


                             GEDCOMS TO GO

                              Version 1.8
                             October, 1999

     (C) 1999 E. Vernon Buck, San Lorenzo, CA; All rights reserved.


                            SHAREWARE NOTICE

GED2GO, its associated files and programs and documentation are the
property of E. Vernon Buck. This program may be copied or distributed as
"shareware", but only in its original form, including all unaltered
documentation and support files.

You, the user, are hereby granted a limited trial license to use GED2GO
for evaluation purposes for 60 days from the date of installation of the
program. If you wish to use the program beyond the 60 day trial period,
please support the shareware concept by becoming a registered user.

The unregistered version of GED2GO will not process GEDCOMs containing
more than 500 individuals. When you become a registered user, you will
be sent a password-key which converts your unregistered version into the
registered version. You will then be able to process GEDCOM files of
unlimited size.

The fee for a personal single user system license is $8. Contact the
author for licenses for commercial systems, multi-user systems, bundled
software, or quantity discounts.

Please use the order form provided in the file ORDER.FRM. This form
contains a copy of the DISCLAIMER (below) and a statement of your
agreement to the same, which MUST be signed and received by the author
before a password-key will be issued. No exceptions.


                               DISCLAIMER

THE COMPUTER PROGRAMS AND THEIR ASSOCIATED FILES AND DOCUMENTATION
PROVIDED IN THIS PACKAGE ("GED2GO18.ZIP"), INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
"GED2GO.EXE", AND "GED2GO.TXT" ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS-IS" BASIS WITHOUT
WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION
ANY WARRANTY WITH RESPECT TO ACCURACY, ADEQUACY, CORRECTNESS,
COMPLETENESS, USEFULNESS, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR
CONSEQUENCES RESULTING FROM THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE SAID
PROGRAMS, FILES, OR DOCUMENTATION. IN NO EVENT SHALL E. VERNON BUCK OR
HIS AGENT OR ANY DISTRIBUTOR OF THIS SOFTWARE PACKAGE BE HELD LIABLE FOR
ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
RESULTING FROM THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE SAID PROGRAMS, FILES OR
DOCUMENTATION EVEN IF E. VERNON BUCK OR HIS AGENT OR DISTRIBUTOR IS
AWARE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. YOU FURTHER AGREE TO INDEMNIFY
E. VERNON BUCK, HIS AGENTS AND DISTRIBUTORS AGAINST ANY LIABILITY
ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF "GED2GO" INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR
DISSEMINATION OF OUTPUT FILES OR OTHER INFORMATION GENERATED BY
"GED2GO".

In plainer English: If, in spite of using GED2GO, something bad happens
to someone like "theft of identity", theft of property, invasion of
privacy, embarrassment, or whatever, you cannot sue me, nor can the
injured party sue me.


                          GENERAL DESCRIPTION

GEDCOMS TO GO, or GED2GO for short, is a DOS-based program which is
intended to remove information on living persons from genealogical data
files in the GEDCOM format. Rather than simply removing "details" such
as birth dates, GED2GO completely removes the record of a living person,
together with all references to that individual which might occur within
another record, such as a parent or child within a family record. If
both parents of a family are removed, then the entire family record is
also removed.

In most cases, the only user input required is the name of the input and
output GEDCOM files. Using its built-in criteria and algorithms, the
program automatically determines which persons are probably still alive.
These persons are placed on the "list of living persons". Finally, the
program writes the output GEDCOM file in which, as far as possible, all
information regarding persons on the list of living persons has been
removed. Note: GED2GO does not alter or remove any notes, source,
submitter, or other information that is not within the record of a
deleted individual.

Whenever GED2GO encounters an individual with insufficient information
to determine whether living or dead, the program will estimate the
person's dates by examining the person's relatives. In this regard, the
program will go as distant in relationship as necessary; but of course,
the more distant the relative, the less accurate is the estimate. A
provision is included whereby the user can manually add or remove
individuals from the list of living persons. A list of living persons
can also be read from a file.



