GeneWeb - Modifications

Before starting, it is important to understand the basic notions: first, the notion of "first name", "surname", "number", and second, the notions of "persons" and "families". This allows you to understand the next sections about updating.

	1. First names, surnames, numbers.
	2. Persons and Families.
	3. Access to updating.
	4. Some specific points: 4.1. How to modify the first name or the surname of a child. 4.2. How to add a child in a family.
	5. Forms. 5.1. Add a Family. 5.2. Modify a Family. 5.3. Delete a Family. 5.4. Modify a Person. 5.5. Delete a Person. 5.6. Send an Image. 5.7. Delete an Image. 5.8. Change the children's names. 5.9. Dates shortcuts.
	6. How to merge two persons.
	7. How to merge two families.
	8. Languages with declinations. 8.1. Data entering. 8.2. Displaying, documentation.

Also note that:

	Accents and uppercase letters are not taken into account in this differentiation. So "john", "smith", "5" gives access to the same person than "JOHN", "SMITH", "5" and "John", "Smith", "5".
	When there is no number, its value is actually 0. Not setting it or setting 0 are the same thing.

It is important to understand correctly this notion, because some of the error messages you have concerns this. For example, the messages like:

	"Person already existing": this means that you are trying to create a person whose combination "first name", "name", "number" is already reserved, which happens: Either in a context where you wanted to create a new person. Or in a context where you wanted to change the first name, the surname or the number of a given person.
	"Unknown person": this means that nobody in the base corresponds to this combination "first name", "name", "number", which happens when you want to link a given person in a family as father, mother or child.

Note also that this number has nothing to do with the number of first names of noble persons: "Edward III" has not necessarily the number "3". However, and this is not a contradiction, it is good usage, although not mandatory, to choose the same number, whenever possible: you will see that is more practical.

But most of the time, there is no need to specify a number. Write nothing: it will be 0 by default and it is Ok.

	Persons hold individual data such as first name, surname, number, dates and places of birth, baptism, death, the possible nobility titles, etc, etc.
	Families hold simple families: father, mother, children, date and place of possible marriage and divorce. Note that if a person is married several times, there will be as many "families" as there are marriages.

To access to updatings, you can:

	Either click on "Add a family" in the welcome page.
	Or click on "Update" in a personal record.

In the welcome page, clicking on "Add a family" allows you to start filling an empty database.

You see then a form to add a family. Report to the section Add a Family.

In a personal record, clicking on "Update" allows you to see a page where some choices are proposed. This choices depend on the familial situation of the person:

1. In all cases, you have the choice "Modify" and "Delete": it is the modification or deletion of the person. Report to the sections:

   	Modify a Person
   	Delete a Person

   If the database owner gave the authorisation (see Configuration file), you get the choice "Send image". Report to the sections:

   	Send an Image
   	Delete an Image

2. If the person is married, you have, for each marriage, the choice "Modify/Family" and "Delete/Family". Report to the sections:

   	Modify a Family
   	Delete a Family

4. In other cases, this familial list ends with "Add/Family". You see the same form than "Add a family" of the welcome page, except that the person will be prefilled in the form in one of the parents (according to the sex). Report to the section:

   Add a Family

5. A choice is proposed also to change the children's names. This allows to change the first name and the surname of all the children of a person in one only form. Report to the section:

   Change the children's names

6. At the end, if the person has no parents, the choice "Add/Parents" is proposed. This also gives the form "Add/Family" with the person prefilled as a child and his surname in the "name" area of the father. Report to the section:

   Add a Family

Remarks:

All these choices lead either to forms to fill, or to confirmation asking: you do not do anything definitive by clicking in this page: it is always possible to go back. So "Delete" (choice number 1) will delete the person only if you click on "Ok" in the next page which will be proposed to you.

In the forms, it may happen that some fields are prefilled. This does not mean that you cannot change its contents. So in "Add/Parents" (choice number 6), the surname of the father is prefilled. But this is just a commodity due to the fact that father and child have frequently the same surname: but if the father has another one, you can absolutely change it.

