, Ancestris will maintain the same cell structure. For instance, in the image below, we are dragging 4 cells on one column and dropping them on the next column. Context menu for Cut / Copy / Paste To copy and Paste cells, select on or several cells and use the context menu to either copy or cut. In a second step, select the cells where you want to paste the content, right click to display the context menu and paste the cells. The content will be pasted in the selection in one of two ways: If only one cell has been selected for the paste, the whole copied area will be pasted using this selected cell as the top left corner. If more than one cell has been selected, two situations can occur: Either the selected area is smaller than the copied area : in this case, Ancestris will truncate the content to the selected area. Or the selected area is larger than the copied area : in this case, Ancestris will repeat the content throughout the selected area. Search and Detailed editing Double-clicking on a  place in any column opens the Places Editor where you can edit it. All events that use this place will be modified at the same time. Note: when the Places editor is called from the table of places, it will edit all places of the genealogy that have the same name and coordinates. If you only want to edit the location of a particular event, use the Cygnus, Aries or Gedcom editor to edit this particular event, and then edit the single place from within the event. Set place criteria If you need to align all places to a given place format, or if you want to rename or change the order of the jurisdictions, you will need to use this tool. From the context menu or from the toolbar button, the following panel will appear. If you change the place format, yo will need to indicate to Ancestris how you convert from the existing format to the new format. Use the Convert button for this. The following panel will appear. Follow the instructions and press OK. Once you confirm the transcription of the jurisdictions, yo are taken back to the previous panel. Press "Proceed and set places criteria" to make the change in the genealogy. The cells of the Table of Places will be refreshed. Exporting places Use the Export button to get a file with all the places of the list. The file will be in a TXT or CSV format that can be used in any standard spreadsheet software. It is also possible to partially export places using the clipboard. To do this, select the cells you ant to export, or type Ctrl+A to select all locations Ctrl+C to copy them to the clipboard. Ctrl+V from a spreadsheet to paste them Customization Apart from memorizing filters and columns, there are no customizable elements in the location table. Places editor The Places editor is an editor dedicated to adding or modifying places, by standardizing their name thanks to a database of places available on the Internet. The Place editor is only accessible from a place. It is not accessible from the menu bar. Description The window includes: a title that is important the name of the place to be modified or searched two lists of places matching the search place the list of all events that use this place in the genealogy buttons to retrieve details of a found place a positionning map details of the place a Parameters button the OK and Cancel buttons to confirm your modification Window title There are two possible titles for this window depending on whether you are editing the location of a single event or several at at the same time. One : it is the modification of the place of a particular event for a particular entity in the genealogy. Several at a time : it is the modification of the place for all the events that use it in the genealogy. All the events that use this place are therefore modified at the same time. In the case of the modification of a single place, you launched the Place Editor from one of the editors, Cygnus, Aries or Gedcom, and the title bar should say this: In the case of editing the place of several events at the same time, you launched the Place Editor from the List of Places view or from the Table of Places view, and the title bar should say " Editing all places like " and specify the name of the place. For example, here is what the window title says if you edit the place Dallas from the List of Places view of the Kennedy genealogy: Before validating the modification of a place, look at this title to be sure of the context you are in. Place to modify or search The Place field displays the place currently being modified or lets you enter a place to search. The Search button launches a search of the place on the Internet. It uses the Geonames database. This button is greyed out while the search is in progress. Lists of places found The places found correspond to all the places "similar" to the criteria entered in the Place field. On the left side of the window are two lists of found places, depending on whether they were found in the current genealogy Gedcom or on the Internet. Gedcom list Tab This tab has itself two lists that work together: At the top, the list of places found in the Gedcom file of the currently open genealogy At the bottom, the list of genealogy events corresponding to the location selected in the Gedcom list. The event list has two columns: The Event column indicates the type of event (birth, baptism, marriage, occupation, etc.). The Description column shows the name and ID number of the individual involved in the event; if it is a family, the column shows the name and ID number of each member of the corresponding family. Clicking on the column headers does an alphanumeric sort of the rows. Internet list Tab This tab lists the main places found on the Internet - Geonames - for the last search performed. This list is empty when the window is opened. Buttons for retrieving details of a location These buttons are used to retrieve all or part of the details of a selected place from the list of found places. Replace Button It replaces all the details of the place to be modified by those of the newly found place. Complete Button It only adds the missing details of the place to be completed with those of the newly found place. Positioning map The central area of the place editor displays a map to position either the place being edited or the place selected in either of the two lists of places found. A scale, at the bottom left, allows you to adjust the zoom. This map offers a context menu that opens with a right click on any point of the map. This specific context menu lets you determine the coordinates of the point clicked. It contains the following actions: Copy these coordinates to the place fields : copies the geographical coordinates of the clicked point on the map to the Latitude and Longitude fields of the Place details. Copy nearest location to the place fields : copies the geographical coordinates of the nearest place of the clicked point on the map to the Latitude and Longitude fields of the Place Detail. Detail of the place The details of the place are in the right-hand panel. It includes the place jurisdiction fields - defined in the currently open genealogy- and the place Geographic coordinates fields. The list of fields displayed may therefore differ from one Gedcom file to another. The definition of the jurisdictions is done via Menu/File/Properties . Parameters Button It opens the following window, which matches the names of the jurisdictions used by Geonames with the current open Gedcom file. Follow the instructions that are displayed in the window and press OK. OK button Validates the modifications made to the place and closes the places editor. If the Places editor was editing all the instances of the same place, all of them will be modified. Cancel button Cancel the modifications and closes the places editor.   Usage The purpose of the Place Editor is to provide you with place names from around the world in a standardized format that matches the structure of your places in your genealogy. You may need this editor in several situations: Creating a place : you have an event that took place in a place that you had not yet entered. Using an already entered place : you have an event that took place in a place you have already entered, and you want to enter it exactly as it was spelt, to avoid ending up with duplicate places. Modification of a place already entered : you have entered a place and you want to make a correction to it, but it is used in many places in your genealogy and you want to correct all of them in one go. In all cases, the principle of use is the same: Search the place in your Gedcom or on the Internet Verify the place information: on the map and in the corresponding events in the Gedcom list tab Update the place details Validate Please note that places can only be deleted from the Gedcom Editor. Search the place in your Gedcom or on the Internet The search is based on the text entered for the place in the Place field . The search in your genealogy is immediate upon entering this text and the result is displayed in the in the Gedcom list tab . The search on the Internet is done in the free Geonames database of all places around the world once you click on the Search button . During the Internet search, the button is greyed out. Once the search is finished, the button is accessible again and the result is displayed below in the Internet list tab . If no place matches your search, or if the results do not match at all, you can change the search field and launch another search. Verify the place information The search results are in the two list tabs: internal to your Gedcom file, and external on the Internet. Positioning The selection of one of the place item in either of these lists immediately positions the place on the map so you can see where the place is located. Please note this only works for places with geographic coordinates, which might not be the case for all places of your Gedcom file. To fill them in, if this is not the case, you have to edit the place from the List of Places or the Table of Places, because the editing will be done for all events that use this place at the same time. Related events If it is a place already present in your genealogy, the list of corresponding events is displayed, allowing you to evaluate the impact of your modification, depending on whether you are modifying a single event or several.  Double-clicking on an event line displays the entity in the other views of Ancestris. This allows you to have all the details about this event. Update place details Replace or Complete place details from the place found Once you have found the right place, you can retrieve all the details of the place in your genealogy with the Replace button, or only the parts you are missing with the Complete button. If the place is retrieved from the Internet and this is the first time you are retrieving one for your genealogy, Ancestris will need to know the correspondence with your place structure. Indeed, places on the Internet generally have a different structure than yours, and Ancestris wants to be able to copy the right jurisdictions into the right fields. At this point, Ancestris offers you the Parameters window. All you have to do is drag and drop jurisdictions from the left into the right boxes and save. Ancestris will remember this for future times. For example, here is a correspondence after having assigned 5 of the Internet fields and having left out the field PostalCode. As soon as you click OK, the items you wanted are copied into the Place detail. Retrieving geographic coordinates from the map It is possible to enter geographic coordinates using the map instead of entering them by hand. To do this, right click on the map at the exact point or approximate (surrounding area) places you want to use. The context menu with both actions appears. The geographical coordinates are then copied in the detail of the place. Changing details To do the final touch to your place details, it is also possible to modify the elements that interest you directly by hand. These fields can be modified and an auto-fill mechanism makes it easy to enter already known jurisdictions. It works like this: if a low-level jurisdiction is changed, the higher-level jurisdictions are immediately changed as soon as you type, based on known genealogical locations. If there is no match, the higher-level jurisdictions are reset to their pre-entry value. Validate If you are sure of your change and you checked the window title to see if you were editing a single event or several, press OK. The window closes and you are back to where you were when the window opened. If in doubt, it's best to cancel your manipulation and start again. If you make a mistake, you can always undo it with the Undo button on the Ancestris toolbar. The key closes the window without validating.   Customization Three elements can be customized in this window. Jurisdictions The jurisdictions listed in the location details only reflect those defined in the properties of the Gedcom file. Before any modification of the location, it is preferable to check that they are the ones you want. Refer to the corresponding section to modify the properties of the file, accessible from the Menu bar, then File, then Properties. Window size This window is rich in information and its size is memorized. You can therefore enlarge it to the maximum to get a good view of the lists and the map. Divider bar It is possible to adjust the respective size of the map and the lists by moving the vertical separation bar between the two. Its position is memorized from one time to the next.                     Simple navigator The Simple navigator allows you to navigate efficiently through the family nucleus of the selected individual .   Description This simple browser displays the last selected individual in the middle of his/her close relatives. It only displays individuals and not entities from other categories. At the top, it displays the full name of the selected individual. In the lower part, it schematically displays the family nucleus in the form of an action button displaying figurines. The selected individual is the one that is not in the form of a button. Above are his/her two parents. On the left his/her big brothers and big sisters. On the right, first his/her spouse and then his/her little brothers and sisters. Below are his/her children. A button is greyed out when the person it represents does not exist.   Usage Hovering Hovering over a figurine gives you its role in the family. Click Clicking on a button selects the corresponding individual. The selected individual then changes and finds himself in his turn in the middle of the family nucleus. All other Ancestris windows will then update with the new selected individual to be displayed, provided they have not pinned the previous entity and the individual exists in the displayed selection. Here, after clicking on the spouse, this becomes the central individual. Long click If one of these figurines has several people, a long click on the button lets you display the list of people and thus select the one you want. Clicking outside the list will exit the list.     Customization This window does not have any customization possibilities.                       Extended navigator The Extended navigator allows you to navigate in the genealogical from the family nucleus, and to create individuals step by step along the way. From the selected individual taken as the center of its family nucleus, it is possible to move to one of his/her relatives (father, mother, brothers, sisters, spouses, children) with a click of a mouse. This person then becomes the center of the new family nucleus, and so on. This way of navigating can also be used to create the family nucleus: the context menu obtained by right-clicking on one of the individuals makes it possible to create the other individuals, and also to add sources and associated notes. Description The Extended navigator includes at trhe center the main couple made of the selected individual on the left and the other spouse on the right. Above are the parents of the selected individual, and below are 3 tabs for children, siblings, and the events of his/her life. Central part: the couple The currently selected individual is displayed on the left. The spouse of the selected individual is displayed on the right. If there is more than one union, the list of Other unions of the selected individual appears above this spouse. A simple click on one of the other spouses displayed in this list, moves this one to the Spouse frame. These two frames therefore form the couple currently selected. Top part : parents The two parents of the selected individual are displayed above the couple: On the left is displayed the father of the selected individual, On the right is displayed the mother of the selected individual. To the right of the mother is therefore displayed the list of Other unions of the selected individual as seen previously. Lower part: the lists The lower part displays 3 tabs giving access to the following lists: The Children tab displays the list of children of the displayed couple. Above this list is the date and place of the couple's union . The Siblings tab displays the list of children from parents displayed at the top. They are therefore the brothers and sisters of the selected individual. Above this list is the date and place of union of the parents of the selected individual. The Events tab displays the list of the main life events of the selected individual. Usage The purpose of the extended browser is twofold: navigate between relatives of the selected entity to consult the essential information of individuals of the selected family nucleus, modify, create, or delete individuals gradually around the family nucleus. Navigate between relatives The Extended navigator only displays individuals and families with their photo if they have one. It does not display any notes, sources, or other media. To make a desired individual appear in the place of the selected individual, it must therefore be selected in one of the Ancestris windows. This can be done either by this navigator if this individual is a relative to the one already there, or by selecting it in another view, or even using the search bar. From there, a simple click on the individuals in the various boxes or lists of the navigator makes this new individual the one who will be active. It is possible to go back in this navigation by clicking on the back arrow in the navigation bar . Modify, create or delete individuals Double-clicking on any of the individuals displayed in the extended browser activates or opens the default editor. This is the one indicated in the Editing pane of Preferences . From there, you can start entering changes. Right-clicking on one of the individuals displays the Context Menu for that individual. From here you can create a parent, spouse, sibling or sister for the clicked individual. The created individual then becomes the selected individual that you can edit in the visible editor, or obtained by double-clicking as previously. This same context menu allows you to add or link sources, notes, media, etc. This same menu also allows you to delete the clicked entity. If you make a mistake, press the Undo button in the toolbar to go back on a modification. This will cancel both a modification and a creation or deletion of an individual. Customization You can change the blueprint used to display the information of individuals from the extended browser. To do so, you just need to choose Change display of individuals from the context menu. You can also change the blueprint of families, provided you click on a family for the Context Menu. In this case, the blueprint manager is displayed. After modification, the new blueprint is immediately reflected in the navigator.                 Advanced search The Advanced search is a powerful tool to search for entities that match multiple criteria, throughout a genealogy. The result list can then be exploited in other Ancestris tools, in particular be positioned on the geographical map , be exported in a specific Gedcom file , be used in the Find/Replace tool , be marked as special entities , or be used for the Information Sheets of Individuals/Families report. Description The Advanced search offers two different search modes: Multi-criteria mode Search according to a set of predefined properties Multiple criteria Among the genealogy individuals The result of the search is a list of individuals Property mode Search according to any property Single criteria Among all the properties of the genealogy The result of the search is a list of properties, grouped by entity Toolbar The toolbar works in the same way for both search modes. Start Search Button This button launches the search according to the criteria entered in the visible tab, and displays the results underneath. The number of results found is shown in the upper right corner of the visible pane. Cancel Search Button This button stops the search  if it should last for too long. Clear Search Criteria Button This button resets the criteria and clears all fields. The criteria previously entered is kept in the different drop-down menus of each of the search tabs. Clear Search Criteria History Button This button clears the history of the drop-down menus. A confirmation request is made before deleting. Run reports Button This button runs reports using the list of individuals in the results. Export result entities to a text file This button exports the result individuals to a new separate text file. It is therefore possible to export selected individuals as a list . Export results into a new Gedcom file button This button exports the result individuals to a new separate Gedcom file. It is therefore possible to export selected individuals to a Gedcom file that can then be sent to another person. This can also be achieved using the " File/Save as " menu. Change Settings Button This button opens the Search Settings panel which lets you to set the following options: Maximum number of results displayed : limits the number of results to the first 'n' found. The default value is 5000 The checkbox Case sensitive forces the search to match upper and lower case letters. Multi-Criteria The Multi-criteria tab searches for individuals according to the predefined criteria displayed. The first two check boxes are used to limit the search to the previous results found, eiher from the Multi-Criteria tab, or the By Tag tab. This allows you to refine searches based on previous searches. The other criteria are explicit with the four first fields being the last and first names of the searched individual or his/her spouse. For each date, you can press the corresponding button to specify a precise date or a date range. If several criteria are filled in, all conditions must be met. In the example above, we are looking for all individuals whose spouse's name is "Bouvier", born between 1910 and 1940, and having the "US" letters in their occupation. If you want to reverse a set of conditions, simply check the "All but" box. The choice for the criteria family status looks throughout the life of the individual for the following statuses: Married : individuals have been married at least once Multi-Married : individuals have been married at least twice Single : individuals have never been married Divorced : individuals have been divorced at least once By Tag The By Tag tab searches for all the properties of the genealogy that meet a certain criterion. Like described above, the first two checkboxes allow you to combine successive searches. Search value The first field is the search criteria. It is a string of characters to be looked for. The Use regular expressions checkbox, when checked, asks Ancestris to interpret the search criteria as a search pattern, also called a regular expression . See the examples in the Usage section and check the internet for Regular Expressions . The "..." drop-down menu, located on the left, offers examples of the main regular expressions used. Search tag The field is the name of the Gedcom property, or tag, on which the search must be carried out. The Include sub-properties check box, when checked, asks Ancestris to also display matching values in the sub-properties of the indicated property. The "..." drop-down menu on the left allows you to choose among frequently used properties. List of results The list of results is displayed in alternating colors by entity, to better locate the different lines of the same entity, especially for the results of the search by property. Each result can be clicked. It will display the corresponding entity in the other Ancestris views and editors. As said at the top of this page, the list is usable in other views and tools. In the Geographic map view to view the features found on the map In the Save As function to make a Gedcom file extract In the Find / Replace function to make a targeted text replacement In the Special Individual marking tool Items can be copied and pasted using Crtl+A, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V One or several items in the list can be selected. Click on an item to select it. Maintain the Shift key and press click to select a range of items. Press Ctrl+A to select all results. Once selected, items can be copied using Ctrl + C and Ctrl+V for copy and paste. Usage The Multi-Criteria search is quite explicit. You have an example at the top of this page. We don't go into more details here. On the other hand, searching by Property requires a few examples. Search for a text anywhere The following example searches for the word "assassinated" in the whole genealogy. There are 5 properties located in 3 entities that meet the criteria. Search for a particular name The following example searches for all names containing the word "John". In the genealogy, the name of an invidividual is a property registered with the label NAME. You can find out the name of a label by looking at the Gedcom editor since in this editor each line starts with the name of the label. The result is 28 properties, in 14 entities. Search for data localized in a specific tag For example, if you want to search all media for individuals whose title contains "Bouvier", you would do as indicated below, indicating the full path of the tag INDI:OBJE:TITL by INDI, OBJE, TITL, separated with commas. You can identify the tag paths using the Gedcom editor. Search for first names ending in "hn" As soon as the search requests differs from "contains the characters", it is necessary to use a regular expression. In computer science, a regular expression is a word that describes a set of words. Regular expressions are also called regex (a word suitcase formed from the English regular expression). Regular expressions are derived from mathematical theories of formal languages from the 1940s. By clicking on the "..." button you have some basic rules for writing a regular expression. For example, the value .* (dot star) looks for all values that are empty or not empty, which actually looks for the existnce of a TAG. Another example, the word ex-(a?e|æ|é)quo describes all words that begin with "ex-" that end with "quo", and that in between have one of the following 3 groups of letters: "a or not" + e", "æ" or "é". So the words "ex-equo", "ex-equo", "ex-aequo" and "ex-aequo" are included. But the words "ex-equo", "ex-aequo", "ex-aeko", "ex-aequo" are not part of it. Another example if you want to select pure _SOSA numbers from _SOSADABOVILLE numbers: ^[^-]*$ selects all strings that do not include "-" because sosadaboville numbers include a hyphen in them, and would be exclude with this search criteria. The following example searches for all first names ending in "hn". The regular expression is written "hn$". And first name matches the GIVN label according to what you see in the Gedcom editor. Click Regular Expression and press Enter. Customization There are no customization elements in this tool. Validate Gedcom compliance and data consistency This tool checks your genealogy data for anomalies, in terms of incompatibility with the Gedcom standard and in case of genealogical inconsistencies . Description The window displays a control report. A table of contents lists the different types of controls performed, for which at least one anomaly has been detected, and the number of corresponding entities is in brackets. Then the sections follow. In each section, you have the list of entities in anomaly. Each entity number can be clicked. It selects the entity in the Ancestris views so you can see the details.  Usage This tool covers two major needs. a need for transmission and durability of your genealogy, since it enables you to respect the Gedcom standard as closely as possible a need to control the data that has been entered Depending on the size of your genealogy file, a progress bar appears to perform the whole analysis. The report is then displayed. Click on the entity numbers to display them in the editors and correct any anomalies. After correcting several anomalies, you can restart a new report that will present the remaining anomalies. You can also change the thresholds for triggering anomalies using the preference settings described below. You can ignore an anomaly for a given tag using with a _VALID tag placed under the tag that generates the anomaly. For instance, if twins are born on different days and you want to avoid the anomaly and confirm this is correct, just add the _VALID tag underneath the FAM:CHIL of both twins. Also, to confirm a couple with too many years appart, add _VALID underneath the FAM:HUSB and FAM:WIFE tags. You may want to add a NOTE as well to explicit your confirmation. To ignore anomalies with _VALID, you have to check the corresponding preferences (see next paragraph) Customization The controls to be performed are linked to the Preferences settings, Extensions pane, Validation tab. They are pretty much self explanatory so we will not provide more details at this stage. Merge duplicates This tool detects duplicate entities and analyse them, merge them automatically or manually if they are real duplicates, or confirm them as non duplicates if they are not. There are 4 ways to merge duplicates. They are described in this page. Global search across the whole genealogy file Automatic detection each time an entity is modified Manual merge action from the user to force the merge of two selected entities Drag-and-Drop or Copy of entities from one genealogy file to another The following window is used in all situations. Description The Merge Duplicates tool is made of 3 components. Entity selector window : this is where you select which entities you want to search for duplicates in a global search. Merge window : this is where you will see all potential duplicate entities, analyse each of them and decide whether or not to merge them. Special note for all non duplicates : this is where Ancestris stores all your confirmations that two entities are not duplicates. Before describing these 3 components, let's first introduce how Ancestris measures the likelihood of 2 entities being duplicates or not. Ancestris calculates a Ressemblance Score. Resemblance Score It is often difficult to assess with total certainty that two entities are duplicates or are not duplicates. Even a human person can sometimes have difficulty certifying that two individuals or entities are certainly the same or certainly not the same. Of course, it would be easier to limit the detection to saying that two individuals with exactly the same surname, first name and date of birth are duplicates. In reality, dates could be either missing or be approximate, first names could be in different order or incomplete, etc. In these cases, you would still want Ancestris to be able to detect something. Therefore Ancestris uses a resemblance score . The higher the score, the more some information is similar, and the more likely the entities are duplicates.  The calculated scores can range from 0 to high positive numbers above 100. It is not a percentage.  Ancestris will list the potential duplicates according to this indicator in a decreasing order, as an intent to tell you:" While this is not certain, given the similarities in the information between these two individuals, they might be duplicates. And this is the score of confidence that they are ". Then it's up to you to merge the pair of entities or to discard the resemblance. What this means is that Ancestris might show you potential duplicates that you will consider as non duplicates (ex: twins with missing information), and reversely, Ancestris might miss to show you some duplicates that could actually be real duplicates according to you.  Please accept our apologies if the detector is not perfect and please let us know if you find such instances. See below the setting of the Resemblance score threshold . Entity selector window When a global search for duplicates is launched, the following window is displayed. It shows the various types of entities and how many of each exist in the Gedcom file. Entity selection Check the entity boxes for which you want to search for duplicates. Only the boxes of entities that are present in the Gedcom file are enabled. In the example above, as there are no multimedia entities. Known non-duplicates In case you want to exclude known non duplicates from the search , i.e. those that you have already confirmed as non-duplicates, check the corresponding box. To see the list of pairs of entities that you have confirmed as non duplicates, press the "Show List" button. If you press the Show List button, the list of Non-Duplicates appear. It is described below. Minimum score A scale of minimum score can be used to help you exclude from the display scores which are to small. Setting your own minimum score is useful when many potential duplicates are found, but the main reason it extists is to give you confindence that Ancestris found all potential duplicates and did not miss any. A few words on how to set the minimum score. The ideal minimum threshold is the one that separates confirmed duplicates from confirmed non-duplicates. It does not exist in reality because some non real duplicate pairs can get a higher score than real ones in the vicinity of this threshold. This threshold depends on the genealogy of each user and is geneally between 40 or 50. You need to try several thresholds for your genealogy until you're satisfied that all duplicates displayed are mostly real duplicates, while still showing a few ones that are not, just to make sure you've got them all. Merge window For entities detected as duplicates, the following window is shown. This window displays one by one the total list of all potential duplicates where thescore is greater than the defined threshold . The list is sorted initialy from the most certain pair of duplicates to the least certain pair of duplicates, by category of entity. For each pair of similar entities, Ancestris displays the score indicator at the top. Large genealogies can have several thousands of duplicates. This window will only display the first 10 000 duplicates for each entity type. If your genealogy has more duplicates, you will need to merge these before seing the others. Title The  title of the window indicates the duplicate pair number displayed below, and the resemblance score that the two entities of this pair are in fact the same, and therefore to be merged. Message A  general message is displayed at the top of the winodw. It depends on the situation in which the tool was launched, as global search, automatic detection, or manual action. This message also helps understand the color coding used to display the information. Sortable selection list On the left hand side is a sortable selection list of all pairs identified as potential duplicates.  You can sort the list by clicking on column headers. Selecting the line of a potential duplicate will display the corresponding pair with the details in the right hand side of the window. The ' merged ' flag indicates pairs of duplicates that you have merged using one of the buttons below. Duplicate comparison details Each pair of potential duplicates made of two entities is displayed in the two columns. As title of each column, a button allows you to select each of the entities in the editors for more details. In each column are displayed the properties of each entities of the supposed duplicate. Values that are different are displayed in red . Values that are identical are displayed in blue for the left hand side entity, in grey for the right hand side entity. Values that are likely duplicates are displayed in blue on both sides. The purpose of the comparison is to merge the right entity into the left one if you confirm them as duplicate Therefore, a check box is available for each property on the right hand side to tell Ancestris to select manually what needs to be kept after merging them. The buttons are used to navigate within the list of duplicate pairs, postpone the decision, merge them now or confirm now as non duplicate. Button bar Search duplicate field  This field is used to search for duplicates in the list. Type the text to search in the entity names of the duplicate. Then press Enter. The Next and Previous buttons below can be use to search for the next and previous match respectively. Go to first duplicate Button Displays the first duplicate of the list in the current sort order. Go to previous duplicate Button Displays the previous duplicate. If a search text exists in the Search duplicate field, it will display the previous duplicate matching this search criteria. Swap Left and Right Entities Button Swap the left and right entities in order to merge the two entities on the left one and delete the right one. This is useful if most of the information to be kept after the merge is on the deleted entity. Go to next duplicate Button Displays the next duplicate. If a search text exists in the Search duplicate field, it will display the next duplicate matching this search criteria. Go to last duplicate Button Displays the last duplicate of the list in the current sort order. Close Button Closes the window. Non duplicate Button This button excludes the pair of entities from the potential duplicates . It marks the entity pair to be non duplicate and stores this confirmation in the special "non duplicates" note . Remove duplicate Button Removes the potential duplicate from the displayed list.  It is useful if you do not know yet whether the two entities are duplicates or not, and you want to postpone the decision . If a new global duplicate search is started, the duplicate will reappear. Automatic Merge Button By clicking the Automatic Merge button, the entities will be merged automatically and NOT using the check boxes. Ancestris will determine which information from the entity to be deleted should be kept and enrich the information of the entity to be kept. Ancestris lets you perform this automatic merge for 3 different possible scopes. When you press the Automatic Merge Button, the following choices appear. The choices are Entities of this duplicate only: Only the current duplicate displayed will be merged. Ancestris will detect which information to keep on the right hand side entity to enrich the left hand side entity. Then the duplicate will update and show only the left entity in green text with the resulting information. The Output window (Ctrl+T) will list the merge entities and the score. You can analyse this file and save it as reference. All entities of the current search only: The automatic merge described above will be performed for all duplicates of the list with a score above a given score.You will need to specify that score in the field below. Only the first 10 000 duplicates of each entity will be considered. Use the choice described below if you want to merge the whole genealogy, not just the first 10 000 duplicates found. The merge window will remain open and will include all merged duplicates above the indicated score, as well as all the other duplicates. All duplicates including deleted entities will be removed from the list. The Output window (Ctrl+T) will list all merged entities. You can analyse and save this output file as reference. The whole genealogy:  The automatic merge described above will be performed for all duplicates of the genealogy above a given score, not just the first 10 000. You will need to specify that score in the field below. The merge window will close. The Output window (Ctrl+T) will list all merged entities. You can analyse and save this output file as reference. Manual Merge Button By clicking the Manual Merge button, the entities are merged using the check boxes . The entity on the right is removed from the Gedcom file and the information which check box is checked on the right hand side is added to the entity on the left or will replace the information on the left hand side. For information that can only exist once, it is only possible to keep the information from one of the two entities. As soon as the merge is done, the window displays the same duplicate in green with the result of the merge so that you can check that everything has been kept as you wanted. You can then move on to the next duplicate. Special note for all non duplicates A special note is created and updated in Ancestris to store the non duplicate confirmations. This note stores user confirmations of similar pairs that are actually not duplicates according to you. It avoids Ancestris detecting them again and again each time the global search or the automatic detection is run. This note has a reference name called "Non_Duplicates". The note is updated each time you press the Non Duplicate button in the Merge window or update the list using the Entity selector window . We have chosen to store this information in the Gedcom file itself because we value your efforts to analyse the entities and decide that they are not duplicates. We consider this information a valuable piece of genealogy information that has to be kept and transferred as part of the Gedcom file.  