Where Do I Begin? You can begin by searching for a person's name in the genealogy database. Enter the name (or partial name) in the “Search” box. If there is a successful match the name(s) would be listed. For example if the name searched was "Ling" for "Lingappayya" you would see a page like this. To refine the search use the "Advanced Search" option. If you choose "spouse's name" within the Advanced Search you would see a list of matching names along with their spouses' names where they exist. Clicking on “Search” without entering Last/First name lists all the people in the database. Once you have determined the person of interest, click on his name. A "Personal Information" page would be displayed. This page is the anchor and focal point of an individual's information. You can traverse virtually the entire family tree of which the person is a member (leaf). It has six tabs - "Individual", “Ancestors”, “Descendants”, “Relationship”, “Timeline”, and “Suggest”, each one offering various information and several different ways of sorting and displaying them. Use these tabs to navigate the site. For more details read below.

Ancestors To understand your heritage and map out your ancestory, click on the "Ancestors" tab. This chart shows a graphical representation of parents, grandparents and great-grandparents etc. for any individual. Try locating yourself to understand what this means first. There are several display options on this page; Standard, Compact, Box, Text, Ahnentafel, and Media. Experiment with them. By default the chart displays 4 generations. This can be increased to a maximum of 8 generations (just remember the page will get wider!). Wherever you see the icon, you can click to show the ancestors from the individual in question. Whenever you see theicon, moving the mouse over it will display further information and immediate descendents. When you see this icon the generation to the right will be shown from this individual if you click on it. Click on the image above to see an example.

Ancestor Table The Ascendents table (Ancestors->Ahnentafel)(also known as Ahnentafel) lists out all the generations before you in a tabular form, complete with all children and Birth, Marriage & Death (BMD) details if applicable or known. Once you become accustomed to ahnentafels, it becomes very easy to read these tables, to move up and down from parent to child and back again, and to understand the relationships of the listed people. Ahnentafels are very good at presenting a lot of information in a compact format. The numbering system is the key to understanding ahnentafels. The example image above here shows 4 generations. Click on the image to see.

Descendants "Descendants" option is one of the most useful features on the site. The chart (with photos where they exist) displays a generational outline of the individual's descendants. This visually pleasing chart can be displayed in "Standard" or "Compact" forms. A tabular display is possible using "Text" or "Register" options. From Descendants page, one can get to the Descendancy Table (Descendants->Text or Descendants->Register) and then to the Descendancy Chart, a.k.a. Lineage from an Ancestor. In other words display the descendancy table for an individual such as the one below, and then click on the descendancy icon to display the chart up to this person. See Lineage From an Ancestor explaned below

Descendants Table The descendancy table is effectively a tabular version of the descendancy page, but lists all generations in either a "Text" or "Register" form for the individual selected. The main difference between the two table types is the level of information listed. To see an example of "Text" type, click the image on the side.

Descendancy Chart or Lineage from an Ancestor As explained earlier, you can trace the lineage of an individual from an ancestor by first going to ancestor's indivudual page and then following Descendants->Text (or Register) and then clicking on the descendancy icon to display the chart up to the person of interest. To find what this display looks like click the image on the side.

Relationship The relationship chart is a great way of understanding how you are related to other family members. Bring up the individual page of one of the persons. Click on “Relationship” tab. On this page, “find” and enter the name of the second person. Following is an example of relationship between B.K.Suraj and P.K.Siddharth calculated to be "B.K.Suraj is the 5 x cousin of P.K.Siddharth 1 times removed".

Timeline The timeline shows important events in history that occurred during the life of an individual or a group of individuals. It gives you an unique perspective to see what was going on in the world during the lives of our ancestors. It compares individuals across the ages, and can be populated in two ways. 1. Each time you look at an individual then click timeline, this individual will be saved in memory so that next time you look at another individual and click timeline, both individual timelines will be compared, and so on. 2. Populate the timeline by finding individuals manually.