Wednesday, June 8, 2011

First Look at GenDetective - Post 1: GenDetective Analyzer

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After writing GenDetective is Available for Download this morning, I tried to download the file and the installation failed, as noted in GenDetective 10-Day Trial, because I messed up downloading the Microsoft Office 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies software.  Reader Jackie helpfully suggested uninstalling and installing GenDetective again.  Thank you, Jackie!

I did that (twice - I made the same mistake with the Microsoft software again!), and GenDetective installed on my computer. 

When it opened, I went through a series of screens, including:

*  A screen telling me that I have to upload a GEDCOM file to analyze.

*  A welcome screen to the GenDetective Analyzer Wizard that told me that the Wizard would help me configure the program with my information and then analyze my information.

*  A contact information screen for name, email, address, web page.

*  A screen for life lengths and blank name options:


I kept the default values of 100 years life expectancy of 100 years and FNU and LNU for unknown names.

*  A screen to identify the GEDCOM file I want to analyze:


I chose my current master database with 39,905 persons.  It took three minutes to upload the file. 

*  A summary page for the GEDCOM file:


It looks like it found all of my data!

*  A screen asking if I have a special locality name like "Unable to locate" for unknown places.  I don't.

*  A screen asking if I use a Burial Fact in my database (I do) and if I require a media item to list it (I don't).

*  A screen asking if I use an Obituaries Fact to note obituaries (I don't).

*  A screen suggesting that I pick myself, my psouse, and my grandparents from the database to use for the analysis:


*  A screen with a list of the persons in my database opened, showing their birth year, death year, and name of each person in my database:


I picked myself, my spouse and my grandparents from the list, using a check box in the left-hand column.

*  The GenDetective Analyzer screen noting that it is ready to analyze my database:


The screen says it will take about 41 minutes to analyze my data, and to press the "Analyze" button to proceed.

*  After about six minutes, I received an error message window:


The error says "Exception of type 'System.OutOfMemoryException" was thrown."  I got two of them. 

*  I clicked "OK' on them and saw this screen:


It says:

"Congratulations!  You are ready to run the GenDetective Reporter or explore the GenDetective analyzer.  If you are new to GenDetective, start with the statistics reports, they can be very interesting!

"To run the GenDetective Reporter, exit the GenDetective Analyzer and run the GenDetective Reporter."

*  I clicked "Exit Analyzer Wizard" and tried to run the GenDetective Reporter.

It didn't run - the GenDetective Reporter started, then said I had to load my GEDCOM into the Analyzer.  At least the information I typed in earlier was still there. 

My guess is that the errors found during the Analyzer run prevented files from being created.  The Microsoft Office Access 2007 database created by the Analyzer is 17 megabytes, but the Reports folder is empty. 

What now?  I guess I wait until Tech Support gets to California, or gets back to their base.  For reference purposes, I'm running Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9 Beta, and the GEDCOM file was created by RootsMagic 4.

So in summary - I downloaded and installed the program, the GenDetective Analyzer uploaded my GEDCOM file, let me pick some significant persons, and there were two error messages.  Then the GenDetective Reporter did not run because the GEDCOM file was not loaded, or the database was corrupted somehow.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2011/06/first-look-at-gendetective-post-1.html

(c) 2011. Randall J. Seaver. All Rights Reserved. If you wish to re-publish my content, please contact me for permission, which I will usually grant. If you are reading this on any other genealogy website, then they have stolen my work.

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