GSP - Gedcom Service Programs

These programs are available as part of the "OFB Program package" as well as separate "Gedcom Service Program package".

For special situations there are in addition "GSP - Special Programs", which are not included in above package, but only working with those together.

System Requirements

The program has been written using "Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2015". It is required, that the system software

• "Microsoft .NET Framework" Version 4.5 or higher for Win 7/8/10/11

By the following link "Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5" may be downloaded for free from the Microsoft download Center. After download install it by double click on the filename.

Alternatively the software may be downloaded and installed by the Windows Update Function.

Installation & Update

• the GSP - Start Center
• the 8 Gedcom Service Programs
• the Utility program "GedShow"
• and all further required files

General Remark

MS "Vista/Win7/8/10" Operating system handles the access rights to the Programm folder "C:\Program Files\..." more restrictive than "XP" and all previous systems. Only "administrators" have the right to write to the program folders. With this setup as Data folder for "XP" the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\[YourName]\ApplicationData\GedcomSerPro\" and for "Vista/Win7/8/10" the folder "C:\User\[YourName]\AppData\Roaming\GedcomSerPro\" (or a similar one) will be created. To this folder all ini files and license files will be written by the programs. To this folder the user guides have to be copied by the Gedcom Start Center.
In case you are not working as "Administrator", you should use as Program folder e.g. the folder "C:\GedcomSerPro" or any other folder, but never "C:\Program Files\...". You also may do this as administrator. In this case no separate Data folder will be created, but the Program folder will be used as Data folder.
The actual path information of the folders will be listed in a window after pushing the "Info" at the right top of the Gedcom Start Center.

Installation

1. Download the installation file "gsp-setup.exe" from the Download area to any folder
2. From this folder start the file "gsp-setup.exe".
3. The setup will check, if all requirements (see above) are met. Are all requirements met, first the language selection screen to define the language to be installed, then the welcome screen of the setup assistant shows up to guide the further installation.
4. Setup checks if you have the rights of an administrator. As administrator the installation folder "C:\Program Files\GedcomSerPro" will be pre selected, as normal user "C:\GedcomSerPro" will be preselected (a normal user has no rights to write to "C:\Program Files\...".
5. A choose component screen allows the selection of following groups:
   • all programs and all required graphic and the 2 language files (ged-en.lng, ged-de.lng) will always be installed on the PC, the graphic files in the subdirectory "\img" and the language files in "\lng"
   • Desktop icons for "GSP-Start"
   • Quick launch icons for "GSP-Start"
   It is recommended to select all components.
6. Shortcut for all programs installed will be created in the program menu.
7. A link between the individual definition files (*.g?sd) and their associated GSP-programs will be created.

Now the User Guides should be loaded by the "Update" function of the "Start center" from the server to your PC to be available when pushing the "Help" button of the programs. Prerequisite is to link the pdf-files to a pdf-reader.

USB Stick Installation

The programs may be executed, if all system requirements for the programs are met on the PC connected to the USB stick.

Update

Gedcom Start Center

See the GSP user guide 1 for further details.

Gedcom Conversion

Functionality

By this program Gedcom structures can be modified in a way to minimize or even eliminate data losses during exchanging ged-files between genealogy researchers using different genealogy programs.

The program (GedcomConv.exe) is used, beside the main task of the conversion, to create and manage the required definitions. 6 tabs are available and their content may be stored in definition files for later re-use.

During conversion the original file will remain unchanged. ASCII, ANSI, ANSEL and UTF-8 coded files will be handled.

See the GSP user guide 2 for further details.

Gedcom Duplicates - Search/Merge/Sync

Functionality

• People digitalizing Parish registers
  Collecting the data will be done separately for birth and death registers. By this program identical people can be detected for merging.
• Ancestor researchers
  Gedcom files, coming from other researchers, friends or from the Internet, can be compared with personal Gedcom files to find persons already stored in the personal data base.

