DIY Ancestry DNA circles

Ancestry didn’t give me any DNA circles, so I made my own. If you want to join me in the DNA circle loop, then you will need AncestryDNA results and:

• The DNAGedcom client ($5 monthly subscription); and
• NodeXL (free basic version).

Use the DNAGedcom client to download your Ancestry matches and in-common-with (ICW) results as spreadsheets. You will need to click “Gather Matches” and “Gather ICW”. It’s the most convenient way to get the shared match information from Ancestry.

NodeXL is where the magic happens. It’s an Excel tool for social network analysis. I used NodeXL because it’s in Excel which I’m familiar with and it has all the facilities I need in the free version. I don’t know anything about social network analysis, and I didn’t need to in order to get the result I wanted. Follow the instructions on the website linked above to get started. It takes a little fiddling to get used to it, but in the familiar Excel interface it’s not as intimidating as it might at first seem.

Now the fun begins!

When you create a file using the template, you will see an extra ribbon, and an area for your charts to display. Those extra features won’t be there when you open Excel as normal, only when you open a spreadsheet from the template.

You will see several tabs. The most important for our purposes are “Vertices” and “Edges”. Think of “Vertices” as people, and “Edges” as relationships between people. The list of Match IDs goes into “vertices”, and the paired Match IDs in the ICW file goes into “edges”. As it’s Excel, you can cut and paste data into the sheets. I pasted twice on each sheet – the first time with just the match ID numbers in the first column (or two columns for Edges), then the rest of the columns into the “add your own columns here” section.

Click “Refresh Graph” to see a graph of your information. When you first drop match information in you will probably get a big mess of dots and crossing lines. There are options to fix that.

With a bit of fiddling, I came up with this:

 

Look! I’ve got circles!

Each dot represents a person, each line a DNA relationship between two people. When trying to interpret the information remember that that Ancestry has a cut off – it won’t show shared matches unless at least one of the people is a fourth cousin or closer to you. At least, that’s how I think it works. I’m not sure if they also have to be fourth cousins or closer to each other to show up. If you can enlighten me on exactly how it works, I’d be grateful.

The point is to remember that because of the cut-off there are likely to be other relationships between the dots that you can’t see. I assume that’s what’s happening with the fan shaped ‘circles’. I had 35 fourth cousins or closer at the time of making this chart and no circles or “New Ancestor Discoveries”.

To get distinct clusters I first used the “Group by cluster…” option on the toolbar.

The groups might still be mixed up at this stage. To separate the groups from each other, I clicked the little arrow dropdown to the right of “Circle” (above) and under “Layout options” I chose “Lay out each of the graph’s groups in it’s own box”.

For the layout I chose “Circle”. Because I wanted DNA circles. You could make a DNA spiral or a sine wave or a grid or a random layout or … but circles work nicely and they help with the circle-envy. This option is available both on the main NodeXL ribbon, and in the settings at the top of the graph area.

“Autofill columns” on the main ribbon lets you easily move information from your own columns into the columns that control the graph’s appearance. There are a lot of options to play with – size and colour of dots, thickness of lines all have potential. I set the size of each dot to the number of Shared cM with me. You can also label the dots using information on the sheet. The obvious label to use is the person’s name.

You need to refresh the graph by clicking “Show graph” when data changes on a worksheet. If you’re only changing display options, you can save the recalculation time by clicking “Lay Out Again”.

There’s a lot of fun to be had just playing with the options. I’ve also tried this with my FTDNA results. For those, I had a much busier chart. Different clustering algorithms had different effects, and the dynamic filter came in useful to clear away matches who sat in distracting “pile up regions” which could be seen as a dense collection of interlinked spots.

In my next post I’ll show you how I used my DIY Ancestry DNA circles to identify a new research lead.

Changing genealogy software – how it’s going

I recently mentioned that I’m changing genealogy software. Three weeks on, I’m still happy that I made the right decision.

The most surprising thing to me has been feeling like a newbie! I’m used to being very proficient in the software I use – not expert, but better than average. I knew there would be a learning curve but I didn’t anticipate the newbie feeling that came with it. I’ve got a lot of clicking on menu items and trying things out to do!

