KStableau for Windows will generate HTML files for displaying graphical family trees and will even allow you to upload the charts to a personal genealogy web site. Such a chart is a great way to visualize your family tree. You can also use it to analyze kinship amongst distantly-related individuals. It also shows inbreeding. (Before you chuckle, keep in mind that every person on the face of the earth has significant inbreeding in his or her family tree. Yes, that includes you. There are only so many ancestors to go around, and nobody has a completely separate set. You certainly have duplicates in your family tree, even if you haven't discovered them yet.)
To use KStableau, you first generate a GEDCOM file, using your favorite genealogy program. All modern genealogy programs are capable of generating GEDCOM files although you may need to read the user's manual or check the online help to find the instructions for your program.
NOTE: All of today's genealogy programs support GEDCOM files. A full explanation of GEDCOM may be found in my "GEDCOM Explained" article at http://eogn.typepad.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2004/11/gedcom_explaine.html
KStableau reads the GEDCOM file, asks you a few questions, and then generates the HTML output. You can view the HTML data on your computer screen as much as you like. You may want to change some settings in KStableau time and again until you obtain the exact output you want. Once you are satisfied with the results, you may copy the HTML files to your personal Web pages on the World Wide Web or to a CD-ROM disk for distribution to others.
The HTML output file is intended to be displayed in the top frame of a page with text details of the persons shown in a bottom frame. Each person displayed in the chart serves as a hyperlink to the details in the text file.
I won't try to describe the output when you can see it for yourself online. Go to http://www.home.zonnet.nl/KStableau/GraphicalFamilyTrees.htm and click on some of the names listed as having a source of "KStableau." That list contains quite a few dead links, but I also found links to many HTML files created with KStableau and placed on Web servers around the world.
The best part of all this is that KStableau is a free program. You can download it online and use it all you want. KStableau was developed by Tom de Neef, a native of the Netherlands.
You can read a lot more about KStableau online at Tom de Neef's Web site. Sample output charts are available on the same site. To learn more or to download the program, go to http://www.home.zonnet.nl/KStableau
