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V. System Reports
This section discusses the various reports produced by the FAMILY
HISTORY SYSTEM. While these are standard types of reports expected
from a genealogical record system, that is: Ancestor Report, Ancestor
(TREE) Charts and MAPs, Descendant Report, Descendant Charts, Relative
Report and Individual/Family Group Information, some of the data items
displayed or terms used in describing the reports may be unfamiliar to
you. The following paragraphs describe some of these terms, including
those of `ancestor', `descendant', `lineage number', `generation
level', `bloodline' and `related individuals'.
A.Some Definitions
An `ANCESTOR' of an individual refers to one of the parents, grand-
parents, great-grandparents, etc., of the individual. A `DESCENDANT'
of an individual refers to any one of his or her children, grand-
children, great-grandchildren, etc. The parent-child relationships
described are `blood' relationships and do not refer to `legal' or
adoptive relationships. (Adoptive relationships may be recorded and
distinguished from other parent-child relationships, as described in
Appendix C.) Two individuals are considered to be `RELATED' if they
have a common ancestor. Therefore we would not consider individuals
who are only `inlaws', that is `related' through marriage, to be rela-
tives in the above sense. A `SPOUSE' refers to either partner in a
marital relationship. (One aspect of this system's files and reports
is that they have been designed so as not to give a preferential
status to any individual based upon their sex.)
The `GENERATION LEVEL' of an ancestor or descendant of an individual
refers to the number of `parent-child' relationships that separate the
ancestor or descendant from the individual. For example, with respect
to a selected individual (who is said to have generation level 0), the
generation levels of some relatives are: children (GL=+1), grand-
children (GL=+2), great grandchildren (GL=+3), parents (GL=-1), grand-
parents (GL=-2), great grandparents (GL=-3). Notice that descendants
have positive generation levels and ancestors have negative generation
levels.
The `BLOODLINE' between an ancestor and any of his/her descendants
refers to a sequence of numbers, one for each parent-child relation-
ship that separates the ancestor from the descendant, where the number
for a given parent-child relationship refers to the number of the
child in that generation level who is an ancestor of the descendant.
For example, the bloodline (3,2,4,2) indicates that the descendant is
the 2nd child, of the 4th child of the 2nd child of the 3rd child of
the ancestor in question.
The `LINEAGE NUMBER' of an ancestor refers to a number that is
assigned sequentially to the ancestors of the individual in the
following manner:
the base individual has lineage number 1;
the individual's father has lineage number 2;
the individual's mother has lineage number 3;
the father's father has lineage number 4;
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the father's mother has lineage number 5;
the mother's father has lineage number 6;
the mother's mother has lineage number 7; etc.
In general, if an ancestor has lineage number n, then that ancestor's
father will have lineage number 2n and the ancestor's mother will have
lineage number 2n+1. These are the `counting' numbers that would
naturally be assigned to persons on the traditional `horizontal'
ancestor tree chart. Some relationships to notice: all male ancestors
have "even" lineage numbers and all female ancestors have "odd"
lineage numbers, and for a given ancestor on the chart, the lineage
number of the child which appears on the chart is found by dividing
the parent's lineage number by 2 (and discarding the remainder, if
any...for example, an ancestor with lineage number 127 will have a
child with lineage number 63 appearing on the ancestor tree). Since
beginning to work on these programs I have become aware that the term
"ahnentafel number" is more commonly applied to the lineage number in
genealogical literature, though I have become accustomed to the term
"lineage number" and so will continue to use it in this manual.