What you must do:

Go to the personal record of "Robert Smith", click on "Update", then "Modify" and proceed like indicated in the section "Modify a Person" (choice number 1 in the section 3).

What you must not do:

Do not use "Modify/Family" (choice number 2 in the section 3). If you do that and change "Robert" into "Philip" in the form: This will cut the connection between "Robert" and his parents, and "Robert" continue to be named "Robert Smith", but without parents. This will set "Philip Smith", if he exists and does not already have parents, as a child of the couple. But if this "Philip Smith" does not exist in the base or else he exists but already has parents, an error message will be displayed and nothing will be changed (fortunately).

4.2. How to add a child in a family

What you must do:

Go to the personal record of one of the parents, click on "Update", then "Modify/Family" (choice number 2 in the section 3), and add the child as indicated in the section "Modify a Family".

What you must not do:

Do not use "Add/Family" (number 4 in the section 3) which does not mean "add a child in a family" but "add a new marriage", creating a new entity "family" with a new spouse.

Moreover, if the child already exists in the base and you want to add it in the list of the children of an already existing couple, do not use "Add/Parents" (choice number 4 of the section 3) either. The choice "Add/Parents" is rather used to add parents to one of your ancestors to go up a little more. This choice also creates a new family.

	Either from the welcome page, when clicking on "Add a family"; in this case, no area of the form is prefilled,
	Or from a personal record, after having clicked on "Update", then "Add/Family"; in this case, the areas "first name", "surname" and "number" are prefilled, for the father or the mother according to the sex of the person,
	Or, in the same context, after having clicked on "Add/Parents", if this choice was proposed; in this case, the "surname" area of the father will be prefilled, so are the areas "first name", "surname" and "number" of their first (and only) child. Remark that you can absolutely change the surname of the father, if it is different.

In the area where there are persons, remark the selection "Link" and "Create". According to the case, it will be preselected to "Link" or "Create". You can change this selection according to what you want to do.

"Link" means that the person already exists in the base. When committing, the system checks that this persons exists and, for a parent, that he is of the good sex. Note that as it is a research by "key" (see first section), it is not necessary to respect accents, lowercase and uppercase.

"Create" means that the person does not exists in the base and that you ask the system, when committing, to create him with the indicated first name, surname and number. Here, what is different from "Link", you must write the accents, uppercases and lowercases correctly: the person will be created with the spelling you write there. You can enter the child's sex and his day of birth. For his other personal data, you will have to do "update" later from his personal page.

When committing, the cases "child" whose area "first name" is empty are ignored, whatever the contents of the other areas. It is like they do not exist.

For children, the field "name" is optional: if it is absent, the name of the father is taken.

Some modifications

Here are some modifications you can do:

To add a child, if there is no free area for him, click first on the button "Insert/Child" according to the place where you want to add him in the family. Then click on "Ok" at end of the form. Remark: this will not commit the form immediately. The system will just propose you another form with a reserved place for the child or children you want to add. Therefore warning: as long as you click on "Insert/Child", when you click in "Ok", there is no committing: just another bigger form. You must not interpret this button as "add me this child I just wrote": the system sees it, don't worry. The child you type in the area you allocated for him may be an existing person in the base. In this case, select "Link" instead of "Create".

To delete a child, simply erase his first name. As said above, cases whose first name area is empty are ignored when committing. Remark that it will not delete the person: he will simply be removed form the list of the children and will be himself without parents.

To change a child's position, the simplest way is to click on "Insert/Child" at the position you want to set him, and do "Ok". In the new proposed form, type the child's data in the new case, select "Link" instead of "Create" and erase his first name in the old area.

To invert the position of two children, you can proceed with the same way, passing through a new case in order to simply cut and paste. Do not forget to select "Link". You can also do it directly, without adding a new room: the problem is you have to remember one of the two names, when you erase it to type the other one at his location.

Committing

The committing takes place when you click on "Ok". As long as you do not do it, no change is done in the base.