The Gedcom standard does not cater for this need, hence Ancestris choice to store it this way, in one single note. Should the Gedcom standard evolve, such as a NOALIAS tag, we might change the way this information would be managed. This note will appear as an isolated note. We recommend you do not delete it. The text in the note explains what this  is. You can see the list of confirmed non duplicates from the  entity selector window . List of non-duplicates You can see the list of non-duplicates by pressing the "Show list" button on the Detection Criteria window . You can sort the lines to find the entities you are interested in. You can select one or several lines and remove them from the list if you need to. Usage As mentioned above, there are 4 ways to merge entities. Global search across the whole genealogy file. Automatic detection each time an entity is modified. Manual merge action from the user to force the merge of two selected entities. Drag-and-Drop or Copy of entities from one genealogy file to another. Global search The purpose of the global search is both to identify duplicates throughout the whole genealogy and act on them , that is decide one by one what you want to do with each them, or let Ancestris 'mass-merge' all duplicates above a given score. Your decision for each duplicate will then be to either merge the duplicate, declare it as a non duplicate , or postpone the decision to later. You can launch the global search from the Ancestris tools menu. The duplicate merge tool works in two steps. First you choose which entity type you want Ancestris to perform the detection of duplicates, Then you choose if and how to merge duplicates in the Merge window. While using the tool, the genealogy is changed accordingly Entities you decide to merge are merged with the information you specified to keep or let Ancestris choose to keep, Entities you declare as non-duplicates are logged into the special note . Automatic detection The purpose of the Automatic Detection is to alert you in case the entity you are currently creating or modifying is a potential duplicate of another entity already existing in your genealogy. The automatic detection of duplicates is activated by default in the Ancestris preferences . As soon as you validate your entry in one of the editors, and if the corresponding preference box is checked, the detection automatically searches potential duplicates of the entity being edited. All potential duplicates are then presented in the Merge window , for you to decide what you want to do with these duplicates. In the case of the Cygnus editor where several entities can be edited at the same time (the individual , the family, the note, the source and repository related to an individual), all modified entities are checked and therefore Ancestris will list in the Merge window all the potential duplicates of all the modified entities. Manual Merge action The purpose of the Manual Merge action is to merge two entities, regardless of whether Ancestris detected them or not. Another purpose is to identify any duplicate for a given entity. This action is accessible from the Context menu on the current entity you want to merge with another one. When this action menu item is selected, Ancestris asks you which other entity the current entity is to be merged with. To really merge with another entity , pick the one you think is a duplicate. To just know whether the current entity has got duplicates in the genealogy , just choose any entity from the list of entities. Then Ancestris displays the Merge window with a list of potential duplicates among which will be the pair of two entities you chose and its corresponding score of being the same entity, which can be 0. The list will be sorted in decreasing score and and Ancestris will position the selection on the pair of entities you chose at the start. If the current entity you started from has no other found duplicates, only the pair of chosen entities will be shown in the list. Then you may decide to merge the current entity you started from with the other chosen entity, or any other entity from the list. Drag-and-Drop or Copy from a genealogy to another The purpose of the Drag-and-Drop / Copy entities across genealogies is to copy entities from one genealogy to another one using the mouse or the tools menu. Customization There are 2 customization information elements for the Merge tool. The automatic detection flag , stored in the Preferences in the User Directory . The non-duplicate pairs , stored in a special note. Registry records The Registry records tool helps you automatically add individuals and information into your genealogy from digitized official registry text documents. Another goal of this tools is to assist you in creating registry records for the benefit of other genealogists. This tool can be accessed from the Tools menu or from the Cygnus editor via the button in the source section. To get all the functionalities described in this page, you will need at least Ancestris 13 because the tool has been completely revisited. Principle To understand the tool, let's describe the process of entering information from an official text document into a genealogy file, and how it can be done using Ancestris. Process In the above image, the top row with the blue boxes shows from left to right all the possible steps we see to enter information in a Gedcom file starting from the source paper document. In the first step on the left, you have collected a source paper document. Let's say you found a birth certificate of a person you have been looking for a while during a visit to a grand-parent.  The second step consists in digitizing the document, scanning it or taking a picture of it. In our example, you now have your birth certificate in digital format on your computer. The third step consists in isolating the text you are interested in from the rest of the picture in case more than one deed or certificate can be seen on the picture. For example, if your picture of the birth certificate shows the whole page of a church register with a birth certificate before and after the one you need, or if it spreads across several pages, some cropping and stitching will be necessary. You end up with one single image only showing the full text of the certificate you need. The fourth step consists in transcribing the text in the picture into a text in a record. This is usually done by reading it, understanding it, and entering in a form the bits of information in the appropriate fields. For the birth certificate of our example, you will enter the date and location of the certificate, the name of the newborn, the birth date if it is different from the certificate date, the parents' names, and potentially the witnesses' names. The fifth step consists in saving that record into a registry file so that you do not loose the work done so far. This file holds probably other records of other certificates. You may want to store all records you have found into one single file, or have one file per city, or any other split criteria. In a registry file, records are not linked to one another, just like in a church or civil register. The sixth step consists in properly placing all the information of the record into your genealogy file where it belongs. In the birth certificate example, one of the parent may already exists in your genealogy and you want to link the new information to this person's record rather than recreating that person's record. Also, if you want to keep the proof of the information in the genealogy file - you should, you will want to create a media to store the digital image done earlier, to document it, and to link it to the new born record. To complete our example, your newborn person is finally showing in the genealogy tree, linked to its parents, and the media image can be seen to explain and justify all that. Of course, not all steps are performed for each document you can have. You can start with an already digitized document if you took a picture of it during a visit at a registry repository for instance You do not necessarily have to crop images if the source image is already showing the whole and only text you need You do not necessarily have to enter the record in a registry file and instead directly enter the information in the genealogy file. From the general process described above, we can see 4 different real life situations. We will now give an overview of how to perform this process using Ancestris in each of these situations. Situations Situation 1 – Manually type in the information seen in the document via the Ancestris editors (Cygnus, Aries, Gedcom) In the picture shown, the process performed above is represented by the orange row. This is the most common situation nowadays. It is made of only 3 steps (represented by the red dots) and 2 sets of activities (represented by the yellow boxes). Activities You have or you collect a digitalized document from a visit or directly from a web site, and you store this file in your computer somewhere. This is done outside of this tool. You manually enter all the information in your genealogy tree . That is where you use Ancestris. For that, you have the choice of 3 editors: Cygnus, Aries or Gedcom. They all have their advantages. They are described in this documentation.  The Registry records tool is not directly used for that situation. The Ancestris editor views are used instead. The benefit of this situation is that it is highly simple. On the other hand, it is highly manual, quite long and therefore error prone. For a marriage certificate for instance, you might have to create up to 10 individual entities, 1 media entity, 1 source entity . You will have to document all their respective information. You will have to link all these entities together.  Quite tedious, isn't it? What if all this could be done automatically? Well, that's where the Registry records tool comes into play. That is "Situation 2" described below. To make it easier for you, it is possible to switch to the automatic mode (Situation 2) from the Cygnus editor (Situation 1).  Just click the "Extract information" button in the Source section of the Cygnus editor. You will be asked for a file if the Source does not have any and you will be taken to the middle of Situation 2 described next. Situation 2 – Automatically convert an image to a registry record via the « Registry records » tool (Cropper & Transcriber) In the picture shown, the process performed above is represented by the light green row. Artificial Intelligence helps automate most of the manual tasks described in "Situation 1" and this "Situation 2" might become the most common way of doing it soon. It is made of 6 steps (represented by the red dots) and 5 sets of activities (represented by the yellow and grey boxes). Yellow tasks are done outside of Ancestris. Grey tasks are done within Ancestris. Activities You have or you collect a digitalized document from a visit or directly from a web site, and you store this file in your computer somewhere. This is done outside of Ancestris. You use the "Cropper" panel of the Registry records tool to visualize the raw image and crop out one image showing the text of a deed or certificate. You use the "Transcriber" panel of the Registry records tool to convert the text in the image into a record displayed as a filled-in form with the relevant information in the right fields. This is where the magic happens. See use case here if you are impatient. You save the record in a registry file.  You copy the record to your genealogy tree . The Registry records logic will propose the most relevant possibilities to merge the record into your genealogy tree and you will select one of them You configure what you want to include or exclude from the merge and confirm. Ancestris will do the rest automatically. It will create all relevant entities, fill them in with the record information, annotate some dates and places, link all the entities together and show the result in the editors.  The Registry records tool is used for that situation. Situation 3 – Get records from an existing Registry file via the « Registry records » tool (Recorder)  In the picture shown, the process performed above is represented by the dark green row. This situation has 3 steps and 2 activities. The difference with the previous two situations is that this one does not start from a digitized document. It starts from a Registry file that you might have done at a previous stage or that you received from someone else. A registry file in Ancestris is a simple CSV file complying with a known format: NIMEGUE, EGMT, or ANCESTRIS. Activities You have a registry file on your computer and you open it using the "Recorder" panel of the Registry records tool.  You select a record you are interested in and copy it to your genealogy tree in the same way as described above in "Situation 2" activity 5. Situation 4 – Producing Registry files for others to use "Situation 3" suggests that rather than using a Registry file from someone else, you can be the one producing Registry files that others will use.  Use "Situation 2" in that case starting with complete official registry pages and without copying the records to your genealogy. Only crop page images into single deed images, transcribe the text of each image into a record, and save the records. You can then export the file in one of the Registry formats, NIMEGUE, EGMT or ANCESTRIS. Info: a registry inventory is the manual operation of an individual or a genealogical association to collect and enter one by one in a computer all the deeds/certificates of a parish or civil status register with a more or less complete and exhaustive transcription of the information. The Registry tool is designed to assist you in such operation. Description The Registry records tool is actually made of 3 tools, each one in a specific panel, for a specific work situation and activities, each one with its own toolbar of buttons.   The Cropper   The Transcriber   The Recorder These tools have been introduced in the "Situations" section above. We will give all the details below about their features. Cropper The Cropper assists you in cropping images showing multiple certificates to produce images with only one certificate per image. This tool shows raw pictures of multiple certificates located in a directory, and lets you Crop pictures for each individual certificate by resizing the red box and double-clicking on the picture or pressing the Crop Image button. Number them using image filename root and index in toolbar. Store them in an output directory from where they will directly be referenced by the entities of your genealogy Gedcom file. The Cropper is used in " Situation 2 " above. Here is what the panel looks like. The panel shows a Toolbar of buttons. a information text explaining what you can do with the tool. a list of image files on the left hand side.  the image of each file on the right hand side. The image can be moved and zoomed in and out with the mouse. Toolbar Cropper button This button selects the Cropper tool.  Transcriber button This button selects the Transcriber tool. Recorder button This button selects the Recorder tool. Input directory button This button lets you define the raw image files directory. This is where you should store the images to be cropped. Previous image button This button displays the previous raw image in the list of files. Next image button This button displays the next raw image in the list of files. Mouse coordinates field This field displays the coordinates of the mouse on the picture. The main purpose of showing the mouse coordinates is to position and size the red rectangle on the picture. When moving the four sides of the rectangle, you can set its position and size. Reticle coordinates field This field displays the reticle coordinates on the picture in case you want to remember exactly where you put the reticle for some pictures. You can show or hide the vertical and horizontal line of the reticle on the picture by right-clicking on the picture. The reticle is used to define the top left corner of the image to consider. This is useful if you want to keep only the part of the picture that has the red rectangle size and shape, but starting from the reticle position.  If the reticle is not visible, both the position and the size of the red rectangle will matter and the image will be cut along the red rectangle line. If the reticle is visible, only the size of the red rectangle will matter and the image will be cut from the reticle point according to a rectangle equal to the red rectangle in size. It is as if the top left corner of the red rectangle was at the reticle position. What problem does it solve? If you have several pictures where you are only interested in keeping the right hand side of the image (e.g. right page of register showing two pages), and if the right hand side of the image does not always start at the same position in the picture, you just have to position the reticle from one image to the next, and not to adjust the four sides of the red rectangle. Output directory button This button lets you define the image files directory of the cropped images. This is a directory where you store the cropped images.  If you merge a record to your genealogy tree, this same directory will be referenced in the Gedcom file. Of course you can define more than one output directory. Image filename root field This field defines a root name - or prefix - for each cropped file. It can be a document reference in the repository or a page number of a register or any other prefix you would like to name your media file with. Image file name index field  This field defines the index of the next cropped image. If can be the certificate number in a register or any index you would like to define for your media files.  Resulting file name field  This field shows the full image file name resulting from the concatenation of the root part and the index part. Crop button This button crops the image along the red rectangle, saves the file in the output directory under the name shown in the 'Resulting file name' field, and moves to the next raw file in the list. Before pressing the Crop button, move the edges of the rectangle where the image should be cut. You cannot move the corners, only the edges. You can use the Reticle described above to redefine the top-left corner of the image to be considered. The red rectangle remains at the same position when you change images in the list.  Double-clicking on the picture also crops the picture. Configure view button This button displays the settings of the Registry records tool. Information button This button hides/shows the information about the tool at the top of the panel. Online Help button This button opens this documentation page. Transcriber  The Transcriber helps you convert a text image into a registry record. This tool shows the digital certificates in a directory, and lets you Identify and transcribe the type of certificate, the information on the individuals mentioned in the document, and the text of the certificate. Transfer the resulting individual and source in your genealogy Gedcom file with the 'Copy record to genealogy' button, Drag-n-Drop or simple Copy/Paste of each bit of information. Save the transcription in a Registry file using the Save button. The Transcriber is used in " Situation 2 " above. Here is what the panel looks like. The panel shows a Toolbar of buttons. a information text explaining what you can do with the tool. a list of file images on the left hand side.  the image of each file in the middle section. The image can be moved and zoomed in and out with the mouse. the Record editor containing the information of the image on the right hand side. The Record editor is described in the next section. Toolbar Cropper button This button selects the Cropper tool.  Transcriber button This button selects the Transcriber tool. Recorder button This button selects the Recorder tool. Folder button This button selects the image files directory of the images you want to transcribe. Previous image button This button displays the previous image file in the directory. Next image button This button displays the next image file in the directory. Top button This button shows the top of the image. Bottom button This button shows the bottom of the image. Contrast button This button improves the contrast of a section of the image to improve the readability and help you better understand what is written in the image. After clicking on the button, select a rectangular area of the photo. To exit the optimization, click on the button again. Automatic transcription button   This button automatically converts the text in the image into a registry record. The button shows 1 star for a 1-step transcription, and 2 stars for a 2-step transcription. The 1-step button is more accurate for handwritten documents. The 2-step button is faster. Here are some details to help you understand what is 'under the hood' and chose the transcription mode that best suits your needs. When clicking this button, Ancestris performs an Optical Character Recognition operation (OCR) on the image to get the text, and then a 'Document Understanding' operation to extract the record information from the text. These operations are performed by calling an internet service using an Artificial Intelligence Large Language Model (LLM).  Ancestris currently uses Mistral AI models. Ancestris calls the corresponding APIs (internet service endpoint). Using Mistral AI proves to be highly efficient at understanding all documents, typed and handwritten.  We recommend you define your own Mistral AI API key in the settings (see image below) because the API key we provide within Ancestris has a limited usage quota. For an occasional and non-commercial use, the service can be free. A paid subscription is also possible for better performance and extended quota. At this stage, with the way Ancestris uses the LLM service, the speed and the accuracy of the results differ depending on whether the document is typed or handwritten . This is why we have defined two transcription modes in order to use either the same model or two different models for the OCR operation and for the Document Understanding operation. Please note that this trade-off could just be due to our "improper" use of the models and not the internal properties of the models themselves.  Our recommendation is therefore the following. Use the 1-step mode for handwritten documents because it is more accurate . The downside is a generally longer response time to get the result. In this mode, the button shows 1 star . Use the 2-step mode for typed documents because it is faster and accurate enough . The downside is that is does not perform as well on handwritten documents.  In this mode, the button shows 2 stars . You set the API key and the transcription mode via the settings button in this shown section of the options panel.  With the 2-step mode, Ancestris will show you the text after the OCR operation in a popup window in order to give you the opportunity to fix the text if the transcript is incorrect.  With the 1-step mode, you will make any fix directly in the record fields of the record editor. Save registry button  This button saves the record in the Registry file.  Registry filename icon and name This component shows the current registry file name being used. Create record button This button create a new record in the registry. Previous record button This button displays the previous record of the registry in the editor. Current record index This field shows which record index is displayed in the editor. Next record button This button displays the next record of the registry in the editor. Delete record button This button deletes the current record shown in the editor. A confirmation will be asked.  Copy record to Gedcom button This button displays the Merge assistant window to help you merge the record in to your genealogy tree. Standalone editor button This button opens up a standalone window with the editor. It is useful if the image your are trying to decipher is showing in an application external to Ancestris. Configure view button This button displays the settings of the Registry records tool. Information button This button hides/shows the information about the tool at the top of the panel. Online Help button This button opens this documentation page. Recorder The Recorder is where you manage Registry files and Registry records. This tool manages registry files, that you either created or imported, and can let you Add, remove, modify certificates within a registry (use shortcuts for common actions and ALT+Z to undo a change). Transfer the individuals mentioned in these certificates to your genealogy Gedcom file with the 'Copy record to genealogy' button, Drag-n-Drop or simple Copy/Paste of each bit of information. Export the registry file in one of the available formats. The Recorder  is used in particular in " Situation 3 " above, and is actually used in any situation. Here is what the panel looks like. The panel shows a Toolbar of buttons a information text explaining what you can do with the tool the Record tables on the left hand side with the lists of records depending on the record types, birth, marriages, deaths, miscellaneous and all. the Record editor containing the information of the record on the right hand side Toolbar Cropper button This button selects the Cropper tool.  Transcriber button This button selects the Transcriber tool. Recorder button This button selects the Recorder tool. New Registry file button This button closes the current registry file and opens up an empty one.  If data was being entered, a message warns you to save what you were doing. If you confirm, the Record editor will be cleared and Ancestris will offer you to start filling in a new record. Open Registry file button This button lets you choose to open an existing registry file. You can open a Registry file previously saved by Ancestris or coming from other sources. The different file formats are automatically recognized (NIMEGUE, EGMT, ANCESTRIS). If Ancestris detects lines that do not comply with a known file format then an error message is displayed indicating the list of erroneous lines. Add Registry file button   This button lets you import the records of an existing registry file into the current registry file. The imported records will be added to the records already present. Demo Registry file button This button opens up a demonstration registry file containing examples of records for the Bourbon genealogy. Registry statistics button This button displays the number of record types per year included in the current registry file.  Search record button  This button displays a table with all the data contained in the Registry file for global verification and it helps you find a specific record in the registry file with the button .  Save registry button  This button saves the current Registry file in the ANCESTRIS format. If the file is new and saved for the first time, a file name will be asked. Save as registry button  This button saves the current Registry file under another name.  Export registry button This button exports the current Registry file in one of the following CSV formats: NIMEGUE, EGMT, ANCESTRIS. It starts showing the following window. In this window, you can specify the chosen format of the export file (EGMT, NIMEGUE, or PDF) the type of records to be exported (Births, Marriages, Deaths, Miscellaneous or all records) the name of the export file Registry filename icon and name This component shows the current registry file name being used. Create record button This button create a new record in the registry. First select the tab of the Record tables corresponding to the type of record (Birth, Marriages, etc.) you are going to enter before creating it. Delete record button This button deletes the current record shown in the editor. A confirmation will be asked.  Copy record to Gedcom button This button displays the Merge assistant window to help you merge the record in to your genealogy tree. Standalone editor button This button opens up a standalone window with the editor. It is useful if the image your are trying to decipher is showing in an application external to Ancestris. Configure view button This button displays the settings of the Registry records tool. Information button This button hides/shows the information about the tool at the top of the panel. Online Help button This button opens this documentation page. Record tables The tabbed pane on the left hand side shows five tables where the records of the registry are stored. These are the 5 record tables.   The births table   The marriages table   The deaths table   The table of miscellaneous records such as marriage publications and contracts, wills, burial, naturalization. The summary table of all the records, which is the addition of the four previous tables Each table is displayed in a tab. To see the contents of a table, click on the corresponding tab. Each line represents one record. A record can correspond to a deed, an act, a certificate, etc.  Click on the column title to sort the table alphabetically or by date according to the type of data in the column. To move a column, click on the column title and move the mouse sideways while holding down the button. Adjust the column widths for a better visualisation of the information. Right-clicking anywhere in the left part of the window displays the following popup menu. It is used to trigger actions that will be applied to the selected record line. Popup context menu The  Insert action inserts a record before the one selected. The Delete action deletes the selected record. A confirmation will be asked.  The Decrement ID record action reduces the record index number by 1 and sorts records accordingly. The Increment ID record action increases the record index number by 1 and sorts records accordingly. The Highlight the existing records in the gedcom action displays the index column in red backgrounds for the records that correspond to an existing source in the genealogy file. A highlighted record has a corresponding individual in the genealogy. A simple click on this record displays the individual in the Ancestris views. A double-click on this record rebuilds and displays the Dynamic tree with the corresponding individual as tree root.  The Create to clipboard a name for the image file of this record action displays a popup window showing a file name with a jpg extension. It indicates that this name string is in the clipboard. You just have to use it to save the image file with that name.  The Record summary action displays a popup window with a proposed text summary of the record. The Copy record to genealogy action does the same as the Copy button in the toolbar described above . It  displays the Merge assistant window to help you merge the record in to your genealogy tree. Record editor On the right-hand side is the record editor. You can edit the records content. You will notice that the Record tables and the Record editor work together. When a table is selected on the tabbed, the editor adapts itself to the type of record to be entered. When a record is selected in a table, the Editor displays the corresponding record content. The separation bar between the Tables and the Editor is also adjustable. At the top of the editor is displayed the location where the deed or certificate was issued. The geographic button on the right lets you change the location details. Below the place of issue are displayed all the fields of the record that you can change. A miscellaneous type record can be of any event type except Birth, Marriages and Death which have already their specific entry form. For a Miscellaneous record then, use the  first drop-down list of the form to specify the event type of the record. Each editing form is divided into sections and each section has a title with a button on the left. The title of the section indicates the type of stakeholder the data relates to. The button on the left of the title at the top lets you add or remove lines to be entered A '--' button indicates that you can only remove lines. A "+" button indicates that you can add some lines. Clicking on the button brings up the drop-down menu of displayable fields. You have to check them to display them. For example, here is the drop-down menu of the data that can be entered for the child of a birth certificate (these are all checked by default) In the form, the field being edited appears with a blue background. The form benefits from input help and keyboard shortcuts described below . Standalone Record editor The standalone button in the toolbar opens up a floating window with the Record editor. This is useful if the image your are trying to decipher is showing in an application external to Ancestris. For instance, your web browser could be open on one of the online repository of archived digitized documents. Usage The section at the top of this page describes the main ' Situations ' in which you can use the Registry record tools. Here we illustrate these situations with the following use cases. Automatically transcribing a document using the Artificial Intelligence service . Used in Situations 2 and 4. Copying a record to your genealogy. We will use a birth certificate example and a marriage example. Used in Situations 2, 3, 4. Understanding the both-way-link between the Registry records and the Gedcom file .  Efficiently editing many records using the editor: shortcuts, automatic checks, auto-completion . Particularly useful for Situation 3. Suggestions on how to organise a large number of images using Reference and Page values for the folder structure and the file name convention . Particularly useful for Situation 3. Automatically transcribing a document using Artificial Intelligence This use case is particularly easy. Select the Transcriber tool and select an image to convert into a record. Here, we take a copy of the birth certificate of Louis XIV. Here we start with an empty registry file to better show you what will happen. Click on the Extract Information button which appears, i.e. in 1 step , or in 2 steps . For handwritten documents, we recommend you use the 1-step transcription mode. For the document displayed, the handwriting is particularly well written and the 2-step transcription mode is performing well as well. We will show both modes below. Go to the settings if you need to change the transcription mode. One-step transcription mode On pressing the button , the following "wait popup" shows up. From experience, the waiting time depends on various factors and can range from a few seconds to a minute or two. Factors include the length of the document, the existence of the relevant information in the document, the availability of the Internet service, the type of subscription of the service. When completed, the following window appears. In case an error occurs, an error message appears explaining what the problem could be. The most common problem is that you exceeded the quota with the Ancestris free account to the service, so you might need to create your own API key. See here . There might just be a malfunction in which case repeat the operation. If it still does not work, try the other Transcription mode (1- or 2- steps).  In our case here, it worked and as it says, the record has been created and is showing in the editor. Let's review all the fields to check if everything was well understood. As we can see quickly, the name Louis XIV did not appear per se in the original image so the artificial intelligence service assumed the last name was Bourbon. We will need to make some adjustments. Let's do it. Here is the full record. Let's review. The location city and country where the document was issued is properly understood and the format used is the one of the record place. It is not necessarily the same as the currently open Gedcom file but this is fine: it will be properly transformed if copied to the Gedcom file.  It correctly detected this is a birth certificate. The date is correct The child information is correct except for two elements the last name that we need to edit and change to 'CAPET', the first name where we need to add 'XIV'. The birth place city and country are correct and the format used is the one of the Gedcom file currently open.  The father information is correct except for a few things. the last name that we change to 'CAPET' the life status that we should change to 'Alive' because we just know it from public knowledge (Louis XIII died in 1643). Otherwise we set it to 'not specified'. the age which should be 37 because we know it (Louis XIII was born in 1601). Not sure where the 41 comes from. Usually, the calculation is correct when the father's birth date is in the document. Ancestris tends to tell the AI model not to put information not specified in the document but sometimes the AI model does provide it anyway. Here, we will remove the age and leave it blank.  The mother information is correct except for The last name that we should change to 'Austria'.  The age that we will remove. The witness information is correct The summary is correct, and written in English because the Ancestris user interface is in English The deed transcript is all correct and written in the language of the document, French in this case. The media file name is correct. Nothing to do with artificial intelligence for this one. Here we had to make a few fixes. It is common to have correct results all across. The performance of the AI model is quite impressive. All that in a few seconds.  We now save the record to keep our changes by pressing the Save button  . Because the Registry file was a newly created one, Ancestris will ask you for a name and a location to save the file. This is a simple CSV format text file. That's it ! To copy the record to the Genealogy, the easiest is to just click the Copy record to genealogy button. We will see that in the next section below. Two-step transcription mode Just as a comparison, the same process using the 2-step transcription mode looks like this. A couple of seconds after pressing the 2-step button , the text appears. This is faster. As you can see, the text transcription is not as good as the one step process. It is because the text is handwritten. We have to make a few corrections. Here is the text once we made the corrections. Then we press OK and we get a slightly better result than the 1-step process. Indeed, this time the first name of the newborn is complete and the last names of the parents are correct. The last name of the new newborn is missing so we will still need to fix this one. The result of the Artificial Intelligence models keeps improving frequently so these results are only a description of what they are today in July 2025 based on the way we interrogate them. Copying a record to the genealogy Registry records can be copied to the genealogy using the Copy record to genealogy button or using Drag and Drop .  - Use the Copy record to genealogy button to let Ancestris show all possible genealogy entities on which to attach the individual of the record.  - Use Drag and Drop if you want to explicitly tell Ancestris on which genealogy entity you want to attach the individual of the record. You can also copy/paste some of the record fields text to your genealogy if you want to only consider bits of information. To copy a record to your genealogy, you must have both your Gedcom file open and the registry records open and selected on the given record.  To copy using Drag and Drop, these two windows must be side by side. Before you perform any copy, please check your Source type preference in the Settings.  See details here. Copy a record using the 'Copy record to genealogy' button Let's continue the example of the previous section. Press the Copy record to genealogy button . The following window appears. This is the ' Merge window '. The Merge window shows the record that was just created and adjusted on the left hand side, and the proposed entities of the genealogy on the right hand side. The proposed entities are all empty and new because the genealogy file is new as well in this example. We will see next that if we try to copy a second time after a successful first copy, this will show the existing entities. Here, we just press OK because we want to copy everything: the source, the individual, the parents, the witness. This next image shows what we get in the Cygnus editor. The result is pretty good. Cygnus shows all the information where it needs to be. Ancestris has added a note to the event and a title to the picture of the source. The witness is also showing. Please note the copy of the Witnesses information only works from Gedcom version 7. This concludes the copy of a record. In a couple of minutes, you have merged and documented inside your genealogy all the relevant information contained in an image. This involved the creation of 7 entities: 4 individuals, 1 family, 1 source, 1 media. To provide more details, we said that the Merge window looks different if the entities in the Gedcom file already exist. Let's check. If you press the Copy record to genealogy button one more time, the Merge window looks like this. We can see that this time, Ancestris has found corresponding entities for all the elements: the source, main individuals, parents, family and witness. Some general principles about this window. In blue are displayed the fields that match. In red those that do not match . In this example, the place is in red because the spaces between the comas have been added during the previous copy in order to respect the PLACE format of the genealogy. You can change the entities by selecting the proposal on top , or pressing the "..." button for the source in the first line of the Record column You can exclude a line you do not want to copy by unselecting the checkboxes in the middle column.  You can change the attachment within the entities by unfolding the lists in the Gedcom column. Hover the mouse on the cells will display an explanation tip. Copy a birth certificate using Drag-and-Drop Let's take the example provided by the Bourbon demo open the Bourbon genealogy and place the Bourbon dynamic tree on the left open the Bourbon Demo registry file in the Registry records 'Recorder' tool and place it on the right open on the 'All' tab. Once the records highlighting mode is on, it is easier to know which ones are left to be copied. However this is not necessary to set it on to copy records to your genealogy. We see that the records in red have already been merged into the Bourbon genealogy. We will copy Louis Joseph Xavier CAPET's birth certificate of September 13, 1751, from the record of births to the marriage of his parents in the dynamic tree via Drag-n-Drop. It is not already present in the Gedcom because it is not highlighted in red. The page of the birth certificate has been included in the page field above. It is the '1024B' in blue in the Records table and in blue in the Record editor. When we copy, the source will then be documented in the Gedcom file using that page number. Proceed this way to copy the record to the Gedcom: click in the table on the birth certificate, move it with the mouse by holding down the left button onto the family box dated February 9, 1747 in the tree and release the button. After releasing the mouse button, a validation window appears. It will intelligently merge the data in the tree. It is up to you to make some choices, but they are suggested by Ancestris. Choosing the merge option Ancestris offers you a merge proposal and allows you to check a box to see all of them. Several "radio buttons" allow you to select your merge proposal An overview of the proposal gives you a summary of the matches and the entities that will be modified. In our example, click "See 4 other proposals" to display the content shown. Choice of data to merge The data of the record is on the left Gedcom data is on the right The differences are in the blue boxes Only the data checked in the central column will be copied to the Gedcom. It is possible to uncheck the data that you do not want to copy. Choice of identifiers The column titled 'Identifier' specifies the entities impacted by the changes. Clicking on an identifier selects the entity. A click on "..." in the Source line allows you to choose a source previously defined in the Gedcom or force the creation of a new source. In the example, a new individual will be created as a child of the F9 family.   