While "lineage number" and "bloodline" are convenient "numerical"
concepts for describing "direct" relationships such as exist between
an individual and his/her ancestors or descendants, the problem of
uniquely describing one's non-direct relatives (aunts, uncles,
cousins, etc.) is a bit more complicated. The very definition of
"relative" given above suggests a natural approach which would combine
these concepts to label relatives with a "lineage number"+"bloodline"
where the lineage number is that of the "nearest common ancestor" of
the two individuals (that is the common ancestor with lowest lineage
number) and the "bloodline" is the one that
describes the line of
descendancy of the relative from the common ancestor. This is the
approach that is used by this system's relative report for grouping
and listing all recorded relatives of an individual. The family
group report provides an option for showing the relationship and
LINEAGE of the subject of the report. In that case, the LINEAGE
displayed consists of:
a. the LINEAGE Number if it is an ancestor
b. the BLOODLINE, in the format (x,x,x,...,x), if it is a
descendant
or c. the LINEAGE Number + BLOODLINE as described above if it is a
non-direct relative.
There is another method for describing relatives which, though it
assigns a non-numeric and non-unique label to relatives, gives a more
generally understood idea of the relationship between individuals.
These labels are ones such as: mother, father, cousin, aunt, grand-
mother, great-great-grand-uncle, etc. The set of rules used to assign
such labels in the relative report (and the relative report index of
the extended system) is the one which describes the child of a First-
Cousin as a First-Cousin-once-Removed, rather than as a Second Cousin.
These are sometimes called the "Common" rules for relationships.
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B. Report Descriptions
FIXED FORMAT and FREE FORMAT Reports
Prior to March 1990, all Family History System reports were in a style
that placed all information of a given type in a "fixed" location in
the report. In Ancestor/Descendant/Relative reports, a column format
was used and family group reports appeared as "filled out" information
sheets. Most of these reports required a printline of at least 132
characters. Consequently they required using compressed print with
standard 8 1/2" wide paper.
In March 1990, new FREE FORM styles of Ancestor/Descendant/Relative
and Family Group reports were introduced in which all information is
printed out in a "block" or "paragraph" format. This permitted using
printlines as narrow as 80 characters for most reports, allowing the
use of more readable PICA or ELITE type styles.
While the FREE FORM reports are likely to prove popular for sharing
information with others, I believe the FIXED FORMat reports will still
be most useful for continuing research because they allow more room
for recording changes and new information. I hope you will try both
of them to determine which is most appropriate for your own work.
REPORT OPTION MENUS
Many report options are selectable from a Menu that appears in the
lower right corner of the screen. Any changes you make to these
options will be "remembered" throughout a FHS working session, though
the options will return to their "default" values in subsequent
working sessions.
OTHER REPORT OPTIONS
Other report options will be offered to you through "bottom line"
prompts. One such option allows you to select the style for
formatting names. You may select name formats from among:
1) Last, First 2) LAST, First 3) First Last 4)First LAST
where formats 2 and 4 provide automatic conversion of surnames to all
CAPs for visual emphasis.
Most report programs will also ask something like:
Start at Beginning? (Y/N)
What it wants to know is whether you want it to begin printing with
the first page of the report or skip forward to another page. This
permits you to restart an interrupted report without having to reprint
the initial pages. If you reply "N", you will be asked the number of
the page to begin printing. There may be a long pause after the
program indicates that it is printing the report because it must still
process all the information on the pages that are being skipped "to
find its place" for continuing the report. You will want to make sure
that you are using all the same options for printing the report as
were originally used so that all information will end up in the same
place as before.
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Another "bottom line" option in the report programs asks whether you
wish to: Create REFERENCE File for Index? (Y/N)
This permits you to create a WORK file which contains the locations of
names refered to in the reports. One of the extended options provided
to registered users will print report indexes from the REFERENCE file.
If you have already printed a report and wish to go back to create the
reference file for an index, you can print the report again, with all
the same options, but when asked whether you wish to "Start at the
Beginning?", answer "N" and enter "9999" for the number of the page to
begin printing. The entire report will be "processed", for recording
references in the work file, but nothing will actually be printed.
