Descendant Report

What Is a Descendant Report?

For Whom?

Multiple Spouses For a Source Person
Creating a Descendant Report
How Many Generations?
Pruning a Descendant Report
Removing Duplicate Branches
Layout
Name Setup
Indent/Outline
Index for Descendant Reports
Multiple Spouses in Descendant & Family History Reports


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Outline Methods

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What Is a Descendant Report?

Reunion creates descendant reports and descendant charts. In both cases, the document begins with one couple and looks forward in time — down the roots, as it were, from the starting couple in the current family.

descendant report

A descendant report is an indented text outline showing descendants of the source couple for a specified number of generations. Descendant reports don't have graphic elements — such as boxes or lines. These are included in descendant charts.

Here is a small, simplified example of a descendant report:

Joseph Patrick KENNEDY (6 Sep 1888 - 18 Nov 1969)
& Rose Elizabeth FITZGERALD (22 Jul 1890 - 22 Jan 1995)
        | John Fitzgerald KENNEDY (29 May 1917 - 22 Nov 1963)
        | & Jacqueline Lee BOUVIER (28 Jul 1929 - 19 May 1994)
        |         | Caroline Bouvier KENNEDY (27 Nov 1957 - )
        |         | & Edwin Arthur SCHLOSSBERG (19 Jul 1945 - )
        |         | John Fitzgerald KENNEDY Jr. (25 Nov 1960 - 16 Jul 1999)
        |         | & Carolyn BESSETTE (7 Jan 1966 - 16 Jul 1999)
        |         | Patrick Bouvier KENNEDY (7 Aug 1963 - 9 Aug 1963)

Here is the graphic version — a descendant chart:

For Whom?

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

To create a Descendant 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 Descendant 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

Descendant 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 Descendant 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 Descendant report — because the report will only include descendants of the couple in the "Who" section of the report window.

Creating a Descendant Report

To make a descendant report...

  1. Click Reports in the navbar.
  2. Click Descendant in the list of reports.

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

How Many Generations?

To set the size of a descendant report, use the up/down arrows next to the Generations box or type a number into the box. Descendant 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 a Descendant Report

The Reports > Descendant panel provides check-box buttons for pruning large descendant reports by including only...

Removing Duplicate Branches

To identify and remove repetition in a descendant report, click the Remove Duplicates button in the Reports/Descendant panel. Repetition (the creation of duplicate branches) occurs when descendants of married cousins (or siblings) appear more than once in a descendant report.

If duplicate branches are removed from a report, the source of the duplication (the related couple) will have a double asterisk (**) added to their entry in the descendant report. In most cases, the first occurrence of a branch will remain in the report and all other occurrences will be removed. However, depending on the order of siblings and the generation where duplication begins, there may be cases where the first occurrence of a branch is removed and the second occurrence remains in the report.

Layout

After selecting Reports > Descendant, layouts can be changed by clicking the Layout button and choosing Define Layouts.

Most of the layout settings for descendant reports are common to other reports. Follow these links for more information...

 Name Setup

Name Setup is a setting that refers to the style in which names of descendants and their spouses are presented in descendant reports (and descendant charts). To change the style, click the Change button and pick one of the eight basic styles.

To include spouses of descendants, be sure to pick a setup that includes the spouse. Descendants with multiple spouses will be listed once for each marriage and have asterisks after their names.

Note: If any person or spouse fields are included in the current layout, two buttons in the Name Setup window will be disabled...

To enable these buttons, click Cancel, and uncheck all of the person, spouse, and family fields. Then click Name Setup and click Change.

Dates

When the name setup includes names and dates on the same line, you have the option to include dates with just years or full dates. Select one of the two buttons under the title Dates.

First Line Bold

In descendant reports, you have the option to apply bold text to...

In the first example below, you can see the direct line from Benjamin M. LANDIS to Susan Winifred LANDIS by following the bold entries. This was done by making direct line children bold starting with Susan.

