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Genealogy Software Utilities

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GENViewer

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GENViewer Tips

• Using AND/OR Conditions to Search For Individuals on Your Computer
• Using AND/OR Conditions to Highlight Individuals
  • Example 1 - Highlight individuals that have the surname soundex for "Smith"
  • Example 2 - Highlight individuals with a birth date AND are related to George Washington
  • Example 3 - Highlight individuals with no birth date AND are related to George Washington
  • Example 4 - Highlight individuals that have no birth date AND have surname name Smith
  • Example 5 - Highlight individuals related to George Washington OR related to Abraham Lincoln 
• Finding Islands of Individuals
  • Exporting Islands to GEDCOM files
• Making Self-Viewing GEDCOMs
  • Self-Viewing Features
  • Scenario 1 - Sending genealogy information to a family member
  • Scenario 2 - Bring your genealogy Information to a Family History Center (FHC)
  • Scenario 3 - Placing your genealogy information on an Internet website

Using AND/OR Conditions to Search For Individuals on Your Computer

1. On the main toolbar, click File Search Panel , which makes a panel like this appears:
   
   

2. On the File Search Panel, click Add .

3. Select a condition in the dropdown list. Example: "Surname Soundex" will search for similar surnames using the Soundex technique. There are over 100 conditions to select.

4. Enter a value in the Contains edit box.

5. To add another condition, click Add .

6. Set the AND/OR relationship for the conditions by clicking the button between the conditions, which toggles from to .

7. Add more conditions by repeating steps 3 to 6 until you have enough.

8. Click to select a directory from which to search. 

9. Click to search or not search sub-directories.

10. Click Find to start searching.

11. Once the results start appearing, you can click on individual names to view their details.

Using AND/OR Conditions to Highlight Individuals

GENViewer allows you to easily highlight individuals in a genealogy data file. The purpose for highlighting is to help analyze individuals. The following examples describe how this is done. For a list of all available highlighting conditions, download the GENViewer User Manual and look for "Highlighting Conditions Overview."

To highlight individuals: on the main toolbar, click Highlighting Panel , which makes the Highlighting panel appear.

Example 1 - Highlight individuals that haves the surname soundex for "Smith"

This condition highlights in yellow all individuals that have a surname that matches the soundex value of the text "Smith". Highlighted individuals are listed on the Highlighted tab in addition to being highlighted on the other tab views.

Example 2 - Highlight individuals with a birth date AND are related to George Washington

This example uses 2 conditions and they are logically AND'ed together. Conditions can be AND'ed or OR'ed. You can toggle between these two logical conditions by clicking on the "And" or "Or" text.

Clicking on "-", the condition "Has No Birth Date" has changed to "Has a Birth Date". This is indicated with the "+" and "-" symbols next to the condition, where "-" represents a logical NOT of the condition.

Highlighted individuals are listed on the Highlighted tab in addition to being highlighted on the other tab views.

Example 3 - Highlight individuals with no birth date AND are related to George Washington

This are the same conditions as in Example 3 except that the first condition is set to "Has No Birth Date". 

Highlighted individuals are listed on the Highlighted tab in addition to being highlighted on the other tab views.

Example 4 - Highlight individuals that have no birth date AND have surname name Smith

This example displays the Apply button feature that can be turned using the . By default, as you make changes to your highlighting conditions, GENViewer displays the individuals that are highlighted. Depending on the speed of your computer and the size of the genealogy file, this might take a few seconds to a minute. This option allows you to make changes to your highlighting condition(s) and then apply it to your data file.

A red apply button indicates that the user has made a change to the highlighting condition(s). Pressing this button will apply the condition(s) to your data file, and the button will return to normal color.

Example 5 - Highlight individuals related to George Washington OR related to Abraham Lincoln

In this example, the logical OR value is used.

Finding Islands of Individuals

Within a genealogy file, an island is a group of individuals and families that are all related to each other either by blood or by marriage. The Islands panel is used to view the individuals, families, notes, and sources contained in any islands found in the data file. It displays the same information found in the Islands tab. However, it has a check box called Use Islands that when checked, will limit GENViewer to only display the individuals found in the island that is selected on the Islands panel. This allows you to analyze individuals and families in an island.

For example, in the sample GEDCOM "US presidents.ged", which is included when you download GENViewer, each President's genealogy represents an Island of individuals and families because each president is not related to the others. Therefore, if you select Use Islands and select the row in the table that is Lincoln's genealogy, you will only see his relatives on GENViewer's screens - the other individuals that are contained in other islands will not be displayed.

Exporting Islands to GEDCOM files

GENViewer can export each of the islands to a separate GEDCOM file. Note: this feature only works while viewing a GEDCOM file.

1. Click on the Islands tab.
2. Click Export Islands, which is just above the list of islands. This will display the Export Islands dialog box.
3. Select the islands that you want to export and the naming options. Click Export Islands to export.