Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Creating an Ancestor List ("Ahnentafel") in Family Tree Maker 2012

In response to my Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post, I received an email question from a reader who asked "How do I make an Ahnentafel using my genealogy software?"  It struck me that perhaps some readers do not know what an "ahnentafel" is...so I'll show how my three genealogy software programs create one.

Each program does this differently, with somewhat different results, so I'll go through Legacy Family Tree 7.5, Family Tree Maker 2012 and RootsMagic 5 in a series of posts.   The Legacy Family Tree 7.5 example is here.

Note that I like to use the term "Ancestor List" rather than "Ahnentafel" for this list, since it is really not a "Name Table."  For this "Ancestor List," I want ONLY the ancestor name, birth date and place, death date and place, and marriage date and place.  For me, a printed "Ancestor List" is much easier to use than a series of linked and printed pedigree charts.



Note:  Russ Worthington posted Creating Ahnentafel Report in Family Tree Maker 2012 today, but he included children in a multi-generational ancestors ("ahnentafel") report, rather than an Ancestor List (without children).  One thing he did that I liked was he included the Sources in his Report.  I'll do that in this post also.


1)  Family Tree Maker 2012, with myself highlighted on the Legacy Family View, I clicked on the "Publish" workspace button in the top Menu icon row. The "Publish" workspace opened, and I selected the "Genealogy Report" set of reports, and then highlighted the "Ahnentafel Report" thumbnail:



 2)  After double-clicking on the "Ahnentafel Report" icon (or clicking on the "Create Report" button on the right-hand side), the report opened:


In the 4-generation report created above, I had unclicked all of the check boxes on the right-hand side except for the "Exclude children" button, which was left checked.  The report above lists the burial fact, similar to what I did in Legacy Family Tree 7.5.

3)  The user can select which Facts to include by clicking on the "Items to Include" icon on the right-hand side (just below the "Ahnentafel Report Options"  heading:


I could also change the font size, font type, and font color by clicking on the "Fonts" icon in the "Ahnentafel Report Options" area.

4)  After changing the number of generations to 12, it took awhile to create this report:


The Ancestors List above includes the Burial Fact, and has 109 pages.

5)  I went back and eliminated the Burial Fact, and the Ancestor List report slimmed down to 100 pages.


6)  I really liked the idea of having the Sources listed for my ancestors' birth, marriage and death events (all the better to see which Events for which I do not have a Source Citation!), so I went back into the "Items to Include" and checked the "Include Sources" box.  The resulting report was 150 pages (first and last pages shown below):




There are 1,422 persons on this list (hand counted...) but only 841 source citations.  I have lots more work to do!!


Some comments about the information included and the formatting of the report:


*  The marriage line is included at the end of the husband's information (which is the classical "ancestor list" way)

*  The burial date and place is included in the list (if requested), but is separated from the person's information. [Update:  Russ commented that there is an option to include the burial information in the rest of the Person information.]  



*  I would like to see the capability to add the baptism date/place to the Ancestor List also.

*  The names are in Pedigree chart order, and skip the missing ancestors (which is the classical "ancestor list" way).

*  The Parents names of each person are not included on the list (which is not the classical "ancestor list" way). [Updated to reflect reality - my mistake!.  Thanks, Russ.  At least someone reads it...]


All in all, Family Tree Maker 2012 makes a very nice Ancestor List, with flexibility in the information to be included.  The user can save the list as an HTML, RTF, CSV or PDF file to their computer (using the "Share" button), or can Print the whole file or a range of pages using the "Print" icon on the "Ahnentafel Report Options" area.



The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/05/creating-ancestor-list-ahnentafel-in_29.html


Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

4 comments:

Cousin Russ said...

Randy,

FYI:

* The burial date and place is included in the list (if requested), but is separated from the person's information.

In the Right Hand Panel, of the Ahnentafel screen, there is an option to have the Burial FACT listed separately, as you described, but you can also include it in the Text.

I am not where I can blog about it at the moment, but you might want to give it a try.

I do remember our discussion about Ancestor Table vs Ahnentafel in the past. Something for me to look further into.

Thank you,

Russ

Cousin Russ said...

Randy,

You said: "* The Parents names of each person are not included on the list (which is the classical "ancestor list" way)"

The Parents names ARE listed with FTM2012. I know my images may not have been clear, but the 3rd generation screen capture mentioned both sets of parents.

Russ

Donna Hague Wendt said...

As Russ mentioned 29 May: "The burial date and place is included in the list (if requested), but is separated from the person's nformation. In the Right Hand Panel, of the Ahnentafel screen, there is an option to have the Burial FACT listed separately, as you described, but you can also include it in the Text."
BUT can that info in the text be included without having a big line space between the burial info and the rest of the text above it? Donna Hague Wendt

Cousin Russ said...

Donna - No, not in FTM2012. I may look better to you if you include other Facts.

Russ