Torture Test: 1200 Siblings

This article aims to show you how to configure a family tree, and more specifically the 1200 siblings torture test for testing purposes.

As an example, I setup the 1200 Siblings website to demonstrate how #Gigatrees handles a large number of siblings, especially the #pedigree charts. 1200 Siblings is a torture test #GEDCOM file made available by Tamura Jones on his website. He discusses the reasons for creating the file in his article, Sibling Torture Test. With the recent discovery that more than a few people have received DNA test results that indicate they match a great number of heretofore unknown siblings due to the overuse of individual sperm donors by sperm banks, and unscupulous doctors providing their own (in buckets apparently). It is necessary, therefore, that family tree website creators, like Gigatrees, can handle a great number of siblings seemlessly.

Running Gigatrees

Building the torture test is as easy as running the following command. The configuration file listed in the command can be found described below. You can simply copy and paste it into a similarily named text file and place it in the same folder as the application.

gigatrees5.exe -c config.xml

Family Tree Configuration

In order to configure a family tree in HTML, the first thing you will need to do is load the gigatrees plugin and the default theme and enable copying of the plugin files to your output folder. Next, you will need to setup the website metadata. You should, of course, add your website's title and any other items that you wish to include, such as the site owner's name, the site description, banner and favicon. Next, you will need to enter your GEDCOM filename and, if needed, change the output folder. Gigatrees will only create pages that apply to the current configuration. Here, for a cleaner look, I've disabled the <Pages> that are not relavant.

config.xml

<Gigatrees>
  <Plugins>
    <Plugin> plugins\gigatrees </Plugin>
    <Plugin> plugins\theme.a   </Plugin>
	
    <CopyPlugins> true </CopyPlugins>
  </Plugins>

  <Setup>
    <SiteTitle>       1200 Siblings </SiteTitle>
    <SiteOwner>       ...           </SiteOwner>
    <SiteDescription> ...           </SiteDescription>
    <SiteBanner>      ...           </SiteBanner>
	
    <Favicon>         %PluginsURL%gigatrees/imgs/favicon.png </Favicon>
  </Setup>
 
  <Main>
    <GedcomFile> Siblings1200.ged </GedcomFile>
    <OutputPath> web              </OutputPath>
  </Main>  
  
  <Pages>
    <Tree>          true </Tree>
    <Names>         true </Names>
    <Profiles>      true </Profiles>
    <Sources>       true </Sources>
    <Blog>          true </Blog>
    <Places>        true </Places>
    <Map>           true </Map>
    <Timelines>     true </Timelines>
    <OriginMaps>    true </OriginMaps>
	<AncestorMaps>  true </AncestorMaps>
    <Ancestors>     true </Ancestors>
    <DNAAncestors>  true </DNAAncestors>
    <DNARelatives>  true </DNARelatives>
    <Kinships>      true </Kinships>
    <Census>        true </Census>
    <Descendants>   true </Descendants>
    <Collections>   true </Collections>
    <Immigrants>    true </Immigrants>
    <Nobility>      true </Nobility>
    <Photos>        true </Photos>
    <Gallery>       true </Gallery>
    <Validation>   false </Validation>
    <Updates>      false </Updates>
  </Pages>
</Gigatrees>

So there you have it. Easy-peasy. These instructions should get you started in building this family tree from scratch.