Connections

What is a Connection?
Creating a Connection

The Appearance of Connections

Connections in Note Fields

Connections in Person Buttons

Connections in Logs and Sources

The Connections List

Connections in Reports

Connections in GEDCOM

Quickview

What is a "Connection?"

"Connections" let you link people to other people who aren't necessarily related by blood or marriage. I.e., this feature stretches beyond "familial" or "lineage linked" relationships.

For example, you can document and connect people who serve as a godfather, friend, witness, neighbor, etc. You can connect someone who was residing at the same address during a census recording, or somebody who was a servant in the household. There are many possibilities, depending on the scope of your research.

connections

Here are examples of connections:

Godparent Neighbor Unrelated person Possible relative
Godfather Live-in Housekeeper Pall bearer
Godmother Witness Servant Priest
Godchild Witness to marriage Unproven link Notary
Friend Witness to will Tentative link Legatee
House owner Matchmaker Hypothetical link Executor
Killed Killed by Roommate Care Provider

To make a connection to a person who is not already in the family file and is not related in any other way (for example, a friend), then you'll need to create a new Person record for the friend. I.e., a new record for an unrelated person who is therefore only tied by his or her connection. To do this, choose Edit > Add Unrelated Person > Male/Female/Unknown Sex.

Adding unrelated people to be used as connections will impact a few features, perhaps unexpectedly. For example, these unrelated connections will appear in the People sidebar, they will be included in searches, etc. This will also impact the Islands feature (by creating new islands in cases where the connected person is not related to anybody else).

We suggest you avoid overusing this feature. For example, if you add 10 unrelated friends to each person in your family, your family file will no longer resemble a "family" file.

Creating a Connection

First, let's look at a simple example: Let's say you have a person named Paula and her godmother was Mary. Because Mary is married to a distant relative, she is already in the family file. To create a connection, you'd locate Mary in the People sidebar, then drag Mary's name into the note field for Paula. In this example, the godmother's name, Mary, would appear underlined in Paula's note field. You've made a connection from Paula to Mary.

Here are the two steps to create a connection...

  1. Drag a person (their name or button) from one of these 3 places...
  2. Drop it into one of these 3 places...
    • Another person's notes field (in the family view, or in the Edit Person > Notes panel).
    • A log.
    • The Free-Form Text field of any source record.

The name of the person you dragged and dropped will become a "connection" and will appear underlined in the text field where it was dropped (similar to a link on a web page). The name includes prefix and suffix titles, if any are recorded, for the linked person.

The text containing and surrounding the linked name can be edited in the note field, just like a URL can be edited in a note field.

Here is an example where a person was dropped into a note field and then the person's linked name (Michael Fremont SNYDER) was edited by adding the text "(Uncle Mike)."

Tip: The key to editing connection text in the note field is to click the mouse cursor before or after the linked text. And then move the cursor with the arrow keys on your keyboard to where you want to add or delete words/characters. (When you initially click, it can be any number of characters before or after the connection link; it doesn't have to be immediately before or after.)

To add text to the beginning or end of linked text, click the mouse cursor before or after the linked text and then, using the keyboard arrow keys, move the cursor as follows...

Note: adding the "Uncle Mike" to the connection text in the example above does not alter his name in the family file — it doesn't change his person record. Similarly, when you change any name field in a person's record, the text used as a clickable link is not changed or updated. This is intentional, to avoid changes to the person's name fields potentially overwriting changes made to the clickable connection link.

Note: a "couple" can be also be dragged/dropped, from the List > Couples window.

The Appearance of Connections

Connections in the Family View

In the family view, a connection will appear in a note field as underlined text, like this..

Click the underlined text to see the Quickview window with details about the connected person...

The Quickview window includes...

More information about the Quickview appears here.

Connections in Note Fields

In the Edit Person > Notes panel, a connection appears as underlined text in a note field. See the example below...

Just above the note field, you'll see a Multimenu button (gray, round button).

