[Back]

[Search]
[Login]
[Login Group]
[Add Yourself]
[Change]
[Change details]
[Schema]
[+Group]
[+Person]
[+Father]
[+Mother]
[+Partner]
[+Child]
[Language]

Add a Group
How to Start
Add Person
Change Person
Person Schema
about Rights
Add Picture

[E-mail the manager]

Why Familytree

The Familytree system is aimed at making personal data (Name and date of birth) visible in a structure on the internet. Besides the personal data, it is possible to show relations with other persons: Father, Mother, Partners en children.

The visitor can navigate from person to person via links, enabling him to get an overall picture of a family. In addition to that, it is possible to get a schematic overview of the closest family. In one view you can see grandparents and grandchildren of a given person. One can also navigate from person to person in this view.

With the personal data, it is possible to store one or more pictures. In this way visitors get an impression of the looks of a given person (at this moment). These pictures can be updated on a regular basis: keeping the audience well informed.

There is an option to store address data. In this manner the system can function as an online address book.
The address data is visible at choice: name, year of birth and pictures are always visible.

What are the possibilities

The system can store simple personal data as name and date of birth. Next to that, email, address and phone number can be added. Whether this data is visible or not depends on the group rights.
One can add pictures to the personal data, with a max resolution of 350x350 pixels. These pictures can be connected to more than one person. This makes it possible to add group portraits (e.g. wedding pictures).

The structure is kept as simple as possible. Records can be connected as often as required. You can add every relation between each of the entered persons: the consistency is never checked.

How to start

The first thing to do is entering your personal data.
Not only is this necessary to fit into the family schema, but with this first entry some additional data is entered. The system needs this data in order to recognize you at a later point in time and apply the correct user rights; this first entry functions as a user account.

First check with the [Search] function whether or not your personal data is already entered by someone else. In the end everyone is family from one another so a family member might have entered you as a nephew/niece uncle/aunt.
If not, click the [Add Yourself] function from the Homepage.
You will see a page where you can enter all your data.
One of the items to specify is a password; this is your personal password for your account.
You’ll need this password later for the [login] function. At the top of the form you will see a system number. You’ll need this number as well for the [login] function.
So remember those items well: you’ll need them later.
Once you’ve entered your data in the database, the system will send an email to the given email address.
This email will contain a Link.
You must visit this Link (by clicking it or by copying the URL to your browser).
As long as you don’t pay a visit to this URL, all your data will be invisible to others.

This shows that you can only use this system with a valid email address.

For all other actions you must login with your account first. In order to do that you can follow the link in the email you received (than you are logged in automatically), or you can click on [login] on the homepage.

The next thing to do is setting your group rights (if any).
All persons entered with your account will receive the same group rights as yourself by default (when you want to use them).
When you define them correctly upfront then all your entered persons will have the correct group rights.
When you forget this step, all persons entered will have no group rights.
You can make a new group with Add a Group, or you can grant yourself the rights of an existing group with grant group rights.

Once you’ve entered yourself in the system, you must connect your personal entry with already entered family members (if any).
In this manner you will take your place in the Family Web. All persons who are connected to you later on are (through you) connected to the Family Web.

When all that’s done, you can start adding persons by using the [+Father] [+Mother] [+partner] and [+Child] functions. Those functions are performed with the current shown entry as starting point. So by moving around between entries and entering persons you will expand the Family Web.

Persons entered can be modified with the [Change] function. In this manner you can add pictures; see add picture

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Add Person

The simplest way to add a person is via the [Change] function of an existing person.
Make sure the details of the correct person are shown on the screen. Then click the [Change] function. As a result the change detail screen is shown. At the top of the screen you will see the [+Father] [+Mother] [+partner] and [+Child] buttons (provided you are entitled to modify this person. These functions add a person to the database and at the same time will link the new entry to the person shown in the correct manner.

You can add a person via the [+Person] function as well. In this manner the new entry is not connected to the person shown. He or she must be linked to other persons via the [Change] function later on. This function is mainly useful for entering a new branch in the Family Web.

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Change Details

The database can contain a couple of items per Person. Standard an entry contains given name, Christian name en surname. These are shown to visitors in one of two ways: <Christian name> <surname> or <given name> (<Christian name>) <surname>.
The date and place of birth are recorded as well and when appropriate date and place of death.
Items are available to record sex and which profession a person has/had.

Besides these, it is possible to record address, email and telephone number. Whether or not these items are shown depends on the group rights of the entry.

This function is accessible via the [Change] function of the person detail screen. At the top of the page the [Change details] function appears. By clicking on this button a form appears in which al the items can be modified. With the option Public Yes/No you can specify whether or not a specific item is shown always (Yes) or only when a person belongs to the correct group (No).

