Add an unlinked person

An unlinked person is someone without a close relationship (parent, child or spouse) to anyone in your current family tree. In order to add an unlinked person to your tree, you need to have administrator rights. When you add an unlinked person to your family tree, the person will not be linked to any other people until you link them. Later, you can link people together from the Close Relatives tab on the Individual Information page.

To access the relevant form for adding an unlinked person, simply:

1. Go to "Admin" under "MyGedView Portal"
2. Click on the "Add Unlinked Person"

Form Fields

Figure 1. A screen shot of the "Add an unlinked person" form using the standard theme

Name

This is the most important field in a person's Name record.

This field should be filled automatically as the other fields are filled in, but it is provided so that you can edit the information according to your personal preference.

The name in this field should be entered according to the GEDCOM 5.5.1 standards with the surname surrounded by forward slashes "/". As an example, the name "John Robert Finlay Jr." should be entered like this: "John Robert /Finlay/ Jr.".

Prefix

This optional field allows you to enter a name prefix such as "Dr." or "Adm."

Given Names

In this field you should enter the given names for the person. As an example, in the name "John Robert Finlay", the given names that should be entered here are "John Robert"

Nickname

In this field you should enter any nicknames for the person. This is an optional field.

Ways to add a nickname:

• Select modify name then enter nickname and save
• Select add new name then enter nickname AND name and save
• Select edit GEDCOM record to add multiple [2 NICK] records subordinate to the main [1 NAME] record.

Surname Prefix

Enter or select from the list words that precede the main part of the Surname. Examples of such words are von Braun, van der Kloot, de Graaf, etc.

Surname

In this field you should enter the surname for the person. As an example, in the name "John Robert Finlay", the surname that should be entered here is "Finlay"

Suffix

In this optional field you should enter the name suffix for the person. Examples of name suffixes are "Sr.", "Jr.", and "III".

Romanized

In many cultures it is customary to have a traditional name spelled in the traditional characters and also a romanized version of the name as it would be spelled or pronounced in languages based on the Latin alphabet, such as English. If you prefer to enter a traditional name in the standard name fields, then you can use this field to enter the Romanized version of the same name. The Romanized version of the name will also appear in the lists and charts.

Hebrew, Greek, Russian, and Arabic are examples of languages where a person often has a name written in a non-Latin alphabet (the "traditional" alphabet) as well as in Latin characters (the "romanized" name).

Married Name

Enter the married name for this person, using the same formatting rules that apply to the Name field. This field is optional.

For example, if Mary Jane Brown married John White, you might enter (without the quotation marks, of course)

• American usage: "Mary Jane Brown /White/"
• European usage: "Mary Jane /White/"
• Alternate European usage: "Mary Jane /White-Brown/" or "Mary Jane /Brown-White/"

You should do this only if Mary Brown began calling herself by the new name after marrying John White. In some places, Quebec (Canada) for example, it's illegal for names to be changed in this way.

Men sometimes change their name after marriage, most often using the hyphenated form but occasionally taking the wife's surname.

Sex

Choose the appropriate gender from the drop-down list. The unknown option indicates that the gender is unknown.

Date

Although the date field allows for free-form entry (meaning you can type in whatever you want), there are some rules about how dates should be entered according to the GEDCOM 5.5.1 standard.

1. A full date is entered in the form DD MMM YYYY. For example, 01 Mar 1801 or 14 Dec 1950.
2. If you are missing a part of the date, you can omit that part. E.g. Mar 1801 or 14 Dec.
3. If you are not sure or the date is not confirmed, you could enter abt Mar 1801 (abt = about), bef 20 Dec 1950 (bef = before), aft 1949 (aft = after)

Be sure to enter dates and abbreviations in English, because then the GEDCOM file is exchangeable and PhpGedView can translate all dates and abbreviations properly into the currently active language. Furthermore, PhpGedView does calculations using these dates. If improper dates are entered into date fields, PhpGedView will not be able to calculate properly.

You can click on the Calendar icon for help selecting a date.

Place

Places should be entered according to the standards for genealogy. In genealogy, places are recorded with the most specific information about the place first and then working up to the least specific place last, using commas to separate the different place levels. The level at which you record the place information should represent the levels of government or church where vital records for that place are kept.

For example, a place like Salt Lake City would be entered as "Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, USA".

Let's examine each part of this place. The first part, "Salt Lake City," is the city or township where the event occurred. In some countries, there may be municipalities or districts inside a city which are important to note. In that case, they should come before the city. The next part, "Salt Lake," is the county. "Utah" is the state, and "USA" is the country. It is important to note each place because genealogical records are kept by the governments of each level.

