2011-06-10 Getting Started with GenDetective
Ten-Step Welcome Wizard
download and installation
You can order GenDetective on CD-ROM, but the digital download is slightly cheaper.
RumbleSoft also offers a free 10-day trial. The download file is sizeable, about 166 MB.
The first time I downloaded it, the download process was slow; while similar sized files often download in a minute or so, download of the GenDetective installer took about a quarter of an hour. The second time I downloaded it, to another PC, took just a few minutes.
GenDetective is supposed to run on all recent versions of Windows, but the 32-bit and the 64-bit editions.
I ran into installation issues on Windows Vista 64-bit, but got GenDetective installed on my older Windows Vista 32-bit machine without problems.
GenDetective consists of two parts, and the installer creates desktop shortcuts for both; GenDetective Analyzer and GenDetective Reporter. These shortcuts looks fine if you use small icons. GenDetective lacks large icons.
guide
The last screen of the installer offers to view the Getting Started with GenDetective Guide.
It is an Adobe PDF of 30 pages.
I browsed through it, but then proceeded to do what most users do when
confronted with a Getting Started with GenDetective Guide that is more than few pages long;
I closed the PDF reader and started the application.
That was a mistake. The Getting Started with GenDetective Guide is unusually long,
but GenDetective isn't the easiest application to get started with.
The Getting Started with GenDetective describes each page of its ten-step (!)
Welcome Wizard in detail, and you may find it handy to refer to it while working your
way through the Wizard.
Internet
Both GenDetective Analyzer and GenDetective Reporter try to connect to the Internet as soon as you start them.
The application tries to connect to the Internet before showing anything on screen, without asking for permission,
without telling you why, and without telling you that it is doing it.
When the firewall warned me about it, I refused the connection, and both applications promptly crash when you do that.
This makes me wonder how well GenDetective works on laptop without a network connection.
If you allow GenDetective to connect to the Internet, it does not crash, but pops up a dialog box that asks you to choose between entering your license key and entering a 10-day evaluation period. Both applications keep asking that question every time you start either application. The only way to get rid of that pop-up is to enter your registration key.
using GenDetective
Using GenDetective is a three-step process:
- Export a GEDCOM file from your genealogy database
- Use GenDetective Analyzer to import and analyse the GEDCOM
- Run GenDetective Reporter to create reports
Exporting a GEDCOM from your genealogy editor is something you may do for many reasons. Using GenDetective realy starts with the second step; use GenDetective Analyzer to import and analyse the GEDCOM.
Ten-Step Welcome Wizard
When you start the GenDetective Analyser for the first time, it starts a Ten-Step Welcome Wizard; its intro page apparently counts as the zeroth step.
The Getting Started with GenDetective Guide describes the ten Wizard steps in details, and for good reason; the choices that you make here affect the quality of the GenDetective analysis and reports. GenDetective Analyzer tries to provide reasonable default values, but you have to make sure that these are right for you and your data.
1. Genealogist (you)
The first step asks you to enter your details,
so that these may appear on all of the reports you are going to make.
It has separate fields for your email address and your website's URL, but the mailing address is just one large field.
I have no idea which fields, if any are mandatory, but entered just my name and website, and GenDetective was okay with that.
2. Default Country
The first step uses just one large field for the mailing adress.
Even if you include your country in the address you enter there,
the second step still asks you to choose country from a list.
The list of countries to choose from lacks an Other
, but does include Unknown
.
GenDetective asks for a default country so it can try to make sense of place names that do not include a country. Now, leaving the country of place names is bad practice, but RumbleSoft naturally wants to accommodate as many customers as possible, and does not wish to exclude those that make a mess of their place names. Obviously though, you will get best results if you've made sure your place names are okay.
3. People Defaults
Wizard step 3 asks you to tweak some setting to your liking, such as the maximum age people live to.
I normally use 105 for consistency checks, but filled in 100 here, because birth documents become public after 100 years, and this is about locating documents.
GenDetective also asks at what age children become adult.
The default value, age 18, is correct today, but it was age 21 for me and it has been even higher in the past.
The final question in step four is what to do with blank names.
GenDetective suggests using FNU
and LNU
(abbreviations for First Name Unknown
and Last Name Unknown
).
I consider that awful defaults - their name surely wasn't FNU
or LNU
- but am happy that GenDetective lets me replace this with something better.
I replaced both with ...
, three dots that you can think of as ellipsis or a dotted line to fill in.
4. Scan your data
Wizard step 4 is where the fun really begins; you can import your GEDCOM here.
However, my database is pretty large, and import is likely to take more than a short while.
Luckily, GenDetective defaults to importing a sample database, so I left it at that for my first try of GenDetective.
This page includes a link to instruction on creating a GEDCOM, but if you don't know
how to do that yet, you probably aren't ready for a utility such as GenDetective.
My choice to go with the default database for now was a good decision, as GenDetective immediately started importing the file.
You cannot continue on to step five until GenDetective Analyzer it is done importing the chosen GEDCOM file.
Once it is done importing, GenDetective Analyzer shows a table with some import statistics.
5. Negative events
Wizard step 5 asks you to specify which place name you use to specify negative events
.
I found that question rather confusing.
GenDetective suggests that I could be using a place name such as Unable to locate
.
Apparently, some genealogists do that. Really?
I consider deliberately adding a a non-existent place name to your database to be wrong.
I left the default choice Unable to locate
unchanged, as it probably helps
GenDetective Analyzer to make sense of the data in the sample database.