The transfer itself was reasonably smooth. I found that 232 people had been detached from their parents on import. I think this was due to a flaw in the GEDCOM export for some (but not all?!) of the people in my old database. Fortunately I had an error listing which told me who the people affected were, and their parent families. It took me about 1.5 hours to link everyone up again. That was not how I wanted to spend my time, but not the end of the world, either.

That was the only unexpected hitch, and the most serious one. The other hitches were all expected…

My main challenges now include:

• Deciding how to handle all the witnesses to other people’s events. Genbox had a “witness” feature, Family Historian doesn’t, so I will have to re-input that information… but how? For now I’m taking my time about it, reading up on forum posts and other internet discussion to see how people handle witnesses in software without “witness” features before I commit to an approach.
  Any comments on how others do this would be welcome.
• Adding details back into the source information. In most cases all the critical information transferred, but there are a few instances – mostly references to BDM index entries – where the detail, such as it was, didn’t seem to come over.
• Hooking up all my multimedia properly. This isn’t the fault of my software, I’ve obviously rearranged things without telling my database about it! Broken links are a bit more obvious in Family Historian and to some extent can be batch fixed. Again, I’m taking my time about this and trying things out before I rush in.
• Correcting errors in my information. Again, these are clearly not the fault of my software. With a slightly different view I’m spotting little errors that, I guess, used to be like part of the furniture to me.

The best surprise about Family Historian is its amazing capacity to query your data. I knew that its querying was good when I bought it, but as I’ve played with it more I’ve been thrilled with its ability to set up complex queries that run in a flash. I’m also realising just how customisable many of its other features are.

So yes, there was a little pain but I think the gain has been worth it.

An ending, and a new beginning

I've made a big decision. I’m leaving the one I love. After indecision and agonising, I'm changing genealogy software. This isn't something I take lightly as I still remember how much work it was the last time I changed (from TMG to Genbox) nearly seven years ago.

I've been thinking about it for some time but, perversely, it was Kerry Scott's post Why It Doesn't Matter Which Genealogy Software You Use way back in February that gave me the final push I needed.

That post had stayed in the back of my mind and as I agonised over the idea of changing, I went back and reread it. I thought it would persuade me to stick with what I had. No! As I read, I realized that the thing that was holding me back from changing was that I placed too high a priority on all the things I love (and will miss!) about Genbox, but things have changed, and they are no longer so relevant.

You see, in the last seven years the way I research has changed. The internet allows me to find more records, more quickly. I have always liked to trace down at least a few generations from my ancestors, but over seven years I have pushed back a few generations and 'tracing down' now involves different types of records, most notably census records.

Features that were a high priority for me seven years ago, aren’t so much now. Kerry's post helped me to realise that I will live without the special features I love. While desirable, they are not essential. Thanks Kerry for the perspective!

So having more objectively considered which features will best suit my needs, and after much experimentation and consideration, I have decided to switch to Family Historian.

Factors that weighed in on my decision:

• It appears that the product is still being actively developed. They recently put out a call for more beta testers for the upcoming version 5.
• Using GEDCOM as a native format means that I have a better idea of will go through when I upload to my family data site. I can also edit the file myself in word or even Excel if I want which makes the initial clean up much quicker and easier.
• Ancestral Sources, a free program designed to work with Family Historian, allows form based data entry for census and baptism records, with more records types coming. I find census records in particular very time-consuming to enter.
• Alternatively, merging in other GEDCOMs seems to work well, opening up the possibility of using something like Geves (described previously) for focused data collection on a branch and then importing and merging. I wouldn’t want to merge on a wider scale. My early tests looked promising.
• Auto-citation feature where you designate a source to be added to anything you add, until you tell it to stop. Genbox also does this and it’s something I would prefer to keep.
• I can live with less granularity to the source citations (Genbox allows you to set different sources for date, place, details etc of an event). So far as achieving quality citations goes, I think I’ll follow Randy Seaver’s lead and use freeform text. Again, I’ve experimented with this a bit already and I’m sure it will improve the sources that go onto the website – which is the public face of my database. This wasn’t a concern seven years ago! 
• Multimedia capabilities look promising - I need to explore that more.

Now that the decision is made I’ve no regrets and am very excited by the change. I’m looking forward to learning more about my new software!