PAUSING AND CANCELLING THE PRINTING OF REPORTS
While producing any of the reports, the printing may be temporarily
interrupted by pressing the `space bar' or any of the `character
keys'. The report may then be continued by again pressing the space
bar (or one of the character keys) or may be terminated by pressing
the ESC key. If you use the PGDN key to continue a report, then the
program will pause at the top of the next page of output. This may
prove convenient for pausing a printer that is running low on paper.
You can continue the printing by pressing any key.
-----------------------
In the following report descriptions, the keystrokes required to
select the report program from the Main Menu are shown, in parentheses,
following the name of the report in the section heading. I will
sometimes refer to the Ancestor, Descendant and Relative reports as
"relationship" reports because their organization is designed to
emphasize the relationship between individuals. The Family Group
reports give more detailed information about each individual. The
Ancestor Charts and "Map" should prove useful for tracking the results
of your ancestral research while the Descendant Chart option produces
a "wall chart" that graphically illustrates family relationships. You
may also want to see Section VII.B which describes how you may use a
shareware organization chart program to print descendant charts.
1. ANCESTOR Report (Main Menu option F2-A-1)
The `Ancestor REPORT' groups ancestors by generation level and shows
the lineage numbers of the ancestors listed. Because no lines are
printed for `missing' lineage numbers, (for ancestors not yet recorded
in the files), this report is much more concise than the traditional
ancestor chart. The lineage numbers may be used to follow lines of
ancestry on the ancestor report using the relationships described in
the previous discussion concerning lineage numbers. (The term
`Ahnentafel list' is also used for reports of this type.)
Before printing an ancestor report (or any of the other "relationship"
reports described in this section) you must identify which individuals
are to be listed. This is done by entering a "Base ID" for the
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individual whose ancestors are to be listed and letting the program
"search for" the ancestors of the individual. The number of genera-
tions of ancestors that are to be searched appears under the File
names and may be modified by selecting the option (F1) for changing
File Names.
When you press F3, the program asks you for the Base ID and whether
you wish to include adoptive relationships. It then begins the
ancestor search, recording information about the located ancestors in
the ANCESTOR.WRK file. This "work" dataset does not have to be
recreated each time an ancestor report is printed if there is no
change to the family file that would change the relationships recorded
in it.
If you have decided to identify adoptive relationships as indicated
in Appendix C and you have included adoptive relationships in the
ancestor search, adoptive parents will be noted by an "*" to the right
of the lineage number in this report.
If a child is born to related individuals, the common ancestor of
those individuals will appear twice on an ancestor report for that
child. In the ancestor reports produced by this system, such common
ancestors will be noted and the lineage of the ancestor will be
continued only for the ancestor's occurrence with the smallest lineage
number.
If you have elected to show marriage dates in this report, the date of
marriage will only be shown on the line for female ancestors. The
number of years married is computed from the dates in the marriage
record, the death dates of the spouses and/or the current date at the
time the report is produced. If the death date of one of the spouses
is used to determine the number of years married, then an "*" will
appear to the right of that number in the report.
ANCESTOR REPORT OPTIONS MENU
As noted previously, many of the options for printing ancestor reports
appear as a Menu in a viewing area in the lower right corner of the
screen. This menu appears as follows:
Print ID's: N Sex: N
Age/Anniv: D (Y/N/D)
Relations: N (Y/N)
Places: N (Y/N)
Marriage: N (Y/N)
Comments: N (Y/N/A/S)
Page Nos: Y Line REF: Y
First Page Number: 1
The option for printing Ages or Last Anniversary may have values
"Y"es, "N"o or "D". The "D" means that an Age is only to be printed
if the individual has Died (or a Last Anniversary will be printed only
if the marriage has been terminated by death or other cause).
The option for printing Comments may have values "Y", "N", "A" or "S".
The "A" selection (for ALL) means that the comments are to be printed
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(as with "Y") but that "bracketed" comments are to be included.
