Genealogy rarely happens at a desk with reliable WiFi. Sometimes it’s a long flight home with a folder of photocopies on the tray table and a question you want settled before the details fade.
There’s no connection at 35,000 feet, and the record won’t wait for one.
Evidentia’s help doesn’t need the connection. It travels with the program, ready the moment you press F1.
Press F1, and Evidentia already knows where you are
Evidentia’s help lives inside the program, on your computer, and it pays attention to what you’re doing. There’s no website to visit and nothing to load.
Press F1 from any screen, and Evidentia opens the help for that screen. If you’re in Analyze Evidence, you get the Analyze Evidence guide. If you’re in the Record Library, you land on the Record Library. You don’t go hunting for the right topic. Evidentia hands it to you.
I think of it the way I’d think of a knowledgeable colleague sitting beside me. They can see my screen. When I ask “how does this work?”, they don’t make me explain where I am first; they already know, and they answer the question I actually have.
A full guide, open beside your work
F1 opens Evidentia’s offline help in its own window, so you can keep it open beside your research and refer back as you work. Down the side is a list of every part of Evidentia — Identify Source, Catalog Claims, Analyze Evidence, the Record Library, Reports, and the rest. Click any one to read its guide, or collapse the list when you want the page to itself.
At the top sits a search box. Type a word — citation, attachment, cousin — and the list narrows to the topics that match. It’s the quickest way in when you know what you’re after but not which screen it lives on.
Offline help, built for where research happens
All of this works with no internet at all, and that was deliberate. Evidentia’s help travels with the program: every page and every guide, already on your machine. Online or off, F1 works the same.
That matters because genealogy doesn’t happen at a desk with reliable WiFi. It happens in archives with thick walls and no signal, or in a rural courthouse basement where your phone hasn’t found a bar since you walked in. Those are the moments you most need to look something up, and exactly the moments a web-based help page leaves you stranded.
Three ways to find an answer
- F1 — opens the guide for whatever screen you’re on
- The sidebar — browse the guide for any part of Evidentia
- Search — type a word and jump straight to the topic
All of it offline, every time.
Answer the question without leaving your work
The next time you’re mid-source and a question comes up, wherever you are, signal or not, press F1 and let Evidentia answer it. There’s no browser to open and no connection to wait on.
New to Evidentia?
See how Evidentia helps you turn sources into sound, well-documented conclusions — with offline help that’s always a keypress away.
— Ed Thompson, Evidentia Software