NEW USER QUESTIONS

[gerard35]

I am a new user (just love iFamily!) but I have a few questions:

1. How do I do AKAs or alternate names?

2. How do I make myself a "permanent" or "default" focus person for the purpose of calculating relationships?

3. I stupidly named my GEDCOM file from Family Tree Maker "GEDCOM". How can I change my file name to a more appropriate or desirable name?

4. I want to make a backup copy of my file to keep in another location. It is not clear how to do an external backup (i.e., to a CD or flash drive). Do I export it as a GEDCOM and save it that way?

5. How do I do a descendancy report from one particular ancestor directly to one particular person without listing any siblings in any generation; i.e., couple to couple to couple, etc.?

6. Some of my photos are too large to drop into "Pictures". They don&#39t "stick". How do I make them smaller?

7. What does "transcribe" do?

8. What is "Auto Append Family Name"?

[scutler]

I love iFamily too, it&#39s great. You certainly have a lot of queries which I&#39ll have a go at answering. The Search function of this forum or some of the other users might give you the appropriate answers if I don&#39t.


Question 1: How do I do AKAs or alternate names?

Answer: There is an "Also Known As" field on the Individual&#39s pane in the lower half of the iFamily window where you can add an alternative name but as far as I know it won&#39t be shown in any of the reports. You could also use Notes or create an Event.


Question 2: How do I make myself a "permanent" or "default" focus person for the purpose of calculating relationships?

Answer: Perhaps you&#39ll find what you need in this forum topic - Determining consanguinity


Question 3: I stupidly named my GEDCOM file from Family Tree Maker "GEDCOM". How can I change my file name to a more appropriate or desirable name?

Answer: I&#39m guessing you mean that you loaded the offending Gedcom file into iFamily and now your iFamily database is called GEDCOM? If so, this is what I&#39d do -

1. If in doubt about doing this, backup your database using the iFamily menu command File-Backup Current Database.

2. Quit from iFamily, then using Finder locate the iFamily folder, usually at Users/username/iFamilyData.

3. In this folder you&#39ll find your database file, in your case named GEDCOM.FtkSql which you can then rename but make sure it still has .FtkSql on the end when you&#39re done.

4. Double click the renamed file to re-open iFamily.

5. If anything goes wrong you&#39ll find the Backup that you just made in the Backups folder of the iFamilyData folder.


Question 4: I want to make a backup copy of my file to keep in another location. It is not clear how to do an external backup (i.e., to a CD or flash drive). Do I export it as a GEDCOM and save it that way?

Answer: No, you don&#39t have to export it as a Gedcom. Locate your iFamilyData folder as in question 3. Copy & Paste or drag this folder to a flash drive or CD. You&#39ll then get everything associated with iFamily (database, pictures, backups, reports, etc). Or if you prefer you can do the same with just the .FtkSql file. You won&#39t be able to open your database from a CD - you&#39ll have to copy or drag it back onto the computer.


Question 5: How do I do a descendancy report from one particular ancestor directly to one particular person without listing any siblings in any generation; i.e., couple to couple to couple, etc.?

Answer: OK, you&#39ve got me there. Can someone else help?


Question 6: Some of my photos are too large to drop into "Pictures". They don&#39t "stick". How do I make them smaller?

Answer: I don&#39t think you can make them smaller in iFamily, you&#39d probably need to use photo editing software. I&#39ve just dragged a 74MB photo into the Pictures pane successfully. Maybe photo size isn&#39t your problem?


Question 7: What does "transcribe" do?
Answer: If you add an image of a source document to the Pictures pane you can select it, click on Transcribe and use the resulting dialog window to type up the details from the document. The image can be zoomed in so that you can read the writing while typing in the blank portion of the window. Makes an easy way to transcribe a document and the transcription can be viewed in the future by clicking Transcribe.


Question 8: What is "Auto Append Family Name"?

Answer: When adding children by typing into the Family pane, only the given names need to be entered. iFamily will add the Father&#39s surname if "Auto append family name" is checked.


Regards,
Sue

[NigelRichman]

Trying to provide an answer to Question 5.

Do you mean a Report or a Chart?

For a Chart I would actually generate an Ancestors chart from the Target individual and turn off the options for Siblings and Spouse&#39s ancestors. That should take you back to the head of the family.

You could try something similar with the repots though I do not believe you can turn off the Siblings - there is one that if selected shows all relatives so you could turn this one off and see if it is what you wanted.

Hope that helps,

Nigel

[JackHenry]

In regard to Question #5

iFamily allows you to &#39calculate&#39 relationships in &#39People > Relationships Calculator&#39

Here you can select a focal person AND a second person that you want to check the &#39connection line&#39 to. You end up with something like &#39Focal Person>Son>Daughter>Daughter>Daughter>Son>Wife<Father<Target Person.

Along with each Son/Daughter etc, is that persons name and year of birth.

You then have the option of printing that report. If you select Print you get a text document formatted in an easy to read style. You can of course copy and paste from the text document.

At the top of the text document is
Target Person (1877 - ) is Focal Person (1814 - 1892)&#39s 3gGrandson → Wife&#39s Grandfather

One thing I have fun doing if I get a bit bored, is trying to find the most complex relationship in my tree along the lines of
Target Person (1825 - ) is Focal Person (1786 - 1849)&#39s 3gGrandson → Wife&#39s 3gUncle → Wife&#39s Uncle → Wife&#39s Mother

Hope this helps too

Regards
John Tudor

[mousecook]

I&#39ve just bought the software and am trying to figure out the various elements and am trying to work with a small subset of my family files to learn the program. One of the issues I have is that many of my lines go back to the old Julian calender which are frequently expressed as 1702/1703, depending on the month in question (Jan & Feb being 1702). This becomes important when deaths are listed which state &#39 79 years 3 months, 5 days.&#39 Someone else must have encountered this issue and I&#39d like to know how they resolved it.

Also, I&#39m going to be giving a demo of iFamily at my MUG meeting and would love to hear &#39best practices tips&#39 from anyone.

Thanks
Lynda

[dennisb]

I am a new user (just love iFamily!) but I have a few questions:

6. Some of my photos are too large to drop into "Pictures". They don&#39t "stick". How do I make them smaller?

I&#39ve had no problems with up to 4MB jpg files in iFamily. But, I usually resize the pictures before saving them in iFamily for two reasons. #1 I use the Preferences > Always copy pictures to /Pictures option, so that iFamily retains the picture even if I move or erase the original in my mac Pictures folder, and since this essentially copies the picture I wanted to save disk space #2 I wanted smaller reports and HTML files for sharing my family tree, and the high pixel count pictures were getting in the way of that.

So, I&#39ve been using the free version of MacImage Resizer (Copyright 2001 iRedSoft Technology Inc) for some time without problems. You can get it by going to www.download.com and searching for it by name. I note, however, that iRedSoft no longer supports or sells the program. You can find alternatives at download.com.

[favell44]

Question 6: Some of my photos are too large to drop into "Pictures". They don&#39t "stick". How do I make them smaller?

I had this problem when I first started loading pictures. However, I don&#39t think that it is actually due to image size. I find that if a jpeg won&#39t load all I need to do is add .jpg to the end of the file. Likewise for pdf files, you sometimes need to add .pdf. In this way I have even added complete google books in pdf format to my pictures pane.