Frequently Asked Questions

  • What kind of computer system does Behold run on?

    Behold is a fully-compliant Windows program. It will run on any 32-bit or 64-bit Windows Operating System including Windows 10, 8, 7 and many older versions of Windows. If your system is 64-bit, then the 64-bit version of Behold will be installed, otherwise the 32-bit version will be installed. Behold is quite fast and loads files quickly relative to most other genealogy programs, so if you are generally happy with the performance of other genealogy programs on your computer then you should be very happy with the performance of Behold on your computer.

  • Does Behold run on a Mac?

    Currently, there is only a Windows version of Behold. But there are Windows emulation programs available that run on a Mac. I've been told Behold runs perfectly on Mac OSX Yosemite with the free software PlayOnMac. It has also been confirmed to work under Parallels and Virtual Box on a Mac. You can also try CrossOver, Guest PC or VMware Fusion. All are relatively inexpensive.

    My programming language Delphi includes a framework to develop a version for the Mac, so I could one day build a native version of Behold for the Mac. But I'm a Windows programmer and user at heart. I am not a Mac user so whatever I write would feel like a Windows program anyway, which would do you no better than an emulatior.

  • How About Smartphones?

    No. Behold provides a lot of data at once and is more suited to a desktop or laptop. I am staying up with technology, and if and when phone apps are able to suitably run Windows programs, then it may happen.

  • Does Behold run on Unix?

    For Linux, BSD and another alternative for Mac OS X, you can use Wine, which is another Windows emulator. Behold has a page at WineHQ and has been confirmed to work with it.

  • Can I try Behold before buying?

    Yes. Go to the the Download Page and download Behold and then fill out the form to have your 45 day trial key emailed to you.

  • How much does Behold cost?

    Behold costs $40 US. This is a BUY ONCE WITH FREE UPGRADES FOREVER purchase. I won't go through the shenanigans that other software does by making you pay to upgrade all the time. I want you, as a user of Behold to remain a user of Behold and to always have the latest version available to work with. Besides, that way I'll only have one version to maintain, which will be easier on me :-) The price of Behold will probably go up for new purchasers when version 2.0 is released.

  • Can I Install Behold on More Than One Computer?

    Behold is licensed in a much more friendly manner than most programs. With Behold, you've purchased a personal lifetime license to use it. You can install it on any computer on which you will be Behold's primary user. Other people may also use your copy of Behold on these computers, but you are the licenced user and another person cannot be the primary user.

  • Can Behold work with different languages?

    Behold uses Unicode. This means it will display any character in any character set, given the right font. Unicode is not limited to notes or special fields. It is everywhere, including names, tags, and even the program itself. Once version 2 comes along, you'll be able to add text in any language mixing them as you see fit, for example including people's names in both English and in their native language, even right on the same line.

    The text that Behold displays for each GEDCOM tag can be changed on the Tag page of the Organize window. And every other word that Behold writes to the Everything Report can be changed on the Report page. With users help (since I am not proficient in non-computer languages other than English), I'm building a collection of language translation files for Behold that I'm making available for free on the Behold Download Page.

    If you want to know if the entire user interface will be available in different languages, well that is a tougher task. There is a way to keep a resource file with Behold that tells it what text to put on each button and menu and screen. It gets tricky because in some languages the equivalent text may be too large for a button or too wide for a box. Translating it once to a language would not be too tough. Translating it to 20 languages would be tougher. What is most difficult is then maintaining it. Every time I make a program change, I then would have to make 20 translations as well. Also, trying to maintain the User Guide in all those languages would double the effort. So right now, I can't see how I'd be able to manage this, but it is a long-term goal.

  • What do you plan to do with photos?

    Hopefully your genealogy program exports links to photos into its GEDCOM. If so, then Version 1 should include links to the photos, with any information you have in your GEDCOM file about those photos. Later, after version 2 is out, I would like to include thumbnails of the photos in Behold's everything report, add some powerful features to help you document your photos properly.

  • Do you plan to include in Behold any of the popular reports that other genealogy programs offer, like ancestor, descendant, and ahnentafel reports?

    As far as reproducing those reports their way, no, I won't do that. The three reports only start with one person. Behold has multiple starts so you can include whoever you want. And Behold's Everything Report goes both back to ancestors and forward to descendents from the ancestors. Those reports don't. The ancestor and ahnentafel reports only go back and the descendant report only goes forward.

    But you can manipulate Behold to do it almost like those reports. If you Instant Organize on a person, you basically are getting things organized in an ahnentafel manner for the one or two starting people (Families). Every group of descendants is one ahnentafel level. You can change that in the Numbering Options Page and order the descendant groups within each family either in ahnentafel, ancestral, or surname order. And Behold lets you add others related through marriage and/or everyone else. You can add other starting families in the report and reorder the families to get them exactly the way you want. e.g. If your grandfather had 9 brothers and sisters and you wanted each listed in their own Family section, you can add them all individually.

  • How about charting?

    I've always felt that charting really only has a useful purpose for putting the family on display, e.g. for a reunion. It might be good as a one-time overview, but it does not help on the research side as Behold's display of the data is intended to do.

    I definitely won't be adding charts directly into Behold. Maybe in the future, I'll team up with one of the companies that already makes a genealogy charting program and work with them to make our programs talk to each other and maybe offer packages of the two programs together. But those charting programs already do read GEDCOM, so if you want them, they are available now for you.

  • Will any upcoming version have the ability to open a text document and save it as a GEDCOM?

    A text document with no structure whatsoever is impossible for any computer program to make sense of. It would take sophisticated artificial intelligence in order to determine where in the document the names of the people are, how they might be related, deciding which events are mentioned (e.g. birth, marriage, death, graduation, residence, occupation) and when they occurred and where. I am afraid you must go through the pain and use your human intelligence to properly decipher and enter your text documents into a genealogy program (any one will do) to get it into genealogical form that can be exported as GEDCOM.

  • How is it then that there are genealogy web browsers that can convert HTML on the web to GEDCOM?

    That's actually quite different. HTML on the web is computer generated from GEDCOM. As a result, the generated HTML has a well-defined structure that is based on the original data. Building a program to read the HTML and converting it back to GEDCOM just involves understanding the structure, and reversing what was done to generate the HTML. A program to convert the HTML to GEDCOM would need to use different rules to convert depending on the program that wrote the HTML. That functionality will not be part of Behold. But Behold is a great tool to help figure out what is in that GEDCOM after you've got it.

  • What are your future plans for Behold?

    The goal is to add editing to Behold. It will then let you view and work with all your data at once. It should work like your Word Processor, but customized for genealogy. I do keep track of what I am working on and what I plan/hope to do on my Future Plans page.

  • I need a program now. Behold can't edit my data yet. What program should I get?

    Recommending a program is like recommending a car. It really depends on what features you want and your personal taste. Over the last twenty years I have kept up-to-date on the state of Genealogy programming and the programs available. I developed and maintain the Genealogy Software Reviews site which lists over a thousand programs available along with people's ratings and reviews. I invite you to try out other programs and get a feeling for them. Almost all can somewhat export their data to GEDCOM, so most of your work will not be lost. Then when I add editing to Behold, come back and try Behold again and see what you think.