# Tools: Check database

This tool checks information correctness in the database. It checks three types of records: family, person and media. Unlike typical database integrity checking, which is run every time you open a database and which checks the database structure, this tool handles logical errors and data inaccuracy.

To pass the check, a family record must have assigned husband, wife, children, and events. When an empty family is found, the tool proposes to remove it. It is normal in practice to create a family from people, which might later be discovered, are from different families and were added erroneously. In these cases, GEDKeeper can move people from one family to another. After such actions a family record may lose all relations. This is a likely situation when you actively process large amounts of information.

A person record is checked in the following way: the tool checks the death event, taking the maximal, scientifically confirmed age into account, checks and notifies about people without an explicitly defined sex, notifies about incorrect lifetime dates (for example, death date is before birth date), notifies about persons that were married before or after reasonable limits, or that have children who were born out of reasonable limits. When a person has no sex, the tool marks the record as being changed and opens the sex editor dialog. When a person's age exceeds the maximum one, the tool adds a death event without a specified date to the person record.

In addition to checking the correctness of data and relationships in family and personal records, diagnostics of the presence of cyclic (ring) relationships are also performed. This is when, during the process of researching and replenishing the database, an erroneous situation arose with determining the required record by name and one of the ancestors was mistakenly entered as a child in the family of his descendants (at any depth). In this case, the tool will show the identifiers of the records that form a "cycle".

Multimedia records are checked for presence in the "archive" or "storage", correctness of absolute and relative links.

GEDKeeper fixes the lack of a death event, lack of a sex declaration, and may remove empty family records. All other issues are shown only for your information.