After choosing S3 as the source, and clicking on the OK button, the new individual with ID I178 is created in the tree : Below is the result of the data created for the new individual in the Gedcom editor. The birth event is visible and you can see how Ancestris documented it. The source has been added with the reference of the image in the PAGE property with value 1024B. If I had documented the reference, it would also appear in the PAGE property, just before the page number. See more about this PAGE value for the correspondance between the Gedcom information and the Record image file. Depending on whether the record is dropped on an individual, a family or in the empty space of the dynamic tree, the merging rule changes. If the target is an individual The tool indicates if there is another individual with the same name and date of birth in the genealogy to possibly avoid creating a duplicate entity in the genealogy. By default, the birth record is applied to the individual If the target is a family The tool indicates if there is another individual with the same name and date of birth in the genealogy even in another family. By default, the birth record is applied to the child of the family having the same surname, first name and possibly the closest date of birth if there are homonyms. A new child is created if there is no corresponding child. If the target is neither an individual nor a family (bottom of the dynamic tree for instance) The tool indicates if there is another individual with the same name and date of birth in the genealogy. By default, a new individual is created and the birth record is applied to it The  Copy record to genealogy button has the same effect as this third case. Copy a marriage certificate using Drag-and-Drop Now let's try to copy a marriage certificate. Drag and drop the May 16, 1770 marriage record from the table onto the relevant marriage in the tree. When you release the mouse button, the window already seen above appears with other choices to be made for the merge. As you have noticed above, the chosen record was highlighted, indicating that the data was already partly included in the Gedcom. Choosing the merge option Ancestris suggests to you the F10 marriage which already exists but you could check the box to see the 3 other proposals. Choice of data to merge Data in red already exists in Gedcom and is different. Data in blue does not exist or is the same Missing data are pre-ticked. It is possible to uncheck the data that you do not want to copy. We note that the data for the wife's parents are all missing. They will therefore be created Choice of identifiers The identifiers are already almost all filled in Concerning the parents of the wife François DE HASBOURG-LORRAINE and Marie-Thérèse DE BRUNSWICK-WOLFENBÜTTEL, they will be added in the tree with the creation of a new family and two new individuals Deduction of dates The dates of birth and death of the wife's parents are deducted from the data entered in the certificate. Hovering over the data in the Record column displays a tooltip that allows you to understand how these dates are inferred. The rule for calculating the dates is shown below . After clicking the OK button, the wife's parents are added to the tree and the F10 familly is updated. Tips for use and limitations Check your Source type preference in the settings before copying Records to your genealogy In Ancestris, some users may prefer to have one Source entity for several documents related to various individuals. Other may prefer to have one Source entity per document. In the first case, the text of the document will have to be attached to the individual event as a Source ' citation '. In the second case, the text of the document will be attached to the Source ' entity ' linked to the individual event. Before copying a record to your genealogy, make sure the type of attachment is the one you prefer. This setting is defined here in the configuration window. To quickly check while you are in the process of merging a record, click on the "..." button on the Source line. It displays the Choose Source window. In this window, you can see the option set is to have 1 source entity per record. It means in this example that the text of the source will be attached to the Source entity, not to the Source citation, which is inside the Individual Entity. Add records to the Gedcom file in chronological order It is best to copy the records in chronological order. To do this it is better to use the tab "ALL" sorted by date and add the records from the oldest to the most recent, rather than adding the birth records first, then the marriages, then the deaths. This improves the search results for individuals matching the records. Use the Copy record to genealogy button or Drag and drop outside of a tree entity It is possible to drop a record anywhere in the dynamic tree window, outside of a tree entity. In this case, the tool searches for the individual or family that best matches the record and displays a list of proposals ranked in descending order of relevance. Advantage : it avoids having to search the tree for the relevant individual. Disadvantage : the tool may not find any suggestions if record data is incompatible with the individuals in the tree, or, on the contrary, the tool may find several dozen suggestions if record data is too vague. Undo a Copy or a Drag and Drop To undo the changes made in the tree after drag and drop, click anywhere in the tree to select the Gedcom and press the CONTROL and Z keys or press the Undo button on the Ancestris main Toolbar. A single undo will delete all individuals created and all data that has been added by drag and drop. Rules for calculated dates Date deductions are made according to the following rules which are not configurable: Minimum age of marriage: 18 years Minimum age of parent: 15 years old Maximum age of parent: 60 years old Maximum age of an individual: 100 years old Uncertainty interval for approximate dates (EST, ABT, CALC dates): +/- 5 years Both-way-link between the Registry records and the Gedcom file  Highlighting records of the Records table that already exist in the Gedcom file Once records have been entered in register files, we will copy them into the Gedcom file. But before that, we might have to know which ones have already been copied. You may already have copied acts in your genealogy yourself. Or similar data may already be up to date in your genealogy. It is possible to see which records have similar data in your genealogy, i.e. in the Gedcom file currently open in the other Ancestris views. To do so, you must highlight them using the record context menu of the Records table . You have to uncheck / recheck the box to show the new records recently copied or used in the Gedcom file. The records already existing in your genealogy are those in red in the table. A record corresponds to an event in your genealogy if the two events are of the same nature, if both have the same date, and if the two individuals compared have the same first and last name. The location does not need to be filled in and the same to match. In case of duplicate individuals, the first one found will be the one compared, the other one will be ignored. If the checkbox is selected, the highlighting will automatically be updated if you open or close a Gedcom file in Ancestris. In the example below, 16 records have their Id field in red background and are therefore already present in the currently open Gedcom file. View a Record from an Ancestris view To view all the Registry records of a selected entity from an Ancestris view, you must already have copied the Record information to your Gedcom file. You must also make sure that the ' Show Certificate photo " checkbox is selected in the settings. Next, you will right-click on the entity to display the context menu. As an example, let's say you copied Louis XIV record to the genealogy tree. Let's call the  Context Menu by right-clicking anywhere on the properties of the individual. The following context menu appears. You notice the menu item at the bottom of the list: " Go to registry's photo certificate: Birth ". Clicking on this action displays a window showing the image files list and the image of the source. It looks like the following image. The automatic correspondence between the Ancestris view and the photo of the record only works under 3 conditions. In the Ancestris preferences, you must have checked the box Show "Certificate photo" menu in the views and add the photos folder in the list like this. See here . The information in the Gedcom file must include the event of the certificate as follows an event of the type of the record a place where the name of the city is that of the record.  a source must be indicated with a media including a valid file, or alternatively a PAGE sub-property, which must indicate the filename reference via a reference and a page, separated by a comma. See here . The filepath of the media file must exist, or alternatively, the folder of the photos on the disk, indicated in the image above, must include a subfolder with the name of the city of the register, in or under which the photo of the record must be located. See here. Efficiently editing many records using the editor Keyboard shortcuts for the Editor All the editor commands are accessible with the mouse or with "shortcut" keys on the keyboard. The use of shortcut keys is optional. However it allows faster mass input, avoiding the need to use the mouse and keyboard alternately. The arrow keys TAB to go to the next field SHIFT-TAB to go to the previous field Shortcut keys to create or delete a record ALT-N to create a birth record ALT-M to create a marriage record ALT-D to create a death record ALT-V to create a miscellaneous statement ALT-S to delete the current reading The Quick Move Keys ALT-1 Date of the event ALT-2 Individual or Representant No. 1 ALT-3 Father ALT-4 Mother ALT-5 Wife or Representant #2 ALT-6 Father ALT-7 Mother ALT-8 Witnesses ALT-9 General Comment Input help keys and the cancel key ALT-X: copies the name of the individual in the field of the individual's father's name ALT-Y: copies the wife's name in the field of the wife's father's name ALT-B: copies the date of the event from the record in the date of birth field of the individual ALT-=: copies the value of the same field from the previously entered record. This shortcut is particularly useful when the witnesses are the same from one record to another, for example ESC: cancels the entry of a field as long as the field is being entered and returns to the original value as long as the field is being entered. ALT-Z: cancels the changes made previously after leaving the field. Warning: the CTRL-Z key usually used for this does not work here. Space: enters a space at the end of the field to reject the other terms proposed by the completion function. This space is then automatically deleted. For example, if there are compound first names beginning with the first name you are currently entering, you must type an additional space at the end of the first name to refuse the secondary first names proposed by the completion function. Automatic checks and formatting on entry Alert on Missing date of event and name or first name If the date and name are not filled in, an error message is displayed before moving on to another record. It is advisable to fill in the missing data to avoid recording this important information. Alert on Duplicate If there is already a record with the same date, first and last name, an alert message is displayed to indicate a possible duplicate. This function can be disabled in the settings. Alert on New Name If a new name is entered, an alert message is displayed asking for confirmation of the new name. This alert helps in particular to avoid entering different and involuntary spellings of commonly used names. This function can be disabled in the settings. Name Case The name is converted to uppercase as you type. Case of the first name The first letter of each first name is capitalized as you type. Case of the occupation The first letter of the occupation is capitalized when entering. Removal of extra spaces Spaces at the beginning and end of a field are systematically removed when a field is completed. Automatic copy of the page number When a new record is created, the page number is filled in automatically by copying the page number from the previously created record. This feature can be disabled in the settings. Tip: The page number can be easily incremented by clicking on the buttons that appear to the right of the field, or by using the UP and DOWN arrow keys. Completion of surnames, first names, occupations and places As you type a name, names are suggested among those already existing in the register file. When the desired name appears, press the Tab key to interrupt the current input and move on to the next field. This avoids having to enter all the letters of a name already known. Exclude names It is possible to exclude names from completion proposals with the Exclude names option in the Preferences window. Auto-Completion with the current Gedcom It is possible to add the names present in a Gedcom file to the list of names proposed by the completion function by activating the option Link current genealogy for fields auto-completion and highlighting of existing records in the Preferences window . When this option is activated, the assistance uses the names, first names and occupations from the current Gedcom file to complete the words as you type. This option is particularly useful when starting a register and there are still few terms available for completion among the registry themselves. When this option is disabled, completion uses only the words present in registry already entered. Note: It is preferable to select a Gedcom that contains data from a place and date close to the register to be entered so that completion can provide data similar to that to be entered. Suggested folder structure and naming convention with many images to store The Record includes a File path value that points to the image file for easy access. For image search purposes, Ancestris will therefore use that file path value. If that value is empty, and in case many image files are stored on your computer, it is worthwhile to provide an optimized folder structure for search purposes, both for yourself and for Ancestris. In the Registry records tool, there is the ability to find a record image from the general search field of Ancestris and from the Ancestris context menu. To speed up the search, a partitioning folder structure should be used so that Ancestris does not perform a full scan of all the image files. With many image files, we therefore suggest you use the following folder structure and naming convention for the image file names.  Folder structure Several file organizations are possible. The Transcriber makes use of a folder structure matching the name of each city somewhere in the tree structure.  Example with subfolders by county, by city, and by reference Example with subfolders by city /mydocuments/genealogy/acts /Yvelines /Versailles /5MI_123 /DSC00117.jpg /DSC00118.jpg /5MI_222 /DSC00200.jpg /DSC00201.jpg /photos_a_trier /DSC00251.jpg /DSC00252.jpg /Saint-Germain-en-Laye /5MI_333 /DSC00300.jpg /DSC00301.jpg /Essonne /Palaiseau /5MI_108 /SAM00400.jpg /SAM00401.jpg /mydocuments/genealogy/atcs /Versailles /DSC00117.jpg /DSC00118.jpg /DSC00200.jpg /DSC00201.jpg /photo_a _trier /DSC00251.jpg /DSC00252.jpg /Saint-Germain-en-Laye /DSC00300.jpg /DSC00301.jpg /Palaiseau /SAM00400.jpg /SAM00401.jpg   Image file naming convention indicating the city, the reference and the page What follows is only used in the case where the file path value of the image file of the document in the record is empty. The Reference value is the official reference code of the source register (book, church register, registry inventory, etc.) as it is stored in the repository. The Page value can either refer to The page of the document in that register 'book', in which case the image file name should be modified so that then name ending matches the page number The last digits of the image file name of the picture that was taken of the document page. The following examples show how Ancestris will look for image files Starting from the record values of City, Reference and Page: examples 1 to 5 (general Ancestris search) Starting from the individual event in the genealogy tree: examples 6 to 8 (Ancestris context menu action) Example 1: RECORD values City=Versailles Reference=5MI_123 Page=117 Here the Transcriber will be looking for an image file: in mydocuments/genealogy/acts in the folder "Versailles" in the sub-folder "5MI_123" whose name ends with "117"  Example 2 : City=Versailles Reference=5MI_123 Page=DSC00117 Here the Transcriber will be looking for an image file: in mydocuments/genealogy/acts in the folder "Versailles" in the sub-folder "5MI_123" whose name contains "DSC00117"  Example 3:  City=Versailles Reference= Page=DSC00200 Here the Transcriber will be looking for an image file: in mydocuments/genealogy/acts in the folder "Versailles" and all its sub-folders whose name contains "DSC00200"  Example 4:  City=Versailles Reference=2E_456 (does not exist) Page=DSC00251 Here the Transcriber will be looking for an image file: in mydocuments/genealogy/acts in the folder "Versailles" and all its sub-folders in the sub-folder "2E_456" whose name contains "DSC00251"  If the folder 2E_456 does not exist, or if it does not contain the photo, it will look for the image file in the other sub-folders of the city folder. Example 5: the municipality is mandatory City= Reference= Page=DSC00117 Here the Transcriber will not find the image file because the name of the city is mandatory and not provided. Example 6 PLAC=Versailles,78, Yvelines,,, SOUR:PAGE=5MI_123, DSC00117 Same as example 2. Example 7: the reference is optional in the SOUR:PAGE tag. PLAC=Versailles,78, Yvelines,,, SOUR:PAGE=DSC00200 Same as example 3. Example 8 : the SOUR:PAGE tag can only contain the number of the photo, i.e. the last digits of the name of the photo. PLAC=Versailles,78, Yvelines,,, SOUR:PAGE=117 The Transcriber will be looking for all file ending with '117' in the sub-folders of the city. Customization Customize the tool via the Configure View button. This is equivalent to going through the Ancestris toolbar, Preferences, Extensions panel, Registry records tab. The options panel is organized in 3 sections. Editing settings Transcriber settings Copy record to Gedcom settings Editing settings The first two report settings trigger alerts during the edition of a record Link current genealogy for fields auto-completion and highlighting of existing records gives two possibilities in the Record editor, it adds the values of the current Gedcom file. See here . in the Records tables, it enables the context menu action to show or hide the records that are linked to the genealogy. Changing this setting in itself does not show it. Once you trigger this setting, you still need to activate it via the context menu on a record. See here . Copy source text to comment is used for the context menu that summarizes the content of the record. This indicates whether to add or not the content of the source text to the summary of the record. Please note this summary is also used when merging the record to the genealogy. " Copy... " settings ares an efficient way to fill in the next record created with information coming from the previous record. Activate auto-selection is a way to speed up the auto-completion of some of the fields. Because it forces strings to belong to predefined lists, this setting can be unchecked to have more freedom to modify an auto-completed string.  3 buttons let you exclude surnames, first names and occupations from the completion lists. Transcriber settings This section shows a list of directories where images are to be found . The "Show certificate" option adds an action item in the Ancestris context menu (right-click on entities). If the entity has a Source element linked to a Registry record, an action will be shown in the context menu to get you to the corresponding record. This section also includes the settings for the "information extraction service" based on an Artificial Intelligence .  The first field is where you enter the API key for Mistral AI. You get this key for free from the Mistral AI web site . The check box indicates whether you want to perform the transcription in 1 step (better for handwritten documents, but slower), or in 2 steps (faster but not as accurate for handwritten documents). Copy record to Gedcom settings This section helps you define how to merge records into your genealogy. Mappings for last names and first names provides equivalence when looking for similar individuals Source mapping indicates whether a Source should hold multiple records or a single one Multiple records is usually the case if you have defined a source entity in Ancestris as being a Registry book or a Church register for a given city. In this case you select " one source per registry file ". Single record is usually the case if you have defined a source entity in Ancestris as being a single Document for a given individual. In this case you select " one source per registry record ". The list underneath is used if a Source entity in Ancestris corresponds to a Registry file. In this case, the mapping is saved for faster search. This list helps you manage this mapping (add or remove correspondances). Tutorial There is an educational B-A-BA on registry records in PDF format and in French. It corresponds to version 9 of Ancestris. Following version 13 redesign, only some sections are still useful. You can  download it here . Genealogy compare The Genealogy compare tool compares genealogies to find common individuals using geographical areas with similar cities and lastnames, and similar events. It can both compare genealogies that you have locally on your computer and genealogies held by other Ancestris users. For this, you do no need to share any sensitive information to anybody. To compare genealogies with other Ancestris users, you simply need to let Ancestris share basic information such as lastnames, time ranges and location areas. Your genealogy is never transferred to a server or to anybody and private information can remain confidential.  If a match is found, you can contact the corresponding Ancestris user by email. An Ancestris innovation The idea behind this innovation is to leverage the data of the Ancestris user community without having to give the data away nor to upload it on a server. The objective of this tool is to find connections between genealogies, which will then help you develop your own genealogy. This tool is easy to use and gives you in just a few mouse clicks a quick overview showing whether two genealogies have anything in common. A genealogy can be compared with several other genealogies at the same time. These other genealogies can be made of local Gedcom files open in your Ancestris application, or they can be genealogies of other users using Ancestris at the same time as you. When comparing genealogies across different users, your data remains protected and you keep control of your data. This is a key principle of the Ancestris community we are part of. You can compare genealogies and find connections between you and other users' genealogies in two ways: In a proactive way , to identify the users likely to have ancestors common with yours, In a listening way , to identify these same users when they do proactive search themselves. Either you find them or they find you. Either way, you will benefit. Once users have found possible common ancestors, they can contact each other to find out more. They are free to establish the contact or not.  Common ancestors are only possible if they both share an event in the same space-time ! Area-period, a "space-time" concept In order to easily compare genealogies, we have defined area-periods. We have divided the physical world space into areas. These areas follow the definition of the Geonames database. An area is approximately a county in the US, a district in England or a department in France. In this tool, an area is made of 3 elements separated by a dot : the country, the first level of Geonames jurisdiction, and the second level. For instance, "US.NY.119" would be the county number "119", which is the Westchester county of the New York state of the United States. We have divided the time dimension into periods. We have defined periods of 10 years to match with the decennial tables that may exist in the official genealogical repositories. Each located and dated event of a genealogy can therefore be located in an area-period. An area-period can include several events. For instance, the area-period "US.NY.119 [1890-1899]" would include all the events that occurred in the Westchester county of the New York state between 1890 and 1899. As a result, two genealogies have something in common if at least an event of each genealogy took place in the same area-period. Data Privacy When comparing genealogies across different users, information sharing is carried out in complete confidentiality and following a deliberate choice from you to "share" some basic information about your genealogy. The basic information shared is the "flash list report of events" of your genealogy. It is made of city names, lastnames, and dates of events. None of this information is sent to a server. It is merely exchanged through temporary messages. Only users who agree to share their data can compare their genealogies with others. Private data can be hidden from the comparison Users can only see from your genealogy the events that they also have on their own genealogy. In other words, only common data can be seen by each user. Users do not have access to your computer. The data exchange works like a phone call . Your Ancestris application chats with the other person's Ancestris application and only when common information is detected can you see the corresponding overlaps and events if they exist. Pre-requisites There are 3 pre-requisites to use all possibilities of this tool. In order to compare genealogies , you must locate and date as many events as possible , and  you must specify the locations of your genealogy using the places editor . If you did not use this editor to structure your places descriptions, Ancestris will try to find these places directly in the geonames database and make the best of it. Dates can be approximated or use date ranges. Events that are neither dated nor located cannot be compared for obvious reasons. In order to compare genealogies with other users , you must fill in your user profile with a user-name, a picture and an valid email. The communications occurs on port 5448. Be sure that this port is open in your firewall configuration. Description The Genealogy compare tool handles local genealogies and 'connected' genealogies . Local genealogies are Gedcom files that you have on your computer. Connected genealogies are the Gedcom files held by other Ancestris users who have decided to share their genealogy for comparison. The tool compares one main local genealogy with all the other ones, local or connected. You decide which one of the local genealogies will be the main genealogy to compare with all others. Only the main genealogy of each user can be shared at a given time with the other users. Each genealogy is represented by a little window and placed into the display area of the workspace, the comparison area . The rest of the tool is made of a window title and a toolbar . The comparison area The central part of the window shows 3 types of windows : local genealogy windows, the main genealogy and the other ones connected genealogy windows comparison windows Local Genealogies Each open genealogy in Ancestris appears and is represented by a little window. The main genealogy to compare is represented by default at the top left corner and is a blue window The other local genealogies are represented by green windows. There are placed along the right hand side of the display area, around the main genealogy. These windows look like this: The main local genealogy in blue with 2 buttons The other local genealogies in green with 1 button Meaning of icons and check boxes The title of this window is the name of the genealogy. An icon is displayed at the left hand side of the window title: The tree icon appears when you are not sharing your main genealogy for comparison with other users, and only comparing local files Your profile photo appears when you are sharing your main genealogy with other users In the window are displayed four numbers: Number of individuals in the genealogy. This number is updated automatically if the genealogy is modified. Number of families in the genealogy. This number is updated automatically if the genealogy is modified. Number of area-periods in the genealogy. See above what an area-period is . This number is *not* updated automatically if the genealogy is modified. Because it can be a long calculation, it is calculated on demand when you decide using the context menu of these windows. See below for the context menu . Number of events in the genealogy. This number is *not* updated automatically if the genealogy is modified. It is updated when the area-periods are recalculated as described above. Two check boxes on the right hand side have the following purpose : or Compare: if selected, the area-periods have been calculated and the comparison becomes possible. To force a recalculation, use the context menu below. or Private: only applies to the main genealogy. If selected, the private information of the main genealogy *cannot* be compared nor seen by other users. By default, is it selected when the sharing mode is turned on. You have to select or unselect this feature. Context menu of a local genealogy A right-click on the window displays a context menu: Show user profile displays your profile. See below. Refresh locations and events forces a recalculation of the are-periods and events in case you have modified your genealogy locations since you last clicked the Compare checkbox. Your profile When you display you profile you should see the following window: Your profile displays the information you specified in the preferences of the Genealogy compare tool. See the corresponding section below . In addition, it displays the number of connections you made to other users and the period of time during which you made them. Connected genealogies The main local genealogy of another Ancestris user becomes a connected genealogy for you once they have decided to share it for comparison. Connected genealogies are represented by little windows below the local genealogies on the right hand side of the display area A connected genealogy can be active or inactive. It is active when the user is currently sharing its main genealogy. It becomes inactive when the user is no longer sharing it. Active connected genealogies are represented in red Inactive connected genealogies are represented in grey Connected genealogies look like this: Active connected genealogy in red. Comparing is possible. Inactive connected genealogy in grey. Comparing is no longer possible. Meaning of icons and check boxes The title of this window is the name of the user. A icon is displayed at the left hand side of the window title: The generic person icon appears when the user profile is not yet known by you. The user profile photo appears when the user profile is known. In the window are displayed four numbers: Number of individuals in the user genealogy. This number is updated automatically if it changes and the user remains connected. Number of families in the user genealogy. This number is updated automatically if it changes and the user remains connected. Number of area-periods in the user genealogy. See above what an area-period is . This number is updated each time you compare the connected genealogy. You compare a genealogy using the ' Compare ' check box described below. Number of events in the user genealogy. This number is updated each time you compare connected genealogy. You compare a genealogy using the ' Compare ' check box described below. Two check boxes on the right hand side have the following purpose : or View: if clicked, the user genealogy is scanned to detect a potential overlap between your main genealogy and the user's main genealogy. It can only be performed if the sharing mode is on. Once the user genealogy is successfully scanned, the check box remains selected and you need to use the context menu below to reset it. Otherwise it is unselected. or Compare: if clicked, the user genealogy is compared to your main genealogy. It can only be performed if the View check box described above is selected. Once the user genealogy is successfully compared, the check box remains selected and you need to use the context menu below to reset it. Otherwise it is unselected. Context menu of a connected genealogy A right-click on the window displays a context menu: Show user profile displays the user profile. See below. Contact user helps you contact the user by opening up your client mail and preparing a mail to their attention. Reset flags resets the View and Compare checkboxes. You can then scan again and compare again the other user genealogy. This can be useful is the user makes changes to its genealogy that affects the comparison. Hide user hides the user window. This can be useful if you have too many users displayed and you want to remove users with whom no overlap has been detected. User profile When you display a user profile you should see the following window: A user profile displays the information specified in the preferences of the Genealogy compare tool for the other user. In addition, it displays the number of connections they made to you and the period of time during which they made them. Also, an email button helps you contact the user by opening up your client mail and preparing a mail to their attention. Comparison For each comparison between the main genealogy and another one, local or connected, a comparison window is shown. A comparison window is represented by a little grey window and is placed by default between the compared genealogies and linked to them on both sides by a string Meaning of icons and buttons The title of this window is 'Comparison' and an double compared tree appears at the left hand side of the window title. The first element in the window is the overlap between the two compared genealogies. The percentage indicates the ratio of common area-periods over the total number of area-periods. In the window are displayed two numbers: Number of city-lastnames that are identical between the two genealogies compared. Number of events that are identical between the two genealogies compared. Two buttons are available on the right hand side of the window: Comparison map : displays a comparison map view of the compared genealogies and the common areas. See description below. Comparison list : displays the list of common city-lastnames and events between the two genealogies compared. See description below. Comparison map The Comparison map is the following window: This window displays your genealogy in blue circles and the compared genealogy, local or connected, in green circles. Each circle represent an area-period. See definition above . The larger the circle, the more ancient the period is. Common area-periods are displayed in red. Here we can see 18 area-periods in common between your genealogy and the Kennedy genealogy located at Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago and New York. Several periods can exist for a given location. For a comparison map with a connected genealogy, only the common areas of the connected user are displayed. In the example below, we only see 12 area-periods of Steven's main genealogy, called 'Collins'. These are areas in Boston and Vermont. As you can also see, the blue circles are the same as they represent the same area-periods of the my genealogy, the 'Harper' genealogy. Comparison list The Comparison list is the following window: This list displays the common lastnames found in cities within the common areas. A common area-period does not necessarily mean there will be a common lastname in the same city as the other genealogy. Above is the example of the common elements between the Harper genealogy and the Kennedy genealogy. While 18 area-periods were common between these two genealogies, only 2 of them have actually common events. Each match is displayed on 5 lines : the area-period in bold, then the city, then the lastname, then the full name of the person, then the event displayed in red, with the date and the location. In this list, a click on the red event line displays the corresponding event in the Ancestris editors. Obviously, this is not possible when the genealogy is a connected genealogy because the Gedcom file has not been copied across and opened in your Ancestris application. The export button at the bottom right corner can be used to get this list into a spreadsheet. Window title The title of the window indicates in brackets the number of genealogies, other than yours, currently connected to the Genealogy compare tool, and therefore available for comparison. Toolbar The toolbar looks like this during use: Local genealogies Button This button displays the currently opened genealogies in Ancestris. Clicking on the button brings up a drop-down menu listing the Gedcom file names. Only one genealogy can be selected at a time. This is the main genealogy and it can then be compared with the other ones. Connected users Button This button displays the connected Ancestris users excluding yourself. Clicking on the button updates the list. This list is also automatically updated approximately every minute. Clicking on the little arrow of the buttons brings up a drop-down menu listing the connected users with various pieces of information for each of them. indicates if the user is hidden or not in the comparison space. Clicking on it will show or hide it. This is the same action as the 'Hide user' action in the Connected context menu described above . indicates the connected name of the user. This name is defined in the user profile by the user. indicates the number of individuals in the user main genealogy. indicates the number of families in the user main genealogy. indicates the number of area-periods in the user main genealogy. indicates the name of the most frequent area in the main user genealogy and the number of events that occurred in it. A click on the column header sorts the table according to the column in ascending order. Another click will sort it in descending order. Start / Stop buttons  These two push buttons go together. The green button turn on the sharing mode. The red button turns off the sharing mode. When the sharing mode is on, the Gedcom compare icon changes and a connection line is made between the two trees of the icon. These buttons do not actually perform any comparison. Their role is to make declare yourself as a connected user and to open up your main genealogy for comparison. You then appear in the connected user list of the other users. Scan Button This button launches a scan of the connected genealogies sequentially, and calculates for each of them the overlap with your main genealogy. The scan may take some time and a rotating button is displayed during the scan with the connected user name next to it. As overlaps are calculated, the result appear in the comparison window. See above . Pressing this scan button performs the same action as pressing all the 'View' buttons of the Connected genealogies. Statistics and Results Button This button displays the Statistics and Results of the various comparisons. The 4 indicators to the right of this button represent the total number for all users including yourself, of the respective indicators in the connected list: indicates the total number of individuals currently 'shared'. indicates the total number of families currently 'shared'. indicates the total number of area-periods currently 'shared'. indicates the name of the most frequent area across all users and the cumulated number of events that occurred in it. The remaining 3 indicators represent the connections made to you: indicates the number of connection attempts made by other users to you. These are either scans or actual comparisons. indicates the number of users who made some connections with you indicates the number of users with 'an overlap with you', i.e. where your main genealogies have an existing overlapping area-period. Statistics and Results window This window is the following: It displays 3 sections of statistics: User activity: the cumulated number of elements shared by all users including yourself. Overall results: the cumulated results of the users who made some successful comparisons Your results: the result of your own comparisons. These statistics only include comparisons made across connected users. They do not include comparisons made between two local genealogies. Assistant Button This button shows an assistant window to help you start a comparison. This is useful if you are not yet familiar with the tool. Just follow the various steps to prepare your genealogy and launch the comparison. Arrange Window Button This button re-arranges the windows in the display area. This can be useful after you have moved around the windows, to display everything neatly again. Set preferences Button This button customizes your profile. See the Customization section below for more details. Usage The purpose of the comparison tool is to find common ancestors between your genealogy and someone else's genealogy. Either you get someone to send you its Gedcom file or else you ask that person to load it in Ancestris. Either way, you then use the Genealogy compare tool to assess the commonalities. Because you do not necessarily know where your next findings will come from, you can turn on the sharing mode on your main genealogy and wait for someone to have an overlapping genealogy with yours. In case you are comparing your genealogy with other user's genealogies, follow the instructions below. If you are not interested in comparing with other users' genealogy, simply follow these other instructions . Check connected users The first things you will see when launching the Genealogy compare tool is the set of connected users. They will appear as red 'Connected genealogy' windows . You will also see them by using the Connected users button of the toolbar. Turn on the sharing mode Open up your main genealogy . Feel free to open more than one if relevant. Go back to the Genealogy compare window . Make sure you select your main genealogy if you have more than one. It should appear in the top left corner. Press the 'Compare' button corresponding to your main genealogy. This will calculate the area-periods . Please note that the first time you calculate the area-periods of a genealogy, it might take a bit of time if locations have no geo-coordinates. Ancestris will look for them on the Geonames database. Once ready, press the sharing mode Green button . If the connection is successful, you should hear a ringing bell noise. Now, if people from the Ancestris community are also using the Genealogy compare tool at the same time, they will see you appear on their screen, within a minute or so. If your profile is not filled in, simply go to the Preferences and fill it in. See the Profile section in this page. You can then either wait for someone else to scan your genealogy, or else launch a scan yourself. The above steps can easily be followed using the Assistant window, accessible using this button: Scan connected genealogies Once in sharing mode, you can scan connected genealogies one by one or all at once. Click each View button of each connected genealogy if you want to pick which genealogy to compare. Click the Scan button in the toolbar to scan all of them. The scan will begin. You can see the little wheel turning and the name of each user whose genealogy is being scanned. The scan results appear as overlaps in the comparison windows. This scan is a efficient way to select and later compare only the genealogies where an overlap exists. Compare connected genealogies For genealogies that overlap with yours, you can then perform a comparison. Click the Compare button of the corresponding genealogies. The comparison starts and will also retrieve the user profile. At the end of the process, the photo of the user should appear in the window title and both checkboxes should be selected and green. Check for results Whether you made the comparison yourself or the other user did, you will both see the same results. A slight difference might exist depending on whether you both showed or hid the private information, or only one of you did. Final results are made of 3 levels: The overlap level : it indicates the percentage of common area-period between two genealogies. A common area-period only means that you and the other user have ancestors who happened to have events within the same area and within the same 10-year period. Nothing more. The city-lastnames level : it indicates the cities and the lastnames that are both the same in the common area-periods. A common city-lastname only means that among the ancestors events mentioned above, are related to people with the same lastname and in the same city. The event level : it indicates the events that do match exactly. Common events are among the ones mentioned above and match in terms of type of event (birth, marriage, death or other), in terms of lastname, in terms of city, and in terms of year. The overlap level is expressed as a percentage of all the area-periods of the compared genealogies. Both you and the other user should see the same percentage. Open the Comparison map to see where the corresponding areas are. The city-lastnames level is expressed as a number. The details are listed in the Comparison list. The event level is expressed as a number. The details are listed in the Comparison list. If no results are displayed, it means that there was no match. You can then hide the user using the checkbox in the Connected users list, or using the context menu the connected user window. Contact a user In case there are enough common elements between you and a user, you may contact them. For that, use the Mail button in the user profile or use the Context menu of the Connected user window. The email button allows you to automatically generate an email to this person with your email client. All you have to do is complete the email and send it. Special circumstances Updated genealogies : if you or the other users have updated their genealogy since the previous comparison, it is possible to reset it. Use the corresponding context menu, local or remote, to refresh the comparison elements. Inactive users : If a user has turned of the sharing mode, it will remain visible by you until you close Ancestris. It will no longer be possible to compare, but your last comparison will remain visible. It this user comes back sharing, Ancestris will reactivate it. Change main genealogy : You can decide to change your main genealogy to compare. In this situation, simply change the main genealogy using the Local genealogy drop down menu. Ancestris will switch local genealogies. This will turn off the sharing mode if it was on. You will need to turn it back on. Local comparisons The comparison between local genealogies is a simpler version of the steps above: Open the genealogies in Ancestris Go the the Genealogy compare tool Choose which one is the main one to be compared with the other ones Press the 'Compare' buttons of the genealogies to compare Check each results in the comparison windows. The same indicators as described above apply. Customization It is possible to customize your profile. Ancestris Profile If you want to compare your genealogy with the genealogy of other users, you will need to indicate your profile here. It serves two purposes: It generates confidence and thus you will be able to carry out comparison with other users. It provides your contact details to the other users, and provides an indication of your location in case some users live next to you. Of course, you can indicate anything you like in these fields, and put the picture of Zorro for instance. But as with social networks, you will sooner or later get banned and no one will want to let you compare your genealogy. So it is in your best interest to give the right information if you want to benefit from this comparison feature. Copy entities across genealogies This tool helps you copy genealogy individuals and complete family branches from one genealogy to another . From a main entity of your choice, this tool will copy it, attach it, or merge it to a different genealogy and bring along some or all the family tree linked to that main entity.  