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A New Concept for Genealogy A New Era for Genealogists by Louis Kessler

There are hundreds of computer programs for genealogy out there. They are all quite fine programs. Most of them have some very unique and useful features. You may have tried several and now use one or even two of them.

But if you're like me, then after working for a long time entering your data into one of these genealogy programs, you not only feel that you've lost track of what's in there, but you find the program and its reports very limiting with regards to helping you do more research.

It is time to use a Genealogy Program that will help you!

This is what you want: the help that no other program gives.

1. The Everything Report

Problem: You want a concise, organized compilation of everything and everybody in your family information file.

Solution: Behold is built around its innovative Everything Report. This report puts all your data in front of you where you can see it in a clear and organized manner. Its many useful index views, explorer-like contents, and extensive use of hyperlinks and modern navigational tools make it easy to find the data you want. It has extended GEDCOM compliance meaning that every bit of your family data is available to you.

Benefits: Your report is always there. Nothing is hidden. Save time and frustration in not having to run different reports to find what you need. In future versions (2.0) you'll edit right on the report, making data entry easy and fast.

2. Include Everyone

Problem: You have included families in your family file that are not directly related to you. They may be related through marriage or may be possible connections that you are tracking. Unfortunately, your program ignores these people when it comes to viewing information or printing reports.

Solution: Behold includes everyone. It organizes separate family groups into their own sections, and provides hyperlinks between the same people in different sections (in case cousins marry cousins, etc.). It also lets you specify exactly how the families should be organized and who you want the primary people in each group to be. But often, the default Auto Organize may be good enough for you.

Benefits: Getting Everyone in one report means you only need one report. You'll see clearly how all your family is related.

3. See All Your Notes, With No Size Restrictions

Problem: You have a lot of notes entered with your data. But how do you see them all?

Solution: Behold's lists all notes, no matter how large, just where you would expect to find them. You'll never again have to search for the right report to display your notes.

Benefits: Now you'll want to add more notes that will further enhance your family research.

4. Display What You Want the Way You Want

Problem: Want to show everything? Or maybe you want to hide some data. What if some of the events should be identified differently - maybe with another language? This usually isn't simple to do.

Solution: Behold's default Everything Report may be good enough for you. Or you can easily customize how each event and every GEDCOM tag is displayed. Then simply pick which ones you do or don't want to display. Save your Organize settings into Behold files and reapply them at any time to any set of data.

Benefits: Do it your way.

5. Find Errors Fast

Problem: You've entered a lot of information about your family. You know you've made some mistakes. But there's no way to find them easily.

Solution: Behold's Everything Report lets you to scan all of your data quickly. Mistakes will just pop out at you: speeelllling errors; bad dates; inconsistent place names; the right info for the wrong person. You'll probably find many mistakes in your data the very first time you look at the Everything Report. Then after you fix them, Behold's Everything Report will be very useful to help keep your data clean and error-free.

Benefits: It feels good to get rid of errors - especially ones you've had in your data for years.

6. Compact Printouts

Problem: You want to print lots of family information without using hundreds or thousands of pages of paper.

Solution: Behold prints all or part of its Everything Report in an extremely compact yet easy-to-read and easier-to-use format. It is designed so that all your information about 10,000 people can be put into a binder that you can take with you whenever you go to do research. Having a paper copy as a backup or to give to someone is not a bad idea either.

Benefits: Paper is still king. Have you ever tried to print 3000 family sheets one-by-one so that you can get all your data printed? Printing one report is effortless, the indexes make it easy to find everything, and you won't have to go onto the computer everytime you need to look something up.

7. Organize Families Your Way

Problem: You want to send a report to a relative, or are meeting relatives on one side of your family. You want a report that only includes people they are related to.

Solution: Behold makes this easy to do. You can choose, group, and order the families however you want just by picking the individuals of interest. Within families, Behold can display people by in Ancestral Order (top-down) or Ahnentafel order (bottom-up). Instantly include or exclude families related through marriage. Leave out everyone else, or include them - it is your choice.

... But it's Behold's Instant Organize function that really sets it apart. Pick any person, press the Instant Organize button, and there it is - the report customized for that one person. If you want, you can easily make personalized reports for everyone in your family. Choose between starting at the person and work your way up to each ancestor, or starting with each ancestor and work your down to the person, however you like it.

