When you run Gedcom Census for the very first time you will be prompted to select your GEDCOM file which contains the individuals and other information you have entered using Family Historian. You will need to open the folder that contains the file. The file may be in “My Documents” or you might need to find it by choosing “My Computer” and navigating through your folders until you find the file. Once you have found it click on the file and press the “Open” button. If you are not sure where your file is, open up your family history file in Family Historian and select File Statistics from the File menu.

You will be asked whether you want to open up this file by default every time you use Gedcom Census. If you agree but ever need to open a different file you can use the Open Another Gedcom Family History File option in the File menu on the main Gedcom Census screen.

If this is the first time that you have used this version of Gedcom Census then the Options screen will appear. See Gedcom Census Options for details. Once the options have been selected the main screen will appear.

The layout of this screen will differ depending on the method you have chosen to use to record census entries. The method to be used is chosen on the Gedcom Census Options screen. Refer to one of the following help pages for instructions on creating census entries:

• Method 1
• Method 2

If you're not sure which method to use see the topic: Which Recording Method?

When creating a census entry you will select individuals that are then added to the list in the bottom-left portion of the screen. They can be chosen from the All Individuals List or, once the first person has been chosen, from the Immediate Family List. An alternative method to select an individual is to click on the Find button to bring up the Find Individual Screen.

Once the census details have been entered, the Save Census Entry button can be selected, this will save the census record after optionally requested Birth Details and attaching images to the census record.

The main screen also has several menu items that can be selected:

• Open Another Gedcom family history file: This allows a different family history file to be opened without having to quit Gedcom Census and start again.

• Save Census Entry: This serves the same purpose as the button with the same name, mentioned above.

• Edit Menu

• Cut/Copy/Paste: The usual editing functions used to manipulate text being entered.

• Clear all textboxes and Selections: This will remove any partially entered details from the screen to allow you to start entering a new census record.

• Lower down in the File menu there may be a list of up to four GEDCOM files recently opened in Gedcom Census. Clicking on any of these will cause the current file to be closed and the selected file to be loaded in.

• View Log: This option will display a log of changes made to your family history file by Gedcom Census. If you don't want a log to be recorded then this choice can be made on the Gedcom Census Options screen. On the same options screen it is also possible to change the storage location of the log file.

• Clear Log File: This will clear the contents of the log file that records changes made to your family history file.

• Remove Old Backup Files: Before each census record is added to your family history file, a backup is made in the Gedcom Census installation folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Gedcom Census) or in another folder if this has been specified in the Gedcom Census Options screen. This does mean that after a while a large number of backup files can build up. This menu option will remove all but last 5 backups to help to free-up disk space.

• Attach Images to Existing Sources: This will bring up the Attach Images to Existing Sources screen which can be used to attach images to census sources that already exist within your family history file.

• Census Date Check: This will display the Census Date Check Screen screen which can be used to examine all of the dates recorded in your family history file for census events. There are also facilities to change these dates to ensure consistency throughout the file. e.g. if some UK census events have the date 1901 and others have the more precise 31 March 1901 then all could be set to 31 March 1901.

• Census Flags: Version 3 of Family Historian introduced Flags. Flags can be used for a variety of purposes but one particularly useful feature is the ability to have a flag for each census year so that tree diagrams can display icons for each individual to show at a glance which census records have been found so far. The Census Flags Screen can be used to allocate flags to census dates so that flags can be automatically added when census records are created. Read the Gedcom Census page Introduction to Flags for further information.

• Options: This will display the Gedcom Census Options screen.

Return to the Gedcom Census Index