ENTERING DATA Unlike many other genealogical programs, Family Tree Journal data is structured around individuals rather than family group records. In its most refined form, genealogy is simply the study of human biology. Therefore, the only required information to produce a complete family tree is that each individual must have one mother and one father. With this information alone you may traverse through an entire family. Family groups are produced dynamically by locating and grouping children through parental linkages. The sex of the individual is im- plied when a person is recorded as a father or mother which is loosely translated as husband or wife in some of the printouts. (The marital status of parents is a cultural linkage that sometimes tends to confuse computers!) Family Tree Journal allows you to add, delete or modify the information for individual family members without regard to the impact that those changes may have on a particular family group. You will always start data entry from the individual infor- mation screen. Data fields may display default data. If the default is your desired response, then you can simply type an without over-typing the default. The key will toggle between normal and insert mode. (The cursor is full size in normal mode and half size in insert mode). The left and right keys move between fields in normal mode and move between characters within a field in insert mode. The and keys move between the beginning and the end of the line in insert mode and between the beginning and end of the screen in normal mode. The key will return you to the previous menu or screen. Names, dates and places are critical when compiling genealogical information. Because computers require more stringent rules than people when interpreting information, I had to apply some restrictions to the way data must be entered. I did, however, try to make the rules conform more to normal human usage and force the computer to read our language rather than the other way around. NAMES - You should try to include full middle names and titles such as Jr., II, 3rd, etc. Married women should be listed using their maiden names. If you do not know their maiden name, enclose their married name in parenthesis i.e. Mary (Smith). Any other names that you are unsure of, such as nicknames, stage or professional names, that are not the names that appear on birth, death, etc. certificates, should also be enclosed in parenthesis. The parenthesis will flag the name as incorrect for the audit feature of the program. You should enter names in their natural order, that is: first name-middle name-last name. If a surname has more than one word, the name may not be sorted as you would expect when it appears in the book. As an example, the name "Wernher von Braun" would appear in the sorted lists as "Braun, Wernher von". Titles (Jr., II, 3rd, etc.,) should be preceded by a comma and a space, i.e. "John Smith, Jr." This will appear as "Smith, John, Jr." when sorted by the program. (If you don't include the comma, the name would appear as "Jr., John Smith"). (Only one title per name please - John Smith, Jr., M.D. won't work, and I doubt that his degrees would appear on his birth certificate anyway!) Names are limited to a total of 30 characters. This should be enough for most names. If anyone has a longer name, you should use abbreviations where possible, (Wm. instead of William for example) and enter the full name as a note in their references. If you type a number in the NAME prompt (instead of a name), the name that is assigned to the number will appear in the blank. This can help to prevent spelling errors and also makes data entry easier especially for long names. When you enter a new name, the bell will sound and a flash- ing name and number will appear for that person. This indi- cates the number that will be assigned to the person. A typing mistake can also cause this to occur. If you do not wish to add this name to the name list, the key may be used to cancel the save. A quick name search may be made by typing a question mark as the FIRST character in any name prompt followed by a name or partial name. Either upper or lower case letters may be used for the name, they will match either way. The first name that matches the name or partial name that you entered will appear in the prompt. If there is no match, the prompt will turn blank. PLACES - Try to list the city or county where birth, death, and/or marriage occurred or the name of the church, hospital etc. Many records are kept in these places that could provide additional information. Except for the size of the field, there are no other restrictions on places. DATES - Dates should be as complete as possible. If you only know the approximate date, use the abbreviation 'c.' for circa, followed by the year i.e. c. 1850. You may also use the abbreviations ABT, BEF and AFT for ABouT, BEFore and AFTer if you wish. Dates may be entered in any of the following ways: mm-dd-yyyy dd/mm/yyyy (If non-USA format in setup) yyyy c. yyyy ABT yyyy AFT yyyy BEF yyyy dd MMM yyyy MMM dd yyyy where 'mm' is the month number (1-12), MMM is the first three characters of the name of the month (JAN-DEC), 'dd' is the day number (1-31) and 'yyyy' is the full year number (note: don't assume 19--). The month and day may be one or two digits. The '-' and '/' in the example may be any single character except a digit. If you know only part of the date, you should put a '?' in the missing field, i.e. 5/?/1887. Dates must be in one of these formats in order to calculate life-spans correctly. FUNCTION KEYS F1 HELP - Displays help information. F2 NAMES - Display and edit your name list. F3 SEARCH - Search all data files for information. F4 BIBLIO - You may edit the Bibliography information from this screen using the F4 key. F5 and F6 MOTHER and FATHER - Changes the screen to display the genealogical information for this person's mother or father. F7 TREE - Shows a family tree for this individual that in- cludes mother, father, spouses, children and siblings. This function may also be used as a quick way to link individuals into family groups. F8 SAVE - Saves the genealogical information for this screen. F9 BIO - Quick way to add biographical information. F10 REF - Quick way to enter references to genealogical in- formation entries. NOTE: F9 and F10 will not work when the Genealogical infor- mation screen is blank. *******