Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Chronology Report in Legacy Family Tree 7.5

While on the Legacy Family Tree cruise last week, I was exposed to more features in Legacy Family Tree 7.5 that I had not fully explored.  I thought it might be useful to compare specific features between the software programs that I use.

The first feature I want to look at is the Chronology or Timeline feature.  I selected my grandfather, Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942).  The Family View in Legacy Family Tree 7.5 looks like this (my color settings):


There are several View tabs on the screen just below the menu and icon rows near the top - they are for Legacy Home, Family, Pedigree, Descendant, Chronology, Index and Research Guidance.  I clicked on the "Chronology" View tab and then on the "Options" button on the right-hand side of the screen below.  That opened the "Chronology Options" menu:


The "Chronology Options" menu has tabs for Include, Formatting, Column Widths, Report Options, Sources, and Screen Fonts.  I went carefully through those and figured out what I wanted to see in a Chronology Report - I want the events/facts for my grandfather, his parents, his spouse and his children.  I couldn't find an option for his siblings.  I want my Notes and Sources included in the report.  I want Historical Facts in the way of US Presidents and US Wars.  I tried to add Inventions but that dominated the chronology.  Here is the top of the first page of the Chronology as presented on the View tab:


In the screen above, the Age is in the left-hand column, followed by the Date, the Event, and the Event Description. The Event column uses different colors - the Person's color is black, the spouse is purple, the children red, and the historical events orange.  The user can control these colors and the fonts.

I wanted to print a report out, so I clicked on the "Report" button on the right of the screen above.  Here is a two-page view of the start of the chronology:


This was a 7 page report, with the General Notes following the Event list, and the Source End-notes following the Notes.  Here is a two page view of the end of the notes and the start of the sources:


This printed out very nicely for me.  I can change the margins, the title, and other content using the "Chronology Options" menu.

Chronologies/Timelines can be very useful for researchers to help them understand all of the events that might occur in a person's life. However, the researcher needs to add the Facts and Events for each person so that the Chronology/Timeline is complete.  I should add the Residence address, the place of employment, newspaper articles, etc. to the Facts/Events in order to have a more complete picture of my grandfather's life.

I would like to have sibling information, children's marriages, and more historical events (elections, economic events, etc.) added to this Chronology report.  I noted that some of the U.S. Presidents had only their inauguration date listed, but that there were no notes.

Disclosure:  I have received free copies of Legacy Family Tree software, webinar CDROMs and other gratuities from Legacy Family Tree over the past four years.  These gifts have not influenced my opinion of this product.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/05/chronology-report-in-legacy-family-tree.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Tessa Keough said...

I have added timelines to my Legacy program - including timelines for Newfoundland, Ireland, Nebraska, Washington and Oregon. You can add the "title" what appears in the Chronology Report and then add as much detail/description as you want as well as your source citation (which does not need to print) for purposes of your Report.
It is important to add events/facts to your peoples because this will flesh out their story in the timeline. I find it very helpful for finding my holes and/or giving me ideas of new places or events to research.
I think we are all guilty of not taking the time to learn our software and certainly we are not aware of how robust these programs can be. Thanks for sharing how you do it.