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GeneWeb - Frequently Asked Questions |
Later, for the program gwd which allows you to browse your data base, same issue: you launch it by double-clicking on it and you must not stop it while you want to navigate in your data base.
Otherwise, a frequent problem is that your Web browser, seeing that you entered a Web address (http://...), tries to connect to the network and if you disconnected you modem, it refuses. It is an error of Windows, because the address being "localhost", it should not try to connect: "localhost" means "your own computer".
It is due to the fact that your internet provider has installed a program of automatic connection on your computer. This automatic connection is responsible to this phenomenon. A solution is therefore to disconnect it. Search in a menu which must be named "preferences" or "options" or "configuration" a tab in which you see the automatic connection and disconnect it.
Another solution is to use another Web browser: if your internet provider installed Internet Explorer in your computer, use Netscape. If Nescape were installed, use Internet Explorer.
A third solution is to connect your modem, and wait for the connection. When it is done, does it work? If yes, then we are sure that it was the problem. Then disconnecting your modem, it often continue to work. Of course, it is not very satisfactory since you have to connect each time you want to use GeneWeb, even if it is for only 10 seconds.
Information from an user (Paul Laredo, thanks to him):
A consequence of this pruning is that if one asks for the computation of a relationship link with an ancestor, he will be displayed only as an ancestor, even if he can sometimes also be a cousin.
For example, if my father and my mother are cousins, and if I am looking for my relationships with my mother, it only indicates that I am her son, not that I am her cousin's son, even if this link really exists.
Pruning is necessary: without it, for families a little bit "intermixed", the displaying rapidly becomes invaded by a lot a relationship links and eventually ununderstandable (I tested it).
The non displayed relationship links are however real relationship links, and are counted in the consanguinity computing.
If you added this person with GeneWeb and you did not specify if he/she is alive or dead, or if your data base comes from a GEDCOM file (the indication "still living person" does not exist in standard GEDCOM 5.5), GeneWeb applies the following algorithm:
Moreover, if they are spouses, they are not exported in the GEDCOM files and their personal information (if any), is consequently lost.
It is sometimes possible, by hacking, to manage to give them notes to link them, but warning: at the first cleaning up of the data base, these notes and links are going to disappear: it is therefore advised against not doing that.
The first name/surname "?" being therefore "reserved" in GeneWeb, you must not name people like that if you want that these persons be linkable to the rest of the data base or if you want to attach them notes or relations (godparents, adoptive parents or children, and so on.). The solution is to edit these persons and change their surname or their first name to something else: put "N", "Ne", "N...", "x", "??", what you want but not just "?".
If, one day, GeneWeb uses a true data base system (it is among the possible directions), this advanced request will be probably rewritten, and will be much more powerful and easy to use.
If you want to know if an ancestor line is full, look at the reverse problem using "missing ancestors".
Smith 1935-1950 = born in 1935, died in 1950 Smith 1935- = born in 1935, not dead (still alive) Smith 1935 + = born in 1935, died unknown date Smith *1935 = born in 1935, don't know if dead or not Smith +1950 = died in 1950, unknown birth date /1935 = before 1935 1935/ = after 1935 ca 1935 = about 1935 perhaps in 1935 1935/1938 = in 1935 or in 1938 between 1935 and 1938This convention does not refer to a specific "standard". If you know a better, more known, more standard convention, don't hesitate to tell me. Thanks.
I know that it it tedious to have to return to the "person" form for each added person, but I am not sure that adding and adding things be the good solution. It is also an intrinsic problem of HTML, which is not very "dynamic". However, I am personaly against solutions using Java (risks of security holes) and JavaScript (language actually destinated to be invaded by advertising, among other drawbacks). Other solutions are being studied, but not easy to implement.
Generally, in such kind of forms, the choices are invalidated or validated back when one select such or such button. It is not possible to program that due to the fact that GeneWeb is limitated to pure HTML: JavaScript should be used, which is against my principles (see the question about the the families update forms).
To give the first person is more "informative". Yes, it is incomplete, and the ideal would be to have the list of all the persons concerned by this place, but it supposed that I programmed several things more, and it has the drawback that the request uses much more memory space.
You can access the list of all the persons of this surname by clicking on the surname in the person's displayed page.
To fix this problem, you must know which person or persons are involved. Create your data base again from the GEDCOM (if you made changes in your data base, you can create it with another name to avoid overwriting it). If you use interactive commands, look at the result of "ged2gwb". If you use gwsetup, after the import, go to the main menu and click on "traces of the latest command". The persons who are their own ancestors are displayed with the message (in English): "So-and-so is his/her own ancestor".