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Product Details

GedStar Pro is an application for handheld devices (PDAs and smartphones) for the purpose of viewing genealogy data that is natively stored in a program on the user's PC. There is a conversion program component, installed on the PC, that converts data from the genealogy program or GEDCOM file into a PalmOS database file that can be synced to the handheld and viewed there.

The data conversion and processing is one-way only; data cannot be modified on the handheld and directly synced back to the PC in any way.

Handheld Device Requirements

The only requirement for the handheld is that it be operating under V3.5 or later of the PalmOS™ operating system. An exhaustive list of specific device models is impossible to provide, but any PalmOS device that has been available since about 2000 should comply. Both color and monochrome devices are supported, in any screen size and resolution. Sample compatible devices include:

Any of the M-series from Palm (M100, M505, etc.), plus the Palm IIIc
Most Sony Clie devices
Garmin iQue
Most Handspring devices
Any Palm or PalmOne device in the Tungsten or Zire series
New devices from Palm such as the Lifedrive™ and T|X
Palm Treo™ smartphones, such as the Treo 600 and 650

Note: The new Palm Treo 700W uses the Windows Mobile™ operating system and GedStar Pro will not run on that device. See the Other Platforms page for a solution for that device.

The resources required to run GedStar Pro are as follows:

The program itself takes about 250K bytes of main memory
The genealogy data size is entirely dependent on the size of your PC genealogy database and the options selected for conversion. Large databases can be installed on an external memory card.

PC Requirements

The recommended PC operating system is Windows XP
V3.2 and 3.3 also support the Windows Vista operating system (see release notes for special installation instructions)
The software will also work with Windows 98SE and Windows ME

There is no support existing or planned for other operating systems such as Linux or for the Macintosh. Some users have reported success with running this product under the Virtual PC product on the Macintosh platform, but we can neither endorse nor support this configuration.

Genealogy Software Requirements

The minimal requirement is to use a genealogy program that can export data as a GEDCOM 5.5 file. All known programs support this format.
The standard direct conversion option is supported for users of The Master Genealogist V4.0d, V5, V6, V7 and V8; and for Legacy Family Tree V5, V6 and V7.
Family Tree Maker 2008 and later is not supported for direct import at this time. Data must be exported to a GEDCOM file for processing. This situation may be fixed in a future update.

Photo Feature Requirements

There are a few requirements for getting photos to convert correctly. Most people do not have any problems with this feature, but the following should be noted.

Photos must be in a supported raster graphic format. This includes all common PC-based formats such as JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, and many others.
Photo conversion will work for all supported genealogy programs and GEDCOM files if they use the linked method of specifying the photos. That is, the data contains a file specification that points to the actual photo files in a directory somewhere on your disk.
Users of The Master Genealogist may have photos that are actually embedded in the genealogy database.

When exporting to a GEDCOM file, there may be an option to either embed or link to photos. If this option is available, always choose the link option.