Life in the clouds and across the Galaxy

Like Geniaus and Tanya Honey, I have recently purchased a Samsung Galaxy tab. Geniaus started the ball rolling as she was the one who alerted us that they were selling for the bargain price of $299, unlocked. I had thought about buying an iPad, but the price and the size deterred me. The Galaxy tab, being quite a bit cheaper and just a bit smaller, was exactly what I wanted!

Geniaus has written describing the applications and uses she has for her galaxy tab here, and Tanya Honey has followed suit here. This post describes my set-up starting at the more general which will apply to almost any modern machine or device, and then going on to a few things I have liked on the android platform (the Galaxy tab in particular).

Connection

I will be mostly using my tablet at home, or at the library, and so will be on wifi most of the time. Although I wanted the freedom to connect from anywhere, but only occasionally, I was reluctant to pay for mobile data access at the prices I had seen. Then I came across TPGs pay-as-you-go plan which is intended specifically for this sort of use. For no contract and $1 a month (yes, $1) I get inexpensive calls (which I don’t intend to make on the Galaxy tab anyway) and a modest allowance of data per month. If I go over my data allowance, even a long way over, it’s no big deal. It’s only 2.75c for each extra MB.

Setting up data access wasn’t as easy as it might have been. I found the information I needed here, but it was a remark in the comments about keeping one field blank that finally got everything working for me. Since then, I’ve had no problem at all. I would seriously consider ditching my current phone plan when the contract is up in favour of this plan as I rarely make mobile phone calls anyway.

Cloud services

I have a Windows 7 PC, an iPhone and now the Galaxy tab, which is an android. Despite being on three different operating systems, I want a seamless experience across my devices. The good news is that I (largely) have it. There are many cloud services on offer that allow you to synchronise information from one or more machines with “the cloud”. If this is unfamiliar to you, it’s not as scary as it sounds. I use the cloud services below for both genealogy and for general use.

Google calendar is, as the names suggests, Google's web calendar application. Most calendar applications on the iPhone and android systems will synchronise with a Google calendar. Enter a date on one device and it’s there on another. Easy and free.

Toodledo is a free web based to-do site. The interface on the web site itself is full-featured (even more so if you paid for the premium version), but rather clunky. However, many ‘to-do’ applications synchronise with the site. I switch between to-do apps on my iPhone all the time but on the Galaxy I rather like Ultimate To-Do list and I actual prefer the clean interface of the mobile phone version to the tablet version. If you use the link above and take a paid subscription, I will get a few months of premium membership too. There’s no advantage or disadvantage to you that I’m aware of.

Dropbox is a file synchronisation/backup service. With this I can access my genealogy documents from anywhere on any of my devices. I can also upload directly to my Dropbox account from any machine connected to the internet. No USB? No problem. I just upload whatever I have scanned at the library straight to my Dropbox and it syncs onto my home computer. A 2GB account is free - you and I will both get 250MB extra if you use the link above. Please do!

A similar service is SugarSync. I’m still deciding how I want to use it, but I am getting to like it even better than Dropbox, if that is possible! SugarSync offers 5GB of space for free and it’s paid plans cost less than Dropbox’s. It allows you to sync any folder on your computer; you don’t have to rearrange your files to suit the service. Another nice feature is the android app automatically syncs any pictures you take with your device’s camera. The main disadvantage compared to Dropbox is that it doesn’t seem to be supported by as many other apps. If you sign up for a free account using the link above, you and I will both get 500MB of extra space. Another please do!

LastPass is a password manager. I have user accounts with so many sites, it’s not funny. For the most part I have broken away from using a few “standard” passwords and now have a unique and complex password for each site I visit. I find LastPass to be easy to use and very light on system resources (unlike the password manager I formerly used). Installation on the PC is easy. Installation on the iPhone and Android less so – it involves some complex manoeuvrers to install bookmarklets which then don’t work particularly quickly… but it can be done, the bookmarklets do work, and best of all it’s free. (Are you detecting a theme here?)

Evernote is a free notetaking app that syncs between multiple machines and has clever handwriting recognition features. To be honest, I never quite found my feet with Evernote. Then a few months ago I discovered Microsoft’s OneNote which is also a notetaking application, which syncs with Microsoft’s SkyDrive (25GB of free space for everyone!) but it has a bit more structure to it. I didn’t quite “get” it at first but once I did, I loved it. I’ve been using it for all my genealogy note taking and research logging ever since. Unfortunately it’s not quite as cloudy (yet) as other cloud services. There is an iPhone app but it’s only available in the USA. Instead I am using MobileNoter SE which is third party OneNote file viewer. I make new notes when I’m out and about in Evernote, which I can then sync to OneNote via a little converter app on the MobileNoter website. It’s not as complicated as it sounds.