                              INSTALLATION

Installation consists of nothing more than copying the unzipped
distribution files onto your hard disk. Although GED2GO should work fine
when installed in any directory, for initial testing purposes you should
probably create a separate directory. If you haven't already done so,
unzip all the files from the GED2GO.ZIP distribution file into the
GED2GO directory.


                         QUICK START / TEST RUN

Note: for unregistered users, the input GEDCOM is limited to 500 persons
total (or fewer).

If you haven't done so already, please read the DISCLAIMER above. If you
are using Windows, use File Manager or Windows Explorer to open the
GED2GO directory. Double click on GED2GO.EXE to start the program. If
you are running MS-DOS, from the directory in which GED2GO resides, type
GED2GO <Enter> to start the program. If you are an unregistered user,
you will have to type YES <Enter> <Enter> to proceed to the opening
window. Note that all entries (except xref_ids as explained below) may
be made in upper, lower, or mixed case. Enter the file names of the
input and output GEDCOM files, including drive and directory if
different from the current drive and directory. You must use the DOS
equivalent filenames (i.e. the "eight.three" format) for any Windows 95
"long" filenames. You can press <Enter> in response to the 3 questions
relating to changing the operating parameters and altering the list of
living persons. Barring any problems with the input GEDCOM file, the
program will run to completion without further user input.

When GED2GO finishes execution it leaves a file named G2GALIVE.DAT in
the current directory. This ASCII file is a list of the persons who have
been removed from the GEDCOM. It can be viewed with virtually any
lister, editor, or word processor. Note: altering or deleting this file
does NOT affect the operation of GED2GO, since the file is created or
overwritten every time GED2GO is run. Each line of G2GALIVE.DAT contains
a person's INDI xref_id (see explanation below), the name of the person,
the person's sex (M, F, or U), the person's actual or estimated year of
birth, and the year by which the person is projected to be deceased.
Some individuals may have a year of birth equal to the current year;
this is the result of the program's conservative estimation of the year
of birth. Some individuals may have both year of birth and year of death
equal to 0. This results when the program cannot make any estimate
whatever of the dates, even after examining all the person's relatives.
To be on the safe side, such persons are treated as living.

You should carefully examine the output GEDCOM and/or G2GALIVE.DAT to be
sure that the correct persons have been removed from the GEDCOM. Please
remember that you alone are responsible for protecting the privacy of
the individuals in your data base. Should you determine that particular
individuals need to be added or removed from the list of living persons,
this can be accomplished by using the options described below.


                                OPTIONS

There are three ways you can control the operation of GED2GO: (1)
altering the parameters which control the calculation of estimated
dates; (2) forcing particular individuals to be treated as "living"
regardless of dates; and (3) removing particular individuals from the
list of living persons regardless of dates. You can activate any or all
of these options by answering Y <Enter> respectively to the 3 prompts
that come after entering the input and output filenames.


                            DATE ESTIMATION

Whenever the program encounters an individual who has neither an
explicit death date nor an explicit burial date, a death date is
estimated. The parameters which control the calculation of estimated
dates have been assigned default values that should give good results in
most cases. To examine or alter the parameters, answer Y <Enter> to the
first of the options prompts. You will be presented with prompts for the
eight parameters. To retain the default value of a particular parameter,
just press <Enter> at the prompt. Note that altering the parameters
affects ALL persons in the GEDCOM. A change intended to correct a
problem with one person may inadvertently cause problems with other
persons. Therefore, changes should be made cautiously, and the results
checked carefully.

Probably the safest way to make the program globally more
"conservative"; that is, to put more persons into the "living" category,
is to change the "Current year" parameter to an EARLIER year. For
example, if the current year is 2001, you could change it to 1981. The
program will then treat all persons who appear to be alive in 1981 as
still living, and thus remove them from the output GEDCOM.

