Report Construction Software

[Huddersfieldlad]

Hi All,

I use Personal Ancestral File for my record keeping and apart from minor grouses (eg can't find a way of recording a male change of surname) find that it suits my needs. The bit I don't really like at all is the Report Writing element, I never seem to get the report I think I need (or am I not trying hard enough?).

Can anyone recommend a good, cheap, easy to use piece of software?

David

[Steve Ley]

Hi David, I use several different family history programmes but my main one is Legacy. It is free and there is the option to upgrade.

They also have a very good mail list user group

Steve.

[Huddersfieldlad]

Hi David, I use several different family history programmes but my main one is Legacy. It is free and there is the option to upgrade.

Steve.
Hi,

Thanks to Steve for responding. I don't think I was as clear as I had intended. I want to keep my PAF because I quite like it (this really means I am to idle to change) but I would like to get hold of separate report construction software that is able to interrelate with PAF

David

[Steve Ley]

Hi David, If you did use a different family history programme for the reports you could transfer information between PAF and Legacy for example, using Gedcom ( GEnealogical Data COMmunications which is a way of transferring your information between different family history software).
There are limitations on what information will be transferred such as notes but overall it works quite well and saves a lot of typing :D

I hope i have understood what you want to do.


Steve.

[annebagby]

The main problem I had with PAF was the difficulty in sending gedcoms to someone with a different genealogy program like FTM. Some of the data might go missing or the notes would disappear.


FTM is ok if you are doing American research but I find it inadequate for UK records. There is no listing for place of residence except in the notes. Baptisms which are more important in my UK research aren't considered important. Frustrating...

[John]

Hi All,

I use Personal Ancestral File for my record keeping and apart from minor grouses (eg can't find a way of recording a male change of surname) find that it suits my needs. The bit I don't really like at all is the Report Writing element, I never seem to get the report I think I need (or am I not trying hard enough?).

Can anyone recommend a good, cheap, easy to use piece of software?

David
David, have you looked at LDS Companion? I'm not sure if it will do what you want but it does claim to print reports.

John

[Di&Trev]

Hi David,
I use PAF as well. It's simple to use and like you I'm loathe to change.
I went back to the download site and loaded on PAF companion. You only get the evaluation version but it seemed OK, so I rang the IGI International section on (Int code) 001 (Utah code) 801 (Number) 2401126. Paid $6.75 and got the unlock key for the main program. If you use the number I'm giving you it goes straight through quickly rather than faffing about with switchboards. After that I downloaded the upgrade program and now have a fully functioning chart & report program for the princely sum of £3 something and 1 phone call.
I call that value - you can print all the usual charts & books and photos.
btw - Utah is 7 hours behind us.

Hope you find it useful

[John]

Isn't it possible to order this from the Birmingham Distribution centre and save the cost of transatlantic calls?
By the way, this isn't the same product as the one I mentioned, the primary purpose of which appears to be the conversion of large amounts of data in to access or other data bases.

John

[Peter Goodey]

Huddersfieldlad -

Perhaps if you told us what reports you wish you had, someone might come up with some concrete suggestions.

I wasn't too sure what you meant by a male change of surname. Did you mean someone actually changing his name like from Smith to Jones?

There are ways to record name changes but actually changing the field called 'surname' is a bit of a no-no for ANY software based on lineage.

BTW I'm evaluating Legacy at the moment but I have to say I haven't yet found a compelling reason to change from PAF. It may be because I haven't found it yet but Legacy doesn't seem to be able to produce a report listing say all baptisms of a certain name (or similar names) in a certain location sorted by date. But that's perfectly straightforward in PAF and one of the things I do fairly often. Perhaps one of the Legacy fans will tell me how to do it :)

Di & Trev -

Can you tell us about Companion? What reports does it produce? Do they look 'nice'? How do they differ from what PAF produces? I might be tempted...;)

[Di&Trev]

Hi.
Yes the charts & reports do look good. Normal type of things. Kinship reports, Hourglass charts, pedigree chart, ancestor chart, fan chart, ahnentafel report, bow-tie report,descendant chart, outline descendant chart, register report. As i believe others do, it prints multiple pages using tiling but it has a very comprehensive re-size facility and also sends to a print file to be put into a large scale plotter at a shop or someone at work's office :)
Charts can be played about with and use all sorts of different formats & layouts.
Haven't had it long myself and am still trying out its capabilities but so far it looks good.
Pulled this off the screen.
The Companion provides enhanced reporting capabilities that will enrich your experience with Personal Ancestral File. In addition to accommodating the new PAF 5 file format, Companion introduces a number of new charts and features now available for Personal Ancestral File versions 3, 4 and 5.

Here are the highlights:

· New reports:
Standard Family Group Record. A variable format that will print all user-defined events.
Hourglass Chart. Print both ancestors and descendants for an individual.
Bow Tie Chart. An alternative ancestor chart with paternal ancestors on the left and maternal ancestors on the right.

· New report options:
photos
confidential notes and events
Ibid for repeating sources. Users have the option to use Ibid. for repeating sources in the Family Group Record,and Standard Family Group Record, as well as for the Ahnentafel and Register Reports.

user-defined events
footnotes or endnotes
metric units of measure

· Hourglass View. Display both ancestors and descendants on your screen.
· Bow Tie View. Display an individual's paternal and maternal ancestor lines on your screen.
· Compare to PRF Master Index. Automatically find individuals in Pedigree Resource File (PRF) who may match people in your .paf file and prints a reconciliation report of all matches.

· Kin search. Find all the relatives of an individual.
· Name List. Browse an alphabetic list of all individuals contained in a .paf file.
· Save the Match List. Save the contents of the match list to a "comma-separated values" file (.csv).
· Foreign characters. Companion will now display and print Western European characters with diacritics.
· Home Base. No longer the default navigation screen, Home Base is still available and can be perman paternal ancestors on the left and maternal ancestors on the right.

[Peter Goodey]

Thanks. I think I'll download the Companion evaluation and give it a test drive.

[arthurk]

BTW I'm evaluating Legacy at the moment but I have to say I haven't yet found a compelling reason to change from PAF. It may be because I haven't found it yet but Legacy doesn't seem to be able to produce a report listing say all baptisms of a certain name (or similar names) in a certain location sorted by date. But that's perfectly straightforward in PAF and one of the things I do fairly often. Perhaps one of the Legacy fans will tell me how to do it :) I suppose I'd qualify as a Legacy fan, but I wouldn't claim to know everything about it. However, I think you're right about it not being able to produce that kind of report. You can perform complex searches, but the results appear alphabetically, and I couldn't find a way of changing this.

However, there's an add-on product used by many Legacy fans - GENViewer. This reads GEDCOM files, and they produce a special Legacy version which reads Legacy's own files directly. I first got a free version on a cover disc (Your Family Tree, I think), but it didn't cost very much to register for the full version.

With GENViewer it was very easy to produce the report you wanted - in the list of results you simply click on a column heading to change how they sort.

Hope this helps,
Arthur

[Peter Goodey]

Arthur

Thanks for the advice. I'll investigate further.

[Clive Blackaby]

This is based on standard GEDcom. I find that the trees it produces are cumbersome, and the user interface is not as good as FTM (v9 or v2005) but one thing it does have is a really full functional report writer, with a good set of bespoke reports and the ability to report on more or less anything you want especially if you have a bit of ability in programming.