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1993-01-27
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FAMILY VIEWER
Version 2.0
Copyright 1993
Shareware
by
Robert Lott Billard
New to version 2.0:
Apart from fixing a few relatively minor problems pointed out to me
by a couple of users, Family Viewer now has a few enhancements over the
original program.
It can now handle multiple data sets instead of only one. Each data
set will reside in its own subdirectory and any one can quickly and
easily be chosen for viewing.
The second major enhancement is the ability to preview a GEDCOM file
before converting and storing the data. This will allow you to see how
many people and families are in the file. It will also show a listing
of all the last names in the file.
Plus, once the data is converted, this last name listing can be used
to easily choose a search term.
For those of you who tend to remember numbers, the entire name
searching system can be bypassed by entering a person's ID number.
This is the number as read from the GEDCOM file and is displayed on the
top border of the Subject box when a person's data is displayed.
Family Viewer also now supports the use of a mouse. Either the
mouse or the arrow keys can be used to navigate a list box or to choose
a subject name while viewing a family. In general, pressing the left
mouse button will choose the particular item (same as pressing <Enter>)
and pressing the right button will escape from the current function
(same as pressing <ESC>).
Finally, Family Viewer now has the ability to display pictures if
they are in 'PCX' graphics format. If you have old photographs and
access to a scanner, you will be able to see what these people actually
looked like. Have fun and read on...
For those of you that were using the earlier version 1.0, this
version is fully compatible with your existing files. The only problem
is that you will have to put them in their own subdirectory, branched
off the directory where this program resides. If you still have the
GEDCOM file, it would be easier to just delete the old data and index
files and convert the data again. Family Viewer will automatically
create the proper subdirectory to use.
First and foremost, be advised that Family Viewer is not, repeat
NOT, a general purpose genealogy database program. Although it will
maintain its own data structures, this data CANNOT be changed and can
ONLY be entered by reading in a GEDCOM file generated by some other
program. It is meant to be used as an auxiliary to more powerful,
general programs.
Descended from many provable generations of pack-rats, I have
several old wills, land deeds, and diaries that make mention of
relatives not in my direct line. Of special interest to me are diaries
written in the early 1870's by my teenaged great-grandmother, Elizabeth
Elmira DeBevoise. (Can you imagine being 21 years old, engaged to be
married, and having to go absolutely TOOTHLESS for three weeks waiting
for your new 'crunchers'?) In these diaries, she often refers to Aunt
Sarah, Uncle Abe, Aunt Anna, a different Aunt Sarah, Cousin Charlie,
etc. Who are these people??? How do they fit into the picture??? Not
one genealogy program that I looked at provided a quick and easy way to
show me all of great-grandma's close relatives, even if their data had
been entered. So I decided to write my own.
FAMILY VIEWER fills that gap, at least for my purposes, and I can't
believe there aren't other people with the same problem. Once the data
is read from a GEDCOM file, such information can be displayed for any
individual in the data base. The following is an example of the
output:
SUBJECT: Elizabeth Elmira DeBevoise b 1 JUN 1854 d 5 OCT 1942 Age: 88
FATHER: Charles J. DeBevoise b 9 AUG 1829 d 21 MAR 1899 Age: 69
MOTHER: Jane Ann Stockholm b 17 DEC 1830 d 3 APR 1900 Age: 69
SPOUSE: Abraham A. Wyckoff b 9 NOV 1851 d 15 FEB 1917 Age: 65
DAUGHTER Caroline VanSinderen Wyckoff & John Lott Bergen
GRANDDAUGHTER Anna Lott Bergen & Milton Goldsmith Billard
GRANDSON John Lott Bergen
SISTER Anna J. DeBevoise & John T. Suydam
NEPHEW Warren R. Suydam
SISTER Sarah Waldron DeBevoise & Irving J. Blair
BROTHER James C. DeBevoise & Ida Turley
NEPHEW Turley DeBevoise
NEPHEW Paul DeBevoise
AUNT Sarah Elizabeth DeBevoise & Uncle John Covert
UNCLE Isaac DeBevoise & Aunt Elizabeth DeBevoise
COUSIN Mary Elizabeth DeBevoise & Frank J Lott
COUSIN Charles Tietus DeBevoise & Phebe Wyckoff VanSiclen
UNCLE Abraham J. DeBevoise & Aunt Anna Gertrude Schoonmaker
AUNT Sarah E. Stockholm & Uncle Peter D. Hulst
UNCLE Harmonus Stockholm
Please note that this is not complete nor necessarily accurate!
How to use Family Viewer:
PREVIEW
For convenience, Family Viewer allows you to preview a GEDCOM file
without having to convert and save the data. This would be useful if
you want to see how large it is and what family names are included.