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Login

By activating the Login function a screen appears on which the system number and password must be filled out.
When this data is entered correctly, your name and date of birth appears at the top of the page. Now you are known to the system and you can change previously entered data, add pictures and add new persons.

You can find your system number via the [Search] function. With this function you can search for yourself. One of the items on the detail screen is the system number.

When the detail screen is shown (and you are not already logged in) a [this is me] button is shown. When you click this button the system fills out the system number automatically and you only have to supply the password.

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Login Group

By activating the Login Group function a screen appears on which you can select a group and fill out the password.
When this data is entered correctly, the group name appears at the top of the page. Now you can view the data with the group rights of the chosen group.
You can’t change any data. To do this you must login with your user account.

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Add yourself

[Add Yourself]

The first thing to do is entering your personal data.
The system needs this data in order to recognize you when you want to change data.

NB Use the Search functions to check whether your data isn’t already present.

If not, select the [Add Yourself] function from the Homepage.
Then a screen appears on which you can fill out your data.
Besides the data you can enter for every other person there are two items you have to fill out persé.
That’s your (new) password and a valid email address.

You will need this password later with the [login] function so remember it well.

Once you’ve entered your data in the database, the system will send an email to the given email address.
This email will contain a Link.
You must visit this Link (by clicking it or by copying the URL to your browser).
As long as you don’t pay a visit to this URL, all your data will be invisible to others.
When you visit the given URL you will notice that the system logs you in. At the top of the page your name and date of birth appears instead of the standard “Guest”.
Now you’re known to the system and you can start expanding the Family Web.

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Change Persons

The recorded data can be modified at any given time (provided you were the one who entered it).
When the details of a person are shown on the screen the [Change] function appears at the top of the page. When you click on this button the screen ‘modify details’ appears. Here you can link this person to other persons or remove a link. From this screen you can add and modify pictures for this person.

At the top of the page the [Change details] function is visible. With this function you can change data like name, date of birth, address etc.

There is a [delete] function provided with which you can remove a person (after confirmation) from the database, including links, pictures etc.

The entered data like name, sex, profession, year of birth and date of death as well as all the pictures are visible to all visitors.
The full date of birth is only visible to people within the same group.

For people who don’t like to show to much information on themselves on the internet there is the option to mark the data as ‘Show Limited’. Then only the given name and family name are shown. Nothing else.

If people don’t want  to be shown on the internet at all, you can still enter there data. You then must mark their data with ‘hide’.

See also Privacy

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Link Persons

Familytree uses links between the persons entered. With these links it is possible to show the genealogy with pictures.

Most of the time the links are made automatically when you use the [+Father] [+Mother] etc. functions. But sometimes you need to make a link with a person already entered by others.
Sometimes you will want to add a person with the [+Person] function: these entries are not linked to any other persons.
To be able to link these persons later on, you can use the [Change] function. When you make a link, you can specify that the other person is a parent, partner (not necessarily in marriage) or child.

Before you can link, you need to know the system number of the person you want to link to.  So find that number before you start your actions.
It is good to know that a link can be defined from both sides provided you entered both persons yourself.
You can link to as much persons as you like. The links are never checked for number, age or sex.

You can link to every person in the database, but ‘the other side’ can break the link without your consent.

So this is the moment to let the world know that you are the child of this father who would never know you. But remember: that father can break the link at will.
(You can however enter the data of that father yourself: then you’re the owner and no one can alter that).

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Add a group

You can enter a new group with the [+Group] function at the home page. When you use that function, you must specify a new group name and a password. The password will be used for later [Login Group] actions.

Once you entered the group, you must link yourself (and others) to the group.

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Connect a group

You can connect groups via the [Change] function on the detail screen.

A page appears with al kinds of functions to change the data. At the bottom of the page two selection windows are shown. The top window of the two contains all groups available for connecting. The bottom window of the two contains the groups that are already connected. When you start to connect yourself, the bottom one will be empty. Now you select a group in the top window and click [connect].

Now a screen appears on which you must specify the password for the group.
When you connect a person to a group that is connected to the current login account, no password is required. So you can grant your own rights to persons without specifying a password.

The connection to groups is applied every time an account logs in.

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Language

You can change the language of the Familytree interface.
When you use this function (on any page) a screen appears on which you can select the language used.
At this moment there is the choice between:
Nederlands
English (GB) (date format dd-mm-yyyy)
English (US) (date format mm/dd/yyyy)

When you specify the language when entering your own data, this language will be remembered and applied every time you login.

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Search

The search screen enables you to search a specific person in the database.
In the items on the search screen you can supply various items to search for.
By clicking the [send] button you start the search on the system.
As a result a screen appears on which lines data are present of persons that match the search criteria.
When you click on such a line, you jump to the details of that person.

When a search action doesn’t find any persons that meet the criteria the program responds “No family members found".

Remember that when you specify more than one search item all of those items must be present at the same time.
A search action with year of birth 1950 and year of death 1948 can never give results.

