People arrive at GED-VIEW with a .ged file and one of a few questions. Can I just look at this? Can I fix it? Can I show it to my aunt? Should I be using something else entirely?
Genealogy software comes in four kinds. They overlap less than you would think, and most people who take the hobby seriously end up with two or three of them open at once. Knowing which is which saves a lot of frustration.
The four kinds
Websites where the tree lives. Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, WikiTree, Geni. The tree is built in the browser, they hold the data, and their real product is the record collections and hints that sit around it. Some are subscriptions; FamilySearch and WikiTree are free. The tree is theirs to host and yours to export. To leave, or back up, or use another tool, you export a GEDCOM.
Desktop programs. RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, Legacy Family Tree, Gramps, Family Historian, Reunion, MacFamilyTree, Ancestris. Installed on your computer. The tree is a file on your disk. This is where serious editing happens: sources, citations, notes, media, reports. Several sync with the websites so you can research online and keep your own copy. Most cost money once; Gramps and Ancestris are free and open source. The trade is a learning curve.
Viewers. Open a GEDCOM and browse it: tree, charts, people, places, timeline. Nothing to install, nothing to learn. Read-only, or nearly so. Some run entirely in the browser and never upload the file; others send it to a server. Worth checking which, because from the outside they look identical.
Analyzers. Open a GEDCOM and it audits it: impossible dates, duplicate people, missing censuses, unsourced facts, disconnected branches. Also read-only. The point is not to look at the tree but to find out what is wrong with it, then go fix it in the desktop program.
When you want which
- Someone emailed a .ged and you have no genealogy software: a viewer. Open it, look, close it.
- You want to show a relative the tree without making them install anything: a viewer, or a website with a shareable link if the tree already lives there.
- You are building or maintaining a tree, entering sources, attaching scans: a desktop program. Or a website, if you are happy with it holding the data and you like the record hints. Many people do both, with the desktop program as the master copy.
- You are about to share or publish a tree and want to catch the embarrassing errors first: an analyzer. Then back to the desktop program to fix what it found.
- You want a printable chart for a reunion: any desktop program will do it, and viewers export charts too.
- You want to research records: a website. Viewers, analyzers and most desktop programs do not have record collections. They work on the tree you already have.
Where GED-VIEW sits
GED-VIEW is a viewer, first. It opens the file in the browser and gives you the tree, charts, a people table, families, events by decade, sources, places on a map, a gallery for photos, a calendar. It runs entirely on your computer and does not upload the file.
It has analyzer features too. The Issues page reports impossible dates, duplicate candidates and disconnected people; the Source coverage page, under Research, lists unsourced people and events. Editing directly on each view is in progress.
Tools for working on files (merging two trees, splitting off a branch, comparing two versions) are planned. When they exist, they will produce a new file and leave the original untouched.
On viewers that upload and viewers that don't
This is the one distinction inside the viewer category that actually matters, and it is not visible on the page.
Some online viewers work the way GED-VIEW does: the file stays on your machine and the browser does the parsing. Others upload the file to a server, process it there, and may or may not keep it.
There is nothing wrong with the second approach if you know that is what is happening and are comfortable with it. But a family tree contains living people's personal details, so it is worth checking. The privacy guide shows how.
Two things worth doing
Keep your own copy. Whatever website you use, export a GEDCOM every so often and keep it somewhere you control. Websites change prices, get bought, and shut down. A .ged file on your disk survives all of that.
Do not look for one tool to do everything. The website is for records, the desktop program is for building, the viewer is for looking and sharing, the analyzer is for checking. Trying to make any one of them do the other three jobs is where most of the pain comes from.