Adding relatives

Growing a tree means adding people and wiring up the families that connect them. In GEDCOM that’s two jobs — creating an individual record and creating the family links (FAMC, FAMS) that tie parents, spouses, and children together. Linea Codex does both in one step: pick a relationship, and the new person arrives already linked into the right family.

Adding a brand-new record

To create a record from scratch, use Add Record (in the Edit menu, and as a split button in the toolbar). You choose what kind:

• INDI – Person
• FAM – Family
• SOUR – Source
• NOTE – Note
• OBJE – Multimedia
• REPO – Repository
• SUBM – Submitter

A new tab opens with a small starter record ready to fill in. Adding a blank record has a shortcut: Ctrl+N (Cmd+Ctrl+N on macOS).

Adding a relative of the selected person

Select a person and use Add relative (the split button beside Add Record in the toolbar). Choose the relationship and Linea Codex creates the new individual and the family links for you:

Choose	What you get
Father	A new male individual set as this person’s father, linked through their family.
Mother	A new female individual set as this person’s mother.
Spouse	A new partner, with a new family joining the two of them.
Son	A new son.
Daughter	A new daughter.

For sons and daughters, if the selected person already has more than one spouse you’ll be asked which family the child belongs to — pick a spouse, or (no other parent) to record the child without a second parent. Parent slots that are already filled (a father who’s recorded, say) are greyed out so you don’t create a duplicate.

Sensible starting points

The new record arrives pre-filled for the common case so you can keep moving: a Father starts as male, a Mother as female, and a Spouse is set to the opposite sex of the person you started from. These are just starting values — change any of them in the editor.

How it works

There’s no form to fill in. Choosing a relationship opens the new person in the editor as a small starter record with the cursor already parked in the name field. Type the name, add whatever else you know, and apply your changes — see Apply, discard & undo.

Behind that single action, Linea Codex:

• creates the new individual record,
• creates the connecting family record if one is needed (or reuses an existing family — for example, a second child joins the same family as the first), and
• writes the cross-reference links on both sides so the relationship is complete and valid.

Once you apply, selection moves to the new person — so adding three children in a row means: add, name, apply; the new child is now selected, ready for their details. (Adding a relative keeps you focused on that new record until you’ve applied or discarded it; see Apply, discard & undo.)

Version awareness

Relationship records — individuals, families, and the links between them — work identically across GEDCOM 5.5, 5.5.1, and 7.0, so adding relatives behaves the same whichever version your project uses.

Beyond the basics

The five relationships above cover ordinary parent–child and spouse links. Genealogy is rarely that tidy — adoptions, step-parents, foster relationships, and unmarried partners all have their own GEDCOM patterns. Those are covered as recipes in the cookbook:

• Relationships recipes — adoption, fostering, multiple parents, and more.

---

Next: keep your file clean as it grows — Validation: reading, fixing, silencing →.