The parameters (values in years) are as follows:

        Current year (default = [the current year])
        Maximum lifespan for male or female (default = 100)
        Minimum marriage/motherhood age for females (default = 15)
        Minimum marriage/fatherhood age for males (default = 18)
        Maximum child bearing age for females (default = 50)
        Maximum age difference if husband older than wife (default = 45)
        Maximim age difference if wife older than husband (default = 30)
        Years added to dates with an "After" qualifier (default = 70)

The last parameter requires a little explanation: A date has an "After"
qualifier if one of the following words, in whole or abbreviated, in
upper, lower or mixed case, is included with the date: "After",
"Following", "Later", "Post", "Subsequently", "Succeeding", "Living" or
"Alive"; or if the symbol > precedes the date. For date estimation
purposes, the associated event is assumed to have occurred within a
certain number of years following the date. Thus if a person's death
date is given as "AFT 1900", then the program will assume the death has
occurred by 1970, if the default value of 70 "Years added" is used.


                  ADDING OR REMOVING SPECIFIC PERSONS

Specific individuals can be forced onto the list of living persons
regardless of their dates by answering Y <Enter> to the second options
prompt. You can instruct the program to read a file of "xref_ids" (read
"cross-reference identifiers"). Otherwise, you can type in the xref_id
of each individual you wish to force onto the living persons list. In
order to use this feature, you will need to know in advance the
xref_ids. Each individual in a GEDCOM file is assigned an unique
xref_id. The xref_id for an individual can be determined by examining
the GEDCOM file directly. The description of each individual begins with
a line in the form:

        0 @Innnn@ INDI

The xref_id consists of all the characters between the two delimiting @
characters. Typically, xref_ids consist of a capital I followed by a
number. However, in theory they could contain any printable ASCII
characters including spaces (except for @). Note also that xref_ids are
CASE SENSITIVE. Xref_ids must be entered into GED2GO EXACTLY as they
appear in the GEDCOM. (It is not necessary to include the delimiting @
characters, unless the xref_id contains spaces in which case both @'s
are required.) The individual's name will usually be found on the next
line in the form:

        1 NAME Firstname Middlename /Lastname/

Additional information following this line can be used to distinguish
persons with similar names. Note: if you are using a word processor or
editor to view the GEDCOM file, be careful not to modify the GEDCOM in
any way. If at all possible, you should "quit without saving" or
"abandon edit" when finished viewing the GEDCOM.

To make a file of xref_ids you should use a simple text editor (NOT a
word processor) such as DOS EDIT or WINDOWS NOTEPAD or WORDPAD. Place
one xref_id at the beginning of each line of the text file. Remember
that xref_ids are case sensitive. If you enter a space after the
xref_id, GED2GO will ignore everything that follows on that line, so you
could place the individual's name or whatever you want following the
xref_id. The xref_ids may be entered in any order, and there is no limit
to the number of xref_ids.  A typical file might look like this:

I340 Uncle Jim 105 yrs old!
I341 Aunt Julia
I202
I203
I215


Typing Y <Enter> in response to the third options prompt will allow you
to review the entire list of living persons. The review will come AFTER
the program has completed its analysis of the input GEDCOM file, but
before the final output GEDCOM is written. The program will present to
you each individual on the list of living persons. You will be able to
keep or remove each individual at your discretion.


                       NON-STANDARD DATE FORMATS

The standard format for dates in GEDCOM files is in the format of
"dd MMM yyyy" where dd is the day of the month in 1 or 2 digits, MMM is
the first 3 characters of the name of the month in upper case, and yyyy
is the year in 1 to 4 digits. Dates may also include certain modifiers
in the following formats: ABT [date], BEF [date], AFT [date], or BET
[date] AND [date].

In actual practice, dates in GEDCOM files may appear in practically any
format imaginable. Accordingly, GED2GO has been programmed to accept and
correctly determine the year from a wide variety of date formats.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of pitfalls the user should be aware
of:

        (1) The Y2K problem. Although this problem should be rare in
        GEDCOM files, the consequences could be serious since a living
        person could be mistakenly determined to be deceased. For
        example, a date entry of "2/23/56" where the year is intended to
        be 1956 would be misinterpreted as 56 AD. These problems should
        be corrected, preferably by fixing the GEDCOM file. If this is
        not possible, use the option to force persons into the living
        category.