Only the main entity is attached or merged. The merge tool can be used to merge the entities brought along. This main entity can be any entity type, an individual, a family, a note, a media, etc. If local media files are linked to the related entities and are to be copied as well to the receiving genealogy, Ancestris will offer to copy the media files as well and attach them properly to the newly copied media entities.  This tool also lets you all the above within the same genealogy although it makes less sense to do that. This tool is accessible from the Tools menu , when using  Drag-and-Drop on an entity, and from the Context menu of an entity. Pre-requisites Both genealogies must be of the same Gedcom version and version 7 is necessary when using Associations. Description This tool is made of one single window. The principle of the tool is to perform 4 steps. 1/ Genealogies and entities selection : this lets you choose a first entity from a genealogy that you want to extract, and a second entity to which you want to attach it to or merge it to, 2/ Action selection: this lets you choose the action you want to execute, simple copy, attachment or merge, 3/ Other entities selection: this lets you select all additional entities you want to bring along,  4/ Local media files : this is where you check the local media files structure which will be created, Once done, you press OK to let Ancestris do all the work. At the top of the screen you make your genealogies and entities selection, below you choose the action, then you make your selection of the other entities top copy, and at the bottom is the information about local media files involved in the copy. Let's describe each section. Genealogies and entities selection At the top of the window appear two columns. On the left hand side is what we call here the " Source genealogy ". This is the genealogy from which you want to extract information. On the right hand side is what we call here the " Target genealogy ". The genealogy into which the extracted information will be stored. The target genealogy will most probably be your genealogy. The source genealogy will most probably be a genealogy you have been given from another family member or that you have collected from your research. For each genealogy are displayed two lines. The first line contains a list box of all the genealogies currently open in Ancestris. You use this list to select which genealogy is the Source, and which one is the target. By default, the selected source genealogy is the currently selected genealogy at the time of launching the tool. By default, the target genealogy is the one that was selected previously in Ancestris, or the same one is only one genealogy is open in Ancestris. Next to this first list box is another list box of the types of entity in the selected genealogy. By default are selected the type of the currently selected entities in the respective genealogies at the time of launching the tool.   The second line is the entity selector you use in other parts of Ancestris. It lets you sort the list of entities and choose the DeCujus individual if Individual is the type of entity selected above and if the genealogy has a DeCujus individual defined. By default the selected entities are the ones currently showing in the Ancestris editors at the time of launching the tool. When we indicate "Source" entity in this page, this is the selected entity of the source genealogy. It is not necessarily an entity of type "Source". You can see all that in the image above. The source genealogy selected is the Kennedy genealogy. The target genealogy selected is the Bourbon genealogy. For both, the Individual type is selected. As a consequence, the entity selectors in the second line are displaying Individuals.  In the selectors, John Kennedy and Louis XVI are selected.  For the Bourbon entity selector, we can see the DeCujus "123" button because a Sosa numbering has been created in the Bourbon genealogy. Of course there is no reason in real life to put in the same genealogy Kennedys and Bourbons, but it is easier to see what's happening in the tool by using these examples. Please note that the 3 lists on each side (genealogy, entity type and entities) are depending on each other. - When changing the genealogy selection, the entity type and entity are updated - When changing the entity type, the entity is updated Please note as well that all the information in the rest of the window depends on these 6 selections . When changing any of the six selections, the rest of the window below is updated. Action selection Three actions are possible and depend on the selected genealogies and entities above. In all cases, a copy will be performed. The choice to make is to specify if the copy is to be enriched with an attachment or a merge. Copy This action tells Ancestris, when pressing OK later, to simply copy from the Source genealogy to the Target genealogy the entity selected in the entity selector and all the entities selected below. This will be a simple copy. No attachment nor mege of any sort will be done. If this action is your intention, then the target entity selected has no importance and you can leave the default selection. Attach (= Copy and Attach) This action tells Ancestris, when pressing OK later, to perform the same copy action as above and to also attach the Source entity to the Target entiy after the copy has been made . You can pretty much attach any entity to any other. Ancestris will adapt the logic of the attachment. If you attach an individual to another individual, many possibilities are available. They are listed below in the table. If you attach a repository to a source, only one possibility exists. To accomodate all possibilities, the Attach action include some additional parameters you will have to select. The role of the individual attached from the perspective of the person it is attached to (father, spouse, etc.) The family in which you make this attachment The event to which  you attach a media, a source, a note, etc. The source to which you attach a repository in case you select an individual as the target entity. In the image above, you can see the role selection to be "son" and the family selected being "CAPET x MEDICIS (F11).  Depending on which entity you attach to which other entity, the text of the action and the available parameters are automatically provided to you by Ancestris. With the the table below, you will understand the purpose of having to choose these parameters. The choices provided to you also depend on whether the attachment action is possible or not. Only possible attachments are proposed. The attachement possibilities are limited to the possibilities offered by the Gedcom standard.  The attachement possibilities are also limited by the availability of such attachment in the target genealogy. For instance, you cannot attach a person as the father of another person in a given family is the father is already defined in this given famiy. You would have to indicate to make it the father in another family, potentially a new one. Here is the table of all the possible attachment combinations. Target entity type Individual Family Note Media Source Repository Submitter Source entity type Individual - Parent, spouse, sibling, child in an existing or a new family - Alias Spouse, child - - - - - Family Spouse, child - - - - - - Note Attach to entity or to one of its events Note of target entity Media - - Media of source - - Source Source of note  Source of media - - - Repository Attach to a source of the entity - - Repository of source - - Submitter - - - - - - - Merge (= Copy and Merge) This action tells Ancestris, when pressing OK later, to perform the same copy action as above and to also merge the Source entity to the Target entiy after the copy has been made . This action is only possible if both entities are of the same type. Another choice is to be made here. This is the way you want to perform the merge. You have 3 possibilities. Adding - Merge by adding the information of the source entity to the target entity. Replacing - Merge by replacing the information of the target entity by the information of the source entity when there is a conflict. Assistant - Merge using the Merge Assistant. You will decide on a case by case basis what to do with the conflicting information. The merge assistant will be displayed after the copy is completed. Copy as well other entities selection Depending on the selections above, a number of entities are likely to be brought along the transfer from the Source genealogy to the Target genealogy. You have the possibility to select very precisely which entity you want to include in the copy action. These other entities are displayed in several possible groups. Attribute entities of the source entity Attributes are non individual nor family entities, so they are notes, medias, sources, repositories and submitters. Ancestris displays the available attributes of the source entity, and how many of them are.  This section applies to any type of entity source selected. If you leave the mouse over the attribute type, Ancestris will disply the list in the tool tip. In the image above, to include the 3 multimedias in the copy, leave the chech box selected. To exclude them, unselect it. If you select or unselect a check box, the total number of entities being copied is updated. This number does not include the source entity which is always copied. In the image above, we can see that the source entity, in this case the individual entity "John Fitzgerald Kennedy", does not have any Note entity attached to it. So the Note box does not appear. Family of the source entity In this section, you can see and select individuals of the parent family of the source individual selected. It is only displayed if the source entity is of type Individual and if this person has a family of biological parents in the source genealogy. Here is an example of what you will see. You will see the family members from the perspective of the source individual: father, mother, brothers, sisters. The source individual is not displayed again here. Scope For each person, you wil see the attribute entities if you press the "Show details" button on the right hand side of each person. In the image above, details are displayed for the father. For each person, you will have the possibility to include the ancestors or descendants of that person. You can choose between 2 types of scope here. Ancestors only (for the ascendants of the source individual) / Descendants only for the descendants of the source individual) : only direct ancestors or direct descendants are included. Direct in the sense of "blood related", SOSA related. In this case, spouses of descendants and siblings of ancestors are not included.  Full branch : this will tell Ancetris to include the whole family group of the person in the copy action. So spouses of descendants and siblings of ancestors will be included in that case. This will also include descendants of ancestors and ancestors of descendants. When ancestors, descendants or branches are included in the copy, Ancestris will add the corresponding entities in the details shown. In the image above, we can see that the full branch of the Father of the source individual includes 68 individuals and 27 families, as well as 2 multimedias and 32 sources. You can choose to unselect Multimedia and sources, but you cannot unselect 68 Inddividuals nor 27 families. To exclude them from the copy, just unselect "Ancestors only". Note: if you select "Full branch", it will automaticaly select "Ancestors only". If you unselect "Ancestors only", it will unselect "Full branch", because one scope is included in the other scope. Person displayed as disabled Sometimes, a person could appear as disabled. Here is an example where Father and Mother are displayed as disabled. A person appears as disabled and will be excluded from the copy if it cannot be copied based on the action and parameters selected. In the image above, we can see the action is to attach John Kennedy as son of Maria Medicis in the CAPET X MEDICIS family. If the attachment is successful, John's parents will be Henri IV and Maria de Medicis. So the source parents, Joseph Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald cannot also be the parents of John in the target family. Hence Ancestris disables that possibility. If you really want to bring Joseph and Rose along in the copy action, you would have to choose a "new" family in the family list box. Non biological families of the source entity According to the same principle as the parent family, Ancestris will also display in this section all the found non biological families of the source individual. It is only displayed if the source entity is of type Individual and if this person has non biological parents in the source genealogy. Unions of the source entity According to the same principle as the parent family, Ancestris will also display in this section all the found unions of the source individual. It is only displayed if the source entity is of type Individual and if this person has unions in the source genealogy. Aliases of the source entity This section lists all the aliases of the source individual. It is only displayed if the source entity is of type Individual and if this person has aliases in the source genealogy. Local Media files This section lists all the medias files involved in the selected entities above. It is only displayed if both genealogies are different, if entities of type media/multimedia are included in the copy and if they themselves refer to local media files. Reminder : media files are regular image, videos, sound, etc. files that are linked to the Gedcom genealogy data using file addresses called file paths . Each piece of genealogy data that needs to reference a Media uses a FILE property in Ancestris to store the file path to the media file. This helps Ancestris find the file and display it.  If some of the entities you copy across are Media entities, you will want the corresponding files to be stored among your other media files of the target genealogy.  For remote files , those using a web address, you may decide to leave the files remotely, or to download them. Either way, we suggest you to use the Ancestris Media manager after the entities are copied across. The media manager includes a tool to download remote files. In the tool described in this page, Ancestris will not alter their path and will copy them leaving the file path unchanged. For local files , those using a local file path, Ancestris will make a copy of the media files and store them in a directory of your choice - the target root directory - and modify the file path accordingly. Choice of target root directory for copied Media files You have to indicate one target directory to store the media files of the Source genealogy . It does not mean that all files will be in this directory, but that this directory will be a root directory and the file path structure will define correponding sub-directories to store the media files. We highly recommend that you indicate a relative directory , i.e. a directory underneath the directory of your target genealogy Gedcom file.  You can choose otherwise and indicate an absolute directory . This will force all files paths to be absolute for these newly added media files, including file paths that were relative in the source genealogy. Relative vs Absolute file paths : the benefit of relative paths is that you will maintain the links between your Gedcom file and the media files even if you move the whole Gedcom  directory somewhere else or rename it (as long as you do not rename nor change the sub-directories) We highly recommend that you indicate a temporary directory Use a temporary directory if your habit is to store media files in distinct directories depending on their nature (images, videos) or what they represent (people photographs, source documents), or the type of events (births, marriages). Ancestris will store the files there and you will take the time later to properly dispatch them manually one by one in their final directories.   Alternatively, use the directory of your media files if your habit is to store all media files in one single directory. By default, Ancestris will propose a directory in the Gedcom file directory. Ancestris will not erase existing files in the Target Root directory. If you make several extracts of the same Source genealogy to the same Target genealogy, it is possible to reuse the same Target Root directory for Media files. Media file path transformation Ancestris will replicate the Source sub-directory structure underneath the Target Root directory By default, if the target root directory is relative , all file paths of copied media files will be relative. If a file path is absolute and the root directory is relative, Ancestris will replicate the sub-directory structure as relative to the Gedcom file directory. If a file path is relative and the target root directory is absolute, Ancestris will keep the sub-directory structure underneath the target root directory. If files are located within different directory structures in the source genealogy, Ancestris will create these structures within the root directory. Of course, it would be nice to help arrange all the media files to your filing tastes, but that would make this tool a bit cumbersome to use. Please use the Media Manager tool instead once files are well attached to your Target genealogy. Media files not found Found files will be copied to their target sub-directory locations as per the Source directory structure. If a media file is not found, it will simply just not be copied. Its file path will be transformed as described above when necessary. Usage The purpose of this tools is dedicated to copying entities across different genealogies. However, the option to use it within the same genealogy is described below. Across different genealogies In order to group two differents genealogy files, you can use the simple tool " Menu/FIle/Merge genealogies ". This will simply take all entities of both files and create a unique file will all entities inside. It will not actually merge entities which look similar. It merges the files, not the entities. If you want to be more precise and only extract some of the entities, use the " Copy entities across genealogies " tool described in this page. This is the typical process to do that. Select the genealogy you wish to extract entities from Select the entity of the source genealogy you wish to attach to, or merge with, an entity of the target genealogy. We call this the "source entity" although it is not limited to entities of type Source. Open the " Copy entities across genealogies " tool from one of the following 3 ways: From the Tools menu From the Context menu with right click on the Source entity From the Drag-and-Drop menu, draging the source entity and droping it to the target entity. At the bottom of this popup menu you will find the option to open the full tool if the pre-selected choices are not enough. In the tool window, as described in the previous section, make sure you select the proper source and target genealogies and entities Choose the action, copy, attach or merge, that corresponds to your intention and in the case of an attachment, select the parameters Select or unselect the involved entities linked to the source entity in the middle section of the window Define the media files root directory where media files will be stored Press OK Confirmation On pressing OK, Ancestris will ask for your confirmation. By pressing OK, Ancestris will perform the copy of the entities, of the media files, and update the media links. If you asked for the attachment, Ancestris will do it as well. The whole process is fast and takes from less than a second to a few seconds. If you need to undo it, press undo a a few times. Please be aware that the copy of the local media files on your disk storage cannot be undone. You would have to delete the target root directory manually. Hence our recommendation to use a relative temporary root directory. Report Upon completion, Ancestris will display a report document with the summary and details of all the work that has been done. It lets you know exactly what was done and you can revisit each entity that was copied and where it was copied to. This is what the report looks like. In our example, if you want to check visualy that John Kennedy was copied to the Bourbon genealogy, we can click on its target ID in the report and we get this. As you can see in the image below, we are editing the Bourbon genealogy and we can see John Kennedy with the picture. We also can see that all the family was copied across as well and integrated into the Bourbon genealogy. Within the same genealogy Within the same genealogy, the only two actions which are likely to be useful are the attachment of one entiy to another one and the merge of two entities. You are better off using the dedicated tools for that. Attaching entities within the same genealogy can be done using the Context menu actions and the regular editors possibilities. There is no need to use this tool here to do that. Merging two entities of the same genealogy is directly made possible using the Context menu and the "Merge with..." action. In these situation, the entities of the of the "Copy as well" section are unselected by default. Indeed, copying entities within a given genealogy is likely to generate duplicates, so it is not recommended, unless you have a good reason to do so. If no entities are selected, no copy will be made. In case you really want to do it, the copy action remains possible. In the specific situation where both the genealogies and the entities are the same, only the copy action is available because you cannot attach an entity to itself and you cannot merge an entity to itself. Copying media files is not possible either as it would not make sense. Bottom line is that copying, attaching and merging entities within the same genealogy is not the purpose of this tool, but we leave the possibility open in case you have a really good reason to do so. Customization There are no customization settings for this tool. Datulator The Datulator is a tool to calculate or convert dates. This tool will make your life easier in your research, in your analysis. The datulator helps you determine the date of an event from the information in a register, a document, etc. For example, it is often necessary to switch from the Republican calendar or Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, or vice versa. In the Datulator, you also have a precision range feature.   Description Calendars The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most of the world. Designed at the end of the 16th century by a college of scientists under the direction of Christophorus Clavius to correct the secular drift of the Julian calendar, it bears the name of its instigator, Pope Gregory XIII. The starting point of the common era, the year 1, corresponds to the Anno Domini (Christian era), beginning approximately with the birth of Jesus Christ. The Republican calendar , or French revolutionary calendar, was created during the French Revolution, and was used from 1792 to 1806, as well as briefly during the Paris Commune (1871). The Hebrew calendar is a lunar-solar calendar composed of solar years, lunar months, and seven-day weeks beginning on Sunday and ending on Saturday, the Sabbath day. It takes as its starting point the beginning (Birechit) of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, which corresponds to the year-3761 of the Gregorian calendar. The Julian calendar results from the reform of the Roman calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. It is used in ancient Rome from -45 BC. It remained in use until its replacement by the Gregorian calendar at the end of the 16th century and, in some countries, until the 20th century. It is still used by the Berbers, in the monasteries of Mount Athos and by several National Orthodox Churches, including the Russian and Serbian Orthodox Churches. The datulator window The window allows you to enter the date to be converted in the first field. Two drop-down menus allow you to choose the source date calendar and the converted date calendar. The result is displayed in the "result" frame. The slider allows you to enter a year offset to be added to the result. A number of months can be entered to introduce an uncertainty. The result will then indicate an interval of dates whose duration will be the uncertainty. Usage Here are two examples of use. Example 1 : We find in our records an individual who died on 12 Floréal An IX at the age of 4 years and we are looking for his date of birth. We enter 12 / Floréal / IX in the date and we specify the republican calendar, either in the calendar button at the left of the day, or in the first drop-down menu. By positioning the shift cursor on -4 we will have his date of birth. We can use the left and right keys of the keyboard to make changes of 1 year at a time. Since our individual may have been born at the beginning or end of a month and the records are not always accurate, we will introduce an uncertainty of ±1 month. Our individual was therefore born sometime between April 2, 1797 and June 2, 1797. If you ask for the result in republican calendar, just change the output calendar and you should get this: If a result is not inside the Republican calendar and you ask for an output in the Republican calendar, it will not be possible and you will get the result in the Gregorian calendar.   Example 2 : We find in our records a marriage dated May 1, 1752 with a 20 year old bride ; and we know that the bride died at the age of 61. We enter 1 / 5 / 1752 in the date of the Gregorian calendar. We will position the shift cursor on +41 (= 61 - 20). Since our bride may have been born at the beginning or end of the year and the records are not always accurate, we will introduce an uncertainty of ±6 months. Our bride would thus have died between November 1, 1792 and November 1, 1793, this date being in the range of the republican calendar we can easily convert it. We then specify the republican calendar as the output calendar. Other combinations are possible - these are just two examples, the uncertainty can be adjusted according to your experience with the hazards of the readings.   Example 3 : Which day corresponds to the 12 Floréal Year I with a manual method? We use the button at the bottom left that displays the concordance between the Republican calendar and the Gregorian calendar. Sorry it is only available in French. We look at the column "12", the line "Floréal" and we find "May 1st". The Year I according to the first line would be 1792-1793. As May 1st in the table is after December 31st, we are in 1793. The correspondence is therefore May 1st, 1793 . We can do the correspondence in the other direction.   Here is a translation of the months: Vendémiaire Vintage September Brumaire Mist October Frimaire Frost November Nivôse Snow December Pluviôse Rain January Ventôse Wind February Germinal Seed March Floréal Blossom April Prairial Meadow May Messidor Harvest June Thermidor Heat July Fructidor Fruits August             Calculator The Calculator is a simple pocket calculator. This saves you the trouble of having to find where it is on your computer if you only have to do basic operations. Description It looks like a classic calculator. By default, it is displayed as a floating window, that is to say not anchored to the Ancestris workspace. You can use the Window Menu to dock or float it. Usage It can be used with the keyboard or with the mouse like a normal calculator. Customization Apart from its window, there are no other elements for customizing the Calculator.         Research notepad Research notepad is intended to replace post-its and loose sheets. Description You can create notes that are independent of any GEDCOM file. You can add notes that will only be visible if you open the relevant GEDCOM file. Notes are stored in “ .notes ” files in your user directory. Usage Press the button to create a new note.. Press the  button to save the selected note. Press the  button to delete the selected note. The first line of the note list is the title. Skip to the line after the first 30 characters for better rendering. Customization No customization is possible. Common ancestors This tool identifies the common ancestors of two individuals in the genealogy and displays the corresponding lineages. Description For each common ancestor found between two individuals, a result window shows you the corresponding lineages and the degree of relationship. The common individual is in the middle at the top, and the two lineages are on either side. If both individuals are in the same parent lineage, only one lineage will be displayed in the center. Men are in blue, women in pink. You can zoom in or out with the cursor button at the top left, or with the mouse wheel. You can export the result to a file. Usage The Common Ancestors search tool works in two steps. First you specify the two individuals for whom you wish to identify possible common ancestors, and then you display the results. The indication of the individuals is done via the following window. Enter both individuals in the two search fields above, and their names will appear in bold above. There are three ways to indicate an individual. Either by clicking on the button which will grab the individual currently displayed in the Ancestris views. Or by starting to type his name in the search field, which will bring up a drop-down menu with the list of corresponding individuals. or by selecting a family in Ancestris, in which case each individual in this window will be changed to the husband and the wife of this family . Once the individuals are indicated, the calculation of common family ancestors is done immediately and the degree of relationships are calculated using the definition of Civil law / Canon law drop down list box. Once completed, which is rather fast even with multiple ancestors and many combinations of relationships, all common family ancestors first found are displayed in the list in the center, with the degree of relationship displayed between brackets at the beginning of each line. Some genealogies can include more than 20 common ancestors across 30 generations for instance. The list can be sorted by descending degree of relation or by ascending name of family. This list can also be exported in a CSV format file. Please note that if a family ancestor is common to both individuals selected, all families ancestors of this very family will also be common ancestors to the individuals. For simplification purposes, they will not be listed. Click on one of a common family ancestor to see the resulted relation tree as shown at the top of this documentation page. In the result window, it is possible to put either the husband or the wife in the center of each frame. The Export file section let you select a format to export the displayed result. Press the Save As button to export the result. Customization There is no customization element in this tool apart from the features mentioned above. Lists and reports This function launches the Ancestris reports . Some reports can be run directly from the Ancestris Menu, Menu/Tools/Quick Reports . They are: Quick List , Family Group and Close Relatives reports. You can add reports as menu items to this list or as Launch buttons in the menu bar. See Launching a report section below. Description This window lists all available reports on the left, and the explanation of the selected report is on the right. The toolbar allows you to launch the selected report or change the layout of the list. Toolbar Start Button This button starts the selected report. Make sure you have set your launch options beforehand. Stop Button This button is used to stop a report that would take too long to run. Indeed, depending on the size of your genealogy, some reports may take time to produce the result. Sort List Button This button toggles the list from a category list to an alphabetical list and vice versa. Reports List The reports in the list are sorted by category: charts, lineages, lists, research, etc. When a report is selected, its description and launch options appear on the right hand side in the corresponding two tabs. This list includes reports from several contributors and we gratefully thank them. The reports were originally the first way for each Ancestris user to meet specific needs. It is always possible to make your own reports in Java programming if you feel like it. We will help you make your first attempts. Check out the contribution pages . One of the consequences is that the reports might be different from one another, and the output formats may depend on each report. Therefore, it is important to read the description of each one. Description of a report The description of the report specifies the author and the date of creation. In general, you will find an illustration, a description and mainly the explanation of the launch options. Report Options This tab allows you to modify the launch options. Some reports have a lot of options. If the options or their explanations are not explicit enough, try to run it on a small amount of data to test the output. Usage Reports allow you to visualize your genealogy from different angles, make analyses, or even extract data from it. Did you know ?  Ancestris has contributed to health science. In 2009 and 2010 the Ancestris team collaborated with Nadine Pellen, a cystic fibrosis researcher. Thanks to algorithms developed for the occasion in Ancestris, she was able to succeed in her research by manipulating 250 family trees and 258,000 individuals. On March 18, 2013, she published "Cystic fibrosis as an inheritance". For her thesis, Nadine Pellen used a report that we produced quickly and specifically for her to codify the ancestry of patients carrying the cystic fibrosis gene and to produce a file from which she was then able to carry out all the analyses. Launching a report A report can be started in several ways. From the Report selector window, accessible from the main menu Menu / Tools / List and Reports . From the context menu by right clicking on an entity, then selecting the Launching a report menu item and finally navigating through your report From the Quick Reports Menu / Tools / Quick Reports by adding reports yourself to the menu list A report can deal with all the individuals in a genealogy (list of acts to be researched, age pyramid, etc.) or focus on a particular individual (ancestry report). From the Report selector window This is the window shown at the top of this page. When you launch a report from the List and reports window, you can sometimes choose the individuals on which you want to run the report if it is available in  the options. From the Context Menu When you launch the report from the Context Menu , the menus expand to offer you to launch the report for the whole genealogy or only for the entity you clicked on. The following expanding sub-menus are the same reports that you find in List and Reports, arranged by category. Adding shortcuts to reports in the Quick Reports Menu and in the main Toolbar When you install Ancestris, the Quick Reports menu looks like this. You can add a report to this menu list from the Report selector window. Select the report you want to add Right click on the selected line Choose Add this report to the "Quick Reports" menu That's it To remove a report from the menu, proceed exactly the same way but choose Remove this report from the "Quick Reports" menu instead. When you have added reports to the Quick Reports menu, it looks like this. You can add a report to this main Toolbar. First add the Report to the Quick Reports menu, as described above Then go to Menu / Options / Configure Toolbars / Configure The following window shows all the action buttons Locate the Report you want to add to the Toolbar as shown above Drag and Drop the button to the location in the Toolbar than you prefer That's it When you have added reports to the main Toolbar, it looks like this. Please note that it is possible to add the same report several times with different launch options, and also to customise the report action and button tooltip. See Customization section below. Description of reports Since the documentation of each report is included in its description, we do not document each of them again in this page. Only complex reports that require further explanation will be detailed in this online documentation. This is the case of the Information Sheets of Individuals/Families report . It is described in a dedicated page. Customization With a right click on the report name in the list of reports, you can add personalised actions and buttons launching reports, edit the settings of the actions or remove them. When you add or edit the action settings, the following window appears. In this example, we chose to define a specific action to launch the circular tree report with 5 generations and to keep these options set. Dynamic : the report options that will be used are those defined in the Report Options pane when the report is launched (identical to launching the report from the report window). Fixed : the report options that will be used are those that were defined in the Options pane when the report launch action button in the Quick Reports menu was created. The choice "Fixed options" lets you run the same report with a different set of options. In case of Fixed options, you need to previously set the options in the Options panel of the corresponding report. The tooltip text appears when you move the mouse over the button. It is necessary to distinguish between action buttons from the same category in the Toolbar as they would all have the same icon. Note than when the report cannot run on the Global genealogy, the choice is disabled. Tutorial There is a tutorial on printing trees from the reports list. It is in French and in PDF format. You can download it here . Information Sheets of Individuals/Families This report produces summary sheets of individuals or families, trees, narrative sheets , in a totally customizable way. Individual sheet of the standard model Family sheet of the standard model The Philosophy of this report The philosophy of this report is to allow each user to create customized sheets, both for the information to be included and for the layout. To make this as simple as possible, this report is therefore based on templates that the user can modify. The current version offers many different templates. The templates consist of several editable files that are located in the user directory. This report is also called the Gedart Report . Gedart is an acronym meaning " GEnealogical Data Analysis and Report Tool ". In the word "gedart" we also have two components: GED and ART, i.e. presenting genealogical data in an artistic way or "use your artistic talents on your genealogical data". How to launch the report 1. This report can be launched either from the Lists and Reports window to generate all the records of the entire genealogy, or from a given individual or family by right-clicking and using the Context menu , to manage only the record of a single individual or family. When you launch this report from the Lists and Reports window , Ancestris runs the reports with the selected individual or family and the close relatives. If the Advanced search results includes individuals, they are used instead. Do not run this report on a large genealogy. Run this report i ndividual by individual , or family by family ideally, or on a small number of individuals . The generated html file would have a size that your browser would not be able to handle and you would saturate your computer's memory. A warning message will alert you if the size seems too large.   