"Bracketed comments" are those that are enclosed in "curly brackets"
or "braces", "{" and }". This permits you to isolate possibly sensi-
tive or conjectural remarks from other comments. When you choose to
print these comments with the "A" option, the enclosing braces are
replaced with spaces. The value "S" requests that bracketed comments
be printed, but to "S"how the brackets instead of replacing them with
spaces.
Line REFerence indicators are line numbers that are printed in the
margin area, when Margin >= 4, to assist in finding the location of
individuals referred to in a report index. Producing report indexes
is one of the extended options provided to registered users.
Being able to set the value with which page numbers are to begin
allows you to print several different reports with continuous,
sequential numbering of the pages.
2. DESCENDANT Report (Main Menu option F2-A-2)
The Descendant Report may be produced in several formats. Individuals
may be grouped either by "generations" or by "families". The genera-
tion grouping uses the `bloodline' to group and `label' the indivi-
duals listed. In so doing, individuals in the same generation who are
`closely related' appear near one another in the report. Brothers and
sisters appear in succession in birth date sequence, with 1st cousins,
2nd cousins, etc. grouped around them. It is also easy to locate, in
previous generations, the ancestor which an individual has on that
generation level by locating the individual on that level whose blood-
line forms the initial sequence of numbers in the bloodline of the
descendant in question.
The "family" grouping will have children located closer to their
parents, though brothers and sisters will be more widely separated in
the report. The report for "family" grouping is printed in a "chart"
or "outline" format with each individual's name offset according to
the generation in which he/she belongs. This outline format will
probably be easier for most people to use.
Before printing a descendant report (or any of the other "relation-
ship" reports described in this section) you must identify which
individuals are to be listed. This is done by entering a "Base ID"
for the individual whose descendants are to be listed and letting the
program "search for" the descendants of the individual. The number
of generations of descendants that are to be searched appears under
the File Names in the upper left corner of the screen and may be
changed by selecting the option (F1) for changing file names.
When you press F3, the program asks you for the Base ID and whether
you wish to include adoptive relationships. It then begins the
descendant search, recording information about the located descendants
in the DESCNDNT.WRK file. This "work" dataset does not have to be
recreated each time an ancestor report is printed if there is no
change to the family file that would change the relationships recorded
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in it.
Most Descendant report options appear in a viewing area in the lower
right portion of the screen. These are identical to those for the
Ancestor report. Please refer to the discussion of the ANCESTOR
REPORT OPTIONS MENU above for a further description.
If you have decided to identify adoptive relationships within the
system as described in Appendix C, you may optionally include or
exclude the adoptees and their descendants in this report. When
included, the bloodline will have an "*" next to an entry resulting
from an adoptive parent-child relationship.
If you have elected to show spouse information in this report, the
number of years married is computed from the dates in the marriage
record, the death dates of the spouses and/or the current date at the
time the report is produced. If the death date of one of the spouses
is used to determine the number of years married then an "*" will
appear to the right of that number in the report.
It should be noted that an individual may have more than one bloodline
to an ancestor in the case that a child has been born to cousins or
other related individuals, and that such persons would appear more
than once on the `descendant tree' of such an ancestor. The children
of such unions are noted on the descendant report produced by the
system and their descendants will be continued only under the first
listed bloodline.
3. RELATIVE Report (Main Menu option F2-A-3)
This report includes entries for all relatives of an individual found
during a search of the files which:
a. First locates all ancestors of the individual going back a user
specified number of generations, and
b. then finds all descendants of the individual and all located
ancestors, going forward a user specified number of generations.
The limits on numbers of generations searched allow some control over
the maximum "distance" located relatives will be from the individual
used to start the search. For example, if you are only interested in
"offline" relations to the 1st cousin level, you would set the number
of descendant generations searched to 2. The numbers of generations
searched appear under the file names in the upper left part of the
screen and may be changed by pressing F1 to change the File Names
section.