Other apps

I’ll try to be less long winded! I’m talking about android applications here, but most are available on iPhone or iPad as well.

Genealogy - I am happy enough with FamilyBee as a viewer for my genealogy file. It plays nicely with Dropbox and there are no complicated file conversions to traverse, other than exporting my database to GEDCOM. While you can’t edit the information you can save notes and images for later.

Books – I have the LibraryThing scanner app, which makes it possible to sit on the floor and catalogue a pile of books to my LibraryThing account. I am finally starting to put my LibraryThing account to use. I also have the Amazon Kindle app and have downloaded my first eBook. I didn’t think I’d like reading from a screen but the Galaxy tab is a similar size to a paperback novel and it’s actually quite comfortable to read on. I could get used to this. That one-click ordering button looks like a dangerous thing, especially on a touch screen!

Weather – It’s got to be Pocket Weather AU which takes it’s feed direct from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and includes those radar maps which have let me know on plenty of occasions if I should hurry home before the storm gets worse, or if I should wait for 10 minutes by which time it will all be done. I have the small version of the accompanying widget on the home screen of my tablet, so I can see at a glance just how cold I’m going to be today. Now that I think about it, that definitely doesn’t get me out the door any quicker in the morning…

Games – Although instant entertainment to hand to the kids can be very useful, I’m reluctant to let them think they can play with the tablet too often. It’s mine! All mine!! So, I have Angry Birds for emergency use and also a free app that is actually intended for small children, Kid Mode. Kid Mode locks up most functions so your kids can’t alter your device by accident. It gives them age appropriate games and activities that are purportedly educational.

Battery – Like Tanya, I found a battery widget I liked that gives me a more accurate indication of how much power I have left. Last but definitely not least, to extend my running time between charges I have installed JuiceDefender. It’s great! There’s a free version but I upgraded all the way to Ultimate. It manages your wifi, data network and even cellular connections intelligently according the the parameters you set which can include different schedules for day/evening and for week/weekend (you say which days are your weekend). It’s very clever and has worked very well for me.

Sunday Night Genealogy Fun - Relationship Calculator

Every Saturday night Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings offers up a "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun" challenge. Although it's Saturday night in Randy's time zone, it's already Sunday morning when the post is published here. As I don't get a chance to sit and blog until the evening, this is my Sunday Night Genealogy Fun!

The challenge this week is:

Genea-Musings: Saturday Night Genealogy Fun- your Relationship Calculator:

1) Open up the genealogy software program of your choice.

2) Think about two special people in your family tree (your parents? your spouse? a famous person? a distant cousin? yourself?).

3) Use the Relationship Calculator in the software to determine the relationship between the two special people. If you don't know where to find the Relationship Calculator, go to the Help button and find out. Follow the directions!

4) Tell us about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a comment to this post on my blog, or in a Note or comment on Facebook.

1) Yes, OK, software open. Genbox, if you're interested.

2) There are many special people in my tree, most of whom don't happen to be famous. I'm going to look at not one but a few, carefully selected cases:

a) The Australian author, Frank Hardy (Wikipedia entry).
b) A lady by the name of Agnes Carrey (c1824 - 1907).
c) Five people whose burials in Oakleigh Cemetery were authorised by my great-great-grandfather, Daniel Miller Couper.

3) The relationship calculator is easy to find. It's located in the Tools menu and is called "Relationship Calculator".

There are boxes for "First Person" and "Second Person". The boxes use predictive text, so as you start typing a name the rest of the name appears. If the name is too long, or too common, you can access a search box by double clicking. Beneath that there is a box called relationship which describes the relationship in general terms (father, brother etc) and a box called linkages that names the key individuals eg. the shared ancestor.

Using the Relationship Calculator I determined that:

a) Frank Hardy does not share a direct bloodline with me. He was the husband of my first cousin twice removed.  
b) Agnes Carrey is my first cousin five times removed. As she married her first cousin, she is also the wife of my third great-granduncle. Both relationships are listed.
c) The relationships of each of those five people to my great-great-grandfather were father-in-law, wife of father of wife, nephew, nephew of wife, and first cousin.

