Burris Family Tree http://burrisfamily.org Tutorial Eliot Burris eliot@burrisfamily.org
Table of Contents Purpose...3 Definitions...3 Understanding Families...3 Other definitions...4 Home Page...5 Favorites...5 Menus...6 Charts...6 Lists...7 People and Families...8 Place Hierarchy...8 Multimedia...8 Sources and Repositories...9 Calendar...9 Reports...9 Search...10 General...10 Soundex...10 Stories...11 FAQ...11 Navigation...11 Individual Page...11 Private View...12 Non-Members View...12 Family...12 Fact and Events...12 Notes...13 Stories...13 Albums...13 Interactive Tree...13 Members View...13 Sidebar...13 Family Navigator...14 Descendants...14 Extra Information...14 Members & Roles...14 Editing/Entering Data...14 Basic Rules...15 People...15 Adding an Individual...15 Add Multimedia...16 Add an Event or a Fact...17 Quick Guide...18 Find a person...18 Dates...18 Help...18 Page 2 of 18
Purpose The purpose of this guide is to assist a new user to navigate the genealogical information presented by this website; and possibly to add information and/or to edit existing information. Not all users will have the ability to add or edit information. The Macquarie Dictionary defines genealogy as "an account of the descent of a person or family through an ancestral line." Some of the information on individuals which can be recorded on the website are: their birth their marriage(s) their divorce(s) their death other events in their lives their children their parents facts about them and multimedia files about them A database of genealogical information of people related to each other is sometimes called a "family tree", though it is probably more properly called a "family web." All of the information for a single family tree is stored in a single database on a single computer. This database is accessed via an Internet web browser, such as Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera or Internet Explorer. As designed, access is collaborative, allowing several people to be looking at or adding to the same family database from anywhere in the world, at the same time. Definitions The term individual is used to describe a person. Understanding Families A family (record/unit) is automatically created when a new spouse is attached to an individual the first parent is attached to an individual or the first child is added to a single parent. So, a family is a combination of at least one parent and at least one child or two individuals in a relationship, whether or not they were married or even of the opposite sex. Page 3 of 18
As a result of this, a person who has extended their relationships by creating their own family (such as being married and/or having children) is usually in at least two families: their immediate family, where they are a spouse, partner and/or parent and the family where they are a child. When a parent-child relationship is created, the way the child is related to the parent is called their pedigree. The four types of pedigrees supported are: birth adopted foster sealing, which is primarily used within the Morman church. An individual can be: a child in one family due to a "birth" pedigree in that family; recording a child's pedigree is not required and the 'birth' pedigree is assumed. a child in a second family due to an "adopted" pedigree in that family a child in a second family due to an additional marriage by one or more of their parents (stepfamilies), but there is no pedigree terminology for these related family records. in one or more "immediate families" due to having multiple partner relationships through their life. Therefore, a single individual can be a member of several families. Other definitions A source is the original material where information was obtained. Some examples are: a legal document, a photo, a story told by a family member, an email or a bible. A citation is the location in the source where the cited information can be found. An example might be entry 6W-804 of a genealogical book or a page number or some other reference number. An event is something which happens at a specific time, e.g. birth, marriage, divorce, death. A fact is something which does not have a specific date associated with it, e.g. an address, religion, nationality. A multimedia reference can be almost anything, e.g. a photo, an image or PDF of a birth certificate, an audio file or an audiovisual file. A highlighted image is the one which is shown next to an individual's name in many of the charts and screens. GEDCOM is a type of computer file widely-used for uniformly structuring genealogical information for use on computer systems, developed by the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church). Sometimes a single family tree database is (incorrectly) called a "GEDCOM". Page 4 of 18
