use strict; use warnings;

my $file_in = "C:/Users/Joe/Documents/Genealogy/birdt.ged";

open my $FILE, "<", $file_in or die "could not open $file_in $!";

while ( my $line = <$FILE> ) {
    print "$. $line";
} 

close $FILE or die "could not close $file_in $!";

__END__