2. Then, in the options of the report, make sure that the options meet your needs and choose the template from the first "Used model" option. This drop-down menu lists all the templates available. This is where templates that you can create yourself should also appear. The checkboxes are self-explanatory.   3. Once you have chosen the options, launch the report like the others using the "Start Report" button . The report asks you for an output directory and file name to save the report. The report execution window appears and displays "Completed" if everything went well. Then your browser opens and displays the result.   Models provided The models - or templates - provided will give you a good idea of what can be produced as a result. Ancestors trees Tree over 5 generations Displays the ancestry over 5 generations of an individual, on a single page, in a graphic and colorful way. Tree over 10 generations Displays the ancestry over 10 generations of an ancestor by displaying successively pages of 5 generations that are printed on different pages. The report generates an html file in which page breaks are embedded. Decorative tree Displays on a single page a vertical tree with four generations of ancestors and their marital status information. This tree is displayed on a tree image in the background. Feel free to replace this background image named "oaktreeC.jpg" with another image. It is located in the directory you chose for the output report at launch. Patronymic tree Displays on a single page a tree with 7 generations of your ancestors following the family name, i.e. according to the name of the father with that of his wife and their marital status information. This tree is often requested in genealogical associations to establish directories of the names and surnames studied by the members. If you wish to show the name of the genealogist creating the report, you must create an information provider, you can even indicate your membership number in your genealogical club.   Information sheets Standard sheet These are the two visuals at the top of this page. They are rich and relatively complete, to give information about an individual or a family. Succinct individual sheet Provides key information about an individual. Complete individual sheet I Provides almost complete information, including text quotes from sources on acts related to an individual, including unions, from your genealogy. Displays the individual's photo and photos of residences, transcripts of acts, if indicated in the following form : BAPM or BIRT,BURI, DEAT, MARR, DIV => SOUR => DATA => TXT. Complete individual sheet II Gives the same type of card as the previous one but with more media. Family Relationship Graph For an individual, displays a graphical view of an individual's parents and grandparents, spouses and their children. For a family, displays a graphical view of the parents and grandparents of a family as well as the children of the couple.   Narrative sheets Biography Writing an individual biography is not too difficult but requires a bit of method. This report is intended to make your work easier. Write your text in the boxes to be filled in, following the tips and using the individual form which in this report serves as your "context". When you have finished filling in the various boxes, simply press the button "generate a draft of your text" to get a first draft of your biographical text. You will have to select it with your mouse and copy it, then, in your genealogy, you will create a note under your individual and paste your text into it. When you edit the report "Complete individual record" your new biography will be displayed at the beginning of the record. Century of generations An individual's "Century of Generations" report provides a booklet containing information on three generations. After a title page, the report provides a page with a graph over three generations of the person's family of origin: spouse and children, parents and grandparents. Then follows the complete individual record of the person of origin, his/her father and grandfather. The report works with a standard genealogical entry, but it can provide several types of additional interesting elements.   Customization The customization of this report consists in creating your own templates. How do the models work? A template is a set of files located in a directory on your computer. The first file used is the index.vm file. This file is mandatory and its role is to make the link between the data and the presentation. Where are the models placed? The templates are in a subdirectory of the User Directory : /ancestris/gedart. The contrib-templates directory is the one containing the provided templates. You do not need to add anything to it. The templates directory is the one where you can put your own custom templates. You must not change the name of this directory. How do I create a template? To create a template, it is necessary to understand a certain formalism and be able to modify html format files using a text editor. It is obvious that these manipulations, even if they are not very complex, will be difficult for beginners. The best way to create a template is to start from the ones provided with Ancestris. To do this, create for example a directory templates/mymodel and copy all the files in the F01_Standard directory . In this new directory, open the resources.properties file. This is the one that contains the title of the template in different languages. Change the line of the template name in English "name = Standard Sheet" to "name = MyModel ". Then restart Ancestris or re-open the Lists and Reports window . In the option tab of the Information Sheet report your template now appears in the drop-down menu. You can then modify the files of the template MyModel as you wish according to the syntax explained below. What is the syntax of the models? The models use a file generation engine called velocity whose documentation is available on the velocity apache website . To have a first idea of this syntax, open the Indisheet.vm file in a text editor. You will find similarities with the html syntax on one hand and the Basic programming language on the other hand. What genealogical information can a template use? A template can use all available information about the individual and the families on which the report was run. See the examples provided to understand what can be done. Do not hesitate to share your comments or wishes on the forum or on the Ancestris discussion list . How do I change the output format? Although the template provided with the report produces a file in html format, it can be modified to produce a file in text, rtf or csv format.                       WebBook The WebBook makes it possible to generate Web pages, from a genealogy file to be placed locally, on a private usb key to share with relatives, or on a public Internet site. Comment from a user: This little book is really convenient, pleasant to use and complete enough to go through one's genealogy. I may not know how to use other genealogy software correctly, but when I made an web export with them, I found the result harsh and less intuitive. If you do not want to put your genealogy tree and data on a web site, no problem, you can just make a local copy on any support (hard disk, USB key...) and consult it with any internet browser. Description The previous image is an example of the Web Book with the Kennedy family tree. An extract of the Individuals details pages looks like this: The WebBook works with the Map View if you want to generate a map. Navigation in the generated pages The pages generated constitute the sections of a "web book". Many sections are accessible from the home page and part of the content can be customized. Lastnames : This section lists the surnames and their frequency of appearance in the family tree. Individuals list : This section lists all the individuals in the tree in alphabetical order. Individuals details : This section gives a detailed description of all the individuals. For each individual, there are details about birth, marriage and other events. Details also include grandparents, parents, half-brothers and half-sisters, marriages, children, relationships (godparents, godmother, witnesses, etc.), and notes. This section also displays up to five photos or media related to each individual or their marriage(s). For each event a source icon allows you to see if a source exists. Simply click on the icon to see it. The images and media of the sources are not displayed in this section but in the sources section. Sources : The first page of this section displays the list of all the sources of the genealogy. The following pages give the details of each source. The source details include, where available, the text of the source and the images and media of the source and associated individuals and families. If the media is not an image then the document is considered to be of a different nature and an image representing a media file is displayed. Clicking on the image brings up the source document in its original size or launches the media (sound, video, etc). Photos and other media : The first page of this section displays a list of all the media in the genealogy that are associated with individuals and families. The following pages give the images of these media in the form of a photo album. This section does not contain the source material. If the media is not an image then the document is considered to be of another nature and an image representing a multimedia file is displayed. Clicking on the image brings up the source document in its original size or launches the media (sound, video, etc). If the media is not found, an image indicates this, allowing you to rectify your genealogy if necessary. Geo map : This section displays a geographic map with the location of all the cities identified in the family tree. This map is interactive and you can zoom in, show ancestors or cousins, birth, marriage or death, or events between two given years. By clicking on a city, you will see the main information about the events that took place there. These maps only work if the coordinates of the locations exist and are correct. For this, it is recommended to check the Geographic map view . Cities list : This section gives the list of cities where at least one event in the family tree took place. Cities details : This section details for each location all the events that took place there. If you have generated the map, a small icon may show you the location of the city on the map. Family Calendar : This section lists the days of the year when at least one event in the family tree took place. Calendar Details : This section details for each day of the year all the events that took place there. Statistics : This section presents the frequency of surnames, places and days of the year, from the most to the least frequent. Inbreeding degree : This section presents the inbreeding ratio of the selected main individual. Ancestors List : This section presents the ancestors of the selected main individual. The ancestors are displayed in ascending order of Sosa number . Individuals search : This section is a tool to search for individuals in your family tree using a set of criteria. Web book generation wizard The wizard assists you to customize the pages of the Web book through 7 panels. At the end, it shows you the log of the generation. Welcome page This panel customizes the Welcome page of your family tree book. Hovering over a field displays a tooltip explaining its role. Book's title : title of your Genealogy book. It appears on the home page and in the title bar of the browser. Author : name of the author of your Genealogy. Address : address of the author. Phone number & Email : contact information of the author. Message : check the box and write a message to display it at the beginning of the home page. Display the longest line of ancestors : display information about the longest ancestor line in your Genealogy. Display the most frequent place: display this statistic on the home page. The first time you open this window for a genealogy, Ancestris will populate the fields with the information from the DeCujus individual if it has been defined. Individuals De-cujus person : main individual who will be accessible from the home page, and from whom the longest line of ancestors and the ancestor report will be built. Unknown individuals : This is used to designate a person whose first and last names are unknown (example: you can put the word "unknown" in this field). Display: information to display in the individuals details sections Spouses : display spouses information Children : display children underneath the family information Step-brothers and step-sisters : display step-brothers and step-sisters. These are referred to as uterin or consanguineous siblings. Relations : display the relationships of the individual (events' witnesses, godparents, etc.) Notes : add the notes associated with individuals and families. Identification numbers : adds Ancestris ID numbers after the person's name. Button to send mail to the author : display a "send email" icon at each individual section so that the visitor can easily send an email to the author about this individual. Private data : Hide private data : hides data defined in the privacy preferences . Preferences : takes you to the privacy preferences to change them if necessary for the Web book On a PHP site, private data will be generated but hidden ; a profile php function will have to exist in the site. On an html site, data is static and private information will not be generated at all Multimedia Sources Source section creation : add a section to access sources. Drop-down menu :  choose how you want sources to be displayed : with the individual information only, with the text of the source and with the media. Local copy of original sources : copy the original documents to your destination directory (local or website). Otherwise, file links are used. It is recommended not to select this option if the total size of your documents is large. If you later want to have these documents on your website, you can always replace the link files with smaller size files using the copy function of your system. Media Media section creation : add a section to access media. Local copy of original media : copy the original media files to your destination directory (local or website). Otherwise, link files are used. This option is similar to the source option described above. Map Geographical map creation : add a section to display of map of events. Display unfound places : display markers for cities whose coordinates were not found. Markers will appear in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean Ascending Report Generation of ancestors list : add the ancestor report using the De-cujus individual as the root. In this case you will be asked for the following options when generating this section First generation to display : generation number from which the ancestors list will start. Latest generation to display : generation number to which the ancestors list will stop. Display sources : choose if and how to display sources in the ancestors report. Local copy Save WebBook locally : specify the directory where the WebBook will be located on your disk. It is this directory that you will consult locally with an internet browser if you do not want have your genealogy on the Internet. If you want to upload it onto an Internet web site, the content of this directory will be uploaded. This is an option on the next panel. Watch out! This directory must be empty, otherwise the documents it contains will be deleted. Save WebBook transfer log file : indicate the directory where the WebBook creation log report will be located. It will contain the step-by-step creation and possible errors. Transferring - optional If you only want to generate the pages locally, uncheck the first check box and simply click Next . Upload web pages on web site : uploads the pages that were saved locally on a website of your choice. You will need to provide additional information to enable the upload. These are the following options. If you choose to upload the pages on a website, the report will ask you to fill in the name of a log file. This file will contain a complete list of the uploaded files. Website FTP address : address of your FTP site. Ex: ftp.mysite.myinternetprovider.com Root directory : target directory where the pages must be uploaded. ex: /home/ FTP user name : login to be used to access the FTP site. FTP password : password to access the FTP site. Site description : the sentence you will put here will appear in the headers of the html pages created as "meta name - Description". This element is important, because robots, search engines, will use this to index your pages. Transfer type : allows you to improve the upload time. For example, if a photo of an ancestor is generated in the WebBook but it is identical to the one previously uploaded, there is no need to upload it again. Drop-down menu : three options are possible: transfer all locally generated files to the server, even if they have not changed; transfer only those that have changed; or transfer those that have changed and also delete from the server those that are no longer generated. Reset transfer history : restart file transfers from scratch. This will mean that all files will be systematically uploaded the next time they are transferred. The registry retains the details of the previous uploads and therefore allows you to determine which of the newly generated files need to be uploaded again. As long as you only use the WebBook to upload your pages, you should not need to reset the registry. However, if you sometimes use another FTP client, this registry may need to be completely refreshed, which is done by checking this option. Program to launch after generation : name of a executable program to launch at the end of the WebBook creation. If the first character is '0' then this option is ignored. Launching a program at the end can be useful if there are still other things to do on your site to finalize its update. Save transfer log file : directory where the upload log report will be saved. This log report shows the results of the uploaded pages. PHP site integration - optional If you only want to generate the pages locally, uncheck the first check box and simply click Finish . This part is technical and requires to know the principles of a PHP site including very precise page structures. PHP site : if you want to leverage the fact that your site is written in PHP Codes: username and password used to view private information. Existing site : check this box if the genealogy pages are integrated in a larger site, and must then respect the same headers and footers for example Private data : Indicate here the name of the PHP function that will test the codes for private data. Scripts : Indicate here the PHP scripts corresponding to the different components of your PHP website Result of the creation of the pages Ancestris displays the Output window at the end of the process. You will see each of the two logs: creation of the pages and transfer of the pages if you asked for the upload.. Here is an example of a successful pages creation. Result of the transfer Here is an example of an unsuccessful transfer. Additional information Private information is managed using the Ancestris options. If an individual is considered private according to the Ancestris options, the WebBook will display "..." instead of the plain text details. The Sosa numbering is taken into account if the labels "_SOSA" or "_SOSADABOVILLE" have been generated. Check out the Generate Sosa numbers documentation . Make sure in this case that the main DeCujus individual defined at the beginning of the WebBook is the same as for the Sosa numbers. If the local directory in which the pages will be saved is not empty, a message tells you so. Generated html pages are W3C XHTML 1.0 certified. Special characters are replaced in the pages by the equivalent html sequence (example: "é" is replaced by "é") In order to optimize performance, media and source files are not copied (or linked) if they already exist in the target directory. To force this copy (or these links), just delete the files in the target directory. A feature makes it easy for the website user to send email to the author An feature saves considerable amount of time by only uploading files whose content has changed. This works very well as long as the WebBook is the only program used to upload pages because it keeps the details of the files transferred each time. Web Site The Website generates a mini web site allowing you to browse your genealogy locally on your computer or on a private or public site over the Internet. Description Purpose For your personal use or for your relatives, the generated pages will give access to the information of all the persons present in your genealogy in the form of a pleasant navigation in their usual internet browser. The website is a set of pages that you will be able to read with any Internet browser, on any computer. It is not necessary to send your information to a website. The generated site is a set of files and directories that you will deposit on any support (hard disk, CD, USB key, your website...), or that you can send to a relative in a private way. You can also choose to create the pages in another language in addition to the English pages. Generated pages The first page of the site gives an overview of your genealogy. Indexes give access to pages for all individuals and sources. For each individual, you have his/her mini-tree over 4 generations, his/her information sheet, his/her parents, his/her notes, his/her sources. Usage The website is very easily generated. Just choose the action from the Menu / Tools / Publication / Website . Ancestris asks you for a location to write the files that will make up your site. The indicated directory must be empty. The files in it will be deleted in any case. Ancestris warns you if this is the case. Once the directory is chosen, the site is generated immediately. The following window appears to give you the result of the generation. You can close it afterwards. At the end of the generation, your browser opens and displays the home page of the generated site. If you want to see the pages of the website again closing the browser, it is not necessary to regenerate the site. Just open the file index.html which is located in the directory you specified to generate the site. Furthermore, in case you would like to copy your site to another medium or send it by email, you can compress the directory containing the files. Customization The generated pages are customizable through the Preferences Extensions page , Website tab. The customization options are rather explicit. Let us focus on the less explicit ones. Formatting of places : "all" is the only value available at this stage. Translate to the following language (ISO639 2 letters, e.g. en) : leave blank to not generate another language, or enter the country code on 2 characters otherwise. The available languages are: da, de, el, es, fi, frit, nl, pt, sv .                   Print of current view This function prints the current view. At this stage, only the Dynamic Tree view can be printed properly. If other views can be printed, it is accidental and the rendering will probably not be of the quality you expect.   Usage As soon as the action is launched, the Print Preview window appears. This is the one displayed at the top of this page. In the example, you can see that the tree will be printed on 57 pages. The different buttons allow you to zoom in or navigate from page to page. The Page Setup button displays the window to adjust the size of the print sheets, the margins and the portrait or landscape format.     To further customize the printout, you need to set the print options. Customization The Print Options button allows you to customize the printout. The zoom section set a number of pages in the width and height. It is useful to try different margins as well if you want to reduce the number of pages and make the connections from one page to another as small as possible.   Tutorial There is a tutorial on printing trees. It is in French and in PDF format. You can download it here .         Welcome page The Welcome page helps you get started with Ancestris as well as in its daily use. Description The Welcome page is automatically opened the first time you use Ancestris. It includes 3 tabs. Getting Started This tab contains the main elements necessary to get started. These elements are accessible via the corresponding buttons. Creating or migrating a genealogy Two examples of genealogy, Kennedys and Bourbons French kings The Ancestris flyer Access to a guided tour The role of the Ancestris association to offer you this software. And the possibility of making a donation to Ancestris to support our development. My Ancestris The second tab is for daily use. It gives a quick access to the latest genealogy files used. A click on the red cross removes the name from the history. It also gives you a quick access to open a genealogy or to modify your preferences. Finally, it gives you the list of the lastest modifications of the software. Click on a message to be taken to the forum where you can see the entire message as well as the complete list..   Help   This tab of the Welcome page gives you direct access to the main chapters of this comprehensive documentation. Usage Access the different functions by clicking on the corresponding tab and button. To see the full background image, click on the image. It is also possible to change the background image by ctrl+clicking on the image. A click on the Ancestris logo takes you to the Ancestris website.   Customization It is possible not to display the Welcome page every time Ancestris is opened. If you want to hide the Welcome page at startup, uncheck the Show at startup check box. Uncheck this check box so that the welcome page will not appear after the next startup. To display it again, go to the Window/Welcome Page menu to make it appear, then you can check the box.                   GEDCOM Explorer The GEDCOM Explorer is a special Ancestris window dedicated to the exploration of each open genealogy Gedcom file. Several Gedcom files can be open at the same time. A modification time filter can be applied to limit the exploration. Description Window This window appears in the upper left corner of Ancestris, in the form of a concealed window with a vertical button. It is always present and always available, even if it can be temporarily hidden. The GEDCOM Explorer displays a summary of the different entities included in the Gedcom files currently open in Ancestris. If no genealogy file is open, it only displays a blank page. Each file opened in Ancestris is presented as a three-level tree structure. First level: the name of the genealogy file Second level: the name of one of the seven categories of entities , and the header, followed in brackets by the number of entities. Third level: the name of the entities The tree structure is similar to that found in most file managers. For better reading, the different lines are indented according to their level in the hierarchy To limit the use of the vertical scrollbar, a flap allows you to show or hide the content of the lower level by clicking on it. In the example above, we see the GEDCOM Explorer with two open Genealogies, those of Kennedy and the Bourbons. We see for example that there are 208 individuals in the Kennedy genealogy, and 303 in the Bourbon genealogy. Menu bar A menu bar includes a Filter selector and a Configure View button. Filter selector The filter selector offers the choice to either see All entities, or only the entities modified since a certain date. In the image below, only the entities modified since Monday 15 January 2024 20:02 are listed. For instance, compared to the "All entities" view above in this page, only 94 individuals out of 208 appear, and only 3 families out of 75. Configure View button This button displays the following settings window. From this window, you can easily set a date and time you need to filter the list of entities. Usage The GEDCOM Explorer has multiple purposes. It helps you count all the entities included in the genealogy files currently open in Ancestris. It helps you select any entity in any open genealogy by double-clicking on it. It helps you count and select the most recently modified entities using the filter described above . It also provides a direct access to some actions with the context menu . Double-click A double-click on a line with a flap unfolds or folds the lines underneath. A double-click on an entity selects the entity and makes it the selected entity . Context menu You can display the context menu by clicking on a line of the tree structure. This context menu depends on whether you click on a Gedcom level, a category of entity level, or an entity level. A right click on a Gedcom level opens a Gedcom context menu where you can perform a number of actions that are specifically relevant to the Gedcom file selected. A right-click on a category of entity does nothing. A right-click on an entity level opens the Context Menu . From there, you can achieve many actions like creating other entities, editing them, using tools and reports, etc. Selection of a Gedcom line When a Gedcom line is selected, it is used by Ancestris to choose which Gedcom file to use by default in the case where a "non Gedcom specific" window is selected, such as the Welcome view, the Compare Gedcom view, the Calculator, the Datulator. Possible configurations of the window Concealed The concealed position is the default position of the GEDCOM Explorer when Ancestris is opened. In this form, the tab remains at the top of the left edge of the main window and the panel is usually hidden. To show the GEDCOM Explorer pane. either, hover (for a few fractions of a second) over its tab with the mouse or, more radically, click on this button or access it from the main menu / Window / GEDCOM Explorer To hide the GEDCOM Explorer pane again. either, hover with the mouse (for a few fractions of a second) over any part of the screen outside this frame or, more radically, click again on the button When the panel is displayed, GEDCOM Explorer can take the form of an anchored panel by clicking on the anchor pin, located at the top right of the open pane. Anchored The panel anchored to the main window is a non-overlapping pane: GEDCOM Explorer is therefore always visible, as long as the main window remains in the foreground. From this anchored frame pane, GEDCOM Explorer can take the following forms. A open panel in a secondary window, using the Undock command of the pop-up menu managing the panel and window control, opened by right-clicking on the panel tab. A concealed panel either by using the Reduce window group button located at the top right of this anchored frame. It returns to the initial state in the form of an open concealed panel or by means of the menu command main menu / Window / GEDCOM Explorer . It returns to the initial state in the form of an open concealed panel Panel in secondary window The Gedcom explorer can be put in a floating window, or freed, via the actions of the window menu. In this case, the Gedcom Explorer is autonomous from the main window from which it has been detached. From this freed window, the Gedcom Explorer can take the following forms. A docked panel, using the Dock command in the context menu A concealed panel, via the main menu / Window / GEDCOM Explorer . It returns to the initial state in the form of an open concealed panel Personalisation The settings of this window can be accessed via the Configure View button of the Menu bar. Preferences The Preferences is where you customize a lot of elements of Ancestris. This is what one of the many customization panels looks like. For all the details concerning the different panels, the possible choices and their interest, please refer to the section Personalization> Preferences .                 Update Ancestris This action checks if the version of Ancestris that is already installed on your computer is up to date, and if not, it will install the updates. If your application is up to date, the above window will appear, indicating that your application is up to date. If not, the list of "extensions" that have been modified will appear and you will be able to proceed with their installation. You will then be in the Updates tab of the Extensions manager that we invite you to refer to for more details.               Manage extensions This menu allows you to check or force an Ancestris updates, and to customize Ancestris by installing or uninstalling modules according to your needs. In general, there would be little need to go through this kind of customization. Instructions to use the window are available in the Preferences chapter of this documentation. Please refer to the corresponding Manage Extensions page.                     Contact Ancestris Support Team This feature helps you contact the Ancestris support team by email , describing your problem and automatically sending your system configuration items, as well as the Ancestris log file. Description The window that opens looks like an email ready to be sent with some instructions at the top. A message at the top indicates that you can use the documentation and the forum prior to writing to the support. A  Documentation and a Forum buttons lead you to these pages for quick access. The message structure includes your name, a subject and the body of the message, with some files to attach at the bottom. Technical information is already filled in, as well as your log file path and your configuration file path. If you have already used the window before, it will also be filled-in with your previous message. A couple of buttons for each file let you copy the file paths and let you display the files on your computer. At the bottom, the first 3 buttons are 3 different ways to send us the email, depending on the way your email is set-up. Usage To contact us, simply complete the subject of your message and complete the message. Provide your name,  a precise subject and a clear description of the problem you would like us to solve. The more you tell us about HOW you used Ancestris when it occurs, the better. Attach a file or a screen capture if possible, that is always useful to show us what part of Ancestris you are using when the problem occurs. To send us the email, you have 3 possible methods. Send MailTo This method of sending emails is using your desktop email client program. If you do not have any, for instance when you use gmail online only, this method will not work. Use this method if you have an email program on your desktop and if the other method below does not work or is too complex to set-up. When using this method, Ancestris will open up an email with the content of this message, with the exception of the attachment of files which Ancestris is not able to do with such method. So you will have to attach the files yourself. Use the paths provided to find the right ones.   Send Email This method tells Ancestris to send us the message directly using your sending SMTP email server. It requires you to set-up the SMTP mail connection settings and credentials first, because it will use your SMTP mail server to send us the message. Please refer to the Customisation section below to set it up. An example is given for GMAIL. If the message could be sent correctly, you should see this message If Ancestris fails to send the email, you will get a message like this for instance, where we have here an unsuccessful connection to the smtp server. If the mail does not reach its destination, you should receive an mail in your inbox a few minutes later telling you something like: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender.   Copy Email to Clipboard If both methods above do not work, we offer you to copy and paste the information into a new email from where you usually send emails. In this case, you will have to create the email yourself and attach the files. Customization Prior to sending emails to us, the outgoing mail configuration corresponding to your internet service provider must be defined in Ancestris preferences. You are asked for these settings the first time you try to contact us, or by going to the preferences, Extensions panel , Support tab. You define the outgoing email parameters in the fields provided. The SMTP server of your Internet Service Provider is the one you put in your email client software to send messages, not to receive them. In case your SMTP provider requires authentication, you will most generally need to choose the SSL option, port 465, to select the "Server require an authentication" box, and to indicate your login to your provider mailbox. Case of GMAIL In the specific case of 'gmail', if you get an error asking for a second factor authentication, you will have to generate an application password on your Google account and use the generated 16-letter-long password instead of yours when Ancestris will ask for your password. Make sure your Google account has activated the two-factor authentication Create an application login. You can create and delete as many as you like. It will generate a 16-digit password Set-up your SMTP settings as shown i the picture below Type the 16-digit password when Ancestris asks you Make a donation to Ancestris Ancestris does not have any specific funding since we are all volunteers and your donations pay for the hosting of the application and participation in exhibitions . The screenshot below explains what your donation will be used for and offers several means of payment for you to help us financially.   The three payment methods are explained behind each of the buttons. Please visit the Association page in this documentation to learn more, find out about members and donors. You can also make a donation directly by going to the donations page .           Customize Ancestris How to customize Ancestris. How to add or remove modules. Preferences This is where you set most of your usage personalization. As soon as Ancestris is installed, you can immediately start using it. However, if you familiarize yourself with certain settings, you can adapt Ancestris to your way of working and give your genealogy the look you want. Preferences are accessible from several places. The Menu bar : Options / Preferences menu The Toolbar : Preferences icon, located on the right hand side The Welcome page : My Ancestris tab Description Selection bar The Preferences window has a selection bar above with several categories of preferences. Clicking on a category button brings up the preferences which can be modified under this category. The entry field on the right hand side is a filter which makes it easier to find a preference. Type any keyword and press the Enter key. Searching is case insensitive. The panels dealing with the keyword will be enabled and the other panels will be disabled. Hit the Esc key or the Enter key with an empty field to clear the filter and re-enable all panels. Below is a description of each category. In each category, tooltips are available to help you with the meaning of each setting. Buttons In its lower part, the Preferences window displays a few buttons. Export... Button This button copies your preferences to a file. This can be very useful when you have installed Ancestris on several computers. This will allow you to apply the same preferences on all computers without having to reconfigure each one individually. Import... Button This button retrieves preferences from a file. It is the reverse operation of the previous one. OK Button This button validates any modifications made in the Preferences window and closes it. Apply Button This button validates any modifications made in the Preferences window, without closing the window. Cancel Button This button closes the window without validating any modifications made in it. Appearance This is the panel where you can change the general appearance of Ancestris. Interface language Selects the language used by Ancestris to display all windows. Reports language Select the language used by Ancestris to display messages and reports. Appearance Selects the display style of the windows, also called the look and feel. For each style selected (Standard, Nimbus, Metal, ...), a sample preview is displayed on the right hand side. Ancestris needs to be restarted to activate a new style. Some of these "look and feel" are extension modules (InfoNode, JTattoo, etc.) that need to be installed to make them appear and use them. See the Extensions for more details. Font size Sets the size of fonts throughout the application. Window When the box is checked, the windows' sizes and positions will be saved when you exit Ancestris, and restored when Ancestris is reopened. Memory size in GB Forces the memory size allocation to Ancestris to operate. If you have large family history files, it may be more convenient to allocate a larger number of gigabytes. Data This is the panel where you can modify the formats and contents of data elements of your genealogy. It includes two tabs. General data Symbols Displays the typographical characters used to symbolize certain events (Birth, Marriage, Occupation, etc.). Text Defines the text width in number of characters when displaying notes, source texts, etc. It is recommended to keep the default value of 246 characters wide. Pictures Sets the maximum size of images in kilobytes. Individuals Sets how to display names in terms of the order of the name elements. Dates The first line sets how to display dates. The checkbox " Use Christening if birth is missing " asks Ancestris to approximate the birth date to the baptism date, when no birth date is available. Otherwise, birth date is left blank. For example for displaying the root person in the title bar of the dynamic tree. Or for related persons (ex: husband) in the GEDCOM editor. Here are two examples, the first with the display of the root person in the tree, the other one with the display of the husband in the Gedcom editor. Case of "Use Christening is birth is missing" set to 'no': Birth date is left blank Case of "Use Christening is birth is missing" set to 'yes': Birth date is approximated (~) to baptism date The checkbox " Use Burial if death is missing " asks Ancestris to approximate the death date to the burial date, when no death date is available. Otherwise, death date is left blank. Privacy The Private tab helps you define your preferences when sharing your data with other genealogists, or for publication on the Internet. You decide what confidential data you want to protect. Are considered private: any entity or property falling under the following 3 conditions Properties containing TAG RESN or _PRIV : all entities or properties containing the tag you specify will be considered private.  ' _PRIV ' is the default suggestion for properties where RESN is not allowed. In the Gedcom editor, it will appear like this: Living persons : all individuals born in the last number of years you specifiy will be considered private. Events of last 'n' years : all these events, but not necessarily the entities they belong to, will be considered private. However are never considered as private: dead person information :  check this box if you are ok to display deceased person's information. Replace text by is the string to display for private date instead of the real information. '...' is the default suggestion. Files This panel defines default files and directories, and other file-related settings.   Gedcom files and usual directories Ancestris offers the possibility to define a main genealogical file that you use most often. This file can then be opened using the Open action in the File menu . You define it in the first text field Genealogy file to open . Also, by default, when Ancestris starts up, it opens the last genealogical files that was open when Ancestris last closed. The two checkboxes modify this behavior. The Always open this file regardless of open files when closing Ancestris check box forces Ancestris to open the default file at start up. The Do not open any files at startup check box tells Ancestris not to open any files at startup. The Always sort entities in file check box tells Ancestris to sort entities by entity type and then by identifiers. The following setting is the Reports output directory. This is the directory where Ancestris will save user reports or error reports. Log file and backup copies Maximum size of log file limits the size of the log file. If the maximum size is reached, the log does starts removing the top lines. Log Level tells Ancestris the level of details of the information to be collected by the log file. The more it is towards "SEVERE", the less it is detailed. The more it is towards "ALL", the more it is detailed. Be careful, the more detailed it is, the more it slows down your use since everything that happens in the software will be noted. Number of backup copies defines the number of saved copies to keep for security reasons, in addition to the latest version. The name of each backup file is the same as the name of the main file, completed with the date and time of the recording. For example, if the number of backup copies is 3, each recording (Save action on the File menu, or ) will delete the oldest backup copy and keep four copies of the current genealogy: the most recent, plus the previous three copies with their timestamp. Autosave delay defines the delay in minutes when Ancestris will automatically save your changes on disk. It is set to 60 minutes by default. Backup directory defines the directory where Ancestris will create the backup files. Editing This panel define your preferences when editing genealogical information or when using the editors. Names These options relate to the names of individuals. Forces all lastnames in uppercase converts a surname into uppercase when validating the entry. Defaults the same lastname to the wife assigns the child's lastname to both parents when creating them. Tag used to read given name defines the tag to use when reading the gedcom file, to get the common first name. The default tag is NICK. Places This option defines places jurisdictions display preferences. It includes two items. Add and save spaces between jurisdictions : for better visibility, a space is added after each comma separating the various place jurisdictions. Split jurisdictions to edit in Gedcom editor : separates the places jurisdictions when editing them in the Gedcom Editor . Example: Box unchecked. Places are not split. Box checked. Places are split. Medias This option relates to the path of media files. Force media file paths to be relative rather than absolute forces the path of the media files located in or underneath the directory of the Gedcom file to be relative, even if they are entered as absolute. File paths of the other files will be unchanged. Attention : - The change to relative format occurs both when modifying a file path and when saving the Gedcom file. Thus, if the indicator is checked to ‘Force’, absolute paths will be changed to relative paths if the files are relative to the Gedcom. - The concept of relative must be understood in a natural sense; symbolic links do not allow a path to be converted to relative. This option is not reversible: disabling the option does not restore the paths to absolute values. To restore a path to absolute value, you must disable the option and reselect the file from its directory. You can choose not to use this option and define relative paths yourself if you want to use symbolic links.   Check remote files allows Ancestris to check all remote files existence when editing them or when loading the Gedcom file or scanning files. It might slow down response times when too many files are remote in particular if some no longer exist. To avoid this, uncheck this box and remote files existence will not be checked. Please note that when a remote file image needs to be displayed, its existence will necessarily be checked then, regardless of this setting.   Timeout is the number of seconds to wait when checking one single remote file. If the file can be checked in less time, the test will be positive. If after this amount of seconds the test cannot be successful, the file will be considered unfound. For archive web sites with slow response time, it will be necessary to increase that number. ID Numbers This option defines preferences for the ID number format of entities. Reuse available (deleted) numbers : forces Ancestris to reuse earlier ID numbers that have been made available when their corresponding entities have been deleted. Default Entity ID length : sets the number of digits for ID numbers. Encoding This option deals with the encoding of the file saved on disk. It is a technical parameter that defines the character table used to save the file. File Encoding selects the character table. It is recommended to encode with the UTF-8 table. Editing These options deal with the behavior of the editors. Default editor defines the editor to use by default, in particular through the context menu action named ' Edit/Modify '. Automatically commit changes without asking for confirmation spares you from confirming with the OK button all changes you make. Regardless of this setting, for security reason, the Delete action confirmation will remain. Maximum number of cancellations is the maximum number of changes that can be undone using the Ctrl + Z key or the Undo button on the Toolbar . Automatically create both parents when adding a parent adds the placeholders of both parents when creating an individual's parent. Automatically create age tag when editing an event date adds the age tag and calculate the age if the date of the event is changed. If the birth date or the christening date is changed, it recalculates all event ages for the individual. Automatically detect duplicate individuals detects duplicate individuals each time you edit an individual. An individual can indeed become a duplicate when you change their date of birth, name, etc. even though this was not a duplicate initially. When saving your changes to the person, Ancestris checks with the criteria defined in the Merge duplicates tool if a duplicate exists. If a duplicate is found, it means that two entities are similar. You can then either merge them, ignore this detection, or declare it as a non-duplicate. If this duplicate is ignored, it may be detected again on the next update. If declared as non-duplicate, this pair of entities will no longer be detected as a duplicate. Sort entity properties : place empty properties at the end  places the empty properties last when sorting properties in entities. Automatically validate entity with consistencies tests launch consistencies tests from the tool Validate Gedcom compliance and data consistency each times you save an entity with Aries or Gedcom editor (The tests are always launched with Cygnus editor) Extensions This panel defines the preferences of some extensions, also called modules. Each tab underneath represents a different module. The settings for each extension are described in the Customization section of the corresponding module documentation page. Proxy This panel deals with the Internet proxy connection settings. First option : No proxy. Second option : Use System Proxy Settings. This is the default setting for automatic detection. Third option : Manual Proxy Settings. You will need to specify the proxy address. The Test connection button allows you to check whether the connection has been correctly configured. Keymap This panel defines Ancestris keyboard shortcuts. Profile selects one of the saved profiles. 'NetBeans' is the default profile. The Show as HTML button opens your browser with the table of keyboard shortcuts. Very handy if you want to print them. The Manage profiles button allows you to assign different shortcuts to different profiles. The window that opens to manage profiles contains several buttons. Duplicate creates a copy of the selected profile Restore Defaults restores the original content of the selected profile Delete deletes the selected profile Export copies the contents of the selected profile to an xml file Import creates a new profile from an xml file Close closes the Manage Profiles window Help opens help for this window (button currently unavailable) Search allows you to filter the list of shortcuts according to their action. Search in shortcuts filters the list of shortcuts, depending on a key used. Shortcuts list Each line represents the possible association between an action and a shortcut. The Actions column lists the different actions of Ancestris. The Shortcut column indicates the keyboard shortcut for the action when it exists To the right of each cell, there is a button [...] which opens a context menu containing the following actions. Edit allows you to add a key combination or modify an already defined one Add Alternative (which is available only when the cell is filled in) allows to add another shortcut to the same action Reset to Default resets the shortcut defined during the installation of Ancestris Clear removes the shortcut The Category column indicates the category to which the associated command belongs. Export and Import Preferences Remember that if you want to have the same Ancestris preferences on several computers, you must first export your configuration from the source computer and then import it on the destination computer. It is also possible to make a copy of the .ancestris directory . See File configuration . One click on the export button and you select the options you want to export. You then indicate the file in which the selected options will be saved. This is a file in ZIP format. Windows Ancestris lets you save windows positions and sizes for each genealogy or for all. This panel can be accessed from the Options/Save display settings... menu. Principles Scope of these window settings Window settings define three window elements: the windows that automatically open for a genealogy, their position , and their size . Whatever you define within each window depends on the specific view setting and does not apply to this page. Reversely, whatever you do with the actions within this page does not alter individual window configuration within a window. Three levels of windows Settings Three levels of window settings have been defined for Ancestris. Per genealogy This level memorizes a specific opening/position/size configuration for a given genealogy. Each genealogy can have its own settings. These settings are either saved every time you close a genealogy, or when you chose the first action from the Window settings panel. User-defined default This level defines a general opening/position/size configuration that will apply to all genealogies, provided they do not have their own settings. If you open a genealogy for the first time, it will open using this user-defined window settings if it exists, or the Ancestris default otherwise. If you open a genealogy which already has its own window settings, you can erase it and the user-defined one will then apply if is exists, otherwise the Ancestris default will apply. Ancestris default This level if the default configuration if no other configuration has been defined. This is the configuration that is visible the first time you open Ancestris. By default, only two views are open, the Tree view on the left hand side and the default editor on the right hand side. Description The Window settings panel shows the three levels described above and for each of the first two, you can save it or erase it. Save settings Saves window positions as they are currently displayed, only for the currently selected genealogy. Closing the genealogy will also save window settings. Erase settings and apply user-defined layout / Ancestris layout instead Erases window settings for the current genealogy. This will reposition the windows to your user-defined window setting or the Ancestris default window settings otherwise. Ancestris will ask you if the current genealogy can be closed and reopen in order to apply the change. Save as per current genealogy windows Saves current window settings and defines them as the default settings when you open a new genealogy or reset its window settings. Erase user-defined default settings Erases your user-defined default window settings. Erase all user settings and restore Ancestris default Erases all window settings. Display settings inside each window will be kept. Ancestris will need to close each open genealogy and restart. Ancestris will ask you for permission. Set mark You know if a window setting has been defined for a given level by looking at the green tick mark on the right hand side of the panel: . The panel at the top of the page shows that a window setting has been defined for the Kennedy genealogy, but none has been defined for all genealogies. Usage The main purpose of the window setting panel is to let you save or erase window settings. The above actions are pretty self-explanatory if you have one of thee above needs. Here is an example of a need that is not directly visible through the actions above. It can be achieved using the actions described above. If you want to reset a genealogy to Ancestris default settings even though you have defined a user-defined window setting If you are happy to erase the user-defined window settings: first erase them, and then erase the genealogy ones. If you would like to keep your user-defined window settings, you would have to use an intermediary genealogy to hold your user-defined window settings to recover them later Open any other genealogy. It will open using your user-defined window settings. Or else, erase its specific window settings. This other genealogy will hold the desired window settings that you want to keep.  Erase user-defined window settings Select your initial genealogy Erase its specific window setting. It will apply the Ancestris default as desired. Select the other genealogy and save user-defined window setting. Of course this is a rather unusual need and this method may sound like a complex workaround. The purpose through this example is to show you a general way to keep any given window setting as long as you have a genealogy to hold it.                   Blueprints A blueprint is description used to customize the display of an entity in certain views of Ancestris. Views using blueprints Only the following views use blueprints. For each of them, an example shows what the blueprints could look like. Dynamic tree The Dynamic Tree uses blueprints for individuals and families. Blueprints are the areas displayed inside the coloured frames. Entity card The Entity Card uses blueprints for all categories of entities. Blueprints can be reused for several views. Here, the blueprint used for individuals in the dynamic tree is used inside the Entity card. Extended navigator The Extended Navigator uses blueprints for both individuals and families. Below are blueprints used for the individuals of the selected couple. You may notice that they are not the same. The spouse blueprint does not display the Sosa number and displays the entity number above the name. And this is a blueprint for each child of the selected family. Gedcom editor The Gedcom Editor uses blueprints in its lower part for all entity categories. As for the entity card, the Gedcom Editor uses blueprints for individuals or families, but also for other entities. For example here is a simple blueprint of a Repository entity. Or a simple blueprint of a Multimedia entity. Now that you have seen what blueprints look like and where they are used, let us see how they work. General principles A blueprint is a template defining what to display of an entity, and how to display it. A blueprint is assigned to a given entity category (individual, family, source, etc.) for a given view (Dynamic tree, Entity file, etc.). You can define your own blueprints rather than using the ones already provided within Ancestris. Several blueprints exist within Ancestris and are already selected by default for each of the entity categories, and in each view where blueprints apply. Blueprints constitute a way to customize Ancestris. You are free to keep blueprints as they are or modify them to your needs. You can define your own blueprints, i.e. both the information to display for an individual or a family (name, address, etc.) and how to display this information (colour, font, alignment, layout, etc.). If you want to make some changes to the available blueprints, you will need to learn a little more about them. This is the subject of the following sections in this page. Technically, a blueprint is a piece of HTML code written into a file located on your disk. Refer to the paragraph Directory containing blueprints files for more information. Managing blueprints Managing blueprints consists in performing two types of activities. assign blueprints to entities and views build your own blueprints or delete them This is done using the Blueprint window . The Blueprint window manages the blueprints for one category of entity at a time. The window is the same regardless of the category of entity, but it only contains blueprints attached to the given category of entity. To access the Blueprint window for a given entity category, you must use the Ancestris context menu from an entity of the corresponding entity. Right-click on an individual in the Entity card view, then select "Change display of individuals" to open the Blueprint window for individual. Right-click on a family in the Entity card view, then select "Change display of families" to open the Blueprint window for families. Ditto for Notes, Sources, Multimedia, Repositories, etc. This can be done from the Entity card or the Gedcom Editor for the corresponding entities. Here is how to access the Blueprint window for individuals, from the Entity card, Contextual menu by right-clicking, then choose "Change display of individuals". The Blueprint window for Individuals appears. Whatever the category of entity, the operations in this window are the same. We will use the example of the Blueprint window for individuals in the description that follows. Description  The Blueprint window contains the following areas. The list of blueprints on the left shows the blueprints currently available for the previously selected entity category. To work on a blueprint, select it from the list. The preview area at the top right shows a preview of the blueprint selected in the list. The HTML editor at the bottom right displays the HTML code of the blueprint selected in the list on the left, and where you can edit the code. The horizontal separator bar under the preview area must be dragged up with the mouse to see the code below. Meaning of the buttons: The New button adds a copy of the currently selected blueprint to the list, and asks you to input another name. This will become the newly selected blueprint and you will be able to modify it. The Delete button removes the selected blueprint from the list The Insert Property ... button appears when you edit HTML code. Use it to inserts a TAG in the HTML code. It will insert it at the cursor position. The OK button validates the changes and exits the window. The Cancel button closes the window without validating the changes. The Blueprint window size can be changed by pulling the lower right corner. The preview area and the Text Editor area can be adjusted by moving the separator of these two areas with the mouse or by clicking on the arrows of the separator on the left: Usage The Blueprint window covers the following needs: Discover the available blueprints . To discover the available blueprints without activating them (therefore, without closing the panel), click successively on each of them in the left-hand side list, and check the result in the preview area. Choose a different blueprint. To assign another blueprint to the currently selected entity category in one of the views, click a blueprint in the list, then validate by pressing the OK button. Modify a blueprint . For security reasons, the blueprints already available cannot be modified. To modify an existing blueprint, you must first make a copy of it. Select it in the list, click New and give it a new name. Then use the HTML editor panel to make your changes. Create a blueprint . To create a new blueprint, it is recommended to copy an existing one. See above. Delete a blueprint . To delete a blueprint, select it in the list and click the Delete button. You are then asked to confirm the deletion which will be final. Note: for security reasons, blueprints provided with Ancestris cannot be deleted. Case study Suppose we have a simple blueprint without a photo for the individuals in the dynamic tree, and we want to insert a photo. The steps to do this would be the following: Identify where the photo data item is inside the data of the individual. Use the Gedcom editor for that. Open the Blueprint window for individuals Create a new blueprint by copying 'simple blueprint' without image. Rename it 'MyBlueprint-Indi-Tree' Modify the blueprint to insert the photo property identified above, and adjust its size in the frame using the preview Save the blueprint and check the result Each of these steps is detailed below. Identify where the photo data item is The Gedcom editor will show you where the photo items are located for all individuals. We see below that the photo is located in the FILE tag, attached to the OBJE tag, which itself is attached to the INDI tag. All together, you will need to remember that photo files are at the address ' INDI:OBJE:FILE '. That is what we wanted to know. Open the Blueprint window for individuals As we want to change the blueprint for Individuals in the Dynamic view, we need to first select an individual in the Dynamic view. Then we right-click on the individual. In the context menu that appears, we choose " Change display of individuals ". Create a new blueprint The Blueprint window for Individuals appears. As we want to make a new blueprint as an extension of the "Simple" blueprint, we first make a copy of the "Simple" Blueprint. To do so, we select it in the list. Then in the preview, we see what this Blueprint displays for an individual : simple text without a photo. What we want to do is to add the photo of the individual. We then click " New ". Ancestris asks the name of the new blueprint: We type 'MyBlueprint-Indi-Tree' and press OK. We are then on the previous Blueprint window with a new editable blueprint. We have the new blueprint selected in the list on the left, the same preview at the top right, and the HTML code at the bottom right. We see that this blueprint is editable, because the buttons " Delete " and " Insert property... " are visible and enabled. We will now change the HTML code so that it displays the photo. Modify the blueprint We can see that there are 4 lines of properties in the HTML code: name, birth, death, occupation. The HTML tag, and everything in it, is Ancestris specific. This makes it possible to manipulate the genealogical data of the Gedcom file. We want to put the photo at the bottom of the display, so we insert another property, the one identified above, INDI:OBJE:FILE, after the 4 properties already showing. We place the cursor under , the label that marks the end of a table. We press the button " Insert property... ". A window appears listing a choice of possible properties. In this window, we find the Multimedia OBJE line, we unfold the flap to show the content of OBJE, and we see the line File. We check the box. And we press "OK". We now see that the preview has changed. But that's not finished yet, because in the preview you can see that the photo is too big. And we changed our mind as well. We want to position the photo at the top right corner of the text. As the text was structured inside a table, it is in fact necessary to put the image in the table, to the right of the text. To do this, we modify the HTML code as follows: we move the line that we have just inserted in the table structure by adding a cell using the tags. As we also want to limit the size of the image, we add an Ancestris specificity: we add "max = 20" at the end, inside the tag, which means to limit the photo size at 20% of the available width. The preview changes as you change the code. This is handy and immediately lets you see if what you are doing is right. Once the code has changed, the preview looks correct, and the window looks like this. The code in yellow does its job: the photo is in a cell on the right of the table and limited to 20% of the width. Save the blueprint and check the result We can save our work now. We click on OK and we look at the dynamic tree at the same time. The blueprint changes. It's good, we have what we wanted! Going further Of course, the hardest part therefore remains to know HTML on one hand, and to know the specificities added by Ancestris to handle genealogical data on the other hand. As far as HTML language is concerned, there are many sites to help you. Please refer to them. Regarding Ancestris specificities, the tags added to the HTML are: or or The following sections describe how to manipulate them. or tags Displays the property of the entity defined by the path . If a default path is also specified, it is the one that is used if the first property is not found. For multiple properties , a rank can be indicated in the path using "?i" where i is the rank of the property. Following this number, the rest of the path can be provided if any. See example below with the occupations. The format, length and max parameters are explained below. The img parameter can be set to 'yes' or 'no' to display the property's icon. By default, it is 'no'. The txt parameter can be set to 'yes' or 'no' to display the property name or not. Default is 'yes'. The  underline parameter can be set to 'yes' or 'no' to underline the property's text. By default, it is 'no'. Parameters in square brackets are optional. Either 'prop' or 'ifvalue' can be used. Case of names (NAME property) To customize the display of the name, you can use the name sub-properties. Example : a.k.a will display the full name and the nick name. Example : John F. Kennedy a.k.a Jack To add the nickname between parenthesis after the first appearance of NAME, add: Case of places (PLAC property) It is possible to force the level of jurisdictions that you want to see displayed for a place. The syntax of the line to put in the HTML editor is of the following form where 1 and 4 are the jurisdiction ranks in the Place criteria definition (see File/Properties ). Example: assuming that all our places follow the following format (as per the PLAC tag in the Gedcom file or in File/Properties): Suburb, City, ZIP code, State, Country Starting counting from the left at rank #0 : rank #1 is the City and rank #4 is the country. In this case: displays City (Country) displays City, Suburb displays City, State, ZIP Code - Country Case of a multiple property, such as occupations (OCCU property) In the case of multiple properties, it is possible to force the rank of the property to be displayed. The syntax of the line to put in the HTML editor is of the following form This will display the second occupation of a person. You can access to the last value with the LAST keyword. The last value can be the first of one person and the third for another one. If you want to display the date of the second occupation of a person, the code would be the following: It is therefore possible to display the first 5 occupations of every persons like this. In the Default blueprint, you would change the code and insert the 5 blocks like this:  
 
 
 
 
For a person with 3 occupations, and using the code above, you would see the following in the tree view for instance: Text formatting possibilities [format=" format "]  This format only applies to monoline text. format="$D" : displays the full date of an event Example : displays 10 feb 1876 as the date of birth (BIRT) format="$y" : displays the year of the date of an event Example : displays 1876 format="$P" : displays the full location of an event Example : displays  Hyde Park,02136,Boston,Suffolk,Massachusetts,USA format="$p" : displays the city of the event Example : displays Boston format="$n" : displays the name of the related entity if it exists Example : displays Marie STUART , the godmother of the event (CHR) format="$N" : displays the full name of the related entity if it exists Example : displays STUART, Marie (° 30 march 1909 + 16 December 2008) (I0298) format="$v" : displays the type of related entity followed by the full name of the related entity Example : displays Godmother : STUART, Marie (° 30 march 1909 + 16 December 2008) (I0298) format="$V" : displays the entity number only Example : displays I0298 if we use the same example as above Example : displays S134 , the ID number of the SOURce entity supporting the BIRTh event format=" text {$e}" : displays the text " text " if the data exists, nothing otherwise. Example : displays (*) if INDI:NAME:SOUR exists, nothing otherwise Example:   displays surname prefix with a space in between but the space is only displayed if the surname prefix exists. In this example, note that the first 3 statements are plugged together without any space in between, while space can be always included between surname and suffix, because an ending space does not show anyway. max=" n " : limits the display to n% of the available width. Valid for an image or for text. Example : displays the full name truncated to 10% of the available width length=" n " : limits the display to n characters. Valid for a text. Example : displays the full name truncated to 10 characters. tag Displays the media of the entity. If a path is specified, the corresponding media is used, otherwise any first media found in the entity is displayed. The " max " parameter limits the size in width as above. Parameters in square brackets are optional. or tag Displays the name of the label given by tag , path or entity . One of the 3 attributes must be specified. tag takes precedence over path , which takes precedence over entity . The  underline parameter can be set to 'yes' or 'no' to underline the text. By default, it is 'no'. Example: displays Name displays Name displays Submitter Displays a square marker on a blueprint. The marker is only displayed if the indicated property ( path ) exists in the entity, and if the value of the property is the same as the value of the " test " attribute. The repeat attribute is optional and specifies the number of times the marker should be repeated.  The default attribute is optional and allow to check this property if the property indicated by path doesn't exist. The notpresent="true" parameter allow to display a marker only if the property doesn't exist. For instance, the following code displays a green marker for individuals whose name is CAPET, and a red marker for individuals whose name is HABSBOURG. This results in the following view in the dynamic tree for instance: Another example . The following code displays 5 markers for individuals whose sex is unknown. : Displays a marker if no source is defined for the birth. User example Here is an example of marking provided by Sylvain, a user, to put a color marker depending on the source of an event.
This code puts a coloured marker for births whose source is filled in, with a different colour depending on the origin of the source, and a black marker otherwise. Directory where blueprints files are stored Blueprints are files of HTML codes that are stored in the User Directory , in a sub-directory called " ancestris/blueprints ". The blueprints directory itself contains several sub-directories, each of them having the title corresponding to the entity to which it applies: it is in each of these sub-directories that the different blueprints are located. INDI for blueprints about individuals FAM for blueprints about families OBJE for blueprints about multimedia objects NOTE for blueprints about notes SOUR for blueprints about sources SUBM  for blueprints about submitters REPO for blueprints about repositoris As these are HTML format files, you can open them with your favorite internet browser. Feel free to share your blueprints with the Ancestris community ! Thanks in advance. Tutorial We have written a tutorial in PDF format. It is written in French. Please feel free to download it from here . Extensions Ancestris is a modular software where every major functionality resides in a module, also called an extension or a plugin. This is a great way to extend the possibilities of the software. Most extensions are installed by default. Those that are not installed by default are: Look and Feel :  to change the look and feel of Ancestris interface Geneweb and CousinsgenWeb : French specific export tools You can install or uninstall any extension at any time, including those installed by default. Of course, if an extension is uninstalled, you cannot benefit from the corresponding functionalities. The Extension Manager window is where you perform the corresponding operations. Usage The Extensions Manager window contains five tabs: Updates , Available Plugins , Downloaded , Installed , and Settings . Each tab looks the same overall. the list of extensions on the left hand side a brief description of the extension on the right hand side action buttons at the bottom Updates The Updates tab displays a list of currently installed extensions for which there is an available update. Each time you launch Ancestris, the application checks if there are any new updates for the currently installed extensions. When it finds any, it displays them in the left area. The Check for Updates button asks Ancestris to check for new updates. The description of the selected extension is displayed on the right. Select the extensions to update and click the Update button. A wizard consisting of 3 successive panels will download the selected updated extensions, will ask you to accept that they are not signed, and will ask you if you want to restart Ancestris now or later. Available Plugins The Available Plugins tab lists the available extensions that you have not yet installed. The number displayed in parentheses to the right of the tab title corresponds to the number of available extensions to install. These extensions not yet installed are listed in the left column: if you select one of them, its description appears on the right. To install an extension, check the corresponding box and click on the Install button. A wizard made up of 3 successive panels will download the checked extensions, ask you to accept the fact that they are not signed, and ask you if you want to restart Ancestris now or later. Extensions will only be usable after restarting Ancestris. Downloaded The Downloaded tab allows you to manipulate extensions outside of the official Ancestris repository. You shouldn't need to use it. These could be, for example, extensions that are in the development team's test phase, or that you could write yourself. This tab allows in very rare cases to install an extension by hand instead of following the automatic process. This can happen if the internet connection is very slow or insufficient. In this case the support can tell you where to find the largest extensions - your browser could be more patient when downloading large extensions - and this is where they should be added. To install an external extension, click on the Add extensions button and select it in the directory on your hard drive where it is located. Once added, its name is displayed in the left column and is installed as before. Installed The Installed tab lists the extentions already installed. The left column lists all the extensions. The number of extensions is displayed in parentheses in the tab title. The Active column displays whether or not each of them is activated. An active extension is associated with a green check mark at the end of the line. Ancestris has extensions that are not visible to the user by default. Do not be surprised if some are unknown to you. Disabling an extension makes it unusable in Ancestris. Uninstalling it removes it from your hard drive as well. To activate or deactivate an extension, check the corresponding box and click on the corresponding Activate or Deactivate button. To uninstall an extension, press the Uninstall button. Settings The Settings tab allows you to choose how and when Ancestris should check for updates. We recommend you do not change those settings. The left column lists all of the Ancestris update centres. You do not have to change anything here. In the lower part of the tab, it is possible to select the check intervals for the updates. If your computer is behind a proxy, you can change the connection settings by clicking on the Proxy settings button. In most cases, the default settings work fine. Once you have made your choices, you will be asked to close and relaunch Ancestris for your changes to take effect. Create an extension If you want to start writing an extension, please check the Contribution page for instructions. Control the quality of your genealogy data GEDCOM standard, structure of genealogy data. Data management and control. Gedcom The word Gedcom designates a genealogical data exchange format. It was originally developed by the Mormon Church for religious reasons, then retrieved by genealogists to exchange genealogical data between people running their genealogy applications on incompatible computer systems. So Gedcom is a kind of genealogical language. It is the most famous and used worldwide. The word Gedcom , which is an acronym for Ge nealogical d ata com munication, is spelled like an acronym: GEDCOM. By metonymic derivation, a Gedcom also designates a genealogy file in Gedcom format. The file you are working on within Ancestris is a Gedcom. Since the mid-1990s, with the advent of the Internet and the proliferation of digital exchanges, the Gedcom specification has gradually become an essential standard for most genealogy software and sites worldwide. However, while most of them can export in Gedcom format, some of them do not strictly respect the Gedcom format and make some adaptations by adding proprietary structures or using existing ones for different meanings. In some cases, proprietary data structures cannot be properly converted to the Gedcom format and some data might simply not be exported. Ancestris is fully Gedcom compatible with Gedcom versions 5.5, 5.5.1 and 7.0 . As a user, you may safely rely on Ancestris to keep comprehensive genealogy files, without risk of data loss, and share or transmit them with anyone. Version 12 of Ancestris converts your Gedcom file to the 7.0 standard and allows you to manage your genealogy in the 7.0 format Characteristics of a Gedcom file A Gedcom file is a text file, i.e. a file containing human readable lines of text, that can be opened and edited using any text editor , such as Notepad, Kate, Kwrite, Gedit, etc. Its extension name is " *.ged ". As a result, such a file can be used * as is * by any genealogy software, installed under any operating system, without any conversion need. Each line of text starts with a number and a label. The label is called a "tag". This tag is made up of three or four capital letters. It defines the type of information that follows on the line. For example, the tag PLAC (= place) always indicates that the text that follows this tag is a place (such as place of birth, place of death, place of a ceremony, etc.) Records of a Gedcom file A Gedcom file contains a set of records. A record is a group of text lines, the first one of which starts with a zero "0". A record defines something in particular, which depends on the type of record. The first and the last record of a Gedcom file are of particular types: The first record is called the header ( HEAD tag) and defines some general information about the file. The last record is called the end of file trailer marker ( TRLR tag). It defines the end of the file. Each of the other records defines a genealogical entity, with its own set of tags. A Gedcom file uses 7 entity categories. The records that can be found in a Gedcom file are therefore as follows: Records defining individuals (tag INDI) Records defining families (tag FAM) Records defining notes (tag NOTE or SNOTE) Records defining sources (tag SOUR) Records defining repositories (tag REPO) Records defining media files (tag OBJE) Records defining information submitters (tag SUBM) The choice to consider these 7 categories of data as being records is arbitrary of course, but it is always the case when creating a standard. One could easily imagine other types of records, such as places for example. The fact that a place is not a separate entity does not prevent Ancestris from managing them and respecting the Gedcom format at the same time. Tree structure of a record Each record is presented in a tree structure: each tag can include any number of sub-tags. Sub-tags are hierarchically depending on the previous higher level tag, and may in turn include one or more sub-tags, etc. Hierarchical levels Hierarchical levels are numbered. As each line must imperatively remain in its place from the point of view of the hierarchy, each of them is assigned a number corresponding to the level occupied in the tree structure of the record. This is why the main level line of each record is level zero, numbered 0. A line located at the level immediately below bears the number 1. A line located at the level immediately below level 1 bears the number 2. And so on. Identifier and entity records As mentioned above, apart from HEAD and TRLR records, all the other records are entity records. Each entity record starts with a level 0 line followed by the following: The ID number of the entity surrounded by two at-signs (@), The tag associated with the category to which the entity belongs. For example, the line " 0 @I5@ INDI " is the first record line of an INDIvidual entity which ID is 'I5'. Indentation For greater clarity, lines of a record can be indented so as to more clearly show the relationship between the lines of the record. The information lines underneath a tag qualify the tag. Non indented record: 0 @I5@ INDI => this defines indidual number 'I5' 1 NAME John Doe => The indivudual's name is John Doe 1 SEX M => This individual is a male 1 BIRT => What follows defines his birth event 2 DATE April 16, 1951 => John Doe was therefore born on April 16, 1951 1 FAMC @F1328@ => Family F1328 is the record that defines John Doe's family (FAM) where he is a child (C) Indented record: 0 @I5@ INDI => this defines indidual number 'I5' 1 NAME John Doe => The indivudual's name is John Doe 1 SEX M => This individual is a male 1 BIRT => What follows defines his birth event 2 DATE April 16, 1951 => John Doe was therefore born on April 16, 1951 1 FAMC @F1328@ => Family F1328 is the record that defines John Doe's family (FAM) where he is a child (C) The Gedcom editor is an editor within Ancestris which shows you the exact information located in the Gedcom file and all of it. It also enhances the display of this information to make it even easier to read. This editor uses an indented display and does not show level numbers. It also adds handles, to show or hide sub-tag levels, making it easy to expand or collapse any branch. This is how the same individual would show in the Gedcom editor: As you can see, the Gedcom editor enhances the display by adding icons and by fetching relevant hints. In particular, the "@F1328@" piece of data is replaced, only in the display, not in the real Gedcom file, with the relevant information about the family. Here, we therefore immediately know that John's parents are named Martin and Kelly. Also the name is split into its lastname and firstname parts. Line formatting inside a record Formatting Each line in a record is made of 3 elements: The level number, from 0 to n, The tag which defines the type of genealogical information that follows, The genealogical information. Example: the line 2 DATE April 16, 1951 means level 2,  information of type DATE which value is 16 april 1951. In order to know what this date refers to, you would have to read the previous lines. Knowing this is a level 2 line, there must be a level 1 (the event in this case) and a level 0 (the record entity) above. Referencing another entity Sometimes in a line, one may need to refer to another record entity. This is done using by indicating the identification number of the entity, surrounded by two at-signs (@). The difference between reference "@id@" defining a record and reference "@id@" pointing to a record is the following: If the reference is in the 0-level record before the tag, right after the "0", then it is a definition of a record. Example : 0 @I5@ INDI : defines individual I5 If the reference is on the right hand side of the tag, it references the entity. We also say it "points" towards the entity. Example, if we have this line inside an individual record: 1 FAMC @F1328@ : this indicates that the family from which this person is a child (meaning of FAMC), is F1328. It also assumes that F1328 is defined somewhere else in the Gedcom file as a record which should start with 0 @F1328@ FAM . Gedcom standard The Gedcom standard refers to the set of rules that govern what can and cannot be done when writing a Gedcom file, so that everyone organizes genealogical information in the same, so that others can understand. It is therefore the grammar of the Gedcom language. Three main standards exist, 5.5, 5.5.1 and 7.0, all sharing the same fundamental entities and tags, with a gradual evolution towards better possibilities and clarification. These differences are limited however we recommend the use of Gedcom 7.0 which is more complete and clearer. Ancestris handles all standards indifferently and can convert your Gedcom file from one standard to the other and vice-versa. Gedcom 5.5 This norm was released on January 2nd, 1996. You will find details of the comprehensive Gedcom standard release 5.5 here in the form of an html site. Gedcom 5.5.1 This norm was first released in 1999 as a draft and remained stable until November 15th, 2019 when it was made official. You can also consult the Gedcom standard release 5.5.1 as a pdf file: Norme Gedcom 5.5.1 . These 20 years of stability makes this standard a very well documented and widely used way to exchange genealogical information. You will find in the 5.5.1 document a comparison between the two Gedcom standards. Gedcom 7.0.16 This norm was first released in 2021 and is still evolving within the 7.0.x range. The specifications of this norm can be found in The FamilySearch GEDCOM Specification site. Entities An entity in the Gedcom standard is a main genealogical component such as an individual, a family, a source of information or a note. It can also be an multimedia object such as a video or a audio record. In a Gedcom file, an entity is a record identified by an identification number and a group of tags specifying its characteristics. The various genealogical characteristics associated with an entity are called properties : birth, marriage, date, place, event, text, address, etc. Ancestris follows the Gedcom standard as closely as possible and uses the same concepts of entity and property. The organization of information for each entity follows the precise grammar of the standard. This grammar provides several  possibilities to store the information. To see these various possibilities in Ancestris, use the Gedcom editor . The 7 categories of entities There are seven categories of entities in the Gedcom standard. An entity always belongs to one, and only one, of these seven categories.   