The definitions of family relationship terms vary between cultures. So, if you are reading or altering a database which documents a family of another culture than your own, you might find that their definitions of "father", "mother", "brother", "sister", "cousin" and others might vary from your definitions. Home Page When you first access the website, you are presented with the home page. This is your starting place. There are menu items and family links to take you anywhere within the family tree. There are charts, lists, reports, and stories to further enhance your experience. All of this will be explained in this tutorial. This is what the Home Page looks like for the Burris Family Experience. In the main body, there is a section for NEWS; currently there is only a welcome message. There is a section with statistics about the entire database. Note, as of this writing, there are over 8560 people in the database; going all the way back to 832AD. There is a section for Favorites and Changes. Favorites Favorites are a quick link to different sections of the family tree. I already created a link to some of the family groups. If you are a member (have your own login) you may create your own Favorites. Page 5 of 18
Menus Across the top, both left and right, you can see menu items. Let's start with the right. The appearance or style of the website is called it's theme. If you don't like the look, you may change the theme. This will only change for this session. The next time or the next person to access the website, will see the default theme. If you are not an English speaker, you can change the language. If you have been given a login ID and password, you can login to the website. Logging in will give you extra access or authority. This will be explained further during the section titled ROLES. You may have noticed, I didn't mention Favorites. That is because Favorites will be explained later in this document. The menu items on the left are where all the fun happens. The first item is the Home Page. This menu item will bring you right back to this Home Page. Charts The second item is for CHARTS. These are graphical representations of data/families. It is very important that you select an individual before selecting a chart; otherwise you will be looking at the chart of a stranger. Charts can be used as excellent navigation tools, with many options. Start with the Hourglass chart, which combines the Ancestry with Descendancy views, centered around you or the chosen individual. This gives you the nearest family neighborhood, with more people than the Close Relatives tab. The Pedigree chart extends towards the ancestors, and is similar to the Ancestry chart except for the layout. The Descendancy chart has the same layout as Ancestry but extends towards individual's descendants. The Family Book chart displays descendant families, each arranged in an Hourglass layout. You can achieve a similar effect of displaying separate families in the Ancestry and Descendancy charts by selecting the "Booklet" option. The Relationship chart shows all individuals between two individuals. All those standard charts have common navigation tools. The Zoom icon expands the individual box, showing his/her life details. The Link to charts icon shows a sub-menu of various charts for the individual and related persons, and the arrow pointing in different directions moves the display in the direction indicated, and in some contexts, also displays a submenu if the destination is ambiguous. A Page 6 of 18
plus or minus sign will expand or contract parts of the tree. Other diagrams present the data in different graphic formats. The Circle diagram gives a snapshot of several generations of ancestors, with the individual in the center. The Compact chart crams the individual and his/her ancestors up to great-great-grandparents (with optional images) in one compact page. There are two diagrams showing people and events as they develop in time. The Timeline chart shows all events of one (or more) individuals on a timeline. The Lifespan chart compares multiple individuals, with their events shown with small markers. Once selected, you can switch between those two views. In each diagram, you can also navigate to the individual by clicking his/her name. A summary of available charts: Ancestry tree Ancestry chart Pedigree chart Circle diagram Compact chart Descendancy tree Descendancy chart Family Book chart Combined Ancestry and Descendancy tree Hourglass chart Interactive Tree Single line joining two individuals Relationship chart Time span Lists Timeline chart Lifespan chart Lists, like charts, can also be used as live navigation tools. Lists, especially lists of people and families, show up in multiple locations, and almost all lists are connected. For example, viewing a list of people, you can click on the place name, which will bring you to the place hierarchy display with people and families related to this place; if you click on the date, you will be brought to the anniversary calendar with lists of events that occurred on this date (month, year, etc.). All lists have column headers that can be clicked to sort the rows alphabetically; the people list have additional options to sort by first name, and to add parents. Page 7 of 18