At top of that are the special search functions [Everything inserted by me] responding with a list of all persons entered by you.

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About Rights

The system is accessible via the internet.
That’s convenient, but has its consequence: everyone can access it.
That is why a system that can be altered via the internet, needs access control.

In this system two layers of security are built in, each for its own purpose.

The first layer of security is ownership of the data entered. Only the person that has entered the data can modify or delete it.  So it is necessary to login before you can modify your data. (See [login] function)
Once logged-in, you can change all the data entered by you.

The second layer of protection is ‘user groups’.
The database contains among others address, telephone number and email address. It isn’t always wise to show those items on the internet.
To make these items selectively available, user groups are provided. Every person in the system can be connected to one or more user groups.
People viewing the data will see the above mentioned items only if they belong to the same user group as the person shown.

The items name, sex, profession, year of birth (and so ones age) and date of death are visible to all. So are all pictures.
When a person belongs to the same group as the viewer, the full date of birth is shown.

For people who don’t want to much information to be shown on the internet, you can mark their data with ‘Show limited’. Then only their given name and familyname are shown. Date of birth, Place of birth and  occupation are hidden.

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Privacy

The data on this system are subject to the regulations of the ‘Centraal orgaan Bescherming Persoonsgegevens’ (CBP).
To facilitate this, there is a link on every page to send a message to the maintainer of the data or to the webmaster to ask them to remove their data from the internet. (The e-mail address itself is not shown).

When a person applies for this you can simply mark their data as ‘hidden’. Visitors will then only see the term ‘Person’ on the pages with no further information. But the maintainer of the data can still see their data for reference.
Furthermore the software will try to remove the no longer shown data from the results of search engines.

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Add Pictures

Pictures can be entered and linked to every person in the database.
For these pictures a range of common formats can be used e.g. JPG, GIF, BMP, TGA, TIF, PNG etc.
The picture will be rendered upon entry to a max size of 350x350 pixels. That’s most adequate for portraits: for vacation pictures it’s horrible.
A passport picture scanned at 300dpi will do fine.

To add a picture you must perform the next actions:
In the details screen you must select the [Change] function. A screen appears having at the right side options to add a picture.
First you must select a picture on your own computer using the Browse button. When you know the name of the picture by heart (including full path) you can enter that name in the field.
When the name is specified click on [Add Picture]. Now the picture is send to the server and if need be changed to the correct size and linked to the person.
The moment the picture is linked, the system returns to the detail screen showing the new picture.

You can add text to the entered picture, with which you can explain the picture to the audience.
When there is a picture already linked, you can upload another, or reload a previous one to update the picture. Finally one can remove a picture altogether.

It’s possible to link a picture with two ore more persons (e.g. a wedding picture) to more than one person.
First add the picture following the above procedure. Following you can link the picture to another person by specifying the system number of that other person, in that way the picture will be linked to that other person as well.
Remember that a picture thus connected to more than one person can be altered or removed by those other persons.
It’s no correct (and not possible) to remove a picture by deleting all links to all persons. Use the [remove picture] function instead.

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Person Schema

When you click on the [Schema] button on the detail screen, you will see (if present) the picture of the current person amidst his relatives.

In this schema are shown the grandparents and parents (above) brethren with their respective partners (mid) up to the children and grandchildren (below).

You can jump from person to person by clicking on his/her picture/name. This person will than form the centre of a new cluster.

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Home Page

Start screen of the system. Here a random selection of pictures is shown. You can jump directly to the detail screen a person by clicking on his/her picture.

Here you will find the functions (depending on the situation):

[Home] This page
[Search]
[Login]
[Login Group]
[Myself] Jump to the detail screen of yourself
[+Group]
[+Person]
[Add Yourself]
[Language]
[Help] This Help screen

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Detail

This screen shows the details available of a person. From this screen you can jump to pages of relatives via the links at the bottom. The functions to modify data in the database are accessible from this page (via the [Change] function).

Here you will find the functions (depending on the situation):

[Home]
[This is me] the [Login] function with only the need for a password.
[Search]
[Change]
[Entered by] Jump to the detail screen of the 'owner' of this data
[Schema]
[Mark] put name and system number in the header as 'reminder'
[Language]
[Help] This Help screen

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Change

On this screen all links to other persons can be modified. On this page you can enter and link pictures as well.

Here you will find the functions (depending on the situation):

[Home]
[Back] Jump back to the detail screen
[Change details]
[+Father]
[+Mother]
[+Partner]
[+Child]

The [+….] function is the same as [+Person] from the homepage: as an extra the newly entered person is linked back to the person shown

[Delete] remove this person (after affirmation) including all links and pictures
[Language]
[Help] This Help screen

[Back]

[E-mail the manager]

If you think my English is bad: you should read my French.