The Genealogical Companion
Copyright 1995-1999 David J. Harrier
All Rights Reserved
TGC v3.2 (29 Aug 1999)



Table of Contents:
  Introduction
  Upgrade Instructions
  What's new in v3.2?
  The Genealogical Companion features
  Questions and Technical Support



Introduction

The Genealogical Companion (TGC) is a Freeware "add-on" Windows program for those 
who use the genealogy program Family Origins by FormalSoft, Inc. and distributed 
by Parsons Technology, Inc. TGC's purpose is to provide addition reports to 
Family Origins standard set of reports. To use TGC you must have your genealogical 
data stored in Family Origins. 

With the recent releases of Family Origins versions, it became a very robust and 
flexible tool for recording and managing genealogical data. Even with these 
advancements, however, I find that the variety of its standard set of reports, 
and flexibility of the custom reporting function still falls short in some areas. 
Based upon Family Origins history of improvements, it is my opinion and hope this
utility will be replaced with equivalent reports and functionality in future 
releases of Family Origins. Until then, I plan on enhancing this utility with 
new reports and functionality that will aid both you and me in researching our
family's genealogy and history. 

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Due to significant changes Family Origins v7 made to its internal database 
structure, TGC v3.0c will be the last release that will work with Family Origins versions 4, 5,
and 6. All releases of TGC starting with v3.1 and later will only work with Family Origins v7 
databases and later. 



Install Instructions

NOTE: If you have been using TGC, please backup your existing Research Log, Census and User 
      Preferences data before proceeding with the installation (instructions are included in 
      the following).

1) Download The Genealogical Companion's ZIP file into an empty temporary directory. 
2) UnZip TGC32.ZIP using WinZip (http://www.winzip.com).
3) IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have an older version of TGC loaded on your PC,
   start the older version of TGC, click the Backup/Restore button, then click the
   Backup button to save your Census Manager data, Research Log data, and User
   Preference settings. Now complete the following instructions. 
4) Run (double-click) the file in the temporary directory named SETUP.EXE. This
   program will install The Genealogical Companion. 
5) When asked during the installation process, please click the "Typical" install button.
   Otherwise, The Genealogical Companion may not install correctly. 
6) Once the setup program has completed successfully, click the START button on the
   Windows taskmenu, then click the "Programs" menu item. At this point you should
   see all the programs installed on your machine. Look for the item named
   "Genealogical Companion v3.0b", and click it. You should now see another box with
   six items. In this program group you will find an icon that looks like a pine tree with
   the name "Genealogical Companion". Clicking this icon will run TGC. 
7) After you have started TGC, the top-center button on the main menu will Import a
   Family Origins database. 
8) FINAL NOTE: If you backed up your Census Manager data, Research Log data,
   and User Preference settings, click the Backup/Restore button, then click the
   Restore button to load your data into TGC's database. 



What's new in v3.2?

- Support for Family Origins v8 databases
- Fixed Unexpected error #3078 when using Number of Families with Just One Parent Report 



The Genealogical Companion features

- Copy's a Family Origins® Database into The Genealogical Companion's
  internal database. 
    All reports and database accesses made by The Genealogical Companion are 
    performed against the copy, not against the original Family Origins® 
    database files. 
- Add a common source/citation to a GEDCOM file
- Family Origins® database Integrity Check
- Research Log, linked to your Family Origins® database
- Census Manager
- Create WWW Site of everyone in your database
- Census Manager Reports
- Research Log reports
- 14 various reports that counts the number of times a condition exists in a database
- Events with Textual Dates report
- Fact Type Report lists all fact types and their characteristics
- Families without a Source report
- Individuals without a General Source report
- Individuals, Events, Notes and Sources Report includes all individuals, 
  events, notes, sources and citation details in your database
- Individual without Events, Families or General Sources Report. These individuals are 
  totally "source-less"
- Multimedia Report lists all individuals with multimedia objects and 
  their characteristics 
- Soundex Summary Report lists all Soundex codes in your database and 
  the surnames that match the code
- Surname/Given Summary Report lists all individuals in your  database, 
  grouped by surname, with their birth and death year
- Ability to create RTF, TXT and XLS files for all reports



Questions and Technical Support

Since this software is Freeware, it will not be formally supported like 
purchased software. However, if you encounter a problem, please do the following: 

1) If you receive an "Unexpected Error" message while using The Genealogical 
   Companion, attempt to correct the problem by reading the "Msg:" text. 
   Sometimes the error message can give you a hint as to how to fix the problem. 
2) Review the Known Problems list on The Genealogical Companion's Web home page.
   If you find your problem, a work-around will be listed following the problem's 
   description.
3) If you still don't know how to fix your problem, please send me an Email 
   message describing the problem. Please include: (1) What you were doing, and 
   (2) everything listed in the "Unexpected Error" message form. My Email address 
   is harrier@geocities.com. I will try and send a return message back to you 
   as soon as possible. 



Please read the file LICENSE.TXT for a full discussion of your use and 
distribution rights.


If you found this utility useful, please let me know which feature(s) were 
helpful. If the utility was not useful, please let me know why.


Good luck with your research! 


David J. Harrier
Email: harrier@geocities.com
TGC's WWW page: http://www.geocities.com/genealogical_companion/


Windows and Access are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. 
Family Origins is a registered trademark of Parsons Technology, Inc.