Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Dear Randy: "How Do You Make That Descendant List in Your 52 Ancestors Posts?"

 Reader Clark emailed this question to me this week, saying:

...In the “52 Ancestors” section you list an “I am descended through” list or report: example: [see https://www.geneamusings.com/2020/12/52-ancestors-week-360-573-elizabeth.html

*  their son #286 Jabez Snow (1696-1760) who married #287 Elizabeth Paine (1702-1772) in 1720.

*  their daughter #143 Eunice Snow (1722-1816) who married   #142 Nathaniel Horton (1721-1771) in 1742.

*  their daughter #71 Hannah Horton (1761-1797)who married #70 Thomas Dill (1755-1839)  in 1782.

*  their daughter  #35 Elizabeth Horton Dill (1791-1869) who married  #34 Alpheus Smith (1802-1840)  in 1826.

*  their daughter, #17 Lucretia Townsend Smith (1828-1884) who married #16 Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) in 1851.

*  their son #8 Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922) who married #9 Hattie Louisa Hildreth (1857-1920) in 1874.

*  their son #4 Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942) who married #5 Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962) in 1900.

*  their son #2 Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983) who married #3 Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002)  in 1942.

*  their son #1 Randall Jeffrey Seaver (1943-living)

Is this generated from a report generated by RootsMagic?  Or do you do a custom report in RootsMagic.

Sorry to say, this list is not made by RootsMagic, but my guess is that it could be!  I do it by consulting my Ahnentafel List created by RootsMagic.  I type the necessary changes into the 52 Ancestors blog post each week.  Usually, I only have to change one line, but occasionally I have to change several lines.

I make a new Ahnentafel Report every year or so - I made a new one today in RootsMagic.  

In RootsMagic, I can choose the top menu item "Reports," then choose the "Lists" item and select the "Ahnentafel Report."  I was asked how many generations to use, and I typed in "20"  I received a 184 page report in about ten seconds.  Here is the first page of the report:

And here is page 184 in the 20th generation:

Whew.  I'm glad I didn't have to type all of that.  Of course, this is one of the reasons to use a genealogy software management program like RootsMagic.  It might have taken me days to handwrite or print or type all of that (about 2,590 entries).  I don't think any online tree can do this type of report.  

I saved my Ahnentafel Report to my hard drive for future reference.  

I wish that RootsMagic would make a report that tells me how many persons I have in each generation of my ancestry.  I have had to count them on my fingers to get those numbers.

Thank you, Clark, for the question.

                        =============================================

Disclosure:  I have been a happy RootsMagic user since 2006, and have purchased every new version.  I have not received any material considerations from RootsMagic.  I purchased Version 8 at RootsTech 2020 last February.

Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver

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