Genbox will only take descriptions without a direct bloodline so far, which is just as well as even "wife of father of wife" (father-in-law's second wife is another way of putting it) makes my head spin.

The other tool in Genbox to help you work out the relationship between people is the convergent chart. Like the relationship calculator, it gives you the option to plot only direct bloodlines, or any relationship. This was the feature that sold me on Genbox, years ago. When I trialled it, I was able for the first time to create a chart which showed the relationships in case c) above. Fantastic! I finally understood what was going on!

Unfortunately, the latest version (which hasn't been updated in quite some time, but I AM holding my breath for version 4!) seems to have developed a bug in the convergent chart when there are more than two or three people. Instead I was able to reproduce my result this evening by using one of the other chart types, limiting the scope to one or two generations from my key individuals, trimming off the extra people and right clicking to "reorganise chart". 

Chart: A visual representation of the relationships between Daniel Miller Couper, and the five people whose burials in Oakleigh Cemetery he authorised. Created using Genbox.

I could go on for hours about the unique features of Genbox that you mightn't see straight away (it can include source citations on charts!!!) but will save that for when version 4 finally comes out, whenever that may be.

4) See above.

That's my weekend over. Enjoy whatever is left of yours!

 ****
Update: I just noticed that the order of marriages in the chart for Caroline Jones is wrong. John Allsop should be the second marriage. The error was mine, I've fixed it in my database now.

Software review - Geves

I've only found two software packages that attempt the kind of source-based data entry I describe in my previous post (not counting products such as Custodian or Clooz, as their purpose is different). They are 'Genealogy Research System' and another that I found a few weeks ago, 'Geves'. I've been having a ball playing with Geves since I downloaded the trial. I used the deluxe version, which has more customisation options that the standard version. The version I downloaded was 1.3.28.

Just quickly before I begin - I have no financial interest in this product other than as a customer and have not been offered anything by anyone to write this. I'm writing the review purely because I found the program interesting. 

Geves - how it works 

The good

While it's possible to go to an individual person's view and enter information, Geves is based around the idea of entering data from a source document. The best way to start is not adding details to a person view, but by choosing the type of source you want to insert.

The program gives a reasonable selection of data entry forms for England, Scotland and Wales and some general purpose forms. If the birth death or marriage form you want isn't there (eg I need Australian certificates) you can choose the most similar form and adapt it to your needs. That didn't work too badly with my Australian BMD records for data entry but they do end up labelled as the wrong type of certificate which is annoying.

Here's an almost completed form for a Scottish ancestor, James Couper, who was kind enough to pass away in 1855 - giving me a death certificate with more than usual detail! If you attach an image to the source record, Geves displays it in a split screen below the data entry form. It makes data entry and checking against the source very easy.

 

The yellow dropdown boxes are where you choose which individual or place the name in the record relates to - or you can add a new person at a click of a button. If you do choose from the dropdown, a box appears when you hover over a name with the events from that person's life. You can also use the extensive list and search windows to find the correct person in the database, then drag and drop their name across to the box.

I very much like the adjustable split screen source display. The forms aren't too bad, so far as they go. I did find occasionally that some detail seemed to be missing but that's relatively easy to correct. There is some data validation, with cells coming up in shades of orange or red if you accidentally try to make someone their own grandfather. The data entry was quick and easy - completing and checking the form took only a few minutes.

Individual and place names are as recorded on the source. You make the link to a individual in the database or a place on the map for the purpose of searches. So far so good, and it's all quite efficient. But... it gets better.

The very good

The program includes a web browser. For certain records (primarily UK census) on selected genealogy sites you can download the information into the appropriate form at the click of a button, including the source image(s). It takes about 20 seconds and all that's left to do is correct the information against the image (add in any data not in the transcription), and link it up to the right people and places. Even a fairly large household took me less than five minutes to enter this way, from start to finish. I was mostly using FindMyPast. When I tried Ancestry, Geves managed to suck information into the form that wasn't visible on the page. Clever.

In less than two weeks, when I was looking after a sick baby and was also unwell myself, I still managed to enter every detail for 125 UK census households without breaking a sweat. 125. Every detail. Really! I told you I had a ball with it! I got a kick out of seeing the forms fill themselves out every time.

