The Mauritian Family Tree Builder - Help 

Creating Logins

When you first start to use the Mauritian Family Tree Builder service for the first time, you will need to create your family tree passwords and login access for you and your extended family / visitors. 

Here's what the various parts of the Mauritian Family password settings mean:

Choose a User ID: This is what all your users of your Mauritian family tree will use as the "Login ID". We suggest that your use your telephone number as this is not only memorable, but provides your telephone number in case a member of your extended family needs to contact you.

General Use Password: This is the password that you will give to your trusted extended family members, to edit and add to your family tree. They will use the User ID + this password to login an editable mode.

Read-only Password: This is the password that you will give to your friends, to view your tree, but will be unable to edit the tree. This is a secure mode of login, to ensure that viewers cannot modify your tree. They will user the User ID + this password to login a view only access.

Administrative Password: This is your master password and you should keep this safe and private or give only to those who should have full administrative control over your family tree - including the ability to delete the tree completely!

Your Family Tree Name: This is the title of your tree - for example; The Ghandi Family Tree and will be displayed when viewing all your extendable branches in your tree within the system.

Your E-mail Address: This is your email address so that if a member of you extended family needs to contact you they may send you an email.

Allow Cross-tree Searches: It is recommended that you UN-CHECK this box unless you wish to allow searches on your tree for possible matches. This feature is useful if you live in a community whereby many other families are likely to share relatives with you. If you intend to keep your tree private, you should un-check this option, otherwise keep it checked so that members of your extended family can run searches.

Guidelines: You must read and consent to the guidelines before creating your Mauritian family tree.

If you login as an administrator, you can change any of these logins using the "Edit User Info" option.

If you login using the system's "master password", you can also create NEW logins and choose the level of access for any existing family tree. Clicking on the "Add New Login" option in the "Administration" section will yield this option. If you choose "Edit Individual ID" from the "Login Type" combo box, then the new login will provide access ONLY to that specific record in the chosen family tree. Thus, this is a way to restrict edit access to a single record.

What is GEDCOM?

The GEDCOM file format is the worldwide standard for storing and sharing genealogical information. It is supported by all major family tree programs, like Family Tree Maker, Personal Ancestral File and of course MauritianMatch.com Family Tree Builder!

GEDCOM stored information in a flat-file database, with structure being defined in the form of "levels". The level of any particular line is indicated by the integer at the front of the line, for example:

0 INDI
  1 BIRT
     2 DATE 12 MAY 1920
  1 DEAT
     2 DATE 1960

We won't get into a full description of what GEDCOM is and its various rules, since the subject is covered in depth in numerous online resources. Click here for a full description of the GEDCOM file format, syntax and grammar from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who have some of the best genealogical records in the world.

So, why is GEDCOM important for MauritianMatch.com Family Tree Builder? Well, if you have previously created a family tree using some other program, you can import it into the MauritianMatch.com Family Tree by converting your tree to the GEDCOM format, then clicking the "Import GEDCOM" link under the "Restore" header.

For most small trees, the top-most import option should work. If you have an extremely large GEDCOM file, you may need to split into multiple chunks and upload the chunks separately. GEDCOM files typically have the .ged file extension.

Besides importing your GEDCOM file, you can export it for use in a desktop genealogy application. Click on the Export GEDCOM link in the Backup section, fill out some basic information and click Submit. If you intend to later import the file into Personal Ancestral File, you should click the "PAF Compatible" checkbox.

Hiding Information

It's likely that your family members will wish to hide certain information from general users, like their photo or name, or other information. The "Information Hide" option is designed for this purpose. To hide an individual's data there are a few steps.

1) First the administrator must set the Hide Type.

2) Then, for any particular record, the "Hide Individual" checkbox must be checked.

The specified method of information hiding will now be applied to this record. Later releases of The Mauritian Family Tree Builder will also allow administrators to apply any hide type to all records, or just to a particular login type (like read-only login). Later versions will also allow a wider variety of hide types, like the ability to hide only female maiden names.

Deleting Persons

Besides hiding persons, it's likely that you'll want to be able to delete users who were added erroneously. Please note that this option is NOT available for all records. A person can only be deleted if they have no children. This is logical, because if a person has children, then deleting them will cause their children to be orphans. Also, every child has a parent. Thus, if a parent's information is not available, that doesn't mean that they don't exist - only that the information is not yet available. Thus, rather than deleting the parent record, you would just leave it empty until that information is available.

When editing a record, scroll to the bottom of the page. The Delete button, if available for this record, will appear immediately to the right of Reset.

Family Events Calendar

The Mauritian Family Tree Builder comes with a family events calendar that you can use to plan events. Those members of your family with e-mail addresses can be notified of these events. Let's get our family reunion going!

In the bottom right corner of the menu within your Mauritian family tree, there is a mini-calendar that shows what days have events attached to them. Clicking on any day link will allow you to add an event for that day. Clicking a month link will open the full-view of the event calendar for the clicked-on month. Clicking on the "Events Calendar" link will open the events calendar in the current month.

Adding an event is fairly self-explanatory. You can have an email notification sent to any family members with emails. When an event is added, the days that an event occurs are then highlighted in the calendar. Visit your Mauritian family tree click here.

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