People and Families Lists of people and families are displayed in many places: when the "Family List" and "Individual List" menu items are selected; as a result of a search; in the "On This Day" and "Upcoming Events" boxes; as lists of people and families linked to a particular Source or Media object; as lists of people and families related to the selected Place location etc. People lists share the header that allows you to filter and select people based on a range of criteria: Males Females Persons whose gender is unknown Alive in specified year Alive (individual or both) Dead (individual or both) People born more than 100 years ago People born within last 100 years People who died over 100 years ago People who died within last 100 years Couples both alive Couples where only male is alive Couples where only female is alive Couples where both partners are deceased Couples with unknown marriage date Divorced couples Roots: people who have no parents recorded in the database (both if family) Leaves: people who are alive and have no children recorded in the database By using any one of those filters, you can narrow the list of choices. Clicking the person or family will navigate to this person (family) display. Selecting the place or date will bring up the Place Hierarchy or Anniversary lists. Place Hierarchy If places in your GEDCOM are structured, the Place Hierarchy list will display the list of top level place elements. They typically should be country names, although in some not-so-distant future they could be "Earth", "Moon", "Mars", etc. When you click on any such element, you will be presented with a list of its sub-elements, for example, States if the country was US. The sub-list will be accompanied by a map, if available. You can continue to lower level sub-units (Counties, etc.), or select "View all records found in this place." You will eventually see a list of people and families. Birth, Death and Marriage places are listed, but the name will show in this list if the place is mentioned with any event. As always, clicking the person/family opens this person/family screen, clicking the place opens another another list of all people/families associated with this place etc. Multimedia The MultiMedia List menu item will display the list of Media Objects. You can use the "Filter" function to search for media that have the selected phrase in the title. The Objects returned usually include thumbnail, and also a list of people/families it is associated with. You can navagate to any of them by clicking the name. Page 8 of 18
Sources and Repositories The Source List and Repository List display the sources and repositories found in your Gedcom respectively. They do not currently have any filtering tools. If you click on a source, you will be brought to the source screen, with its details and a list of people for which this source is cited. If you click on a repository, you will see a the depository details and a list of sources in this repository. Calendar The Anniversary Calendar will display the anniversaries occurring on a specific day, month or year. It will show lists of people and families, and for each, the events that match the selection criteria. The list will show events (selectable in the "Show events" option) and also indicate, which anniversary it is, relative to the selected year (which may not be the current year). Only "positive" anniversaries are shown, i.e. the screen will only show events that occurred before (or in) the selected year,. For example, if your anniversary date is March 1780, and you are displaying months, events that occurred in all Marches before 1780 will be shown. You can select Day, Month or Year from the menu, or switch using the "View Day", "View Month" and "View Year" options on the screen. View Day will display events that occurred this day of this month in any year. View Month will display events that occurred any day of this month in any year. View Year will display events that occurred any day of any month in this year. For example, if you want to find all events that occurred on February 29, you need to first select a leap year (latest leap year if you want all events, for example 2008), then click on February and finally on the 29th. This screen has other useful functionality. You can select all people, living people or limit the range to the last 100 years (the "Show" option). You can select the gender (all, men, women) and select the events that are to be shown (All, Births, Deaths and Marriages and a selection from more common events). You can also select different calendars. The events that occurred on a specific date may have an anniversary on different dates in the Julian, Jewish or Islamic calendars. Due to different calendar rules, the determination of the anniversary may only be approximate (typically the difference does not exceed one day). As with all lists, clicking on person's name (or family names) opens this person or family screen. Conversely, clicking on a date, month or year in any other lists brings this anniversary calendar focused on the selected date, month or year. Reports You can select from an array of reports in the Reports menu. For each report you have some Page 9 of 18