The other very nice thing is that if you do enter a source only to find that the John Smith in that source isn't the John Smith you thought, it's very easy to undo. Just clear the dropdown box where you identify who (in your database) the John Smith in the source relates to. All the other bits and pieces from the source - residence, employment, birth year, whatever - will disappear from your John Smith's record.

You can't please all the people all the time...

As you enter data into the source template Geves translates it into events for you, including lineage connections between the people. Obviously the program has to make a lot of assumptions along the way, and they may not always be assumptions you agree with. If this only happens occasionally it's no big deal to fix. On the other hand all the time and effort saving made in data entry would be lost if you disagreed with something the program did in a systematic way, as there is nowhere (that I saw) to vary any of the assumptions that Geves makes.

Here are the events automatically created by Geves for the death certificate above...

 

And here's the family tree it has constructed...

 

The program does a great job where the family connections are defined by the form (eg father and mother on a birth certificate) including spouse and parent-child relationships to the head person on a census form. It makes no attempt (and nor should it) to make more ambiguous connections eg a niece or stepson. You can quite quickly and easily add events to the source yourself. For example, a birth record for the niece with just the name of the child and the parents. You don't need to put in any details that are already generated by the form, such as estimated birthdate or place of a birth for a niece on a census form. There are a few more issues along these lines for census forms in particular, and it is worth reading the help file to be aware of them and understand how to work around them. 

Geves does not have all the event types you usually find. Census entries were recorded as a residence, or "Visited at" depending on the description. I would prefer to use a census event and say that the person was "enumerated at". Maybe that's just me. It does have a research screen to see what censuses you have found for each person so I suppose I could live with it - but there may well be other decisions that grate.

Once you have multiple sources for an event, Geves makes more assumptions about which source is more reliable in order to combine the information. Unfortunately there is little description of how this decision is made, either. It's obvious which events are merged, though, and you are able to change the outcome of the merged event or mark it as confirmed.

Here's a screenshot of the events tab for James Couper after I added 1841 and 1851 census information.

Merged events have a blue square around the icon, and are marked "Merged". As you click on events, you can see the source (or sources) for the information in that event underneath.

To be fair, making assumptions is always going to be a perilous business. Overall I think this part of the program is quite well-handled.

The not-so-good and really-quite-bad...

The first not-so-good thing that I noticed about Geves was the very basic output options. From a person page you can access a few simple lists of events (not a lot of detail), an ancestor report and a descendent report. There are no options about what should or should not be included in these. You can change the font, but that's it. You can also print out lists which are really very good, with whatever fields and sorting you want, but it's not the same thing.

Worse, though, there were no source citations on the reports! I could hardly believe that!

It occured to me that you could enter data here, then use another program to do reports and charts if only the GEDCOM export worked nicely with your other program. I shall defer here to someone with better knowledge than myself. Tamura Jones reviewed a beta copy of Geves back in 2007 and gave the program a rating of "Dismal" citing, among other things, GEDCOM import and export problems. I don't know if any of the problems mentioned have been fixed since then, but the ones I was able to check on with my definately non-expert knowledge of GEDCOM had not been. This was disappointing. Source-based data entry loses its gloss if you're not sure of getting the information out again! 

The other stuff

Otherwise, I had no particular problems using the program. It has been stable for me. There was a full 5 second delay going to and from one particular source with 24 sub-records but that was the only lag I noticed. I'm not sure how the program would handle large files. My experimental file was relatively small with just over 700 individuals (many of whom were probably the same people, but I hadn't made the connection yet) and aside from the delay I mentioned I didn't have any problem.

Although the general reports were lacking, the lists were good and very editable. Some fields were easy to add, some you had to start writing expressions. I get the impression that the lists could be very powerful, if only you could work out how to write the expressions. There was some information on that in the help file.

What else...? Photos are treated like source images. The source form relating to the photo has fields for date, place, event, photographer and allows you to mark with a box (which then becomes a passport photo for the individual) who is in the picture. If using the deluxe version you can add your own custom fields to sources, people, events, repositories or whatever. I think I would want to add a custom caption or description field to the source record. It was difficult to find how to access the custom forms you created. I eventually found the answer not in the help file but on the user forum. As an aside, judging by the forum the user base is very small, but the developer is quick to give a helpful response to questions.