Remark also that, as it is said above, that if you selected one or several "Insert/Child", just a new form is proposed: this is not the proper committing.

When the committing is really done, you must see a new page whose title is:

Either: Family added or modified You see then the parents' names on which you can click. Maybe you also see warnings. They concern dates or children order inconsistencies. The update is done anyway, but it is preferable to fix them, if necessary. Clicking on one of the parents, you see his personal record. But your update may not be visible. Web navigators use to keep already displayed pages in memory, and probably display the old version. Do "reload the page" in your navigator to really see your modifications.

Or: Error The page indicates the encountered error. Go back and fix it. You can also give up... doing nothing and go on navigating in the base. If the error indicates you that some person already exists, it means you wanted to create a person whose combination "first name", "surname", "number" is already present in the base. Solution: If you really wanted to create a new person, go back and change his number. Remark that the error page give you the first free, therefore available, number: choose it or another one. If there are several persons with the same name, their list is displayed. If it was the good person you wanted to have, go back and change "Create" into "Link"." Then do "Ok" again. If the error indicated you that some person does not exist, this means that you selected "Link" in front of an non existing person. Maybe you chose a wrong number? Or did you want actually to create a new person?

5.3. Delete a Family

Remark the meaning of the different fields, specially the use of "public name", "qualifier", "alias", etc which all have a very specific meaning.

First name and surname have their usual meaning. With number, the person has a unique "access key" as indicated in the beginning of this chapter. We suggest to put the common first name in the first name area. The other first names (complete first names, other possible first names, other spelling of first names, etc) must rather go to the area "first name alias" (below). The names with number as for noble and royal persons must rather go to the area "public name". This is because the first name is recorded in the list of first names. It is possible to know what is the most frequent first name, see which other persons have the same first name, etc. The other kinds of first names would risk to be in one only exemplary.

Public name is the name the person is known with. Example: "Edward VII" (his first name being "Edward" and his surname "Windsor"). The persons having a public name are accessible in the navigation by this name. If there is a public name, it is displayed as a title in his personal record, instead of his "first name surname" which are relegated below and in smaller characters.

Image is a ".gif", ".jpg", or ".png" file associated to the person and which will be displayed in his personal record. This can be an URL address (starting with "http://...") or just a name the system will search in the directory "images", subdirectory "base" (where "base" is the name of the database) while displaying. If you don't specify a file name, there is a default name. This name is constituted of: the first name, a dot, the number, another dot, the surname, all in lowercases, without accents and all the non letter characters are converted into underscores. Example, the person named "Anne-Cécile Dupont de Nemours" has as default image name: anne_cecile.0.dupont_de_nemours GeneWeb search a file with this name followed by ".gif", ".jpg" or ".png" in the above directory of the images of the database.

Qualifier is the part of the name attached to the public name for famous persons. So is "the Fat" for "Louis VI the Fat". Persons are accessible with this qualifier at the place of their surname. So "Louis VI the Fat" is accessible by "Louis VI" (public name), "Louis VI the Fat", "Louis the Fat", "Louis Capet", etc. Let us note that "the Fat" is nevertheless not considered alone as a surname. There may be several qualifiers: so "William the Conqueror" is known also as "William the Bastard". Therefore you need an area for the qualifiers "the Conqueror" and another one for "the Bastard". This is why the "Insert/Qualifier" is useful. If there is a qualifier, the public name (or the first name if there is no public name), followed by the qualifier are displayed as title in the personal record, instead of the normal "first name surname", which is relegated below, in smaller characters.

Alias is a name the person is known by, without being an alternative for a first name (like the "public name" is, for example). So, "Norma Jean Mortenson" is known as "Marilyn Monroe". Note that the alias is in one part: no question to accept combinations like "Norma Jean Monroe" or "Marilyn Mortenson". If there are one or several aliases, they are displayed in bold small characters below the title.

