Facts

What Is a Fact?
Entering or Editing Facts for People
Default Facts
Adding Facts to a Person

Removing Facts from a Person
Cutting, Copying, Pasting Facts
Sorting Facts
Saving and Seeing Facts

Changing One Fact Into Another

More Space for Longer Facts

What Is a Fact?

In Reunion, a fact is an item of information relating to a person that can fit on one line. Examples include: nickname, eye color, hair color, social security number, etc.

It might help to explain what a fact isn't: if a piece of information has a date associated with it, it is probably an event, not a fact. If a piece of information requires several lines of text to describe or explain, then it should probably be recorded as a note.

So a fact could be defined as a distinctive element, property, quality, character, feature, characteristic, affection, or trait.

Entering or Editing Facts for People

To record a fact or to edit a fact you've already entered, click directly on any fact in the family view (such as Occupation or Religion).

This will open the Facts section of the Edit Person panel, shown below.

The Facts section contains a scrolling list in which you record the facts relating to a person. You can type directly into the fact fields in the list. Pressing the Tab key will move the cursor from field to field. Pressing Shift + Tab will move the cursor backward through the fields. Or you can simply point and click the mouse to put the cursor into any field.

Default Facts

By default, the Occupation, Education, and Religion facts will appear, waiting for your entries. You can configure your own set of default facts which will appear every time you add a new person to your family file. In fact, you'll save lots of time if you set up the correct set of default facts early on in your research.

Adding Facts to a Person

To add a fact that doesn't appear by default...

  1. In the Edit Person > Facts panel, click the Add Fact button.
  2. Select the fact field in the list that appears.
  3. Click Add Fact. (If the selected fact is not a default fact and you want it to become one, check the button just under the list.)

If you don't see the fact you need, click the Fact Settings button to define your own facts.

As a shortcut for entering multiple facts of the same type, or other facts that you've recently added, Control-click (or right-click) a fact in the Edit Person panel.

Click here to learn more about the display and reporting of multiple facts for a single individual.

Removing Facts from a Person

To remove a fact, select the fact in the list (by clicking under the Type column) and click the Remove Fact button.

Or, Control-click on the fact you'd like to remove and select Remove [fact name].

You can also remove every occurrence of a fact in a family file.

Cutting, Copying, Pasting Facts

When a fact line is selected in the list (by clicking under the Type column), you can use standard Mac keyboard shortcuts to cut, copy, or paste facts. You might find these shortcuts useful if you enter a fact for the wrong person.

X Cut
C Copy
V Paste
Z Undo
Sorting Facts

You can set the order of facts by dragging facts up and down in the list.

Saving and Seeing Facts

When you are finished entering or editing facts, exit the Edit Person panel by clicking Done, pressing the Return or Enter key, or choosing an item in the navbar or sidebar. Reunion will save your changes.

The facts you've added or changed will appear in the family view if the current family view includes those particular facts. If not, then you need to change or customize the family view.

Changing One Fact Into Another

There may be instances, particularly after importing a GEDCOM file, where you need to perform a little "clean up" of facts for some of the imported records. Reunion has a dedicated Move Field feature to move every instance of a field into another field (learn more); however, it's also easy to simply change one fact for one person into another type of fact for the same person. For example, changing somebody's "Alias" fact into an "AKA" fact. To do this on a case-by-case basis...

change fact
  1. Find the desired person and select Edit Person > Facts.
  2. Control-click on the fact you'd like to change and select Change Fact.
  3. A list of facts will appear. Select the desired fact.
  4. Click the Change Fact button.

Again, this does not alter every instance of the fact in your family file; it only affects one fact for one person.

More Space for Longer Facts

The fact is, some facts can get lengthy in the context of Reunion's 3-pane window. To open a larger window for editing a fact, double-click any fact in the list in the Edit Person > Facts panel. The Edit Fact window, shown below, will appear. (Note: this doesn't change the limit of text for a Fact field, which is 255 characters; however, it provides more elbow room because this window can be resized by dragging its lower-right corner.)

Initial Caps

Source Citations