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The Changes reports for Ancestry or Descendants Lists can be very valuable for letting you know
if new individuals have been added or whether certain other changes have been made. For some people,
it's the first thing that is checked after a new release comes out.
The GRanDMA Database, formerly managed in Brother's Keeper, maintained a limited amount of information
about changes to the record of an individual. Beginning in July, 2026, new management software
(GDM) tracks
many more changes including changes to families.
When changes are made, the "Change" field in the database is updated with the date
of that change. That date is reported in the Individual Profile and in the Changes reports.
In the Reports, a list can be produced for the dates of those changes in an Ancestry list or in a Descendants list.
Many users consult these lists after database updates to see if there are new individuals added to a give
list.
The list can be viewed on screen or the list can be downloaded as an editable document (as a .doc file),
or as a spreadsheet (in .csv format), in addition to being printable or saved as a pdf.
The Changes record has the following caveats:
- The Changes dates only go back to 2021.
- The Changes information does not point to the field that was changed. It only reports that a
change or addition was made.
- The .csv can be opened with Excel or with Google Sheets. In this format, it is useful for
sorting. However, there are some drawbacks:
- In the birthdate column, Excel will re-format dates that it recognizes as valid. Change dates
will always be valid. The format that it displays depends on the user's preferences.
- However, it does not re-format birthdates like "BEF 1920" or "FEB 1935."
- Excel does not recogized dates before 1900 as valid for sorting.
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