Benefits: Your relatives will love the personalized reports that only contain your common relatives. The way it's laid out will make it easy for them to identify their family. They'll want to correct the data for you and send you updates.

8. Auto Organize

Problem: You just received someone else's GEDCOM file but when you load it into your Genealogy program, you can't see the forest for the trees.

Solution: Behold has a unique Auto Organize function that will figure out who are the primary individuals in the family and will build the Everything Report around them. You will quickly and easily be able to see how anyone's family fits together, and how much of it they have researched.

Benefits: Figure out what's in someone's data quickly. See the families. See everyone who is related through marriage. See those not related at all.

9. Simple Yet Complete Searching

Problem: Your Genealogy program's find tool is so complicated, you can't figure it out. Then once you do, it skips some fields and gives something less than complete results.

Solution: Behold gives you the very simple Find tool you are used to in most Windows programs. Because everything is in the Everything Report, there is no way you can miss anything. With one keypress or click, you can search forward or backward or use the search history to redo your past searches.

Benefits: Simple to do. No complicated commands. Just the way you'd expect to do it.

10. Read Broken Data

Problem: Some GEDCOM data you need to look at got corrupted. Maybe the file got truncated through e-mail, or accidentally edited by someone. Whatever happened to it, your current program refuses to read it.

Solution: Behold will get whatever data it can from any file with data that resembles data in GEDCOM format. It can piece together relationships from the links in the file and figure out everything that can be figured out.

Benefits: When all else fails, Behold will recover whatever data is possible.

11. Multiple Files at Once

Problem: You have several different families that you want to keep in different family files, but you also want to be able to view or edit them together. Or ... you just received someone's family file (in GEDCOM format) and you want to see if you might have connections. Or ... you are a Genealogical Society and you want a way to view many of your members' family files at once.

Solution: Behold can open and work with multiple GEDCOMs at the same time. The data remains separate but the Indexes are integrated for maximum usefulness.

Benefits: Keep your data in as many different datasets as you want.

12. Modeless and Standard User Interface

Problem: Your program doesn't work the way you think it should. Icons and menu items and buttons aren't in the standard places that you expect them. Then there are these windows that pop up to fill in data all the time, and you can't do anything else or even view anything else until you close them.

Solution: A simple and recognizable user interface is a top priority for Behold. It looks just like most of your standard Windows programs. All major windows are modeless, letting you to switch windows and continue working without having to close the active one first.

Benefits: You'll feel comfortable using Behold from the first time you try it. It will be a pleasure to use.

13. Behold: A Portable Application

Problem: You're on the road and you want to take your genealogy data with you. These new USB/pen drives have lots of room for your GEDCOM files. But when you get to the library or your friend's house, they don't have a genealogy program installed to view it with.

Solution: Don't just carry your data with you. Take Behold with you as well. Behold will allow you to export itself to any other drive. You don't have to install it on other computers to use it. It will work directly off the drive.

Benefits: You'll be able to take all your data and view it (and soon edit it as well) wherever you go.

Introducing Virtual Merging:

14. You'll never again need to merge other people's data into your own.

Problem: Someone sends you a GEDCOM with some info on parts of your family. You want to include that info into your family tree. Some programs have merge routines that help you do this. It takes time, and then when you're done, how do you know what was your original data and what was theirs?

Solution: Don't bother merging their data with yours. Behold's "Virtual Merging" lets you to load in multiple GEDCOMs and datasets. You can identify people who are the same, and Behold will display the data together for you in its Everything Report.

Benefits: Never merge again!!!

15. Keep Other Data Separate

Problem: You've merged your cousin's data into your own. She sent you a new version of your data. I guess you've got to just merge it all over again.

Solution: If you keep their data separate, then there's no problem. Just replace their old data with their new one. If they have a few new people to match up, it will only take a couple of minutes.

Benefits: You are now in control of the data.

P.S.: Merging other people's data into your own is one of the worst things you can do. Do you have any confidence of how reliable that data is if you haven't checked it yourself? So called "junk genealogies" are circling the globe, and the "merging" phenomena has created this.