Before printing a relative report (or any of the other "relationship"
reports described in this section) you must identify which individuals
are to be listed by selecting option F3 and entering the "Base ID" for
the individual whose relatives are to be listed. The program will then
create a RELATIVE.WRK dataset in which the ID#'s of the relatives are
recorded. This "work" dataset does not have to be recreated each time
a relative report is printed if there is no change to the family file
that would change the relationships recorded in it.
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The RELATIVE Report is a combination of the ancestor and descendant
reports which have been described above. In fact the ancestor and
descendant reports are "special cases" of the relative report as
follows:
a. the Ancestor report is a relative report in which the number of
"descendant" generations searched is 0, and
b. the Descendant report is a relative report in which the number
of "ancestor" generations located is 0.
All three types of reports are produced by the same program.
Prior to the introduction of the relative report, the ancestor and
descendant reports were produced by separate programs and were
selected by separate Main Menu options. For the sake of continuity,
you are still allowed to select the ancestor and descendant report
options independently from the Main Menu and the format of the
displays produced by these options reproduce those of the previous
programs. To avoid making the user have to unnecessarily go back to
the MainMenu program to return to a different one of the three func-
tions of this program, a method of directly switching between these
options is provided as follows:
a. pressing ALT+A selects the Ancestor report function (while in
the descendant or relative report portions of the program)
b. pressing ALT+D selects the Descendant report function (while in
the ancestor or relative report portions of the program) and
c. pressing ALT+R selects the Relative report function (while in
the ancestor or descendant report portions of the program).
The relative report is like a combination of the descendant reports of
the "base" individual and all the located ancestors. These individual
descendant reports are presented in the lineage number sequence of the
ancestors. If an individual occurs in more than one descendant report
(for example the father will appear as a child in the descendant
report of each paternal grand-parent) then the descendants of the
individual will only appear within the descendant report for the
ancestor of lowest lineage number. In subsequent "descendant"
reports, only a single line of information will appear for the indivi-
dual with a reference to the page and line number of the next previous
reference to the individual in the relative report. This has the
effect of eliminating much of the redundancy that results when pro-
ducing separate and complete descendant reports for each of your
ancestors.
There is an additional piece of information that can be shown for each
entry on the relative reports. It is a literal describing the
"common" relationship between the relative and the individual on whom
the report is based. Some of these relationship labels are:
Child, gChild, ggChild, g2gChild (great,great grandchild) etc;
Father, Mother, ggFather, ggMother, g3gFather (great,great,great
grandfather) etc;
Brother, Sister, Niece, Nephew, gNiece, g2gNephew, etc;
Aunt, Uncle, ggAunt, g4gUncle, etc;
Cousin, 2Cousin, 3Cousin (third cousin), 4Cousin, etc;
1C1R (1st cousin, once removed), 2C3R, 4C11R, etc.
These relationships are particularly useful for getting over that
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"bloodline barrier" that sometimes makes relatives seem more distant
than they really are.
The options for formatting each of the "descendant" reports within the
relative report are the same as previously described for the full
descendant reports. They may be produced with descendants grouped by
generations or by families, and when grouped by families they will
appear in a "chart" or "outline" format with names offset according to
the generation level within the descendant report.
Most Relative report options appear in a viewing area in the lower
right portion of the screen. These are identical to those for the
Ancestor report. Please refer to the discussion of the ANCESTOR
REPORT OPTIONS MENU above for a further description.
If you have elected to show marriages and "Anniv"ersaries in this
report, the number of years married is computed from the dates in the
marriage record, the death dates of the spouses and/or the current
date at the time the report is produced. If the death date of one of
the spouses is used to determine the number of years married then an
"*" will appear to the right of that number in the report.
Another type of information that can be included in the relative
report (and after Sept 86 also the Ancestor and Descendant reports) is
the "COMments" that you have recorded under the name and spouse
records in your family files. Prior to the introduction of this
report, comment information was only printable in the Family Group
Reports. Being able to include these notes in the lists produced by
the system, should make them more accessible and useful in your
continuing research efforts.
