Edit

   

When you pick Edit from the main screen in Brother's Keeper, a screen will display that shows a family with a person at the top, the parents of that person, the spouse and events, children, notes, etc.  If the screen is blank, you may pick Find to find an existing family or you may pick Add to add a new person.  When a family is displayed, you may click a button to move to another person or family.  If you want to change information about a person, such as a date or location, you may click on the field to change and type the new information.  

 

To add new events for a person click the Add Events button at the bottom and then click the first blank field in the new line and pick the type of event to add.  The list of events is long, but if you know the one you want, you may type the first letter when that box is selected.  Type the same first letter again to move to another event starting with that letter.  For example, to add an occupation line to the grid, click Add Event, then click the first column.  Then press O O and it will say occupation.  Then press Tab

  

If a person has two sets of parents, there will be a 1 after Father and Mother.  To see the other parents, pick Find, from the top menu, then pick Secondary Parents.

 

If a person has more than one spouse, there will be a down arrow next to the spouse on the right.  Click the  down arrow to see the other spouse.  It will also display after the spouse name a number showing which spouse is being displayed.  For example, 1 of 3 means the first spouse of 3 spouses is showing.

 

If the spouses are not in the correct order of marriage, pick Edit from the top menu and then pick Rearrange spouses.

 

To add a spouse or partner to a person pick the Add Spouse button or else pick Add from the top menu then pick Add Spouse or Partner.

 

To add a child to a family, you can click the Add child button or pick Add from the top menu.  You can add a child to a couple or to a single person.

 

If you are looking at the Child tab information, you can double click on a child name to move that child to the top so that you may view the information for that child.

 

If you click the Father or Mother or Spouse button it will move to that person.

 

If the children are not in the correct order of birth, pick Rearrange from the bottom of the child grid.  Then pick Move up or Move down until they are correct.  Then pick the button to save the changes.  If a child is attached to the wrong parents, click the Delete Link to Child button at the bottom of the child grid.

 

To the left of the name of the child there will be a + sign if that child is married.  That way if you do not see the + sign you will not need to double click that child to see whether or not that child has descendants.

 

If you have selected the option to display the date of last change, it will be displayed above the Events grid.

 

When adding the name of a new person, type it in the normal order of first name then middle name then last name. Enter the name the person was given at birth even if the person's name changed due to a name change or marriage.  If you type a name that is already in the computer, you will be shown that name and asked if it is the name you want.  If you are adding a new person that has the same name, just press ESC to continue adding the new person.  

 

If the person is female and is married, the program will automatically change the name to the last name of the current husband when printing the Birthday and Anniversary report.  If you do not want the program to do that, you may turn off that option on the Options screen.

 

If a person is currently known by a different name, and it is not just the married name, you may enter the current name by going to the Names tab.   

 

The only fields that are required for each person are the name field and the sex field.  

 

When entering the dates, it is usually faster to just enter numbers in the MMDDYYYY format (or the DDMMYYYY format if you have options set that way.)  The program will automatically convert the date to the format you have specified in the Options area.  For example, type 12301996 in a date field and the program will convert it to 30 Dec 1996 automatically.  See also date types.

 

To enter a date range, double click the date field.  Then a windows will open where you may enter a beginning and ending date.  For example, a person may have had a certain occupation starting at one date and ending at another date.  You can also use that window to enter a date range because you are not certain of a date.  For example if you know a person died between 1980 and 1985 you may enter it in that window.

 

In addition to the date and location fields for each person, you can press F6 or click the column below S and enter a source for the event.  This source will print as a footnote on several of the reports.  If several events need the same source, you can pick the source from the list of existing sources. When you select the master source, you may enter details about the source.

 

If a person has a source attached to an event, an S will show in the source column.  Click the S to enter or view a source or press F6 while in a date or place field.

 

If you have general notes about a person, go to the Notes tab.  To enter a new note, click the Create button and then type in the note.  Then click the Save Internal button to save the note in the BK data files.  You could instead pick the Save as file button if you want a separate text file on your disk that can be edited by a word processor.

 

If you want to enter a note that is only about one certain event, you can click the column below the N on the event line.  

 

If you click the column below the W on an event line, you can enter a witness to an event.  For example you may want to document who was at a marriage event.

 

The event called "Reference number" is also used as an index by the program.  So if you have your own numbering system for people, you may enter that number into the description for the Ref field and then you can find that person by using that number.  To find a person by the Ref number, type / and then the number whenever the program asks for a name or number.  (Do not type / in the Ref field, only type / before the number when searching.)  For example, if you type 123 in the Ref field for a person, then you can find that person by typing /123 when the program asks for a name or number.

 

Marriage information:

 

All marriage information will be placed below all individual information.  You can change the order of events on the grid with the Move up and Move down buttons, but the marriage information must remain below the individual information.

 

If you are entering a couple that is not married, add the event called Not Married.  Then the printouts will not refer to this couple as Husband and Wife. 

 

If you have accidentally changed a person's data, and you want to put the data back the way it was before the changes, then pick Edit, Cancel Recent Changes.  That will undo any changes since the last time the person was updated.

 

If you want to enter more specific information about one location, you can double click the location name on the event line and a new window will open where you can enter specific information about that location.

 

You can enter a mailing address for each person or family.  This address can be printed on the group sheets and on the custom reports (such as the Lists, Numeric Report or Alphabetical Report).  If you want the phone number to print also, then go to File, Options, Other, and set it to also print line 6.  To the right of the mailing address you can set options for Holiday, Birthday, Reunion, etc.  If you have those options set for certain people, you can select certain groups when printing addresses on custom reports.  If you ask for a custom report of only addresses, and you add field 92 also, then when you click the Print button, it will ask which group of addresses you want.

 

Click for information about adding pictures.

 

Click for information about media files.

 

Click for information about 'to do' items.