Saturday, April 4, 2009

Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 7: Creating a Narrative Descendants Report

I downloaded the free RootsMagic 4 beta release in early March, and easily uploaded my Family Tree Maker file to it. In this series, I'm looking at different features of RootsMagic 4. I'm not doing a comprehensive review, just looking at features important to me.

Previous posts in this series include:

* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 1: Navigation
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 2: Editing Person Data
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 3: Adding a Child to the Family
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 4A: Creating a Pedigree Chart
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 4B: Creating a Pedigree Chart
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 5: Creating a Family Group Sheet
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 6: Creating a Narrative Ancestor's Report

In this post, I'm going to create a Narrative Report of the descendants of my 4th great-grandfather, Humphrey White (1758-1814). In the "Family" View, I clicked on the "Report" menu item and highlighted the "Narrative Report" option:


We've discussed all of the options in earlier posts, so I won't repeat them here. After clicking on "Narrative Report," the "Report Settings" menu opens:

There are five different types of Descendants Reports that can be chosen:

* Modified Register - where each descendant has a unique, sequential number, and families are listed in numerical order, separated by generation headers. A system like this is used in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly and other scholarly genealogy periodicals and reports. It is my preference for descendants reports.

* Register - where only descendants with children have a unique, sequential number. This system is used in the New England Historic Genealogical Register (NEHGR), a quarterly scholarly journal published by the New England Historical and Genealogical Society.

* Outline (indented) - where each descendant has a unique, sequential indicator - but in the order of Capital Roman Numeral, Capital letter, Arabic number, Lower-case letter, Lower-case Roman numeral, bracketed Arabic number, etc. I've seen this system used in books - it is impossible to follow while reading!

* Henry (indented) - where each descendant has a unique numerical designation based on the generation from the starting person and the child number of each ancestor. This is a logical system, but is difficult to use, but the indentations help. I have an example below.

* D'Aboville (indented) - where each descendant has a unique numerical designation based on the generation from the starting person and the child number of each ancestor, separated by periods. This is a logical system, easier to use than the Henry system. I have an example below.

The Modified Register system is shown below (first page only):

The Henry system is shown below (first two pages):


The D'Aboville system is shown below (first two pages):



Why would a genealogist use the Outline, Henry or D'Aboville numbering systems? The best reason is to keep all of the descendants of a certain person immediately under that person. The Modified Register and Register numbering systems list persons in generational order. Authors have written books about the merits of different genealogy numbering systems. My preference is the Modified Register system, where every person has a number and the families are listed in numerical order with Generation Number headings.

In the next post, we'll look at some Charts.

2 comments:

Diane said...

I love reading your blog, Randy. Lots of great and useful information! Diane

Steve said...

Randy,
Thanks for these blog postings. I'm new to RM myself and am learning as I go. Have you looked at the "shared fact" feature yet? I'd be curious to see your take on that, especially how shared facts show up in the types of reports you've been writing about. Since this feature was not in Legacy (the app I'm most familiar with), I'm having a difficult time figuring out how it's used in reports. Your blog is great - thanks again for all the useful information! Steve