The Gedcom document comprises data organised in a tree structure, and the entire contents of a file can be viewed by selecting Document from the File menu, provided only that those contents do indeed conform to this tree structure, in accordance with the Gedcom 5.5 specification. The document may include information provided via extensions to the Gedcom facilities which are peculiar to the program which produced the file: this information will be displayed, provided it conforms to the tree structure.
In many cases, the information displayed will be a precise representation of the contents of the gedcom file. There are however circumstances under which some changes may have been made to the way the data is represented before it is displayed:
If the record identifiers in the file are non-numeric, all the records will be renumbered before the data is displayed.
If the option to fix errors in the file has been selected, changes (usually few) may have been made to the linkages between individuals and families to fix errors.
The Gedcom specification supports two methods of including Source information, whereby the primary Source information is either contained within a Source record which is referenced by 'Source Citations', or is contained entirely within a 'Source Citation' structure. The former method is more powerful and preferred under the Gedcom specification: where a file uses the second method, the information is converted to conform to the first method, creating new Source records, before the data is displayed.
At the top level, the tree structure within the document consists of a set of records, of individuals and families, and possibly sources, notes, repositories and others. Each record is identified by a reference label, and within each record, other records may be referenced by these labels, which are displayed as they appear in the file. The information contained within individual and family records may be more conveniently viewed by means of the Document page in View mode, which allows records to be accessed via individuals' names, and in which there are some differences in the way the information is displayed.
The Document page within the Individual and Family datasheets in View mode displays all the information contained within an individual or family record within the Gedcom file, and this may include information which is not displayed elsewhere, and which cannot be edited. References to other records in the original document are replaced by the corresponding names of individuals, of spouses in the case of family records, or otherwise by some representative text; and these details are contained within square brackets to indicate that they have been substituted for the original reference labels.
Information which is not displayed elsewhere, and which cannot be edited, is highlighted by means of yellow icons. This comprises information which:
conforms to the Gedcom 5.5 specification, but is not handled by GWintree
uses custom tags, extending the Gedcom facilities in conformance with the Gedcom specification, but peculiar to the program which originally generated the data
uses standard Gedcom tags, but in a manner which violates the 5.5 specification
Information as to the date and time of changes to records is not shown elsewhere, and cannot be edited directly; but this information is updated automatically where it is present, or is inserted automatically when the corresponding option is selected in the Preferences dialog.
Information which is not displayed elsewhere, and which cannot be edited, will normally be preserved when the record is edited, and be deleted only when the parent item is deleted. When an individual or family record is deleted, all information relating to that individual or family will be deleted.