        (2) Years from 1AD to 31AD. Unless it appears in one of the
        standard GEDCOM date formats, a year intended to be in the range
        of 1 (AD) to 31 (AD) must include the "AD" or "CE" in order to
        be correctly interpreted. Otherwise, the date will be ignored.
        In almost all cases, this problem can be ignored because GED2GO
        will make an adequate estimate of the date from relatives' data.


By way of example, here are some dates, and the
corresponding interpretation that GED2GO makes of them:

Input                   Interpretation
--------------------------------------
22 Mar 1863             1863
22-Mar-1863             1863
March 22, 1863          1863
1863-Mar-22             1863
3/22/1863               1863
22.3.1863               1863
3/22/63                 63 AD
2 FEB 1636/37           1636
18th Cent               1800
19th Century            1900
Seventeenth Century     1700
1066AD                  1066
550 CE                  550
550 C.E.                550
550 C. E.               550
700 BC                  -699
700 BCE                 -699
1700 B.C.               -1699
1700 B.C.E.             -1699
1700 B. C.              -1699
1820's                  1830
1820s                   1830
Between 1882 & 1895     1895
bef 1780                1780
ABT 1869                1869
<1866>                  1866
Ca.1645                 1645
AFT 2-FEB-1640/41       1710 (with "Years added" = 70)
7                       7 AD
7 SEP                   [indeterminate]
SEP 7                   [indeterminate]
SEP 7AD                 7 AD
9 SEP 7                 7 AD
9 SEP 7 C.E.            7 AD
??                      [indeterminate]
unknown                 [indeterminate]


                            IMPROVING SPEED

Here are some suggestions for speeding up the operation of GED2GO. Note:
these suggestions assume you have considerable technical understanding of
your hardware and software. If not, best to skip this section.

(1) If possible, the input GEDCOM file should have individuals and
families listed in order of increasing xref_id number. If this is the
case, then GED2GO will skip the time consuming task of sorting the
individuals and families by xref_id. If they are not in order, check the
documentation for your genealogical data base software for an option or
method to obtain sorted individuals and families in the GEDCOM.

(2) GED2GO makes extensive use of "scratch" files on the hard disk to
store intermediate results. These scratch files are stored in the
current drive and directory. They are deleted before the program
terminates. Whatever you can do to improve disk access time should speed
up the operation of GED2GO. Some possibilities include running a disk
de-fragmentation utility, increasing the cache size of SMARTDRIVE, or
using a "ramdrive" as the current drive. In the last case, you will
probably need free space in the ramdrive equal to the size of the input
GEDCOM (while assigning the output GEDCOM to a different drive).

(3) When running under WINDOWS, use a DOS full screen mode rather than
running within a window. This reduces the amount of time the processor
spends on updating the screen image.


                             ERROR MESSAGES

Note: GED2DO does NOT make a thorough check of the reasonability or
correctness of the input GEDCOM file. In general, errors are detected
only for individuals in the "living" category. Only conditions that
could potentially cause a program crash are trapped. Everything else is
passed through unaltered to the output GEDCOM.

An unknown error has occurred. Processing cannot continue.
        Hopefully, will never occur. If the cause is not obviously
        external to GED2GO, please keep a copy of the GEDCOM file and
        any options used that caused this error and contact the author.

Can't find CHIL# c referenced by FAM# f
        Family with xref_id f has a non-existent child with xref_id c.

Can't find FAMC# f referenced by INDI# i
        Individual with xref_id i is designated as child of a
        non-existent family with xref_id f.

Can't find FAMS# f referenced by INDI# i
        Individual with xref_id i is designated as spouse of a
        non-existent family with xref_id f.

Can't find HUSB#/WIFE# s referenced by FAM# f
        Family with xref_id f has a non-existent spouse with xref_id s.