• Single Gedcom files. In this case the check may include
  • Multiple occurrence of identical persons within the file (duplicates).
  • In a 2nd step these may be merged to a single person.
• Any two Gedcom files. In this case the check may include
  • Multiple occurrence of identical persons in both files (duplicates).
  • In a 2nd step these may be synchronized between both files.

During validation the last names, first names, as well as date and location of birth/christening and death/burial of any 2 persons will be compared. The comparison of names and location names will be performed using phonetic methods. These are "Kölner Phonetik" and an improved "Soundex" method. For date comparisons ranges of dates may be defined.
If during a manually comparison of duplicates found by the program someone discovered, that this is not a real duplicate, this decision can be stored in a file. During an additional analysis these stored pairs will no longer be counted as a duplicate. In case a name consist of several words (e.g. "von der Crone"), the name will be split to the single words and every word phonetic coded independently and then again joined to one code. This will lead to a much higher fidelity of the verification. Names and locations containing "-" or "/" as separator (e.g. "Werdohl-Eveking" or "Frankfurt/Oder"), will be split into 2 parts, coded and compared separately.

In addition to the verification, the program allows

• a Merging of duplicate persons. In case of found duplicates within a single ged-file, these can be merged in a special screen. This screen is divide into 3 columns - left the "Original", right the "Duplicate", in the middle the result of the merging - and 2 rows for the persons data and the family data.
• a Synchronizing of duplicate persons. In case of found duplicates between two ged-files, these can be synchronized in a special screen. This screen is divide into 2 columns - left the ged-file 1, right the ged-file 2 - and 2 rows for the persons data and the family data.

The layout of the screens for "List of validation results" and "List of duplicates" follows (enlarged by click on image):

See the GSP user guide 5 for further details.

Gedcom Listing

Functionality

This program allows by selective extracting from any Gedcom file to build lists with the desired group of persons and the new file will have the same structure than the original file. For this a selection of persons, places and additional parameters are available. For several persons the ancestors and/or descendants may be selected. Further options allow to control the volume of the new file. Partners, children, parents, relations and media may be included at the transfer. The persons may be checked for privacy protection and the output adjusted accordingly.

For considering program specific specialties of the genealogy programs, for several selection criteria the required definitions have to be specified, e.g. which tag is used for christening - CHR or BAPM - or how living places, occupation, family name or relations are coded in the ged-file. These have to be defined by the program "GSP Gedcom Profile Management" and will be stored in a gxpd-file. The entered selection criteria will be stored in glsd-files for later re-use.

The lists contains line by line the data of the related persons. Are family data defined for output, these will be placed to the related persons (male and female). Up to 10 columns (data fields) can be defined. The lists will be created as html-files and optional as csv-files.

See the GSP user guide 6 for further details.

Gedcom Reduction

Functionality

This program (GedcomRedu.exe) allows by selective extracting from any Gedcom file to build a new, reduced ged-file with the desired group of persons and the new file will have the same structure than the original file. For this a selection of persons and locations are available. For several persons the ancestors and/or descendants and their paternal/maternal lines may be selected. Further options allow to control the volume of the new file. Partners, children, parents, relations and media may be included at the transfer. For the persons to be transferred the data elements may be defined by a selection of data. In addition "Privacy Protection" options are available to eliminate persons protected by the privacy protection rules or to restrict their data.

For considering program specific specialities of the genealogy programs, for several selection criteria the required definitions have to be specified, e.g. which tag is used for christening - CHR or BAPM - or how living locations, occupation, family name or relations are coded in the ged-file. These have to be defined by the program "GSP Gedcom Profile Management" and will be stored in a gxpd-file. The entered selection criteria will be stored in grsd-files for later re-use.

If a demand exists to change the structure of the new ged-file, because the importing genealogy program only would transfer parts of the data correctly, the above described "Gedcom Conversion" program may help in most of the cases.