options to select, and they can be delivered as HTML (i.e. on the webpage) or as a downloadable pdf file (you need a pdf reader to open the file). You can select family tree reports (Individual, Family, Descendants, Ancestors, etc.), some genealogical information information lists (Marriages, Deaths, Births, etc.), as well as other lists like recent changes or address lists. Please note that the Address reports currently show only addresses attached to the individual and family records, not addresses in the Residence facts. Search This website has a powerful search facility, which can be accessed for a quick search through a Search box, and via the Search menu. The Search box does the same search as the General Search item in the Search menu, but with all Search for options and all Databases selected. General The General Search allows you to search for almost anything - names, places, dates, fragments of text, etc. There are some caveats - dates must be entered in their English abbreviated form (e.g. 12 Jan 1817) and you can use regular expressions if you know how. The search is not case sensitive, and wildcards are assumed - the search term will be found no matter what precedes or follows it. The options are: Search For You can check one or more of the following Individual Names. Actually this should say Individuals - this option searches the Individual Records for the text string you entered Family Names. As above, it searches Family Records for the search string Sources - will search Sources for the term you specified Exclude Filter Excludes some non-genealogical data by default, you can turn it off. Associates Includes records of associates in the search. Soundex Soundex should return search results even if the spelling is not exact. You can use Basic type, but the Daitch-Mokotoff is more efficient in finding close matches, and only this type works for non-english search terms. Of course, the Soundex search may return more results than needed, but it is more likely to find what are you looking for. The search terms can be entered as Given name, Last name, or Place, and modified by selecting a Year. Page 10 of 18
Stories I have included stories, articles and news clippings as they relate to family members. There is a STORIES tab on the individual page, or you can select this menu item to see all of the stories in the database. FAQ I tried to anticipate questions you may have and answered them here, under the FAQ menu item. As questions come in, I will add to this section. Navigation This website has a very powerful navigation function, which allow you to move easily between different persons, families and branches of the Family Tree. You can start with a Person, and navigate using this person nearest relatives, a chart of descendants, a chart of ancestors or a chart that includes both. This website also extensively uses Lists, which are "live", allowing you to filter, sort, select and jump to another list. The Charts and Lists appear twice on the user interface: in the Top menu, and repeated for the Individual. The Top menu Charts by default start with the designated root person of the family tree, configurable for each registered user. The Individual menu charts start with the individual. The Top menu lists are global, the Individual menu lists start with the individual or his family. The genealogy data is often represented as a tree, but one can construct two very different trees, each with an individual at its root. The Ancestry tree shows the individual and two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents, etc. The Descendancy tree shows an individual, all his/her children, all grandchildren, etc. So where do you start? Try SEARCH. Select the search menu item and enter the person's name you are seeking. At any point, you can click on a name if you see what you are looking for. Selecting or searching a name will bring up the individual page. Important: if you see a name in a box, you must click on the name itself. Selecting the box does not count. If the box contains 2 people, as in a marriage, you must select the box to expand it, then select the name you want within the expanded box. Individual Page The Individual Page presents you with everything about a single person and his/her immediate family maybe. You will get one of 3 views: Private View, Non-members View, Members View. Page 11 of 18
Private View Data for living persons is considered private for non-family members. You will see the person's name and a message that states The details of this individual are private. This is what is displayed if you are NOT a member (explained under Members & Roles on page 14) AND the person you are looking for is still living. Non-Members View This is what the outside world sees for non-living persons. The header contain the person's name, picture (optional) and dates. There is a series of tabs: Family The families tab will display the immediate family relationships; spouse(s), children, parents. You can select anyone of these to navigate through the family. Fact and Events To give life to people and family data in your database, you add facts and events. The terminology is a little confusing; GEDCOM standard talks about Events like Birth, Baptism, Graduation, etc. with a generic "Event", and about Attributes, which are sometimes called Facts like Education, Occupation or Residence with a generic "Fact". The conceptual difference is that Events occur at a definite point in time (the point may extend as far as a day), while Facts are either extended in time (e.g Education), or don't have a specific time attached to them (e.g Number of Children). This website does not treat the Facts and Events differently, and allows you to add Facts and Events to an individual or family by selecting from a list of possibilities. A list of facts/events include: Adoption Baptism Bar Mitzvah Bat Mitzvah Birth Education Emigration First Communion Graduation Immigration Page 12 of 18