I don't know how those custom fields are treated in GEDCOM export. There did seem to be an ability to customise how sources were exported for each template. I didn't experiment with it, but if using the program to export I would. The default export for the source was the one line description given to it although all the other information you would need for a proper source citiation was generally tucked away on the source forms.

The conclusion

I haven't covered every aspect of the program here. In some ways it has surprising depth and is very customisable, in others it's inflexible and falls a little short. Although I have raised concerns and criticisms of the program, I did buy a copy at the end of the free 30 day trial.

Yes, I am perhaps a little besotted with the data entry to the exclusion of all else. They do say love is blind.

I'm not planning on using Geves as my primary genealogy software. I used it in the trial period to begin sorting out the Tregoning families in Gwennap, Cornwall, England. At least 2 of the 17 households with Tregonings in 1841 are of interest to me.

Thanks to Geves I am now confident that I've followed through to the correct 1881 census entry for my great-great-great grandmother, Mary Tregoning, and I think I know which death record is hers, too. I'll enter just the information relating to my family into my main database. It's going to seem so sloooow after Geves, but at least I'll be able to assume whatever I want and make some pretty charts. With source citations.

By the way, Happy New Year!

My vision for genealogy data entry

If I had written a Genea-Santa letter, I would have asked for perfect genealogy software. One of the features of my utopian software (and there's a long list) is source-based data entry.

Here's my thinking... 
Sources are important. I don't enter information into my genealogy software unless I have a source. That source may be something as simple as a note I write to myself (eg noting a conversation with a relative) but it will be something I can use to identify where a particular piece of information came from, and how reliable that information is likely to be.

A lot of the source documentation we use come in forms of one sort or another. Births, deaths, marriages, census information - all entered into forms.

When it comes time to do data entry, there I am sitting in front of my computer with a source document in my hand or on my screen. It's quite likely that the information will be recorded in a form that I have seen before, and I will see again. Typically, I will set up a source record and lock it on while I am entering the data. Then it's a matter of going through the source document in a systematic way, navigating to the appropriate person in my database, and adding or editing events in the person's life.

The way I described it, it sounds pretty efficient. It's not really. There's an awful lot of moving from person to person, editing a bit, moving around again, finding your place on the form, not to mention re-entering the same information over and again (eg an address on a census form). Every time you move around you are distracted from where you are on the form. Every time you have to enter a piece of information again, you may enter it differently. If you want to check over your data entry you have to navigate around all over again.

What if you enter the information only to realise you had the wrong person? Who would have thought there could be more than one John Smith?! Then you have to track down and undo all those little changes you made.


It's slow. It's prone to error. It's hard to check. It's hard to undo.

A feature of my imaginary ideal genealogy software is the ability to enter data, where possible, in the template of the source document. The act of entering the data should generate all the citation details (maybe add a field or two for anything relevant not on the form itself, eg repository) and should handle the data entry. You would enter the data once.  Perhaps I'm fundamentally lazy, but if I have typed something in once, I don't want to have to type it in again.

Data entry would be quick and easy because you would not have to constantly find your place in the database and in the source document again. It would be very clear if any fact had been missed, because you would see an empty field in your template. It would be easy to check the data for errors because it's all there in one place looking much like the source document.

My ideal software would have an easy way to identify individuals in the document as individuals who are already in the database, or as new people to add. You wouldn't have to come up with some elaborate identification scheme. If you later decided that the source didn't refer to that person, you should just be able to unlink that identification without having to change anything else.

The software should make some sensible assumptions about how the information in the source document fits together and build the lineage links for you on that basis - but you should be able to review and override those assumptions if you wish. It should also be easy to add in any information from the source that is not standard for the template. You should also be able to add information from other sources that don't come neatly presented in a form.

It seems like a big ask, which makes this post seem like a rant... but guess what? Just under two weeks ago I stumbled across a genealogy package I hadn't heard of before. It promised source-based data entry along the lines I describe. I've been having a ball playing with the trial version for nearly two weeks now. While it's not perfect, I think it's interesting enough to write about in my next post...

That's one element of my ideal for genealogy software. Is there a genealogy software feature that seems so obvious and sensible to you that you just can't understand why anyone hasn't done it (to your satisfaction) before?!