Benjamin M. LANDIS (5 Sep 1825 - 21 Aug 1872)
    |     Sarah LANDIS (21 Nov 1852 - 30 Jun 1854)
    |     William S. LANDIS (19 Aug 1854 - 11 Apr 1926)
    |     |     Harry D. LANDIS (24 Sep 1881 - 13 Apr 1960)
    |     |     |     Robert Herman LANDIS (8 Nov 1911 - )
    |     |     |     Karl Eugene LANDIS (6 Jun 1913 - )
    |     |     |     Vivian Pauline LANDIS (16 Aug 1915 - )
    |     |     Charles Monroe LANDIS (23 Feb 1899 - 19 Jan 1975)
    |     |     |     Charles Richard LANDIS (22 Nov 1924 - )
    |     |     |     Helen Jean LANDIS (17 Nov 1931 - )
    |     |     |     Ronald Lucian LANDIS (19 Mar 1933 - )
    |     |     |     Sue Winifred LANDIS (20 Aug 1936 - )

In the next example, odd numbered generations appear in bold text.

Conrad FÜRSTER
    |     John Peter FÜRSTER (1749 - 1772/1778)
    |     |     Leonard FÜRSTER (1777 - 1843)
    |     |     |     Peter FERSTER (1812 - 1870)
    |     |     |     |     Daniel FERSTER (SeeNotes - SeeNotes)
    |     |     |     |     Anna FERSTER (SeeNotes - SeeNotes)
    |     |     |     |     Adam FERSTER (1844 - 1911)
    |     |     |     George FERSTER
    |     |     |     Sally FERSTER
    |     |     |     Betzy FERSTER
    |     |     |     Catherine FERSTER
    |     |     George FÜRSTER
    |     |     Peter FÜRSTER
    |     |     Michael FÜRSTER
    |     John George FÜRSTER (1750 - 1821)
    |     Anna Elizabeth FÜRSTER (1754 - )
    |     Christina FÜRSTER (1756 - )
Indent/Outline

Another setting in the Descendant Report Layout window is Indent/Outline.

Indent

A descendant report is a text outline showing descendants of the source couple. Each level of indentation in the outline represents a successive generation.

To set the amount of indentation used for each generation, use the Indent menu button.

Tabs are recommended because they make it easier for you to change the spacing between generations when the report is opened in your word processor. In other words, you can adjust the tab stops in your word processor to move generations closer together or farther apart in the outline.

Text Lines

The Text Lines button will give you quick-and-dirty vertical connecting lines in a descendant report. Because this option only applies to text reports, the "lines" are made up of a text character (|) à la old PC programs. This is a quick way to add perspective to a non-graphic descendant report without creating a graphic chart. Both examples above use text lines.

Outline

To specify the outline method for descendant reports, use the Outline button.

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 descendant 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.

Index for Descendant Reports

Descendant reports will include an index when the following two conditions are met...

  1. When the Outline button is set to Legal or Register (in the Descendant Report Layout window, Indent/Outline setting).
  2. The Omit Index button is unchecked in the Report Settings. (Web output creates an index regardless of this setting.)

Indexes can't be included when using the Normal outline method because the index is not a "page number" index; rather, entries in the index cross reference the legal or Register number of people in the report. With the Normal outline method, there isn't enough information to cross-reference entries in the index to entries in the body of the report.

The index is sorted and grouped by surname.

Other settings for report indexes are discussed here.

Multiple Spouses in Descendant & Family History Reports

In a descendant report, descendants with multiple spouses will be listed once for each marriage. There are two exceptions:

  1. Descendant reports show the descendants of a couple, not a person. If either the husband or wife of the starting couple has multiple spouses, the descendants of their other spouses will not be listed. If you need to show descendants of multiple spouses of the starting couple, then you need to change the starting couple — go back one generation and start the report from a parent or other ancestor of the current starting couple.
  2. If you have opted not to include spouses of descendants in a descendant report and a person with multiple spouses is in the last generation of the report, then this person will not be listed twice. See the examples below.

The first example below does not show spouses — thus James Larry Leonard, who was married twice, only appears once. Because the second example shows spouses, James Larry Leonard appears twice.

Descendant Report Excerpt 1: without Spouses

James Bell Leonard (1894-1960)
     James John Bell Leonard (1922-)
          James Larry Leonard* (1943-)
          Kay Marie Leonard (1945)

Descendant Report Excerpt 2: with Spouses

James Bell Leonard (1894-1960) & Bertha Hammaker (1903-1979)
     James John Bell Leonard (1922-) & Evelyn Stewart (1926)
          James Larry Leonard* (1943-) & Judith Kiner (1947-)
          James Larry Leonard* (1943-) & Pamela Klinger (1954-)
          Kay Marie Leonard (1945) & Ronald Michaels

Note: the asterisk after his name indicates multiple marriages exist.