Blessing Burial Census Confirmation Cremation Death Military nationality Occupation Ordination Religion Retirement Notes You can add/view notes; little tidbits of information that is relevant to a particular person. Notes are generally short, facts and related to just the one person. The Notes tab may or may not be displayed depending on whether there are any notes for this individual. Stories Like Notes, Stories are tidbits of information, but it may or may not be about an individual. Stories can be news articles, authored works, or just a remembrance by an individual. Stories may be associated with an individual, or not. If a story is associated with a person, there will be a Stories tab on the individual page. You can always view all stories by selecting the Stories menu items. Albums The family data can be illustrated with a rich selection of Multimedia: images, voice, video, documentation, webpages, and other illustrative material. Sources can be illustrated with images of original documents, and include complete works stories, memoirs, biographies, as well as links to external sources. Interactive Tree Interactive Tree is a powerful navigation tool. It gives you the ability to move up and down (ancestors and descendants) a family line. Click and drag the mouse left or right to move. Once you found the person you were seeking, you can click to expand that box, then click on the person's name to open the Individual page. Members View This is the same view as Non-Members, but it will include living persons. This view requires a logon. More information can be found at Members & Roles on page 14. Sidebar On the right of the Individual Page is a sidebar. This contains 3 sections to aid in navigation. Page 13 of 18
Family Navigator All of the family members are listed here: parents, siblings, spouses, and children. You can use this section to easily move from person to person. Descendants All of the descendants are listed. Those with multiple generations below them will have a + (plus) sign next to their name. Click on this + sign to list the next generation. In this case, you have to click on the little person icon to display the Individual Page. Extra Information This is non-genealogical information, and can be ignored. Members & Roles The website is open to anyone and everyone. People can view family relationships, ancestral and descendant information. However, detail data for living persons is considered PRIVATE. This includes facts, events, dates, notes, and pictures. The outside world can not view private data. You can obtain a logon if you are a member of the family. Members have greater visibility into the data available. Members may also be granted certain rights. This website has the concept of ROLES. They are: 1. Visitor - this is the casual viewer. No login is required. But this user cannot see the detail data for living persons. 2. Member - this is usually a family member and requires the user to login. This gives the viewer the ability to view all of the data. 3. Editor - this role has the rights of a member plus the ability to make changes: add, delete, edit. But these changes have to be "accepted" before they become visible. 4. Moderator - this role has all of the right of an editor plus can accept or reject changes. 5. Manager - this role has all of the rights of a moderator and can change the settings of the family tree. 6. Administrator - has all rights, can change all settings and can add/delete users. Editing/Entering Data Your editing status depends on the Administrator policy and whether you have editor rights. Typically, you can edit your own data, and need editing privileges to edit others. The site administrator controls the approval of changes made to the site. This means the changes you make are not immediately visible to other users. They are marked on the page as changes, pending approval by Moderator or higher. Page 14 of 18
Basic Rules In working with genealogy data you must remember to always verify, document, list the sources. Memory is fragile, and years later you will not know if the error was in the original source or just sloppy data entry. In entering Events and Facts you fill data fields, some of which are the common to most entries. In describing and Event, Date and Place are considered most important, and have their special rules for entering data. Other entries that you will frequently encounter are Type, Address, Associate, Source Citation, Restriction, Agency and Note. All those elements are useful and add valuable structure to the data, you should take advantage of them if possible. Very Important Note about dates. Dates are enter using the English abbreviated form; 12 Jun 1818 OR as dd/mm/yyyy (little-endian). Write it down. This is an easy error to make. People In the heart of genealogy are people and their pedigree. Pedigree, according to Webster (Middle English pedegru, from Anglo-French pé de grue, literally, crane's foot; from the shape made by the lines of a genealogical chart) is defined as an ancestral line. Also, at the heart of genealogy are the family relationships between people. Whereas information about a specific person is contained in his individual record, relationships are handled by family (FAM) records. FAM records describe one family: usually husband, wife, and children. Adding an Individual You need to have Editor right to do this operation. 