Can your genealogy software provide a list or report with the ages at death of selected people in your database? Preferably the ancestors of a person, in order from most years to fewest years. Or just the top 20 persons, say.
Rather than bumble my way through six different software programs and be embarrassed by my lack of ingenuity, I'm going to ask my faithful and really smart readers to help me out with this task. When I get good answers, I will post them in a summary blog post.
I would appreciate either comments to this post, or emails to me at rjseaver@cox.net, describing the process you would use in your genealogy software program to obtain the list or report that I want to generate.
If possible, I would love to have the process for FTM2008, Legacy Family Tree, RootsMagic, The Master Genealogist, Personal Ancestral File or Ancestral Quest, Reunion, or any other genealogy software. I will post how I did this task in FamilyTreeMaker 16. If you want to send me a screen shot of the results you obtain, please do.
Thanks for any and all help!
Here's how to do it in PAF.
ReplyDeleteReports in Ancestral Quest are practically identical.
Choose File | Print Reports (PAF's programmers apparently think reports are always printed)
Choose the Custom tab to create a custom report
There are three steps
1. Choosing the persons
2. Choosing the fields
3. Choosing the sort order
to get to
4. Viewing the results
1. Choosing the persons
Hit the Select button to select the person and his ancestors
Choose the proband from the list, by name or by number
Choose "Ancestors" from the drop-down relationship filter
PAF will display the number of selected persons
Choose "Select"
In the Ancestors dialog box that pops up
* Allow the default of 999 generations of ancestors
* be sure to set the descendants generations to zero to not include other descendants of your ancestors
* be sure uncheck "include spouses" (other spouses really)
* leave "include all parents" unchecked
Choose OK to go back the custom report tab
2. Choosing the fields
Choose the "Fields" button
Add "Full Name"
Add "Age at Death"
Choose OK to go back the custom report tab
3. Choosing the sort order
Choose "Sort Order" button
Add "Age of Death"
Add "Surname, Given" instead of "Full Name" for better sort results
Choose "Ascending" or "Descending" as you like it
Choose OK to go back the custom report tab
4. Viewing the results
Here you usually choose "Preview", after which you can save to RTF
You may need to change the page layout from portrait to landscape
You can print directly to a comma delimited file if you like
You can save the custom report for future use.
Family Tree Maker 2008: So far as I can tell, "Age at death" is not on the list of facts that can be included in a report.
ReplyDeleteI concur with Drew. I can't find that fact in FTM 2008's list of facts for custom reports either.
ReplyDeleteSeems yet another reason to consider FTM 2008 an downgrade from FTM 16 :-(
You can sign up to become FTM 2009 beta tester now, to try and influence things a bit.
Here's how to do it in Legacy.
ReplyDelete1) Open the Name List by clicking on the name list button.
2) Click on the Print button.
3) Click on the Customize button, select a field name to replace by clicking on the ... button, then select Age At Death.
Preview the report.