Family History Report

What Is a Family History Report?
Creating a Family History Report
For Whom?

Multiple Spouses for a Source Person
How Many Generations?
Pruning

Layout

Generation Prefix

Index

Removing Duplication


Sources
Pictures
Title
Destination
Privacy Filter

Multiple Spouses in Descendant & Family History Reports

Legal Outline Numbering Format

What Is a Family History Report?

A family history report begins with one couple and moves forward in time. It includes descendants (children, children's children, etc.) of the source couple along with information about each descendant along the way. It is a very comprehensive genealogy document — one that lends itself well to data verification and publishing.

family history report

Each descendant in a family history report is assigned a number which symbolizes the descendant's relationship to the source couple. Reunion uses the Legal outline numbering method — a system which lets you see at a glance (or at least figure out in a few seconds) the relationships between people in the family history report.

Here is an example page from a family history report as it would appear in Reunion's Book feature...

Creating a Family History Report

To create a family history report...

  1. Click Reports in the navbar.
  2. Click Family History in the list of reports.

A panel with several options appears in the center of Reunion's window.

For Whom?

By default, names of the husband and wife of the current family appear when you select Reports > Family History. Either can be selected to begin the report.

To create a family history report for a different person, select (single-click) any name in any sidebar and the "Who" section will be updated. Or, return to the family view and navigate until you find the desired starting person.

When creating a family history report, Reunion will start with the selected person in the "Who" section and move "forward" in time. It gathers information about all the descendants of this person and his/her spouse (whose name also appears in the "Who" section) until it reaches the end of a lineage or the specified ending generation (2 to 99).

Multiple Spouses for a Source Person

Family history reports show the descendants of a couple, not an individual. If the selected person in the "Who" section — the starting person — has multiple spouses, the descendants of his other spouses will not be included in the report. This is because the child of a man's second marriage is not a descendant of his first marriage, or vice versa. If you need to show descendants of multiple spouses of a couple, then you need to change the starting couple. (I.e., start the report from a parent or other ancestor of the couple.)

Also, if the starting person has multiple spouses, be sure to have the correct spouse selected. For example, let's assume that Cher had two spouses: Sonny and Greg. If you want the family history report to begin with Cher and Sonny, then navigate until you see Sonny and Cher in the family view. However, if you want the report to begin with Cher and Greg, then navigate until you see Greg and Cher in the family view. The key is to get the right spouse in the family view before initiating the family history report — because the report will only include descendants of the couple in the "Who" section of the report window.

How Many Generations?

To set the size of a family history report, use the up/down arrows next to the Generations field or type a number into the field. Family history reports can be from 2 to 99 generations. The size — in number of characters — is limited only by the amount of available disk space.

Pruning

The Reports > Family History panel provides check-box buttons for pruning large family history reports by including only...

These options provide the means to prune what otherwise may become very large reports. An example of a descendant report (whose structure is the same as the family history report) limited to direct lines only is given here.

Layout

After selecting Reports > Family History, the layout of the report can be changed by clicking the Layout button and choosing Define Layouts. Most of the layout settings for family history reports are common to other reports and are discussed here. One layout setting, Generation Prefix, is explained below.

Generation Prefix

A generation prefix is a number (from 1 to 99) inside parentheses, representing the number of a descendant's generation. The source person for the report is in generation #1 (for purposes of the report).

The following example shows two report entries with generation prefixes and the legal outline method. The first person is in the 5th generation. The second person is in the 6th generation.

(5) 1.5.8.1.9 James M. LANDIS
(6) 1.5.8.1.7a.1 Amanda LANDIS

Referring to the generation prefix number is easier than counting the number of digits in the Legal outline number.

Multiple Spouses in Family History Reports

Descendant reports and family history reports handle multiple spouses similarly.

Index

An index will appear at the end of family history reports. The index is an alphabetized list of all people in the report. Each line of the index will include a person's last name, first name, Legal outline number, and, if the person is not a descendant of the source couple, a notation describing his relationship to a descendant (such as "spouse of" or "parent of spouse of").

Index {excerpt}
-------------------------------------------------
RICKENBAUGH
    Joelle Christa      1.3.5.2
    Michelle Robin      1.3.5.1a
    Rebecca Ruth        parent of spouse of 1.3.1
    Robert Jackson      spouse of 1.3.5
    Robert Stanley      parent of spouse of 1.3.5

Settings for report indexes are discussed here.

Removing Duplication

Convergence (caused when relatives marry) and duplication (caused by multiple marriages) is conveniently avoided and notated in family history reports. The line "(See above)" or "(See duplicate branch above)" will appear beneath anybody's name which already appears in the family history report.

In the example below, Geraldine Jeanette LEISTER was married more than once (as indicated by the asterisk after her name), and her information already appears in the family history report as indicated by the text after her name.

1.8.6.5c Geraldine Jeanette LEISTER* (See above)
------------------------------------------------

In the next example, Harry Melvin LEISTER Sr. already appears in the report as indicated by the text below his name.

1.8.4.3 Harry Melvin LEISTER Sr.
--------------------------------
(See duplicate branch above)

Note: In cases where a person marries another person in an earlier generation, but appears in the family history report first because of child order, the text "(See duplicate branch below)" will be used.