Individuals   Families   Media   Notes   Sources   Submitters   Repositories Each category has its dedicated properties. However, regardless of the category to which they belong, all entities operate according to the same principles. There are described below. In Ancestris, all entities are easily accessible from the Entity Table. Individuals An individual, or a person , is a human being, living or deceased. It is the primary component of any genealogy. In the Gedcom standard, an individual is defined by the INDI tag, and has an identification number which could nearly be anything. In Ancestris, this ID starts with the letter I . Appearance in Ancestris :    INDI Individual The main properties of an individual are: a name, made of a first name and a lastname, and possibily made of other name elements. events such as birth, marriage, occupation, and many others. relationships with other individuals in the genealogy. Events and relationships are probably the most interesting parts of your genealogy because they are the pieces of information that  will let you understand the life of your ancestors and the stories they could tell you.   NAME : name of an individual. This tag can be repeated if the individual is known under several names. Gedcom syntax: NAME Lt. Cmndr. Joseph /Allen/ jr. In this example jr. is considered the suffix of the name. All the information was entered only in the NAME tag without using any sub-tag. The Gedcom standard provides a detailed structure to store the name of an individual, and specify all the possible elements of a name, in particular NICK and NSFX which are placed at the end of NAME.   GIVN : (given name) First name. Its value must be identical to that in the NAME tag. It is an optional tag. The different first names are separated by a comma. NICK  : (nick name) A familiar name or nickname, which is used in addition to, or instead of, the last name. NPFX  : (name prefix) Name prefix. An element of the name that precedes the lastname (e.g. Master, General, Doctor, etc.) SPFX : (surname prefix) Particle before the Lastname. A complement to the name which is preceding the name, and which is not to be taken into account when sorting lastnames. Different articles / name prefixes are separated by a comma, for example in the name “de la Cruz”, this value must be “de, la”. SURN : (surname) Lastname at birth, family name. Different surnames are separated by a comma. NSFX : (name suffix) Lasname Suffix. A complement to the name, an article, which follows the last name, and which is not to be taken into account when sorting lastnames. Different name suffixes are separated by a comma. Example: eldest, son.   NOTE : Note about the individual   SOUR : S ource of information proving the existence and the characteristics of the individual.   ALIA : (alias) Link with another individual entity, indicating that this current individual could be a duplicate of the other one and that one of the two should be removed eventually. It does mean that the two persons are the same person with a different name. One should use two NAME tags for that, within one single individual entity. Family A family is a couple of human beings, living or deceased, united either by a legal union (e.g. marriage) or by a de-facto union (e.g. co-living). Most often, one or more children are associated with it. A family is therefore a structure bringing together two or more individuals (spouse, children) as well as a set of specific properties such as the various events associated with it (marriage, divorce, etc.) In the Gedcom standard, a family is designated by the FAM tag and receives an ID number starting with the letter F in Ancestris. Appearance in Ancestris :  FAM Family Media A Media, or Multimedia Element is a photo, an audio or video document (a photograph, an audio recording, a film, a copy of a document, etc.) generally intended to be associated with one or more individuals or families or to be associated with a source. In the Gedcom standard, a multimedia element is defined by the OBJE tag. It has an ID number starting with the letter M in Ancestris. Appearance in Ancestris :  OBJE multimedia element Warning ! There are two kinds of multimedia elements: the entity and the property . These two kinds of media, although they have the same tag (OBJE), should not be confused. The multimedia entity can be used by several other entities. It is therefore meant to be shared, collective or common . It is truly autonomous and can exist independently of the entities that refer to it. Example: a audio file specifying your analysis of a research involving several individuals. The multimedia property is intended to qualify a single piece of information of the genealogy. It can only be used once. It is useless when taken out of its context, its connection to the information to which it relates. Example: a video of a newly born child. The multimedia property, unlike the multimedia entity, does not receive any ID number and is only valid for a single property, in a given entity. It can only exist within the entity that includes it. If the entity is deleted, the property disappears with it. In summary, if the same multimedia object must be assigned to several individuals, several families, etc., it is more efficient to store it in the form of a object entity. Once entered, it will be possible to use it an infinite number of times. As a object property, you would have to re-enter the link to the media file as many times as you would need it. Warning ! Ancestris does not make any copy of your multimedia files. It just "refers" to the actual files. Ancestris will read them where you will need them in Ancestris. So please do not erase them thinking that Ancestris made a copy of them. Note A note is a text information that can be associated with other categories of entities (individuals, families, multimedia elements, etc.) or with a property anywhere in the genealogy. In the Gedcom standard, a note is defined by the tag NOTE (5.5 and 5.5.1) or the tag SNOTE (7.0) and it has an ID number starting with the letter N in Ancestris. Appearance in Ancestris :  NOTE Note or S NOTE note Warning ! There are two kinds of notes: the entity and the property . These two kinds of notes, although they have the same tag (NOTE), should not be confused. The Gedcom 7.0 grammar now distinguishes both by using a different tag: SNOTE for the entity, NOTE for the property. The note entity can be used by several other entities. It is therefore meant to be shared, collective or common . It is truly autonomous and can exist independently of the entities that refer to it. Example: a text specifying your analysis of a research involving several individuals. The note property is intended to qualify a single piece of information of the genealogy. It can only be used once. It is useless when taken out of its context, its connection to the information to which it relates. Example: a characteristic of a newly born child. The note property, unlike the note entity, does not receive any ID number and is only valid for a single property, in a given entity. It can only exist within the entity that includes it. If the entity is deleted, the property disappears with it. In summary, if the same note must be assigned to several individuals, several families, etc., it is more efficient to store it in the form of a note entity. Once entered, it will be possible to use it an infinite number of times. As a note property, you would have to re-enter the text of the note as many times as you would need it. Source A source is anything that defines the origin of a piece information. It can be a document, a book, a monument, etc. It can also be a natural person: your great-grandmother can, for example, be qualified as a source, if she has transmitted a family history to you orally for instance. This entity is intended to collect very precisely the various references (document title, symbol, act number, page, etc.) in order to allow any subsequent verification of the characteristics of other entities (in particular, individuals and families). In the Gedcom standard, a source is defined by the SOUR tag and it has an ID number starting with the letter S in Ancestris. Sources maintain a close relationship with other entities, repositories . A repository contains sources, and sources are located in repositories. Please refer to the following section for detailed considerations on how to organze sources and repositories. Appearance in Ancestris :  SOUR Source Warning ! There are two kinds of sources: the entity and the property . These two kinds of sources, although they have the same tag (SOUR), should not be confused. The source entity can be used by several other entities. It is therefore meant to be shared, collective or common . It is truly autonomous and can exist independently of the entities that refer to it. Example: a marriage deed. The source property is intended to qualify a single piece of information of the genealogy. It can only be used once. It is useless when taken out of its context, its connection to the information to which it relates. The source property, unlike the source entity, does not receive any ID number and is only valid for a single property, in a given entity. It can only exist within the entity that includes it. If the entity is deleted, the property disappears with it. In summary, if the same source must qualify several events of individuals, families, etc., it is more efficient to store it in the form of a source entity. Once entered, it will be possible to use it an infinite number of times. As a source property, you would have to re-enter the characteristics of the source as many times as you would need it. Submitter A submitter is a person who collects information to contribute to the construction of a genealogy file. This person is likely to be one of the authors of the genealogy, or any genealogists likely to provide the Ancestris user with their genealogical information. In the Gedcom standard, a submitter is defined by the SUBM tag and it has an ID number starting with the letter B in Ancestris. Appearance in Ancestris :  SUBM Submitter Repository A repository is a place where genealogy sources can be found (documents, books, audio recordings, films, etc.). It can be a physical building (e.g. archive, cemetery), or a website (e.g. the website of the archive service). Repository entities maintain a close relationship with source entities. A repository is likely to contain several sources, a source belongs to a repository. In the Gedcom standard, a repository is defined by the REPO tag and it has an ID number starting with the letter R in Ancestris. Appearance in Ancestris :  REPO Lieu de stockage Header entity The header entity is the first record of the Gedcom file. The header contains information about the file: version of the standard (5.5 or 5.5.1), the author of the file, structure of jurisdictions in places, etc. Its creation is taken care of by Ancestris when creating a new file. You most probably will not need to change it after creation. In Ancestris, it can be edited using the Menu > File > Properties. Refer to the File Properties page for more details. Identification number of an entity The ID number is an identification number assigned to each entity, within the same category. In order to avoid the creation of possible duplicates, this number is obviously unique. Moreover, this particular number always has the same form, namely a letter followed by a certain number of digits. Each category of entity being associated with a particular letter, the first letter of the ID number indicates the category to which it belongs. The user does not have to worry about assigning a new ID number when creating a new entity: this numbering is carried out automatically by Ancestris. Note that in the Tools / Preferences / Editions / Identification number menu, a check box can be activated to reuse the ID numbers left available by entities that have been deleted. Also, you can always change ID numbers later once entities have been created. Use the Generate ID Numbers tool for that. Properties A property if a piece of information describing a characteristic of an entity . A property consists essentially of two elements: its name, identified by a TAG, and its VALUE .   Description Let's consider the following three properties. City : London City : Paris City : Rome These three properties share the same name (City), but have different values: London, Paris and Rome. The City is coded in the Gedcom file by the tag CITY, in capital letters.   Tags The Gedcom standard defines a large number of genealogical properties. Each of these properties is identified by a Tag, which make each of them unique and unambiguous. Here are some examples of properties and their tags between parenthesis. Name (tag NAME ) Date (tag DATE ) Place (tag PLAC ) Note (tag NOTE ) - here we mean the NOTE property , not the NOTE entity . Sex (tag SEX ) Birth (tag BIRT ) Marriage (tag MARR ) Death (tag DEAT ) Occupation (tag OCCU ) Religion (tag RELI ) Residence (tag RESI ) For more details: For the properties available in a Gedcom file, see the Tags page About Dates, please read the Date page. About Places, please read the Places page. About Events, please read the Events page.   Usage In the Gedcom file, properties always keep the same structure and follow strictly the same syntax rules. In Ancestris, properties exactly correspond to the Gedcom properties, but they may look different depending on the view that displays them. Properties in the Gedcom file Each line of the Gedcom file is a property. Each property line has the following format: Number Tag Value Number is the hierarchical level of the property as described in the Gedcom page. Example: 2 DATE 27 SEP 1601 The first item is the number 2, indicating the level of the row in the record entity. The second element is the DATE tag, indicating that the property is a date. The third element is the value of the date (27 SEP 1601). Therefore, the whole line means that the date of the genealogical element above this line, is September 27, 1601. Properties i n the Gedcom editor The Gedcom editor displays property lines in a manner quite similar to that of the Gedcom file: one line per property, containing the tag followed by its value. However, the following differences exist. The editor does not display the entire Gedcom file, but only one entity at a time: the ID number and the category of this entity appear on the first line, at the top To the left of the label (tag), there is a symbol in the form of a mini-icon referring to the nature of the tag. The mini-icons added to the tree view make it much easier to read compared to the raw Gedcom file. The editor does not display the line numbers, but represents them in a tree structure, with a more or less pronounced indentation depending on the situation of each line in the hierarchy. These lines are also provided with handles, which can  expand or hide the subdivisions of a particular branch. Properties i n the other editors In editors, properties are displayed in the user's language. In the Aries and Cygnus editors, neither the labels, nor the lines, nor their tree structure appear: the name of each field, more explicit than a simple tag, simply invites the user to fill it in, as we fill in a form. Properties i n the Entities Table In the Entity Table , each row represents an entity, and each column represents a property. It is possible to configure the Table in order to choose the properties to display. Properties displayed in windows Other windows display properties, and allow them to be viewed, printed or edited ( Navigator , Dynamic tree , etc.).         Tags A tag is a property type identifyer. The Gedcom standard defines a number of tags on three or four capital letters, taken from the English name of the property type. For example, knowing that the SURN label means surname, the SURN Martin property line can be translated as: the surname is "Martin". Ancestris assigns an icon to each property, just like with entities. For example, Ancestris adds  to the NAME tag. You will find in this page the list of most common tags. The Gedcom editor is the Ancestris window that shows best all the properties in your genealogy. Icons The icon next to a tag helps you know whether the tag complies to the Gedcom standard or not.  ,  ,  ,  , , etc. : regular pre-defined tags . Therefore they are compliant with the Gedcom standard.  : unknown tag , or at the wrong place.  : user-defined tag : tags starting with the underscore "_" are user-defined tags. These tags can be added underneath any other tag in the Gedcom file. They are allowed. However, before creating a new tag, please check if the type of information is not already defined by the Gedcom standard. This will allow you to better exchange genealogical data. You can check predefined tag using the Gedcom editor. You may tell Ancestris, in the Preferences, when you use the Gedcom validation tool, whether to consider user-defined tags as erroneous or allowed. On rare occasions, Ancestris had to defined user-defined tags when the Gedcom standard did not plan for it (e.g. _SOSA for the SOSA numbering)  : indicates a correct tag with an invalid value. , , : navigation tags : the " " symbol on the icon is specific to Ancestris and indicates a pointer to another entity. You can navigate to the entity indicated in this tag by jut clicking on it. Main predefined tags All the Gedcom standards tags are managed by Ancestris: all the pre-defined Gedcom tags, all the user-defined tags( ) that Ancestris has defined (e.g._SOSA), and all the user-defined tags you may have defined. This first table is a description of the main tags. Tag name Tag 5.5 5.5.1 7.0 Description and usage Abbreviation ABBR X X X A short name of a title, description, or name. Adoption ADOP X X X Pertaining to creation of a legally approved child-parent relationship that does not exist biologically. Address ADDR X X X The contemporary place, usually required for postal purposes, of an individual, a submitter of information, a repository, a business, a school, or a company. Age AGE X X X The age of the individual at the time an event occurred, or the age listed in the document. Agency AGNC X X X The institution or individual having authority and/or responsibility to manage or govern. Alias ALIA X X X An indicator to link different record descriptions of a person who may be the same person. Annulment ANUL X X X Declaring a marriage void from the beginning (never existed). Associates ASSO X X X An indicator to link friends, neighbours, relatives, or associates of an individual. Attribute FACT X X Attribute assigned to an individual Author AUTH X X X The name of the individual who created or compiled information. Marriage Bann MARB X X X An event of an official public notice given that two people intend to marry. Christening CHR X X X The religious event (not LDS) of baptising and/or naming a child. Baptism BAPM X X X The event of baptism (not LDS), performed in infancy or later. Bar Mitzvah BARM X X X The ceremonial event held when a Jewish boy reaches age 13. Bas Mitzvah BASM X X X The ceremonial event held when a Jewish girl reaches age 13, also known as "Bat Mitzvah." Blessing BLES X X X A religious event of bestowing divine care or intercession. Sometimes given in connection with a naming ceremony. Map MAP X X Pertains to a representation of measurements usually presented in a graphical form. Marriage license MARL X X X An event of obtaining a legal license to marry. Creation CREA X The creation date of the entity. Change CHAN X X X Indicates a change, correction, or modification. Typically used in connection with a DATE to specify when a change in information occurred (it is automatically handled by Ancestris) Postal code POST X X X A code used by a postal service to identify an area to facilitate mail handling. Status STAT X X X An assessment of the state or condition of something. Confirmation CONF X X X The religious event (not LDS) of conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost and, among protestants, full church membership. Marriage contract MARC X X X An event of recording a formal agreement of marriage, including the prenuptial agreement in which marriage partners reach agreement about the property rights of one or both, securing property to their children. Marriage settlement MARS X X X An event of creating an agreement between two people contemplating marriage, at which time they agree to release or modify property rights that would otherwise arise from the marriage. Cremation CREM X X X Disposal of the remains of a person's body by fire. Date DATE X X X The time of an event in a calendar format. Death DEAT X X X The event when mortal life terminates. Graduation GRAD X X X An event of awarding educational diplomas or degrees to individuals. Divorce DIV X X X An event of dissolving a marriage through civil action. Data DATA X X X Pertaining to stored automated information. E-mail EMAI X X Gedcom 5.5.1 only. An electronic mail address. Fax FAX X X Electronic facsimile transmission Child CHIL X X X The natural, adopted, or sealed (LDS) child of a father and a mother. Multimedia element OBJE X X X Pertaining to a grouping of attributes used in describing something. Usually referring to the data required to represent a multimedia object, such an audio recording, a photograph of a person, or an image of a document. Emigration EMIG X X X An event of leaving one's homeland with the intent of residing elsewhere. Wife WIFE X X X An individual in the role as a mother and/or married woman. State STAE X X X A geographical division of a larger jurisdictional area, such as a State within the United States of America. Event EVEN X X X Pertaining to a noteworthy happening related to an individual, a group, or an organization. An EVENt structure is usually qualified or classified by a subordinate use of the TYPE tag.   Family FAM X X X Identifies a legal, common law, or other customary relationship of man and woman and their children, if any, or a family created by virtue of the birth of a child to its biological father and mother. Family where person is a child FAMC X X X Identifies the family in which an individual appears as a child. Family where person is a spouse FAMS X X X Identifies the family in which an individual appears as a spouse. Engagement ENGA X X X An event of recording or announcing an agreement between two people to become married. File FILE X X X An information storage place that is ordered and arranged for preservation and reference. Format FORM X X X An assigned name given to a consistent format in which information can be conveyed. Submitter SUBM X X X An individual or organization who contributes genealogical data to a file or transfers it to someone else.   Individual INDI X X X A person. Immigration IMMI X X X An event of entering into a new locality with the intent of residing there. Burial BURI X X X The event of the proper disposing of the mortal remains of a deceased person. Ancestor interest ANCI X X X Indicates an interest in additional research for ancestors of this individual. Descendants interest DESI X X X Indicates an interest in research to identify additional descendants of this individual. Language LANG X X X The name of the language used in a communication or transmission of information. Latitude LATI X X A value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space. Place PLAC X X X A jurisdictional name to identify the place or location of an event. Repository REPO X X X An institution or person that has the specified item as part of their collection(s). Longitude _LONG X Anticipation of the 5.5.1 standard. A value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space. Longitude LONG X X A value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space. Husband HUSB X X X An individual in the family role of a married man or father. Marriage MARR X X X A legal, common-law, or customary event of creating a family unit of a man and a woman as husband and wife. Birth BIRT X X X The event of entering into life. Nationality NATI X X X The national heritage of an individual. Naturalisation NATU X X X The event of obtaining citizenship. Education EDUC X X X Indicator of a level of education attained. Name NAME X X X A word or combination of words used to help identify an individual, title, or other item. More than one NAME line should be used for people who were known by multiple names. Surname SURN X X X A family name passed on or used by members of a family. Number of children NCHI X X X The number of children that this person is known to be the parent of (all marriages) when subordinate to an individual, or that belong to this family when subordinate to a FAM_RECORD. Number of marriages NMR X X X The number of times this person has participated in a family as a spouse or parent. Non Event NO X Did not happen. Followed by a regular event tag, indicates the event did not take place. Note NOTE X X X Additional information provided by the submitter for understanding the enclosing data. Note SNOTE X Shared Note entity: additional information provided by the submitter for understanding the enclosing data. Identification number IDNO X X X A number assigned to identify a person within some significant external system. Social security number SSN X X X A number assigned by the United States Social Security Administration. Used for tax identification purposes. Binary object BLOB X X Set of data entered into a multimedia system that processes binary data to represent images, sound, video. Ordination ORDN X X X A religious event of receiving authority to act in religious matters. Page PAGE X X X A number or description to identify where information can be found in a referenced work. Country CTRY X X X The name or code of the country. Pedigree PEDI X X X Information pertaining to an individual to parent lineage chart. Name prefix NPFX X X X Text which appears on a name line before the given and surname parts of a name. i.e. (Lt. Cmndr.) Joseph /Allen/ jr. In this example Lt. Cmndr. is considered as the name prefix portion. Surname prefix SPFX X X X A name piece used as a non-indexing pre-part of a surname. Given name GIVN X X X A given or earned name used for official identification of a person. First communion FCOM X X X A religious rite, the first act of sharing in the Lord's supper as part of church worship.. Occupation OCCU X X X The type of work or profession of an individual. Publication PUBL X X X Refers to when and/or where a work was published or created. Quality QUAY X X X An assessment of the certainty of the evidence to support the conclusion drawn from evidence. Cause CAUS X X X A description of the cause of the associated event or fact, such as the cause of death. Census CENS X X X The event of the periodic count of the population for a designated locality, such as a national or state Census. Religion RELI X X X A religious denomination to which a person is affiliated or for which a record applies. Divorced filed DIVF X X X An event of filing for a divorce by a spouse. Retirement RETI X X X An event of exiting an occupational relationship with an employer after a qualifying time period. Reference REFN X X X A description or number used to identify an item for filing, storage, or other reference purposes. Relation RELA X X A relationship value between the indicated contexts. Residence RESI X X X An address or place of residence that a family or individual resided. Role ROLE X X X A name given to a role played by an individual in connection with an event. Sex SEX X X X Indicates the sex of an individual--male or female or unknown. Source SOUR X X X The initial or original material from which information was obtained. Name suffix NSFX X X X Text which appears on a name line after or behind the given and surname parts of a name. i.e. Lt. Cmndr. Joseph /Allen/ (jr.) In this example jr. is considered as the name suffix portion. Nickname NICK X X X A descriptive or familiar that is used instead of, or in addition to, one's proper name. Phone PHON X X X A unique number assigned to access a specific telephone. Temple TEMP X X X The name or code that represents the name of an LDS Church Temple. Will WILL X X X A legal document treated as an event, by which a person disposes of his or her estate, to take effect after death. The event date is the date the will was signed while the person was alive. Text TEXT X X X The exact wording found in an original source document. Title TITL X X X A description of a specific writing or other work, such as the title of a book when used in a source context, or a formal designation used by an individual in connection with positions of royalty or other social status, such as Grand Duke. Type TYPE X X X A further qualification to the meaning of the associated superior tag. The value does not have any computer processing reliability. It is more in the form of a short one or two word note that should be displayed any time the associated data is displayed. Probation PROB X X X An event of judicial determination of the validity of a will. May indicate several related court activities over several dates. City CITY X X X A lower level jurisdictional unit. Normally an incorporated municipal unit. Internet web site WWW X X World Wide Web home page. Other predefined tags Many other tags can also be managed with Ancestris by adding them via the Gedcom Editor . Tag name Tag 5.5 5.5.1 7.0 Description and Usage Address1 ADR1 X X X The first line of an address. Address2 ADR2 X X X The second line of an address. Address3 ADR3 X X The third line of an address. Ancestral File Number AFN X X A unique permanent record file number of an individual record stored in Ancestral File. Baptême LSD BAPL X X X The event of baptism performed at age eight or later by priesthood authority of the LDS Church. Call number CALN X X X The number used by a repository to identify the specific items in its collections. Confirmation LDS CONL X X X The religious event by which a person receives membership in the LDS Church. Caste CAST X X X The name of an individual's rank or status in society which is sometimes based on racial or religious differences, or differences in wealth, inherited rank, profession, occupation, etc. Adult christining CHRA X X X The religious event (not LDS) of baptising and/or naming an adult person. Physical description DSCR X X X The physical characteristics of a person, place, or thing. Endowment LDS ENDL X X X A religious event where an endowment ordinance for an individual was performed by priesthood authority in an LDS temple. Media MEDI X X X Identifies information about the media or having to do with the medium in which information is stored. Phonetic name FONE X Phonetic variation of the name Romanized name ROMN X Romanized variation of the name Translation TRAN X A representation of the data in a different format or language. Replaces FONE and ROMN in particular but applies to any other tag, not just the NAME. Property PROP X X X Pertaining to possessions such as real estate or other property of interest. Restriction RESN X X X A processing indicator signifying access to information has been denied or otherwise restricted. Record File Number RFN X X A permanent number assigned to a record that uniquely identifies it within a known file. Record Identification Number RIN X X A number assigned to a record by an originating automated system that can be used by a receiving system to report results pertaining to that record. Sealing Child SLGC X X X A religious event pertaining to the sealing of a child to his or her parents in an LDS temple ceremony. Sealing Spouse SLGS X X X A religious event pertaining to the sealing of a husband and wife in an LDS temple ceremony. Accepted Tags Gedcom tags not offered by the Gedcom editor but accepted by Ancestris are internal tags in the Gedcom file. They are in the header of the file, except for HEAD and TRLR. They can be visible when opening your Gedcom file in a simple text editor. Tag name Tag 5.5 5.5.1 7.0 Description and Usage Ancestors ANCE X X X Pertaining to forbearers of an individual. Character CHAR X X X An indicator of the character set used in writing this automated information. Concatenation CONC X X An indicator that additional data belongs to the superior value. The information from the CONC value is to be connected to the value of the superior preceding line without a space and without a carriage return and/or new line character. Values that are split for a CONC tag must always be split at a non-space. If the value is split on a space the space will be lost when concatenation takes place. This is because of the treatment that spaces get as a GEDCOM delimiter, many GEDCOM values are trimmed 85 of trailing spaces and some systems look for the first non-space starting after the tag to determine the beginning of the value (it is handle automatically by Ancestris) Continuation CONT X X X An indicator that additional data belongs to the superior value. The information from the CONT value is to be connected to the value of the superior preceding line with a carriage return and/or new line character. Leading spaces could be important to the formatting of the resultant text. When importing values from CONT lines the reader should assume only one delimiter character following the CONT tag. Assume that the rest of the leading spaces are to be a part of the value (it is handle automatically by Ancestris) Copyright COPR X X X A statement that accompanies data to protect it from unlawful duplication and distribution. Corporate CORP X X X A name of an institution, agency, corporation, or company. Descent DESC X X X Pertaining to offspring of an individual. Destination DEST X X X A system receiving data. Family File FAMF X X X Pertaining to, or the name of, a family file. Names stored in a file that are assigned to a family for doing temple ordinance work. Information GEDC X X X Information about the use of GEDCOM in a transmission. Identification HEAD X X X Identifies information pertaining to an entire GEDCOM transmission. Legatee LEGA X X Person receiving a legacy or beneficiary of a testamentary clause. Ordinance ORDI X X X Pertaining to a religious ordinance in general. Submission SUBN X X Pertains to a collection of data issued for processing. Time TIME X X X A time value in a 24-hour clock format, including hours, minutes, and optional seconds, separated by a colon (:). Fractions of seconds are shown in decimal notation. Trailer TRLR X X X At level 0, specifies the end of a GEDCOM transmission. Version VERS X X X Indicates which version of a product, item, or publication is being used or referenced. Ancestris Tags Theses tags are special tags defined for the use in Ancestris. They are already defined in the previous tables but added here for convenience reading. Tag name Tag 5.5 5.5.1 7.0 Description and Usage Daboville _DABOVILLE X X X Special. It is not defined in the Gedcom format. It is used in Ancestris to generate the Daboville numbering for a descending genealogy. E-mail _EMAI X Anticipation of the 5.5.1 standard. An electronic mail address. Latitude _LATI X Anticipation of the 5.5.1 standard. A value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space. Longitude _LONG X Anticipation of the 5.5.1 standard. A value indicating a coordinate position on a line, plane, or space. Map _MAP X Anticipation of the 5.5.1 standard. Pertains to a representation of measurements usually presented in a graphical form. Phrase _PHRASE X For Gedcom 7 enumerated fields where PHRASE is not allowed, Ancestris will keep invalid values originating from file conversion or imports into this tag. Private _PRIV X X X Special. RESN is the Gedcom standard tag but cannot apply everywhere. Where RESN is not possible for a property, _PRIV is used in Ancestris to mark the property as private ( private data in preferences tools ). Sosa _SOSA X X X Special. It is not defined in the Gedcom format. It is used in Ancestris to generate the Sosa numbering for a person's ancestors and descendants. Sosa _SOSADABOVILLE X X X Special. It is not defined in the Gedcom format. It is used in Ancestris to generate the Sosa d'Aboville numbering for a person's ancestors and descendants. Time _TIME X X Special. It is not defined in the Gedcom format. It is used in Ancestris to store the time of a date where the Gedcom format doesn't allow it. Ignore _VALID X X X Special. Used to ignore the anomaly related to the parent tag in the GEDCOM verification of anomalies and confirms it is valid. Internet web site _WWW X Anticipation of the 5.5.1 standard. World Wide Web home page. Events An event is a notable fact in the life of an individual or a family , usually dated and localized . While some events are necessarily unique (e.g. birth, death, burial), others may occur several times during a lifetime (e.g. marriage, occupation, residence, divorce). The various types of events Whether associated to an individual or a family, there are many different events. A large number of events are predefined in the Gedcom standard and in Ancestris. When a type of event has not been predefined, it is possible to choose the event " EVEN " which allows you to specify your own.   