Floating point error (with program termination)
        This error may occur when the program attempts to read a GEDCOM
        file that was written by an operating system other than MS-DOS,
        WINDOWS, or MACINTOSH (e.g. UNIX). The lines in this GEDCOM are
        not separated by the usual <CR><LF> pair. To correct this
        problem, try the following: (1) Read the entire GEDCOM into
        Microsoft WORD. (2) From the File Menu, click on "Save as..."
        (3) Under "Save File as Type:"  choose "MS-DOS TXT with Line
        Breaks" (4) Choose a new name for the file and click OK. (5)
        Rerun GED2GO using the new GEDCOM file for input.

INDI# i not listed as CHIL in FAM# f
        Individual with xref_id i is designated as child in family with
        xref_id f, but that family has no child with xref_id i.

INDI# i not listed as HUSB/WIFE in FAM# f
        Individual with xref_id i is designated as parent in family with
        xref_id f, but that family has either has no parent with xref_id
        i, or family has more than 2 parents.

Insufficient disk space.
        Twice as much free space as the size of the input GEDCOM file
        should be ample.

Output file already exists and cannot be overwritten.
        To avoid any possibility of inadvertently overwriting the input
        file.

Output file name must be different from input.
        Output can't overwrite input since program makes multiple
        passes through input file.

Too many individuals for unregistered copy.
        Use a GEDCOM with 500 or fewer individuals, or register the
        program.

Unable to open the input GEDCOM file.
        File can't be located, or illegal drive, path, or filename.

Unable to open the output GEDCOM file.
        Illegal drive, path, or filename.

Unexpected data read from input GEDCOM at line #n
[problem line]
        The nth line of the input GEDCOM appears to be out of order, or
        could not be parsed, or could not be understood. The GEDCOM file
        may be corrupt or incorrectly formulated. This message also
        appears if an unregistered copy of GED2GO finds more than 500
        individuals in a GEDCOM.

Unexpected end of file in input GEDCOM at line #n
        Input GEDCOM ended without proper termination. It is probably
        corrupt.

WARNING: Apparently inconsistent dates for this individual.
This may adversly affect the operation of this program.
        Death year is earlier than birth year. This is possibly due to
        an incorrect interpretation of a date, but more likely an error
        in the input GEDCOM data base. In any case you have the choice
        of continuing regardless, revising the dates, or aborting. Note
        that revised dates will only be used internally by GED2GO, and
        the original dates will still be copied to the new GEDCOM.


                         CONTACTING THE AUTHOR


E-mail:

EVBuck@juno.com
Vernon.Buck@rhosoft.com

USPS:

Vernon Buck
775 Hacienda Ave
San Lorenzo CA 94580-2937


                           VERSION HISTORY

Version 1.8, October, 1999. Added age difference between spouses to date
estimator criteria. Added "Too many individuals for unregistered copy"
error message. Added special handling for BARM and BASM (bar/bas
mizvah) tags. Added EDUC, OCCU, and TITL tags. Fixed bug which caused
program to display "Apparently inconsistent dates..." message if a "mid-
life event" tag was the only source of date info for an individual.

Version 1.7, September, 1999. Date estimator makes better use of sibling
order of birth info. Improved execution speed by skipping redundant
calculations. Further improved interpretation of dates in 1AD to 31AD
range. Added discussion of UNIX file problem to Error Messages.

Version 1.6, September, 1999. Improved date estimation algorithm by
adding lower limits to revised dates. Improved date parsing and
interpretation algorithm for ambiguous dates in 1AD to 31AD range. Added
RESI tag. Added pitfalls discussion to documentation.

Version 1.5, July, 1999. Alphanumeric xref_ids used instead of numeric
only xref#s. Changes to format of xref_id files and G2GALIVE.DAT. Terms
"Living" and "Alive" added to "after qualifiers". Improved detection and
rejection of corrupt or invalid GEDCOMs. Improved handling of ASSO tag.
Modest improvement in execution speed. Documentation revised and
updated.

Version 1.4, January, 1999. First release.


                             TRADEMARKS

"Windows", "File Manager", "Windows Explorer", "Notepad", "Wordpad",
"WORD" and "MS-DOS" are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. "GEDCOM" is
a trademark of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