6. Cemetery Markers
Wizard step 6 asks how you identify that you have a burial site in your database. There is no standard GEDCOM tag for that. There is a standard GEDCOM tag for burial, and the burial event should list the date and place, but there is no GEDCOM tag to indicate that you known which cemetery, known the plot within that cemetery, and have a photo.
The two approaches that GenDetective supports are using a custom event and having an image attached to the burial event. I opted for the default; having the standard Burial tag is sufficient, which means that, for now, I merely care whether I have a burial event or not. That default choice ignores a GenDetective capability, but that does not make it an irrational choice; it simply focusses on getting burial events for all ancestors, instead of getting full details for a few. Then again, if you want to use GenDetective to plan a trip to some cemeteries, you probably want it to use all the data you already have.
7. Obituary
Wizard step 7 is about identifying whether you have an obituary for an individual or not.
There is no standard GEDCOM tag to identify obituaries.
Step 7 allows you to tell GenDetective what custom event you use, if any.
You must check the I use a specific event to track and record obituaries!
checkbox
before you can choose your custom events from the list of events in your database.
This approach may work perfectly for the sample database, it does not work for me.
I never saw a need to use a custom event for obituaries.
I simply entered obituaries as sources, and then cited that source in the records that use information from that obituary.
Typically, the title I use for the source record includes the word Obituary
, the name of the deceased,
and the date of death.
Alas, GenDetective 1.0 does not support any such naming scheme, and does not identify these sources as obituaries.
8. Number of Children
Wizard step 8 asks you which GEDCOM tag you use to record the number of children a women had. Data on the number of children can be found in various sources, and GenDetective would like to compare that number to the number of children in your database. That makes sense; it allows GenDetective to tell you that you should visit an archive to look for children still missing from your database.
Still, the question what tag you use to record the number of children strikes me as somewhat odd, as there is a standard GEDCOM tag for that. The NCHI tag can be used with individuals as well as couples (GEDCOM families
).
GenDetective is not interested in the standard Number of Children tag, because it is not good enough.
The NCHI tag can have just one value and without context, it isn't clear whether that value is the total number of children born, the number of living children, perhaps even the number of deceased of children.
The second screen for step 8 asks you to specify whether you use two or three values with your tag, and what these values mean (total children, living children, deceased children).
If you are not using such such tag, you miss out on this functionality of GenDetective.
9. Family Lines
Wizard step 9 asks you to select family lines.
Not all individuals in your database are equally important to you.
You probably want to research your own ancestors first.
That is easy to understand, yet step 9 is easily to least intuitive step of all.
The user interface and instructions are awkward.
For example, it suggests that you should choose yourself, your spouse and, your grandparents.
So you are instructed to skip your parents. There may a reason for that, but GenDetective does not explain it.
Even worse, you cannot choose yourself, and then pick the family lines you want from a diagram.
Even after picking yourself, you still have to scroll through the list of all individuals
in your database to pick your spouse and grandparents.
That is not user-friendly, but frustrating.
10. Analyze and Save
Wizard step 10 is just a page that tells you that you are done making choices,
and that you can change each choice you've made later, in GenDetective Analyzer itself.
It additionally notes that there are more choices to make than the Wizard offered you, to tailor GenDetective to your needs.
When you click Next
, GenDetective Analyzer starts analysing your data.
Done
For the small sample database, analysis takes about half a minute. While it is analysing, GenDetective Analyzer shows a dialog box that shows what it is doing. When the analysis is done, a final dialog pops up to let you know that GenDetective Analyzer is done, and that you can run GenDetective Reporter now.
GenDetective Reporter supports more than 150 predefined reports.
The final Wizard dialog page suggests to start exploring with the some of the statistical reports.
You probably want to uncheck I want to run this wizard the next time I launch the GenDetective Analyzer
before choosing the Exit Analyzer Wizard
button.
GenDetective Analyzer remembers the choices you've made.
GenDetective Analyzer is the import, analyse and options Wizard for GenDetective Reporter.
GenDetective Analyzer
It is only after saying goodbye to the Ten-Step Wizard, that you get to see the GenDetective Analyzer application itself.
A quick look shows that the application and the wizard have the same overall layout; top-level choices on the left, details on the right. After looking at it for a while, the thought occurred to me that GenDetective Analyzer itself is a Wizard. GenDetective Analyzer is the import, analyse and options Wizard for GenDetective Reporter.
GenDetective Reporter
The first time I exited GenDetective Analyzer, it automatically started GenDetective Reporter.
That is GenDetective's default behaviour, but it is also an option that can be changed from GenDetective Reporter's option dialog.
The GenDetective Reporter doesn't have many options because most GenDetective options are in the GenDetective Analyzer.
The only GenDetective Analyzer option that can be changed in GenDetective Reporter as well is Family Lines
.
Running GenDetective Analyzer step is just something that needs to be done; the GenDetective Reporter is what GenDetective is really about.
When you start GenDetective Analyzer again, it immediately prompts you for GEDCOM file again,
and if you do not comply with that demand, it simply won't run.
Obviously, the overall idea is that you use GenDetective Analyzer once in a while to import your data,
and then use GenDetective Reporter as often as you like to generate reports for that data.
Running GenDetective Analyzer is just something that needs to be done; the GenDetective Reporter is what GenDetective is really about. Every decision you make in GenDetective Analyzer is about getting better results in GenDetective Reporter.
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Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.