First name alias may have several usages: This can be the complete list of first names. This can be a little name used by the close relations: "Bob" for "Robert". This can be another first name, or the same one but with a different spelling, in case of persons of old times, whom first name is not sure, or written differently in different sources. There may be several first names aliases. First name aliases can be used in place of the first name in requests, but they are not considered as real first names, i.e. they are not recorded in the lists by first names, etc. If there are first names aliases, they are displayed in the personal record, in small letters under the title.

Surname alias can be used as alternative surname, if you want to have another version of the name, e.g. with another spelling. Its usage is not frequent.

Birth allows to indicate dates and places of birth and baptism. No particular problem.

Death allows to indicate informations about the death. No particular problem except the notion of "automatic choice" which we explain here. The "automatic choice" is present when the selection of the first menu of the "death" area displays a "-". It indicates that one does not know if the person is dead or not. In this case, if you do not indicate any death date nor place, the system chooses for you the fact that the person is dead or not, according to his birth date: if he is less than 80 years old, it decides "not dead", between 81 and 120 years old, it decides "don't know", and more than 120 years old, it decides "dead". If this automatic choice does not fit, you can select yourself the good choice in this first menu, instead of the displayed "-". Notice that the age of the persons whose death is "don't know" is not displayed in their personal page nor in the anniversaries. Therefore, if a person is between 81 and 120 years old and is not dead, select "not dead".

Occupation holds the profession. If you want to put a nobility title, use rather the fields "title" below.

Title holds a nobility title. There may be several of them. To have a form with other places for the titles, click on one or several "Insert/Title", go to end of form and do "Ok". Titles are composed on two parts: the title itself and the place. The title itself holds the designation: "earl", "duke", "king", etc. The place holds the complement: "of Warwick", "of Saxony", "of England", etc. Note the particle: when displayed, you see the combination of the designation and the place: "earl of Warwick", "duke of Saxony", "king of England", which are clickable areas, allowing to see all persons having this title. But the separation of these notions allows to select, for example, all the "earl", all the "duke", all the "king" (plural must not be used), and conversely all titles ending with "of Warwick", "of Saxony", "of England", etc. The field "name" represents a public name associated with the title. For example, "Charles Quint" is named "Charles I" as "king of Spain", "Charles IV" as "king of Sicilia", etc. The field "Nth" is used for titles used with a number. Example: for the "5th duke of Hamilton", put the value "5". Do not confuse with "Edward VII" whose number indicates he is the 7th "Edward" of the lineage, not the 7th "king of Great Britain". The button "Main title" allows to indicate, when this person is displayed with a simple way (in the page of his spouse, for example, or in those of his children), which title to use. This has importance only if there are several titles. The next two fields give dates of begin and end of reign. To delete a title, just erase the contents of the first field "Title".

Access allows to specify the access to personal informations. This is applied to the persons of "nowadays", i.e. whose dates (birth, death, etc.) are less than 100 years: By default, the persons having nobility titles or one of the parents of them has nobility titles are considered as "public" persons and their personal informations are always displayed. When selecting "public", the personal informations are always displayed, even if the person has no nobility titles. When selecting "private", the personal informations are not displayed, even if the person has nobility titles. In "wizard" or "friend" entries (by passwords), the personal informations are always displayed.

Notes holds the notes about the person. In the personal record page, the text will be displayed without breaks, even if you put breaks in your text. To add a real break, write "<br>" where you want breaks to take place.

Sources allows to note short informations about the origins of the informations: a name, an abbreviation, a book title, a code. So you know where you got your informations from. It is not designed to long informations, like "the copy of the document found in the town hall": use the field "Notes" above for that.

Committing

The committing takes place when you click on "Ok". As long as you do not do it, no change is done in the base.

Remark also that, as it is said above, that if you selected one or several "Insert/...", just a new form is proposed: this is not the proper committing.

When the committing is really done, you must see a new page whose title is:

Either: Person modified You see the name of the person and you can click on it. Maybe you also see warnings. They concern dates inconsistencies. The update is done anyway, but it is preferable to fix them. Clicking on the person, you see his personal record. But your update may not be visible. Web navigators use to keep already displayed pages in memory, and probably display the old version. Do "reload the page" in your navigator to really see your modifications.