Planned for Version 1.5:

16. Export Selected Information from Selected Families

Problem: You've selected the families and information you want to see. Now you want to put it into a separate file so that it can be loaded back into a genealogy program, or sent to someone else.

Solution: Most programs make it nearly impossible to select some of the data for export. Behold will take whatever data you've included in the Everything Report and export that to a GEDCOM file. This will let you to use Behold's Organize functions to select whom to include, and then output a GEDCOM file including only those people and the supporting data about them. Everything you see in the Everything Report will be exported. Simple!

Benefits: You'll always know what's going in the GEDCOM. Give out only what you want to. No surprises.

Then: Planned for Version 2.0:

17. Efficient Free-Form Editing

Problem: You're sick and tired of entering data into forms. You always have to look up to see where you are and use your mouse to move around or click buttons to get to other forms. A form to enter this and a form to enter that. Then to see your data together you have to close the form and run a report and when you see a mistake, go back and open the form again to correct it, and then run the report again, and then open the form... Isn't there a more efficient way?

Solution: I can't believe nobody else has thought of this. Everyone knows how to use a word processor. You enter your data right into your final product and it is WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). With Behold, you will efficiently type right into the Everything Report. That's it. It's done. No forms to slow you down. No forms to limit what you can enter. Behold will include an extensive set of customizable abbreviations, shortcuts and tools to help you enter your data many times faster than you ever thought you could.

Benefits: Finally, editing right on the report! No jumping around field to field. No pop up windows to enter specialized data. No need to generate a report after because you're editing right on the report! Simple. Enter your data many times faster than you ever dreamed possible. Make no errors because you can see it all in front of you!

18. Source-Based Data Entry

Problem: Most programs make it an extra step to record your sources. First you enter the data, then you enter the source information for it. Several other mistakes programs make with sources are:

1. They don't make it very easy to include them.
2. They don't encourage that it be done at data entry time.
3. They don't let you see what data is given by each source document.

Solution: Behold will have a "current source" window always visible at the bottom of the Everything Report window. You first enter what source you are working with, and then all the data you enter in the Everything Report will automatically be linked to that source. This will make it easy to document everything about a source, or all the information received from one e-mail, etc.

Benefits: Finally, a tool to help you document your sources, and encourage you to do so. You'll be forever grateful to know where your data came from when you find that piece of conflicting evidence. Otherwise you'll pull your hair out trying to remember.

P.S.: Recording your sources is very important. Many people fail to take this seriously or do this rigorously, mainly because their Genealogy program makes you take that one extra step to record sources. Often they might say "I'll get back to entering the sources later" and they never do. Behold will encourage the entering of sources by making it an inviting and simple thing to do.

19. Record Your Sources Your Way

Problem: You've got your own filing system for all your evidence and you want to use your own numbering system. You want to make sure all your sources are documented.

Solution: Behold will have very advanced sourcing capabilities and full capability to handle GEDCOM sourcing. You can number your sources your own way: B14, SmiJ82a, File 1 - page 13, Photo953, ... whatever! And Behold's "smart numbering" will always sort them properly. Sources will be ordered and listed by your Reference number/Abbreviation to make it easy to ensure your source documentation matches your source documents. Finally, a program that will work the way you want it to, and not the other way around.

Benefits: Now where is B14 filed? Oh, over there, under B14!

20. Task Panes that can Really Help

Problem: What do you do when you get a certain type of data? How should it best be entered? Genealogy programs are great for storing your family information. But your program's help file only tells you how to work the program. It does not suggest how you might best record it.

Solution: Behold's implementation of Task Panes will be a real life saver. Here you will be able to directly access instant help about how to handle and enter any and every type of information that you might encounter.

Benefits: A "How To" guide, built right into Behold for you.

21. Multiple Languages

Problem: Your data isn't all in English. You may use another language, or your ancestors may be from Europe or Asia and you need multiple languages. Many genealogy programs let you to enter some accented characters and a rare few let you to enter non-English alphabets. Now, if only you could get your data out again from these programs in a useable way.

Solution: Behold currently can translate most accented characters. But the real solution is a full implementation of Unicode, the standard used for word processing programs around the world. Then all your data, in multiple languages, will display and index correctly. This change will take place following Version 2.0. Then multi-language editing will become something practical and easy for genealogists to do.

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