Predefined events for individuals Adoption Adult baptism Baptism (give a name) (CHR tag) Baptism (sacrament) (BAPM tag) Bar mitzvah Bas mitzvah Birth (BIRT tag) Blessing Burial (BURI tag) Caste Census Confirmation Cremation Death (DEAT tag) Description Diploma Educational level Emigration First Communion Identity number Immigration Nationality Naturalization Number of children Number of marriages Ordination Occupation (OCCU tag) Property Religion (RELI tag) Residence (RESI tag) Retirement Social Security number Title Validation Will   Predefined events for families Cancellation Census Certificates or authorizations Divorced Divorce filed Engagement Marriage (MARR tag) Marriage banns (MARB tag) Marriage contract (MARC tag) Prenuptial marriage contract   Event properties An event is generally dated and localized. It can have other properties. Here is a sample of them. Date (tag DATE): date the event took place Place (tag PLAC): location where the event took place Agency (tag AGNC): the institution or individual validating the event Cause (tag CAUS): the cause of the event, such as the cause of death. Type (tag TYPE): a short description of the type of event Sources (tag SOUR): links to source documents Notes (tag NOTE): notes or comments about the event Multimedia element (tag OBJE): links to multimedia illustrating the event       Dates The date makes it possible to locate in time any genealogical event : birth, death, marriage, diploma, residence, etc. In Ancestris, the date can be entered and displayed in different ways because it is set in a given calendar and can be more or less precise.   Enter dates In Ancestris, date are entered using a specific widget, which is made up of two buttons, one for precision, the other one to specify the calendar, and the three components of a date (month, day and year). Examples : Relative precision button The Relative precision button unfolds a mini menu allowing you to indicate whether the date is precise or not, and in that second case, the range. Precise Date (default choice): this is a standard date, made up of the month, the day and the year Period from/to : this is to express the period of time during which the event has lasted, of was valid, such as a residency in a location. Period from : same as above except that there is no end period, the event is still valid today. Period To : same as above except that there is no start date. The event was true until the end date.   Range between/and : this is to express that a short-timed event has taken place somewhere between the dates indicated. For instance, a birth that has happened in the first half of January 1874 could be indicated as BET 1 JAN 1874 AND 16 JAN 1874 . Please note it could also be written JAN 1874 if it were just somewhere in Januray 1874. Range before : same as above except that only the maximum end date is known (the minimum start date is not known). Range after : same as above except that only the minimum start date is known (the maximum end date is not known).   About : It means the date is not exact. Calculated : Date is calculated mathematically, for example, from an event date and age. Estimated : Date is estimated based on an algorithm using some other event date Interpreted : Date is interpreted from knowledge about the associated date phrase specified in the field. This date phrase can be any statement offered as a date when the year is not recognizable to a date parser, but which gives information about when an event occurred. Calendar button The Calendar type button opens a mini-menu allowing you to select one of the four calendars available to express the date. Here is an extract from Wikipedia. Gregorian : the Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most of the world. It is named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in October 1582 . The Gregorian calendar is the default choice in Ancestris.  To align the calendar in use in England and in North America to that on the European continent, the Gregorian calendar was adopted, and the calendar was advanced by 11 days: Wednesday 2 September 1752 was followed by Thursday 14 September 1752 . The year 1752 was a leap year so that it consisted of 355 days (366 days less 11 omitted). Julian : The Julian calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar in 708   Ab urbe condita (AUC, 'from the founding of the City') (46 BC), was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on 1 January 709 AUC (45 BC) , by edict. The Julian calendar was the predominant calendar in the Roman world, most of Europe, and in European settlements in the Americas and elsewhere, until it was gradually replaced by the Gregorian calendar, promulgated in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. The Julian calendar is still used in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and in parts of Oriental Orthodoxy as well as by the Berbers.  Hebrew : the Hebrew calendar also called Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. Republican : the French Republican calendar also called French Revolutionary calendar, was a calendar created and implemented during the French revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days by the Paris Commune in 1871 When a date is currently entered, any change to the calendar type immediately converts that date to the newly selected calendar. Please note the republican calendar only accepts conversion for dates between September 22, 1792 and December 31, 1805 as these are the main period during which this calendar was used. In addition, following the name of the calendar, each line of the mini-menu displays the date currently entered, converted into this calendar, with the same exceptions as mentioned above concerning the line of the republican calendar. Components of a date The three constituents of a date - month, day and year - line up horizontally, always in the same order. The day is the number of the day in the month The month is either the number of the month in the year of the month name The year is a number on 4 digits. When the Precision button is a period or a range, the three components are obviously supplied twice. Display The different dates entered in Gedcom files are likely to be displayed in various reports, windows, and views. The choice of how dates should be displayed is available in the panel Preferences / Data / General data . Whatever format is adopted, the order of the three constituents of the date is always day month year in the Gedcom file. In the Preferences, the Dates drop-down menu shows the following four display formats.   GEDCOM Format - 25 JAN 1970 The Gedcom format is the format used in the Gedcom file: the month is written in capitals, using the first three letters of the month in English.  Short Format - 25 Jan 1970 The Short format displays the month in lowercase starting with a capital letter, written using the first three or four letters of the month in English. Long Format - 25 January 1970 The Long format also displays the full month word in lowercase with a capital letter. Number Format - 01/25/1970 The Numbers format displays month, day and year as numbers separated by a slashes (/).       Places A place is a property indicating a physical location associated with an event, and generally provided with a postal address and capable of receiving geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude). In the Gedcom standard, a place is defined by the PLAC tag. Place jurisdictions The value of a place is presented as address elements separated by commas, such as a postal address. Example (tag and value): PLAC Hyde Park,02136,Boston,Suffolk,Massachusetts,New England,USA These elements of the place are called jurisdictions . A jurisdiction, also called a place criteria, is therefore a constitutive element of a place: the city, the postal code, the region, the country, etc. In the example above, the jurisdictions are: neighborhood, postal code, city, county, state, region, country . In the Gedcom standard, the different jurisdictions of a place are organized from left to right, separated by commas, and in increasing order of administrative importance. The following example, which indicates the jurisdictions in random order, would not be compliant with the Gedcom standard. PLAC USA,Suffolk,Massachusetts,02136,New England,Hyde Park,Boston PLAC USA,Suffolk,Massachusetts,02136,New England,Hyde Park,Boston The Gedcom standard allows you to define your own jurisdictions. We can indeed define the parish or neighbourhood level for example, or have two codes within the city: the ZIP or Postal code and the Census units. How to use the comma ​ In the Gedcom standard, the comma is the separating element making it possible to distinguish the different jurisdictions of a place. If one of the jurisdictions of a place is unknown, an empty space will be left to materialize this jurisdiction. For example, in the absence of neighbourhood and ZIP code, the place of Boston mentioned above would take the following form: PLAC ,Lorient,,56100,Morbihan,Bretagne,France PLAC ,,Boston,Suffolk,Massachusetts,New England,USA The initial two successive commas indicate the locations of the two unspecified jurisdictions (neighbourhood and ZIP code). For a good understanding when reading a place, it is therefore essential to respect the location of the commas, and obviously not to use a comma within a jurisdiction. Please note that the Gedcom file does not accept any blanks on either side of these commas. For example, the city of New York keeps its white space between New and York , but no other space character can be added before of after the name. To facilitate reading, the various views of Ancestris (in particular the editors) can display spaces after the commas. These spaces are not saved in the Gedcom file. Place formatting All places of the same genealogy must be described according to the same jurisdictions and in the same order. This is the place format of the Gedcom file. This format is indicated inside the Gedcom file, for all places in the genealogy, in the header of the Gedcom file. These are the following lines of the header ( HEAD ) of the Gedcom file that will indicate this correspondence 1 PLAC 2 FORM Lieudit,Commune,Code Insee,Code Postal,Département,Région,Pays 1 PLAC 2 FORM neighbourhood, postal code, city, county, state, region, country This format is optional in the header but in terms of consistency and data quality we strongly recommend using it. For a genealogy covering several countries, you therefore need a generic format that is extensive enough to allow the places of all the countries considered to be referenced under the same format. Changing place formatting The Modification of place criteria window allows to add or remove a type of jurisdiction in the format of the location, and also to modify the order of the different types of jurisdictions, for all locations and all the entities of the genealogy file. This window is accessible from the File / Properties menu. Changing the format of places is also possible from the Gedcom editor : right-click on a PLAC line, then Context menu , then Set places criteria menu item. To enter a location, you must rank the different jurisdictions in ascending order of importance, separating each level with a comma. If a jurisdiction is not entered, the comma must be kept. Entering a place Principle If in the Preferences you have chosen the presentation Split jurisdictions to edit in Gedcom editor , you do not have to worry about the explanations which follow, you will enter the jurisdictions separately, that is to say, level by level . Otherwise, you must enter your locations globally, that is, as a serie of jurisdictions separated by commas. For example, if the format is neighbourhood, postal code, city, county, state, region, country , for an event located at Hyde Park in Boston, ZIP Code 02136, state of Massachusetts, in the USA, you should enter: Palais du Louvre,Paris,75056,,Paris,,France Hyde Park,02136,Boston,,Massachusetts,,USA Nothing should follow the country name. If a jurisdiction is unknown, a comma is repeated, even if it stands at the beginning of a line. If only Boston is known, in the USA, then we would write: ,Allanche,,,, ,,Boston,,,,USA The principle is easy: From the smallest to the largest jurisdictions All jurisdictions are separated by a comma, even if left empty Auto-completion of place jurisdictions While entering a place name, a drop-down menu will open offering you already known places with the same string of characters inside the name. Just click the suggested line and press OK to select. If you have chosen to display separate jurisdictions in the Preferences, this feature also exists, but line by line. Change all places in one single change If you notice that from the beginning, you made a typing error on a place, or if the same place was registered in different ways, you may want to make a change of all the erroneous places in one single change without having to go back in each of them to correct them. This can be done using the Gedcom editor , or using the List of places or the Table of places .                 Shared Information Some pieces of information collated in a genealogy can either be specific to an individual, or shared by several individuals or several families of that genealogy. A genealogy contains a lot of information, you will necessarily want to be able to reuse most of it. If you want to reuse information , we strongly recommend that you initially store it in an entity rather than in a property . This is the case for all Notes , all Sources , all Repositories , and all Multimedia Elements . These Entities are defined here in the dedicated Entities . Other information in Ancestris can be reused in a transparent way for you: these are places, occupations, types of events, diplomas, etc., and more generally all the short labels which describe events. Principle The principle, before creating any information in Ancestris, is to ask yourself whether this information is likely to be used again or not for other individuals. Creation of shared information If the information is likely to be reused: first create it as a new entity as such then link it from the other entity that will use it In certain cases, the choice of shared information is obvious, such as repositories for instance. In other cases, this choice is more subtle, such as Sources and Notes . Entities using shared information Another benefit of using shared entities is when you want to know all the entities in your genealogy that use a given information. You can know so by selecting the shared entity. The list of entities that use it appears in a list attached to this shared entity. Conversely, it is a way to know if a shared entity is still being used at all. Examples Case of repositories During your genealogical research, you will probably collect several documents originating from the same location. To store all this information, you will create this location as a single repository, indicating its description, address, contact details, etc. Then all the extracted documents will be your sources. Each of these sources will indicate the same repository. This repository can also be a regional archive, a town hall, a website, a cemetery for instance. Example of three sources from the same repository: Case of a family certificate If you discover a family certificate in which are indicated 3 children, and that in addition you write a note explaining your research story, you will have a diagram which could look like this: The 3 individuals represent the siblings. Their births are sourced from the family certificate, which itself is sourced from a repository. And your note comes in to support your research or observations about the 3 births. You will notice in the diagram above that the source relates to the birth events of individuals, and not the individuals directly, which is more precise. I assumed in the example that your note only spoke about the births of individuals. If it talked about their lives more broadly, you should probably link your note to the individuals rather than just to their birth. Case of a note A note is shared when it relates to several individuals at the same time. This was the case of the note in the previous example. On the other hand, a note which comments on specific circumstances relating only to one single individual in particular should preferably be entered as an individual note and not generate the creation of a dedicated Note entity. This is the case, for example, for details of a birth (the height and weight of the child, the fact that the person was born at his parents' home, etc.). These details will only ever relate to the birth of the individual considered and it is more efficient to enter this information directly at the birth level as an individual note. Case of a place The first time a place is created, it appears in the event where it is used first. Ancestris does not allow you to put it in a Place entity, even if you think you might need to reuse it later. This is because the Gedcom standard did not define places as entities. This is not a problem, Ancestris manages the repository of places for you and considers that each place can be reused. However, you must be careful when you create a place: it is up to you to check if it does not already exist, in order to avoid creating a duplicate. A duplicate on a place is not annoying as such, but it becomes so when, for example, you correct one of the two while thinking of correcting them all. To avoid generating a duplicate when entering a place, Ancestris automatically suggests all the places found in your genealogy that include the text being entered. Also, thanks to the List of places view, it is possible to merge places that have been entered twice by mistake. Steps Creation The creation of Notes, Sources, Repositories, and Multimedia Elements is done either via the Context Menu of Ancestris, or via the menu bar , or automatically from the Cygnus editor or manually from the Aries editor . The creation of places is done by entering a place directly in the editors, or in the Places editor . Link The link to an existing Note, Source, Repository, or Multimedia Elements is done via the Context Menu of Ancestris or via the Editors. The link to an existing place is done as when it was created: when entering a place directly in the editors, or in the Places editor . Usage To find out the list of entities using a particular Note, Source, Repository or Multimedia Element, all you have to do is select it from the table of entities for example, and view it in the Gedcom Editor . You will then see all the entities using this information as linked properties. Here is an example of source S5 that we have selected in the table of entities . If we look at the Gedcom Editor , we see the following: This source S5 is used by four other entities of the genealogy: the note N2 on the assassination by Ravaillac, the name of the individual I29 Robert Capet, the death of Louis IX, and the name of Marguerite de Provence. In the case of a Place, the easiest way to find out in which events it is used, is to go to the List of Places and select it. Events are listed by expanding the flap in the list. See the List of Places for more details.       B-A BA There is an educational B-A-BA on shared information in PDF format. It is written in French. It corresponds to version 9 of Ancestris but most of it is still relevant. It tells you in detail how to create and use each of the shared entities presented above. You can download it here .             Quality control In order to be able to navigate your genealogy or in order to transmit this lifelong effort amount of information, it is necessary to remain consistent in the way you write similar types of information. The Gedcom standard is a strong reference for this and suggests an extensive way to structure and specify your information. Even staying within the standard, there are sometimes various possibilities to enter locations, notes, sources, events, media, etc. You may therefore want to control the quality of your data to make sure is it consistent. We have identified several types of controls you can make: Gedcom compliance . Example : only one birth is possible for an individual, a tag is undefined, a date cannot be empty, etc. Genealogical data consistency : invalid date, persons buried before their death, age difference between spouse too long, person too young to have a child, etc. Places non in line with the place format Multimedia object not found on disk Ancestris provides a way to know if the information entered is consistent with the standard, consistent with each other, or aligned with a format. To identify most of the anomalies listed above, you may go to Menu / Tools /  Validate Gedcom compliance and data consistency . To rectify places and multimedia elements, you have File / Properties .     Develop your genealogy How to use Ancestris in various genealogy situations : know your genealogy status, search for official documents, enter them in Ancestris. Analyse your genealogy, organize it, share it. Setting a goal You will soon realize that the genealogist's work is exponential and can go in all directions. So you will have to set yourself limits if you want to do a quality work. The following points are only examples of choices to be made to delimit a research perimeter that can be achieved in a lifetime. Whose genealogy? Define whose genealogy will be developed: Yours Your wife's Your family's, starting with your children or grand children That of a close relative A friend's. Over how many generations? Define the number of generations to be identified: All the way back to the great-grandparents Back to Independence day, the French revolution, the first English settlers, back to William Shakespeare birth, etc. Back to the Middle Age or William the Conqueror Which branches? Define branches to be identified: All Paternal lineage only Maternal lineage Specific ones What descendants? Define from which ancestors you wish to identify descendants and cousins : From the highest ancestor found From Great-grandparents From all ancestors found What level of detail? Define the level of detail to be obtained for each individual According to its generation Systematically have the sources of all acts Only Birth, Marriage, Death The maximum number of events         Building a progress indicator You will need to measure the progress of your research. What gets measured gets done! You can measure your progress as a percentage coverage of the number of individuals identified over the number of individuals to be found. If you add the fact that for an individual, you have set a level of depth of information to be found, you may prefer the percentage coverage of data found. If your goal is to go back as far as possible on the paternal line, your indicator could be the oldest year of ascent for instance. Ancestris has a report that allows you to view the level of search completeness by generation and easily see the "holes" in your quest to orientate your investigations. Prepare your genealogical research You will then have to prepare your genealogical research and build some sort of action plan. Ancestris allows you to prepare a list of searches to be carried out, sorted by categories and by storage locations. Search for event dates The way to conduct genealogical research benefits from the development of genealogy. The development of surveys carried out by associations The important place taken by collaborative online uploads The digitization and online posting of civil and parish registers Some genealogists in fact carry out their research by entering the dates of events (births, deaths, marriages ...), no longer from the original acts, but from either associative records or trees found on the Internet. However, it is necessary to systematically verify all these dates by checking the original acts or their transcription, whether they are paper archives or digitized archives. Now Ancestris is a powerful and efficient tool to facilitate the management of these searches or verifications. Whenever you collect a dated event, after entering the event, we recommend that you first indicate the origin of this information, its source (genealogical association of such and such, tree found on this web site, etc.). Then, we suggest that you add a property to this event to remind you to find the original document or piece of evidence of the deed concerned, or other tasks to be performed. To do this, you can define a personalized property (example: " _TODO "), which value will be the task to be performed (example: " find the deed. "). The easiest way to do this is to use the Ancestris Gedcom editor . On the first line of properties, right-click to display the  Context menu and choose the Gedcom Properties List. When the Add Property panel appears, activate the New Label radio button, and, in the box just below, enter a custom label starting with “_” (with, for example, a department name: “ _TODO ”), enter the value“ find the deed ”then validate by pressing . Creation of a research sheet At any time, Ancestris allows you quite easily to build a research sheet summarizing all the sources to check or actions to perform. To do this, use the To Do List report , via the Tools / Lists and reports menu. When the view is displayed, left column, click on To Do List , then, at the top right, activate the Options tab. In the Options panel, fill in the box defining the tasks to be searched for by your tag (for example "_TODO"), validate by clicking next to it. Launch the report. Ancestris offers PDF as an output format by default. If you have few acts, you can choose PDF. Disadvantage: the resulting list is not ranked which might make it unpractical over several pages. To easily obtain a list classified by city for example, change the file type to “CSV” format instead of “PDF”. Then open the "* .csv" file in a spreadsheet tool. Delete the first header line “Complete list of to-do items” which is unnecessary. All you have to do then is sort your table on the desired columns. Your worksheet is sorted by city with the acts to be searched. You can then create an additional column called "notes" to write down any issue. With your sorted worksheet, you can now go to the website of the geographic archives repository and look for your deeds city by city. Search for notarial deeds To search for notarial deeds, the process is the same. Whenever the date of a marriage contract is indicated in the text of a marriage, on a deed statement or on the Internet, enter it in your Ancestris genealogy, under tag "MARC", with the date and place, with the name of the notary under tag "AGNC". Create a personalized label, for example “_NOTARIAL123”. Configure the report seen above by changing the name of the tag sought by "_NOTAIRES123". Run your report as in the example above. With your beautiful notaries worksheet, you can go to check the elements at the local repository. Eventually, if the notary register numbers are on the Internet, look them up from home and add them in an additional column on your work sheet. By proceeding this way, with a minimum of preparation, you will have prepared your control work efficiently, whether from home or going physically to the corresponding repository offices, especially if you do not perform research every day and you do not want to end up with too many documents to verify at the same time.         Organize your media The organization of your media on your PC - folders and file names - is decided as early as possible in your genealogy work, because you will quickly end up with many documents and it is advisable to start from the beginning with a convention of classification, under penalty of having to reorganize everything along the way, or worse, no longer find your way around. Please take a look at this best practice for organising your media in general. One of our users, Thierry N, told us about a very rigorous way of organizing the media. About the folders structure Announcements : includes announcements, invitations, other similar documents Cadastre: official registers of real estate & land Census Contracts : all types of contracts (CM: marriage contract Deed : all BMD deeds grouped together and distinguished using the file name. See below. Deed_Notary Graves : geo-tagged photographs, copy of burial or cemetery register Military Records Naturalizations OJ : official journal (decrees or orders relating to an individual, excluding naturalization) Photos : for individuals - including old painted or drawn portraits. Photos_places Press Qualifications : as the name suggests Signatures Various You can add as many folders as you want. For example, " Decorations " where we could put pictures of medals! It can also be done by country by prefixing with the country code: FR_Acts FR_Army FR_Census FR_Immigration FR_Naturalisations FR_Press Filenames structure Most files relate to a main individual, in which case the choice of a file name linked to this individual seems legitimate. 000001_B_LAST First_YYYYMMDD Unique identifier of the person (do not use SOSA) on 6 characters to allow a size of 999,999 people! Letter corresponding to the act or document (here the birth) Identity lastname and first name Event date That's it! This works for me. I adopted that from the start and I try to stick to my rule. Is this perfect? Certainly not. It's up to everyone to find their favorite classification, because there is no rule in this area. But above all, stick to it or bear the risk of getting lost! Thierry N. Thank you very much Thierry ! Document your sources You will collect many official documents (acts, deeds) that you will need to enter in Ancestris. Each record you find will enrich your genealogy with individuals, events, sources or notes. This page will help you know how to enter a deed using sources and repositories. Importance of documenting your sources Whatever the origin, every good genealogist must display his/her sources: there is no good genealogy without sources. The information that constitutes sources for a genealogy can be the result of personal research (civil status, notaries, cemeteries, various archives, etc.) sharing with other genealogists oral information collection family document study Even if the source you have is not the best or is not definitive, you necessarily base the existence of a person or a fact on a source of information. This will be your source and you will keep track of where your information came from, even if it means finding a better source later. Sources and Repositories A source is therefore an original transcription on a medium which makes it possible to justify information entered in a genealogy. For example, a parish register, a decennial table, an act of civil status, an act of a parish register, a family book, a tombstone, a video, an audio file. In addition, any source must be associated to a deposit. A repository is the place of physical or electronic storage, the geographical site, containing the said original medium (town hall, departmental archives, cemetery, building address, etc.) or the website (of the county archives of a given region). How to organize the information in Ancestris A source is contained in a repository In Ancestris and in the Gedcom standard, Source entities are contained in Repository entities. The repository is filled in when filling in the source. The repository must exist at that time. Therefore, it makes more sense to create the repository before creating the source. However, this reference to the repository is optional. We can therefore create the source and the repository at the time we need it during the creation of the source, or later. The editors in Ancestris allow you to enter the entities in the order you want. In practice, in your research and in your data entry procedures, it is more common to enter the containers before the contents, especially since the same repository will be used by several sources. Where to store the deed and the register? The deed in the source, or the deed in the individual ? If the creation of the individual is pretty straight forward, that is via the creation of the entity 'Individual', a choice exists for both the Source and the Repository. Here are the available possibilities where we can write things in the Gedcom standard and therefore in Ancestris. Inside a source property, inside a given event of a given individual or family: it will therefore become a non-sharable piece of data. It cannot be referenced by another event. There can be several such properties for the same given event. Each property will include the following information. Link to a source entity. This link will have the possible following attributes : The page inside the source - Tag: PAGE   The source quality , on a scale from 0 to 3 - Tag: QUAY   0 = Unreliable or data resulting from an estimate 1 = Subjective (interviews, oral statement, possible bias, autobiography) 2 = Second-hand source, official data reported after the event 3 = Direct, official and instant source of the event The transcription of the text of the source - Tag: DATA and subtag: TEXT Links to multimedia files - Tag: OBJE   The type of event cited in the source (may be different from the event of the individual to which it is attached) - Tag: EVEN   Inside a Source entity : it will be a shareable piece of data. It may contain the following information. The source title , as a long and a short description - Tags: TITL and ABBR respectively. The transcription of the text of the source - Tag: TEXT Links to the multimedia files - Tag: OBJE Links to the repositories where the source can be found - Tag: REPO For each repository, references in the repository, and its index (there could be several of them) - Tag: CALN And for each reference, the type of media support of the source (audio, book, card, electronic, record, film, magazine, manuscript, newspaper, photo, grave, video) - Tag: MEDI The event types indicated by the source, with their location and time period - Tag: DATA/EVEN/DATE and  DATA/EVEN/PLAC The Risponsible Agent - Tag: DATA/AGNC The Author who created the source - Tag: AUTH The Publication information (when and where) - Tag: PUBL Inside the repository entity : it will be a shareable piece of information. It may contain the following information. The repository Name - Tag: NAME The physical address of the repository - Tag: ADDR The Internet address - Tag: WWW A contact number (phone, email, fax) - Tag: PHON , EMAIL , FAX. We recommend a principle of efficiency which is to store information in a shareable place if it can be used for several events, or in non-shareable place if it ever be used for a single event, that is to say for a unique individual , or a unique family. See the shared information page for more details. For the source, this is all the more relevant as it includes a text that is often long to transcribe. It is out of question to enter it several times. We note that this text could be stored in two different places, hence a choice to be made. So now, a first question: where do we put a marriage certificate and the text of its transcription? The principle of efficiency tells us that it is safer to enter a marriage certificate in a source entity rather than in a source property . A marriage certificate could constitute a source of information about several events. That of the marriage of the spouses of course, but it also often informs us about the existence of other individuals, potentially on their name, date and place of birth. The absence of a parent of one of the spouses can also give us some clues about their likely death date. It is therefore beneficial to enter a marriage certificate in a shared source, therefore in a Source entity . The shared source and its text are only entered once The shared source can be referenced later by any other genealogy event The shared source can be accessed directly from the table of entities And the next question is: but then, where do you enter the register which contains the certificate? According to the Gedcom standard, the registry is rather entered in a source, and the marriage certificate is a page of the registry, which naturally fits into a source property. But then our principle of shared information no longer works. In addition, the Gedcom standard could suggest to define a cemetery as a repository, and a grave as a source entity. If a cemetery is a repository, why shouldn't a register be a repository? Not easy therefore because in real life, the sources of information are not just arranged on 2 shared levels of information. Possible choices Here are possible solutions observed in practice for the example above. There may be others. Nb Individual Source Repository Source property Event Page/ Quality Text/Media Title Text/Media Ref repository / Media support 1 Marriage -/3 - Marriage certificate Text + Media Section 3AB12- Baptism Marriage Burial Register of 1787-nb12 p219/ Manuscript National Archives of  Boston 2 Marriage p.219/3 Text (Marriage of ...) + Media Baptism Marriage Burial Register of 1787 - Section 3AB12/ Manuscript National Archives of  Boston About choice number 1 above The useful information of the source property is the quality This information can only be in the event because it indicates the quality of the source to justify the event, not the quality of the source as such. The indication of page numbers or act numbers will rather be included in the reference to the register rather than in the page on the event side, or in the title of the source Indeed, if you indicate several repositories for a source (which would then obviously be in different form and with the same content), the act or page number no longer makes sense for several repository referenced at the same time. If you enter the page number here (in PAGE) to indicate where the transcribed text is, this text should be placed at the same level (in DATA:TEXT), and not in a source entity, which would be completely inconsistent . Choice 2 below should be applied in this case. About choice number 2 above When the register is a source, the text and the media clearly go to the event side The page number makes sense for the event The only place to enter the title of the deed is in the text of the source How to decide? By looking at how many events you will have on average to attach to the same act, and how many acts you will have in the same register. The closer the ratio is to 1, the more things will have to be stored in the same place, and the larger the ratio, the more they will have to be separated. if you think you have a lot of events for the same act, you have to separate the act from the event, otherwise you will spend your time re-entering the same act many times. if you think you have a lot of acts in the same register, the more it will be necessary to separate the register of acts. It might also be interesting in this case to merge the register with the repository, but it all depends on whether you have a lot of registries for the same repository. Our recommendation is to favour information shared at the level of acts, therefore choice number 1 above. This is what the Cygnus editor does. The other two editors allow you to make the choices you want. As you generalize, you may find it useful to make this type of summary table for all the kinds of sources and repositories you come across. Associating a source with a repository As we said above, we can create a source and then a repository, or the other way around. The creation of entities is not documented here. This can be done from the 3 editors, from the contextual menu and from the Aries edit bar. Example for the creation of a repository with the contextual menu from any entity. Creation of a repository from the button bar. The most important part is the association between the two. Several solutions exist depending on the editor used. Using the Cygnus editor With Cygnus, when you are editing a source, click on the Repository button at the bottom right. This button is only available if a source is actually being edited. Clicking on this button opens the window for choosing a repository, existing or to be created. In this window, the detailed content of the repository selected on the right hand side, is showing at the top of the left hand side. The part in the middle is the list of used sources referenced by this repository. The data at the bottom displays the references, in the repository, of the source being edited, that is to say the one from which we clicked just before. In this editor you can only put one reference. The page number of the register in which the deed can be found as well as the register name are to be placed in the Call number field. Using the Aries editor With Aries, when editing a source, either directly from a source entity, or from the source of an event, choose the repository tab then click on one of the two highlighted buttons. In the case of the Attach button, a list of repositories appears, you just have to choose one. In the case of a repository that does not already exist, the following window appears. This window contains exclusively the data of a deposit to be entered. Once the repository data has been entered, you will return to the previous window where you can then indicate the index and the type of Media. Using the Gedcom editor From the Gedcom editor, go to the Source entity, then right click anywhere on the top panel of the Gedcom editor, and choose Add a media, a note, a source, etc. then Add a repository. The following window appears, either to create a new repository, or to choose one from the list. Assuming you choose to create a new repository, you then see this window, which shows the fields of a repository. You may want to complete the full address. If you go back to the previous entity, i.e. the source entity, by clicking on the left arrow in the navigation bar, you see that the repository has been added. The references of the repository are added by right-clicking the REPO line, and choosing "Add a property directly", then CALN. Then again by clicking on CALN to add MEDI. You get the following result. There you go. You might have noticed the differences of efficiency and transparency of the respective editors. Enter a deed To enter a birth, marriage, death or other certificate, several solutions are offered to you to enter it. Either it is one of several certificates that you have retrieved, or it is an extract of a statement containing all the certificates of a municipality. In the first case, you will tend to want to use one of the three editors of Ancestris: Cygnus , Aries or Gedcom . In this situation, you will decipher the deed, extract the data from the record yourself and enter it into one of the editors.   You may also want to use the Registers records , especially if the deed is part of a statement. In this case, you will decipher the deed, but type it in along the flow, almost in the order it appears, and Ancestris will then allow you to "move" it where you need it using drag-n-drop .         Documenting a register Entering a register is possible with Ancestris using the Registry records module. This module is described in detail in the Registry records page. We invite you to read the corresponding section. This module must be installed from Menu / Personalization / Extensions . Once installed, it is available from the Tools menu. Enter specific events As an Ancestris user, you often give us special cases of events to capture. One of the questions from a user today was for example: One person was buried, then exhumed before being buried in another village. How to deal with this, knowing that one cannot use an EVEN event as it would result in an error of sequence? The answer to this question was given in the forum. Please let us know of other questions of this type and the most relevant answers associated with them. To be continued then.