Monday, July 21, 2008

Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 7: The Person Menu

I installed FamilyTreeMaker 2008 three weeks ago and uploaded a large database, as described in Post 1. In subsequent posts, I went exploring in my uploaded database, described all of the Menu options (except the key ones!), started a new tree and added some people to it, demonstrated how to add a source for a Fact, and how to add Children to a family.

In this post, I want to describe the [Person] menu items in the program and explore how to attach a spouse (already in the database) to a person. The screen below shows all of the Person menu items:

* Add Person (options are Add Father, Add Mother, Add Spouse, Add Child, Add Unrelated Person)
* Attach/Detach Person (options are Attach Father, Attach Mother, Attach Spouse, Attach Child, Detach Selected Person)
* Add Bookmark
* Delete Bookmark
* Index of Individuals
* Go to Home Person
* Set as Home Person
* Merge Two Specific Individuals


I decided that I would Attach a Spouse (a person already in my database) to Benjamin Seaver just to see how this works. The screen below shows the Attach/Detach Person options:


I clicked on "Add Spouse" and on the Select Spouse to Attach screen I typed in the name "Smith, Lucretia." As I typed, the index moved to the first person that matched my request.

I picked "Smith, Lucretia" from the list and hit the Enter key and an Attach Spouse" screen opened, where I had to click on the button to make the attachment complete, as shown below:


At this point, Benjamin Seaver has an additional wife named Lucretia Smith. I could add a marriage date and place, a source, etc.


But now I want to detach Lucretia Smith from being the wife of Benjamin Seaver (since she really wasn't).

So I go up to the [Person] menu, click on "Attach/Detach Person" and then "Detach Selected Person" and dissolve the marriage record. Easy.

The Add, Attach and Detach Person functions are very similar to those in earlier versions of FamilyTreeMaker. There were no surprises here, and no problems either.

In the next post, I'll explore how to Find a person in a database, and Find and Replace information in a database.

Previous posts in this series:

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 1: Loading. Installing the program and uploading an existing database file.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 2: Exploring. Looking around the uploaded database file to see what the different views look like.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 3: The Menus. Most of the menus were itemized and described.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 4: Starting a New Tree. I started a new tree and added some people demonstrating the program options to do this.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 5: Adding a Source. I added sources to the Facts that I previously entered.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 6: Adding Children to a Family. I added children to a family.

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