The purpose of most searches in GMOL is to display information about an individual in the form of
an Individual Profile page. On this page, you
will find the available information about the individual, the
identity of spouse(s), the children, events, reference notes and source citations.
Other family members are shown as blue links.
Clicking on the name will direct you to that person's Individual Profile.
Locations, such as for birth or death, are also links.
In most cases, clicking on that location will trigger a map showing the location.
Note that, in keeping with the policy of Mennonite Genealogy, Inc. and policies in some parts of the world,
dates are shown online only for persons known to be deceased or over the age of 92.
For an example, we will start by looking at the profile of Peter T. Harms
who has a GRanDMA number of #4495.
The Header.
Note the commands on the right side of the header:
.doc file. The web page automatically creates a downloadable file which can be edited
and printed off-line. When downloaded, it can readily be loaded into Microsoft Word and compatible
editors. (There are some glitches with Google Docs; information on that will be presented elsewhere.)
Share. This link provides you with the syntax for insertion into other websites
or sending to others.
With the link, this page can be viewed by those without a subscription or embedded in a document.
Add to Bookmarks. Bookmarks are a useful way of keeping track of Individuals to which you
may wish to return.
Navigable Tree. Jump to a 6-generation tree which is navigable. You can use it to
quickly get to other members of the family.
Reports. A long list of reports can be accessed through this link.
The Profile.
There can be many pieces of data in GRanDMA associated with an individual, and all of them are displayed in
the Individual Profile page, beginning with information about
birth, baptism, death, burial, and events including migration.
In some cases, GMOL can even reference information from outside of GRanDMA:
If the birth village is in "South Russia" or "Russia", detailed information may
be found in a remarkable resource, chortitza.org.
If the village in the birth field is in that list, you will see [village details] at the end
of the Birth field. The site is mostly in German.
Another special case is in the Burial field. For many individuals, the name of the cemetery
can be found following the date and location. Clicking on this entry will elicit a map of the cemetery
location.
This information is derived from findAGrave.com (FGR) if
the FGR memorial number has been entered into the GRanDMA database.
Using that number, GMOL "scrapes" the FGR page to obtain burial information.
If the GPS location of the grave is listed within the FGR page, the map will even show
the exact location of the grave.
Families. A family is formed in the database when two persons are designated
to be in some type of relationship AND/OR when one or more children are associated with a parent.
Each spouse is listed with the chidren of that union. The plus sign (+) indicates
that the child also has a marriage listed. If a divorce or annulment is found, it will be listed after the marriage.
Family Order. This may be a problem. The database management app (Brother's Keeper) does not have a method
for specifying marriage order, and so the order of relationships in the GRanDMA
database can be ambiguous. GMOL attempts to order them by marriage date, but many marriage dates are missing.
After that, GMOL uses the birth dates of the oldest children in each relationship.
If the relationships are still listed out-of-order, you can submit "before" and "after" dates.
For example, if there were three relationships and they are currently listed out of order as:
Marriage 1: date unknown
Marriage 2: 1870
Marriage 3: 1890
and you know that Marriage 1 actually took place between the 1870 marriage and the 1890 marriage, you might submit
a date for the missing date as "before 1890".
Children Order. The order in which the children are listed is a part of the database. If you find them
out-of-order because birthdates are missing, you can submit the correct order.
Spouses and non-spouses. This a difficult problem. Some users have found difficult the use of the "Spouse"
descriptor for relationships where there was never a marriage, particularly in cases of non-consentual or
illicit relationships.
After an unsatisfactory experiment for part of August, 2024, the following procedure is being
used to designated the second member of a couple:
If there are marriage data or another indication of marriage, GMOL will use the term "Spouse".
The management app does allow the family relationship to be designated "Not Married." In that case it will
use "Partner." (If a child was described as "Illegitimate" or something similar in the records and there was no
indication of a later marriage, "Partner" will also apply.)
In the ambiguous cases with no marriage data and no designation of "Never Married," GMOL reports "Spouse."
If you find a "Spouse" relationship in the profile where there was never a marriage,
you may make a submission to make it "Not married," and GMOL will report "Partner."
Notes.
All notes that are documented in the database are listed.
If you create a User Note for this individual,
it will appear in this list for you only. Private notes can be helpful to remind you of information.
Citations.
The list of citations for the information is compiled at the end of the Individual Profile page, and GMOL refers to
the citations with the superscripts at the ends of the lines. In some cases, the list of citations is very long, and an
option is provided to limit which sources are displayed.
GMOL includes a very important feature: direct access to images of original documents. For over 25 sources, GMOL
will display for you the image of the original documents, most of which are found in Mennonite archives.
Find the complete
list, together with examples. top
Other Links
are located below the profile box.
Submissions. Below the Individual Profile, there is a link to
a Submissions page.
That page provides an input form to enter additional information or corrections
for this individual (or anyone else.) Please document your information.
Images. Users are encouraged to share images. If images have been shared, the link reads "View user images". Otherwise,
it reads "Contribute an image."
Each spouse is listed with the chidren of that union. The plus sign (+) indicates
that the child also has a marriage listed. If a divorce or annulment is found, it will be listed after the marriage.