Or: Error The page indicates the encountered error. Go back and fix it. You can also give up... doing nothing and go on navigating in the base. If the error indicates to you that some person already exists, it means that you modified the first name, the surname or the number (you have absolutely the right to do it), but your new choice is in conflict with another person of the base. Solution: go back and change the number. Remark that the error page proposed you a free therefore available number. Take this one or another. If there are several persons with the same name, their list is displayed.

5.5. Delete a Person

In the "families" forms, it is possible to directly add birth and death dates for the created persons. It allows to go faster when you add these persons. You have also the following shortcuts about the precisions of the dates:

	"?1912" means "perhaps en 1912"
	">1912" or "1912/" means: "after 1912"
	"<1912" or "/1912" means: "before 1912"
	"/1912/" means: "about 1912"

And for the year of the date of the "death" field:

	"+" alone means: "died" (don't know when)
	"-" alone means: "alive"

You select the two persons to be merged. But there, the difficulty of their parents arises. If both have parents, their parents must be first merged. And it is necessary to start again by looking at the parents of the parents, etc.

It is therefore necessary to scan the ancestors until we find "mergeable" ones. GeneWeb does this work for you: it indicates you the possible ancestors to be merged.

Here is how to proceed. Follow the instructions below while doing your merge:

Take two windows of your navigator.

In the left window, search the first person to merge.

In the other window, the right one, search the second one.

In both windows, do "Update".

In the left window, do "Merge".

In the form, put the first name, a dot, the number and the name of the second person. You find that in the title of the right window. Use "cut-and-paste", if you can.

Then do "Ok". From there, the right window is no more useful. You can close it.

If the two persons are directly "mergeable" (at least one of them does not have parents), GeneWeb proposes to you to merge them. Otherwise, it says that you must initially merge some ancestors or some families.

If persons are to be merged (persons themselves or their ancestors): In the case of ancestors, the bottom of the form indicates the two branches to be merged. With your assistance, it will merge the top, then the intermediaries, and will end up merging the bottom, those you requested initially. The form contains the values in conflict, if any, between the two persons to be merged. Choose and do "Ok". You then see a form " Merge/Person" which is presented like the form "Update/Person". Control the various fields, add, modify, remove what you want and do "Ok". Now, the two persons are merged. If they were ancestors of your initial persons, the page proposes to you to continue merging. Click on "continue merging". Advance until you have merged the two initial persons.

If families are to be merged: This happens when a couple of ancestors was merged. In this case, two families are remaining. It is as if this couple had married twice. It is thus necessary to gather the two families. First, as in the case above of persons being merged, select the possible conflicting values and do "Ok". You then see a form "Merge/Families" which looks like "Add/Family" or "Modify/Family". Do the changes you want. Notice that some children can be displayed twice. Leave them: they will be merged later. Do "Ok": the families are merged. Go on while clicking on "continue merging".

Notice that in the forms for merging persons or families, the displayed persons are clickable. You can click on them if you wish to check that this merge is correct (go back with your navigator afterwards).

Also note that you can stop at any time: your base remains coherent and the merges you already did are recorded. You can ask again later for the merge of your two initial persons, and the merge restarts where you stopped it.

So the English phrases:

   ... married with Vladana
   ... cousins of Vladana

   ... si vzal Vladanu
   ... bratranci Vladany

So in Czech, the accusative and the genitive are respectively represented by:

   :a:
   :g:

In an update form, to enter a first name or a surname with its declinations, the nominative has to be given followed by the code and the form of each case. For example, for "Vladana":

   Vladana:a:Vladanu:g:Vladany

	A form starting with '+' indicates that one must start with the nominative: so "Adler:g:+a" means that the genitive of "Adler" is "Adlera".
	A form starting with '-' also indicates that one must start with the nominative, but removing the last letter ('--' for the last two letters, and so on).

   Vladana:a:-u:g:-y