In addition to showing connections, the Multimenu also includes links to web pages, source citations, and email links imbedded in a note field. This makes it easy to reveal any of these items (connections, web links, citations, and email links) buried in a large body of note text.

The little number to the left of the Multimenu button shows the total number of connections, web links, citations, and email links within the note field.

Choosing any item in the Multimenu will scroll the note field and land the cursor directly at the chosen spot in the note field (the connection, web link, citation, or email link).

As mentioned before, you can phrase the connection in the note field as you see fit. I.e., the connection can be more than just a name. If the note field is included in a report, the connection will be presented exactly as it appears in the note field.

Connections in Person Buttons

Clicking the Connection button (the little round blue icon) inside a Person button in the family view reveals a window listing a person's connections...

Connections in Logs and Sources

Connections are also implemented in logs and source records (in the Free-Form text field).

This example shows a log connected to two people and the connection is a "Possible Link."

This example shows a source record connected to a witness to the source.

The Connections List

To see the Connections list, select List > Connections in the Navbar.

Reunion's List window will show a list of all connections in the family file.

Tip: To show the List Connections window, you can also use a letter-key shortcut: in the family view, press lx and the Return key.

Connections in Reports

In order for a connection to appear in a report, the report layout must include the note field where the connection appears.

As mentioned above, the connection as it appears in the note field can be more than just a name. If the note field is included in any report, the connection will be presented exactly as it appears in the note field. Here's an example...

It's a good idea to qualify or describe the connected person in the note field text, as in the example above where we've added "Birth was witnessed by..." This is because the content of the Connection Description field is not included in the report.

If a connected person (the "to" person) is included elsewhere in a Web report or Book report, then the link in the report is clickable and would navigate to that person in the report. If the connected person was not in the report, then the connection would not appear as a clickable link in the report.

Connections embedded in the note field can't be marked as "sensitive," as that would break the flow of the freeform text in the report.

Connections in GEDCOM


GEDCOM Export...

Connections in Reunion note fields for people, families and sources will be exported in GEDCOM files.

There are two exceptions...

  1. If a connection is for a person excluded from the export or a note field that has been excluded from the export, the connection will not be exported.
  2. If the connection points to a person or family that is not included in the export, the connection will not be exported.

Connections in note fields are exported independently of the actual note text. That’s because GEDCOM does not support exporting connections (via the ASSO tag) that are embedded within notes. (Much like GEDCOM does not support citations embedded in notes.)

This excerpt shows how Reunion would export a Misc. Note field containing 2 connections to a GEDCOM file...

0 @N316@ NOTE
1 CONT Nickname “Dottie.”
1 CONT
1 CONT Cheryl Lynn Pellman witnessed the wedding of Dot and Glenn.
1 CONT
1 CONT Dottie retired after 17 years working at Brookline Manor.
1 CONT
1 CONT Later, she was provided long-term care by Tonda Jane Ehrisman.

Notice that the 2 connections are exported separately as ASSO (association) records in the GEDCOM file...

1 NOTE @N316@ <-- This points to the note field with the connections.
1 ASSO @I1719@
2 TYPE INDI
2 RELA Witness <-- In Reunion, this is the “connection description.”
1 ASSO @I1121@
2 TYPE INDI
2 RELA Care Provider <-- In Reunion, this is the “connection description.”

Logs are not supported in GEDCOM files; thus connections from logs are not exported.


GEDCOM Import...

Reunion will import connections (aka associations) in GEDCOM files having the ASSO GEDCOM tag. The connections will appear appended to the "Misc. Notes" field, as in this example...

If a GEDCOM file from another app contains connections/associations, they will typically look like this in the GEDCOM file...

1 NOTE @N256@ <-- This points to the note record with the connections.
1 ASSO @I8@ <-- The record of the individual with the connection.
2 TYPE INDI
2 RELA roommate <-- In Reunion, this will become the “connection description.”
1 ASSO @F126556@ <-- The record of the family with the connection.
2 TYPE FAM
2 RELA witness <-- In Reunion, this will become the “connection description.”