Choosing 'Preview GEDCOM file' from the main menu will let you choose a
file to preview. First you will be asked for the letter of the drive
to search. Then a list box will appear showing any directories and
GEDCOM files. Moving the cursor bar around lets you navigate the disk.
Pressing <Enter> will choose that directory to search or the desired
file. Pressing <ESC> will exit so a different drive may be chosen.
Once a file is chosen, the program will read the file displaying the
number of individuals, families and family names. When finished, it
will display a list box of all the family names. The arrow keys allow
you to move around this listing. Pressing 'ESC' or 'Enter' will simply
return to the main menu. This feature can be very useful if you have
an unknown file and you want to see if it has any family names of
interest to you without having to save it.
CONVERT
Before any viewing of families can be done, the GEDCOM file must be
read in and converted to a simplified format used by this program.
This action is performed by choosing 'Convert GEDCOM file' from the
menu. A GEDCOM file uses certain standards for the purpose of
exchanging genealogical data from one program to another. Most of the
better genealogy programs such as ROOTS III and BROTHERS KEEPER have
the ability to create such a file. If you're not sure, check your
documentation.
To read in the file, you must choose the name of the file to be
read. A valid GEDCOM file will have an extension of '.GED'. First you
will be asked for the letter of the drive to search. Then a list box
will appear showing any directories and GEDCOM files. Moving the
cursor bar around lets you navigate the disk. Pressing <Enter> will
choose that directory to search or the desired file. Pressing <ESC>
will exit so a different drive may be chosen.
Once the file is chosen, the program will try to create a
subdirectory using up to seven letters of the filename and a numeral
ranging from 0 to 9. This subdirectory will be from where the program
resides, NOT where the source is coming from. If a subdirectory of the
same name is found, you will be asked whether or not to overwrite the
old data. If you say yes, all the old data will be replaced with the
new. If you say no, the program will then try again with the same name
incrementing the numeral by one.
What this means is that you can have up to ten separate sets of data
using the same GEDCOM file name and as many different sets of family
data as can fit on the drive in use. While the file is being read, the
program will display the counts of individuals, families and family
names. The full path of the source file and the subdirectory name will
also be displayed.
VIEW
Once you have your data, the next step is to choose 'View Family'
from the menu. A list box will appear allowing you to choose which
subdirectory's data set to use. You will then be asked to enter a
subject's name. A person's full name may be entered, of which only the
first and last names will be used in the search. If you are not sure
of the name, the last name only may be entered as the search term.
To make life really easy, Pressing 'F2' will display a list box of
all the family names in the file. Use the arrow keys to move around
or typing a letter will jump to the first name beginning with that
letter. Pressing 'Enter' will use the selected name as the search term
just as if you had typed it in. To look at the file sequentially, just
press the 'Enter' key to display the first name in the data base.
Another alternative is to enter the desired subject's ID number.
This is the number read from the GEDCOM file and should correspond with
the numbers you are used to from the main genealogy program. Choosing
a subject by number will bypass the following search mechanism and will
immediately display the subject's data if a valid number was entered.
This ID number will display on the top border of the Subject window.
If the search key is found, that person's name and data will appear
in the upper 'Subject' window and you will be asked whether or not to
use that person. If you say no, the search will be continued using the
chosen search term. The file may be scanned sequentially by using the
<PgUp> and <PgDn> keys. The <Home> and <End> keys will take you to the
first or last record, respectively. When chosen, the subject's full
data will display, depending on the current mode, which defaults to
Children. The three possible modes are Children, Siblings, and
Uncles/Aunts. (Why is there no single word to encompass Aunts and
Uncles?)
When names are entered, they are converted into 'metaphs' to be used
for searching. A metaph is similar to a soundex code, but it uses only
letters instead of letters and numbers. This is based on the Metaphone
algorithm as presented by Lawrence Philips in Computer Language
magazine, December 1990. These metaphs appear in brackets above the
names. To make life easier, most of the metaphs can be entered instead
of the full name, such that instead of typing 'DeBevoise' all the time,
once I see the metaph is 'TBFS', that's all I have to enter. This is
something to be experimented with as some metaphs might be further
converted and not usable.
In the 'Subject' window will be displayed birth and death dates for
the person chosen, the parents and any spouses. Depending on the mode,
the names and spouses' names will be shown for children, grandchildren,
brothers, sisters, in-laws, nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts and first
cousins. Any of these can easily be made a new subject. Pressing the
first highlighted character in the 'Subject' window will make that
person the new subject. A new subject may also be chosen by moving the
highlighted cursor from name to name and pressing 'Enter' on the name
you want. HINT: If you have been moving around, pressing 'PgUp' will
let you retrace your steps one subject at a time, up to 25 people.
Pressing 'Home' will take you right back to the original subject.
On the bottom line is displayed a menu of the available function key
choices.