If a level of the place is unknown, you should leave a space between the commas. Suppose, in the example above, you didn't know the county for Salt Lake City. You should then record it like this: "Salt Lake City, , Utah, USA". Suppose you only know that a person was born in Utah. You would enter the information like this: ", , Utah, USA".

You can use the Find Place link to help you find places that already exist in the database.

Add a new Source Citation

This section allows you to add a new source citation to the fact that you are currently editing.

In the Source field you enter the ID for the source. Click the Create a new source link if you need to enter a new source. In the Citation Details field you would enter the page number or other information that might help someone find the information in the source. In the Text field you would enter the text transcription from the source.

Source

This field allows you to change the source record that this fact's source citation links to. This field takes a Source ID. Beside the field will be listed the title of the current source ID. Use the Find ID link to look up the source's ID number. To remove the entire citation, make this field blank.

Citation Details

In the Citation Details field you would enter the page number or other information that might help someone find the information in the source.

Text

In this field you would enter the citation text for this source. Examples of data may be a transcription of the text from the source, or a description of what was in the citation

Add a new Note

This section allows you to add a new Note to the fact that you are currently editing. Notes are free-form text and will appear in the Fact Details section of the page.

Note

Notes are free-form text and will appear in the Fact Details section of the page.

Add a new Multimedia object

Adding multimedia files (MM) to the GEDCOM is a very nice feature. Although this program already has a great look without media, if you add pictures or other MM to your relatives, it will only get better.

What you should understand about MM. There are many formats of MM. Although PhpGedView can handle most of them, there some things to consider.

• Formats

Pictures can be edited and saved in many formats. For example, .jpg, .png, .bmp, .gif, etc. If the same original picture was used to create each of the formats, the viewed image will appear to be the same size no matter which format is used. However, the image files stored in the database will vary considerably in size. Generally, .jpg images are considered to the most efficient in terms of storage space.

• Image size

The larger the original image, the larger will be the resultant file's size. The picture should fit on the screen without scrolling; the maximum width or height should not be more than the width or height of the screen. PhpGedView is designed for screens of 1024x768 pixels but not all of this space is available for viewing pictures; the picture's size should be set accordingly. To reduce file sizes, smaller pictures are more desirable.

• Resolution

The resolution of a picture is usually measured in "dpi" (dots/inch), but this is valid only for printed pictures. When considering pictures shown on screen, the only correct way is to use total dots or pixels. When printed, the picture could have a resolution of 150 - 300 dpi or more depending on the printer. Screen resolutions are rarely better than 50 pixels per inch. If your picture will never be printed, you can safely lower its resolution (and consequently its file size) without affecting picture quality. If a low-resolution picture is printed with too great a magnification, its quality will suffer; it will have a grainy appearance.

• Color depth

Another way to keep a file small is to decrease the number of colors that you use. The number of colors can differ from pure black and white (two colors) to true colors (millions of colors) and anything in between. You can see that the more colors are used, the bigger the size of the files.

Why is it important to keep the file size small?

• Our webspace is limited. The more large files there are, the more web space we need on the server. The more space we need, the higher our costs.
• Bandwidth. The more data our server has to send to the remote location (your location), the more we have to pay. This is because the carrying capacity of the server's connection to the Internet is limited, and the link has to be shared (and paid for) by all of the applications running on the server. PhpGedView is one of many applications that share the server. The cost is normally apportioned according to the amount of data each application sends and receives.
• Download time. If you have large files, the user (also you) will have to wait long for the page to download from the server. Not everybody is blessed with a cable connection, broadband or DSL.

How to upload your MM There are two ways to upload media to the site. If you have a lot of media items to upload you should contact the site administrator to discuss the best ways. If it has been enabled by your site administrator, you can use the Upload Media form under your MyGedView menu. You can also use the Upload option on the Multimedia form to upload media items.

Format

This is an optional field that can be used to enter the file format of the multimedia object. Some genealogy programs may look at this field to determine how to handle the item. However, since media do not transfer across computer systems very well, this field is not very important.

External File

This is the most important field in the multimedia object record. It indicates which file to use. At the very minimum, you need to enter the file's name. Depending on your settings, more information about the file's location may be helpful.

You can use the Find Media link to help you locate media items that have already been uploaded to the site.

See Readme.txt for more information.

Title

Enter a title for the item you are editing. If this is a title for a multimedia item, enter a descriptive title that will identify that item to the user.

Highlighted Image

Use this field to signal that this media item is the highlighted or primary item for the person it is attached to. The highlighted image is the one that will be used on charts and on the Individual page.

Use this image as the thumbnail?

This is a custom PhpGedView field that allows you to specify a highlighted thumbnail image to be used on charts even if a thumbnail does not exist for it. File:Example.jpg