1. Find a close relative. This website permits you to add a new individual by defining that individual's relationship (e.g. parent, sibling, partner or child) to an individual who is already recorded within the database. Before adding someone to the database, you must find a parent, sibling, partner or child of that individual. Do this by using the search dialog box on the right side of the screen above the menu or by using one of the search options on the "Search" menu. When searching, you can use an individual's given name, their surname or both. Alternatively, you can select "Families" or "Individuals" under "Lists" on the menu bar, and browse for a person using their surname. Unlinked persons are usually discouraged because they are technically not part of the family tree being recorded, therefore, they may only be added by a family tree manager or administrator. 2. Select the relationship. Click on the "Relatives" tab, which is just below their highlighted image (photo), or alternative icon for their photo. The family record page then displayed will permit you to add to or create family units, parents, partners and children, of that individual. If the individual whose page you are looking at already has a parental or personal family created, you Page 15 of 18
will be able to add a sibling or child. To add a parent of the individual displayed: Click on either the "Add a new father" or "Add a new mother" link below the tabs. To add a sibling of the individual displayed: Click on the "Add a brother or sister" link at the bottom of the "Family with parents" section. To add a child of the individual displayed: Click on the "Add a son or daughter" link at the bottom of the "Family with (partners name)" section. To add a partner of the individual displayed: Click on either the "Add a new wife" or "Add a new husband" link near the bottom of the page. Don't worry if the individual displayed already has a partner. When adding a new "wife" or "husband", a new family will be created. 3. Complete the dialog box. When you click on any of the links mentioned in Step 1, a dialog box pops up. It is not necessary to fill in every box, however, in completing the fields you should have already familiarized yourself with the conventions used by the family tree manager. Prior to starting data entry, you should navigate the site and observe the fashion in which data is recorded. Yellow-tinged fields are auto-complete data lookup fields and as you begin typing your entry, suggestions culled from data already contained within the family tree will be presented for your selection. When filling in the new individual's surname, look at some other entries in the database to see if that database uses a convention of capitalizing all letters in a person's surname. At the bottom of the dialog box, you should add your source, and it is possible to add a note, shared note or a multimedia object (see the next section about adding a multimedia object). Click on the "Save" button at the bottom of the page when complete. Add Multimedia When adding a fact or event, there is usually an option to add a multimedia object relating to it. If you wish to attach a multimedia object to a fact or event after it has been added, go to an individual's "Personal facts" tab, then click on the edit icon (which looks like a pen). "Add a new Multimedia object" will usually be one of the options. When adding an individual, their "highlighted image" (profile picture) can be added. To make a multimedia object an individual's highlighted image after the individual has been added to the database: Page 16 of 18
A. locate the multimedia object via "Multimedia" "on the "List" menu. B. Select "Set link" to link the multimedia object to the individual. C. Select "Edit Details" to make the multimedia object the individual's highlighted image. The selection might not take effect until it has been accepted by an administrator. Add an Event or a Fact Facts and events pertaining to an individual can be added the "Add new fact" section at the bottom of tof the "Facts and Events" tab of an individual's page. A source, note, shared note or multimedia object can be added to support the fact or event. Family facts or events (those relevant to a relationship, e.g. engagement, marriage, divorce/annulment) can be entered on a Family page: A. select the "Relatives" tab on an individual's page. B. select "View Family" of the relationship which you wish to document. C. select the fact or event you wish to document in the "Add new fact" section in the "Family Group Information" panel at the bottom right of the page. Page 17 of 18
Quick Guide Find a person Search Menu Item. Favorites (menu item or home page). Family Navigator (on Individual Page). Interactive Tree (on Individual Page). Dates English abbreviate form: 12 Jun 1963. Help Little-endian: dd/mm/yyyy. FAQ Menu Item. Tutorial (on Home Page) Page 18 of 18