F1 - Displays a brief help screen
F2 - Sets the mode to Children
F3 - Sets the mode to Siblings
F4 - Sets the mode to Uncles/Aunts
F5 - Displays more information about the subject
F6 - Presents a two choice print menu
<ESC> - To enter a new subject name
DETAIL:
Choosing 'Detail' will display a window with more detailed
information about the subject. Some of the data is the same but shown
in a different manner. It will also search and display the closest
relationship, if any, between the subject and spouse. For example:
***********
Elizabeth Elmira DeBevoise was born on Thursday June 1, 1854
She married Abraham A. Wyckoff on Wednesday October 17, 1877 at age 23
He was 2 years older, her FIFTH COUSIN
Had first child on 10/5/88 at age 33
She was 62 when her husband died.
She was 44 when her father died.
She was 45 when her mother died
She died on Monday October 5, 1942 age 88
***********
REMEMBER - This is ONLY as complete and accurate as the data entered in
the main genealogy program.
A sub-function of the detail screen is the ability to display 'PCX'
graphics pictures. The increasing availability of scanners can be a
tremendous boon to genealogists. Photographs, maps, coats-of-arms, or
any document that can be put into a graphics file using the 'PCX'
format can be used by this program. If you have any 'PCX' files
connected with this person, they can be 'attached' for display. First,
the picture file MUST be in the same subdirectory as the data files.
To 'attach' a picture to this person, simply press 'F3' and choose the
picture file to attach. A message line of up to 64 characters can be
entered which will be displayed with the picture. More than one
picture can be assigned to one person and a picture can be assigned to
more than one person. Pressing 'F2' will show a list of all pictures
assigned to the subject and on choosing a picture, it will be displayed
on the screen. Pressing 'F4' provides a way to 'unattach' a picture
from this subject. Sorry, but this is a lot easier to perform than it
is to explain, why not just try it.
PRINT
While not getting into fancy charting, the program does allow two
different listings. The listing for an individual subject will print
out the contents of the 'Subject' window, the 'Detail' screen, and all
the relatives as shown by all three modes.
The ancestor listing will print out an Ahnentafel type chart of the
chosen subject.
SHOW RELATIONSHIPS
This function allows you to choose any two subjects and show blood
relationships between the two people. This will show the relationship,
the number of generations from the subject to the common ancestor for
each of the two subjects, and the name of the common ancestor. When
first choosing this function, you must choose which subdirectory to
use. Selecting the two subjects is performed the same way as choosing
a subject to view. Once chosen, you will be asked if you want a
printout. If specified, the same information will be sent to the
printer plus two lists of names showing the trail of ancestors of each,
back to the common ancestor.
GRAPHICS VIEWER
This is a general purpose way to display a 'PCX' graphics picture
file. First you will be asked for the letter of the drive to search.
Then you will see a box listing directories and any 'PCX' files found.
Again, using the arrow keys lets you navigate around the disk. When a
file is chosen the program flips to graphics mode and shows the picture
with the pathname down on the bottom. Pressing any key returns to the
list box. The program will let you know if the picture resolution and
format is not supported by your hardware. It is possible that some
'PCX' pictures will not display properly. This has to do with
difficulties in determining the proper graphics mode. I will keep
working on this and possibly add other graphics formats that can be
viewed.
QUIT
Simply provides a graceful exit from the program.
That's all there is to it! I have tried to make Family Viewer easy to
use yet display data in a useful format. I have included a small
GEDCOM file with a couple of 'PCX' files so people can experiment with
the program right away to see if it might be helpful to them. If you
call up 'Elizabeth Elmira DeBevoise' as the subject, press 'F5' for
detail, then 'F3', you can see how the picture viewing works. Again,
this sample data may not be totally accurate.
Thank you for trying Family Viewer and please feel free to
distribute it to friends and relatives, but keep in mind that this is a
SHAREWARE program. Many hours were spent on the details of it. Hmmm,
maybe I should start measuring in cartons of cigarettes instead of
hours. But anyway, if you should find Family Viewer helpful and you
actually use it, I think it would be fair for you to send a check for
$15.00. Doing so would serve a few purposes. It would help keep me in
cigarettes while fixing problems or making enhancements, it would help
me maintain my faith in humanity and it would keep me from having
uncharitable thoughts about the true marital status of the parents of
my fellow genealogy researchers. As long as you folks support me, I'll
support Family Viewer. Thank you.
Questions, suggestions and checks may be sent to:
Robert L. Billard
34 Forest Avenue
Lynbrook, N.Y. 11563
P.S. In case anyone is curious about the coat-of-arms graphics, they
were generated by another program of mine, BLAZONS, which is
nearing completion. It can display, print (in color), and save a
picture of a coat-of-arms from a typed in description.
RLB 1/10/93