Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 19: Source Reports

I installed FamilyTreeMaker 2008 in early July and uploaded a large database to see how it worked. I also started a new database to test other program features. Please see the list at the bottom of this post for the earlier posts.

In this post, I want to display some pages from the Source Reports generated by FamilyTreeMaker 2008.

I'm using my 4th-great-grandfather, Benjamin Seaver (1757-1816), in my database as a starting point for these reports.

When you click on the [Publish] icon on the top menu, you see a list of the different Charts and Reports that can be generated in the left-hand panel. I clicked on "Source Reports" and got this screen:

There are three types of Source Reports available:

1) Source Usage Report - this report displays all of the sources you have and lists the individuals and facts associated with each source. The user can select Immediate Family, All Individuals or Selected Individuals. I selected Immediate Family and received a three page report for Benjamin Seaver's family. The first page is shown below:


2) Source Bibliography Report - this report creates a bibliography for your family tree based on the source information you have entered. This report creates a complete bibliography for all sources in your database. The list of sources looks like this (but I don't have "perfect" source citations, - this is GIGO):


3) Documented Facts Report - this report lists all of the Facts in your tree for which you have source information. In this report, you can select Immediate Family, All Individuals or Selected Individuals. I chose Immediate Family and the first page is shown below:


Each of these reports is fairly standard and very useful. You can determine which facts you have source information for. Of course, if you have done a poor job of sourcing all of your information, as I have, you will get poorly written citations and a fairly short list!

Previous posts in this series:

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 1: Loading. Installing the program and uploading an existing database file.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 2: Exploring. Looking around the uploaded database file to see what the different views look like.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 3: The Menus. Most of the menus were itemized and described.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 4: Starting a New Tree. I started a new tree and added some people demonstrating the program options to do this.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 5: Adding a Source. I added sources to the Facts that I previously entered.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 6: Adding Children to a Family. I added children to a family.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 7: The Person Menu. I described the items in the Person menu and attached a spouse to a person.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 8: Finding a Person in the database. I described three ways to Find a person.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 9: Places I. I explored the vagaries of the Places icon.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 10: Places II. The different map types are discussed and displayed.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 11: Places III. The method to Resolve many places with standardized place names is explored.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 12: Charts I. Introduction to Charts and examples of pedigree and descendants charts.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 13: Charts II. Examples of Hourglass, Relationships and Vertical Pedigree Charts.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 14: Charts III. Examples of large wall charts created by FTM 2008.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 15: Genealogy Reports. Description and display of Register (descendant) and Ahnentafel (ancestor) Reports.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 16: Person Reports. Description and display of 5 different reports, including Individual Reports and Custom Reports.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 17: Relationship Reports. Description and display of Family Group Sheet, Kinship Report, Marriage Report, Parentage Report, and Outline Descendant Report.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 18: Place Usage Reports. Description and display of the Place Usage report.

The next post will start a series on Media - the photos, audio, video, and document images that you can add to your database.

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