This page walks you through adding your first person, a spouse, and a child, then shows how to navigate between them.
Enter the person’s name in the Forenames and Surname fields at the top of the People panel. When you move to the next field, Pedigree Forge will try to set the person’s sex automatically based on a large database of traditional name usage. You can change it if the automatic selection is wrong, or set it manually if the name is not recognised.
You can optionally enter an Occupation. Pedigree Forge has a database of common occupations and will suggest completions as you type. Press Enter to accept a suggestion, or keep typing to override it. Press Delete to dismiss the suggestion.
Next, enter the date of birth. At its simplest, dates are entered as "dd mmm yyyy" — for example, 12 Feb 1809. If only the year is known, enter just the year. If a date is not recognised, it will be shown in red. See Dates for the full range of supported date formats.
Then enter the place of birth. Pedigree Forge has a growing database of places (currently for England, Scotland, and Wales) and will suggest matches as you type. The recommended format is the town or village name followed by the county — the country can be inferred from the county. You are free to enter any text you like.
As you enter information, the dynamic chart on the Charts tab updates automatically to show what you have entered.
Click the <Add Spouse> link in the People panel. You will be asked whether to create a new person or select someone already in the project. Choose to create a new person.
The new spouse becomes the active person and the editing panel is ready for you to enter their details. By default, the spouse is set to the opposite sex, but Pedigree Forge fully supports same-sex relationships — change the sex if the default is not correct.
Tip — It is usual practice in genealogy to record women under their maiden surname.
You can also enter the date and place of the marriage in the Married fields, which appear once a spouse relationship exists.
Click the + button at the top of the Children table in the People panel. As with adding a spouse, you can create a new person or select an existing one. The child becomes the active person for editing.
Use Edit > Parents > Add father or Add mother (or the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+Shift+F and Ctrl+Shift+M). You will be asked whether to create a new person or link an existing one.
If you choose to link an existing person and that person already belongs to one or more families, the Choose Parents dialog appears. This shows a mini family tree with the child below and the selected parent above, and lets you choose which family the child should join:
If the selected parent has no existing families, the link is made directly without showing the dialog.
Once you have several people in your project, you can move between them in several ways:
This was a quick tour of the basic editing features. The rest of this guide covers each area in detail.