The original file will remain unchanged. ASCII, ANSI, ANSEL and UTF-8 coded files will be handled.

See the GSP user guide 3 for further details.

Gedcom Renumbering

Functionality

As an example the index list in FTM 2010 displays the persons only according 1 sorting criteria, e.g. surname/given name. All persons with the same name will be listed according their INDI nbr. For small data bases this is no problem, but for thousands of people the same names show up quite often and to find the correct person is not easy.
The solution: Export from FTM to a ged-file -> Renumbering -> Import the new ged-file to an empty FTM data base.

• The sorting sequence defines how the sequence of the numbers of the records will be calculated. The sequence of the records themselves will remain unchanged. The sequence of the records not to be modified will remain unchanged as well.
• Sort INDI records defines, how the sequence of the INDI records after renumbering will be modified. The sequence of the tags within each INDI record will remain unchanged. All other records will remain unchanged as well.

During renumbering the original file will remain unchanged. ASCII, ANSI, ANSEL and UTF-8 coded files will be handled..

See the GSP user guide 7 for further details.

Gedcom Sorting

Functionality

• Sorting uf level-1 and i.a. level-2 tags within every data record.
  • Sorting of multiple existing events according the dates within the INDI and FAM data records. The sequence of the data records remain unchanged. All other data records remain unchanged.
    By this, identical events (e.g. occupation) are in chronological order.
  • Sorting of level-1 tags of INDI and FAM records in any sequence and i.a. the level-2 tags in a fixed sequence.
  • Sorting of FAMS and CHIL lines according date ascending.
    By this sorting you can for certain genealogy programs create a correct output sorting for children according their birth date and for marriages according their marriage date.
  • Sorting of level-1 tags of SOUR and _LOC records in a fixed sequence.
• Sorting of the sequence of the data records.
  • Sorting of INDI data records according Name and Birth date. The sequence of the data records will be altered. The sequence within every INDI data record remains unchanged. All other data records also remain unchanged.
  • Sorting of SOUR records according the TITL tag and record nbr. and of _LOC records according the NAME tag and record nbr.
  • Sorting of NOTE, REPO and OBJE records according the record nbr.

By this sorting 2 different ged-files may be compared easily by using the program "DiffMerge" resp. "WinMerge" - see "Utility programs" at the left menu - allowing to find duplicates or to simplify merging of persons.

During sorting the original file will remain unchanged. ASCII, ANSI, ANSEL and UTF-8 coded files will be handled..

See the GSP user guide 7 for further details.

Gedcom Structure Analysis

Functionality

Various options allow to customize the level of details of the analysis as required, e.g. to check the conformance of all DATE lines to the Gedcom specification or to mark conspicuous or faulty tags resp. tag combinations and code values, which do not comply to the 5.5.1 or Gedcom-L (group of 23 German speaking program authors) agreements.

See the GSP user guide 7 for further details.

Gedcom Validation

Functionality

During validation following capabilities are available:

• Date values
  During validation of logical errors of date data 8 fix comparisons (e.g. birth after death resp. marriage) are available. Here the date values will be compared 1:1. A second group of date comparisons using a flexible selection of ranges in months or years (e.g. birth of child after x years of birth of mother) are available.
  This also checks, if a witness/godfather/... has majority and is still alive at the date of an event.
  In addition date ranges may be checked for birth, christening, death and burial and missing dates may be found.
• Potential problems
  About 25 additional checks, as e.g. multiple tags, missing tags, correct HUSB/WIFE/CHIL tags, missing given names and surnames, for the gender the erroneous swap of the gender from husband/wife and mother/father can be performed.

See the GSP user guide 4 for further details.

GSP Gedcom Profile Management

The GEDCOM subject is a complex item. Therefore a base knowledge to a certain extent is required to use the program.

 © 2005-2022, Diedrich Hesmer, Herrenberg (DE)  -  last update