Three jobs call for a family file with nobody in it: a file to attach to a support request that shows a problem, a demo file for a talk or a screenshot, and a test file for software. Tools > Anonymize makes one from the file you have open. It is not the tool for a relative: that is Privatize living people, which keeps the dead as they are and hides the living. Anonymize hides everyone and keeps the shape.

What is replaced

With everything ticked, the default:

Names
Person 1, Person 2 and so on, in file order; the name pieces (given, surname, nickname, married name) go.
Dates
The year only, or every year shifted by the same number of years, or nothing (the date lines are removed). Your choice on the page.
Sex
Off by default. Switched on, everyone becomes U, which changes the colors on every card.
Places
Place 1, Place 2, one per distinct place text; coordinates go with it.
Notes
Note 1, Note 2, whether written inside a record or shared.
Sources and citations
A source written inline becomes Source 1; on a citation the page and the quoted text go, the link and the quality stay.
Media files
media/file-1.jpg, with the extension kept, and the title Media 1.
Identifiers
REFN, RIN, AFN, RFN, UID, _UID, EXID, _APID and _FID lines are removed.
Addresses, phones, e-mail and web
Removed.
Free text (occupations, causes, descriptions)
Text 1, Text 2 for occupations, causes, descriptions and other typed text; source titles become Source 1, repositories Repository 1, submitters Submitter 1.

What stays

  • The kind of every event, the family links and the change dates are always kept, so the shape of the tree stays.
  • Every record ID and every link between records, so a problem that lives in the links survives the trip.
  • The same original always gets the same placeholder. Two citations of one source still point at the same Source 7, and the family that lived in one village still shares one Place 3.
  • The type of a custom event or fact: a "Military service" event keeps its type, because the kind of an event is not personal.
  • The header keeps the program and version that wrote the file and loses the file name, the note and the submitter's details.

The date shift

The year only is the default. The shift keeps the distances: one number between 5 and 40 years, earlier or later, is drawn once per run and applied to every year, so everyone still dies after they were born and siblings keep their gaps. The Review step says what was drawn.

2 DATE BET 1900 AND 1905
2 DATE BET 1883 AND 1888

The second line is the first after a shift of 17 years earlier.

Review and result

The Review step lists every replacement, kind by kind, with a search box. "What stood for what, for you only: the anonymized file carries none of it." The Result step offers Download and Open in app. There is no Preview, because a file with nobody in it is not a change to the open one, and the file you have open is never modified.

Anonymize or Privatize living people

  • Who is affected. Privatize living people touches the living only, by a rule you can correct person by person. Anonymize touches everyone.
  • What a reader can still learn. After Privatize, everything about the dead. After Anonymize, only the shape: how many people, how they connect, which kinds of events they have and, if you keep the years, when.
  • What each is for. Privatize for a relative or a website; Anonymize for a bug report, a demo or a test file. The sharing guide covers the careful share from start to finish.

Next

Open Anonymize, keep the defaults, download the file and open it in GED-VIEW. Go to the page where the problem was. If it is still there, attach that file to the support form; nobody in it is anyone.