The COMment information appears on separate lines following the line
of standard information for a relative or spouse. In the Fixed format
report it is preceded by a "COM:" literal, and individual comment
lines are joined together to form longer lines whose length is deter-
mined by the length of the standard data line for the types of infor-
mation you have chosen to include in the report. In the Free Form
report, the comments appear as a continuation of the "paragraph" of
information about the individual.
It is possible to isolate parts of the comment information for
optional exclusion from the printed comments. This is done by
enclosing the text of those comments within "braces" or "curly
brackets" ("{" and "}"). (If the entire comment area is enclosed in
braces, then no comment area will be printed.) A more complete
description of the formatting of comments in reports is given in
Section III.F.2 of this manual.
4. Family Group Reports (Main Menu options F2-B-1 and F2-B-2)
When the "Free Format" style of reports was introduced in March 1990,
I was unable to put all the instructions for both "old" and "new"
reports in a single program. Therefore you must choose between the
two styles of reports when you select the Family Group report option
38
from the Main Menu. The "Fixed Format" for the family group report
appears as a "filled in" family group worksheet. If you have recorded
only partial information for an individual, portions of the report
will appear as "blank" lines which could be completed as the informa-
tion is discovered. In the "Free Form" group report, all basic
information recorded for an individual "flows together" in "block" or
"paragraph" style. There are no "blank" lines for missing informa-
tion, but you may find this report more appropriate for sending to
relatives.
The FAMILY GROUP REPORT produced by the system is intended to provide
a complete listing of information on record for an individual. Infor-
mation that may be printed includes: personal information (name,
birth/death dates and places), parents, spouse(s), spouse's parents,
children, child's (latest) spouse, and all residence information for
the individual. The report may also show the "other" types of infor-
mation from Medical, Educational, Work and Military records. In
addition, all addresses and comments relating to the above information
can be included in the report. You may also include a line which
shows the Relationship and Lineage of the subject of the report based
upon a supplied relationship work file (i.e. an Ancestor/ Descendant/
Relative work file).
The `viewing area' in the lower right corner of the screen lists the
types of family file information that you may optionally include in
the family group report. Using program option F6, you may specify
whether or not a category of information is to be INCluded and (in the
Fixed Format report) the MINimum number of entries of that type that
are to be shown. If a category is to be included but the minimum
number of entries is set to 0, then a section for that type of
information will appear in the report only if there is information of
that type recorded in the family file. A section will appear in a
blank family group report form only if the MINimum number of entries
for that section is not 0.
There are two entries for comments in the list of information types.
The first controls the printing of NAME and SPOUSE record comments;
the last entry in the list controls all other comments. Several
people have requested being able to print both the SPOUSE record
comments and the spouse's NAME record comments under the spouse entry
in this report. This is allowed by the INClude parameter for the 4th
item in the list. If it has a value of "A" (for ALL), then both the
spouse record comments and the spouse's name record comments will be
printed (with a blank line separating them if they are both present);
if the INC parameter has a value of "Y" then just the spouse record
comments will be printed.
You will probably want to produce a Family Group report for each of
your ancestors (male and female) and any descendants who have main-
tained separate households. To help simplify the task of printing the
many Family Group reports that you will want to be saving, you are
given several options for BATCH printing of family group reports. You
may enter a list of ID #'s for reports that you want printed, or you
can instruct the program to read a relationship file (Ancestor/
Descendant/ Relative Work file) or a SELECT.WRK file to determine
39
which reports are to be printed. It is therefore relatively easy to
print reports for all ancestors of an individual or for all descen-
dants or relatives of a given individual. When printing reports using
one of these lists of ID#'s, you may also request to BYPASS the
printing of reports for children whose own group report contains no
information that is not found on the one being printed for a parent or
for wives whose own family group report contains no information that
is not found on the one being printed for the husband. (The last
option may sound a bit sexist, but I believe it probably conforms to a
common procedure for maintaining files of family group reports.)
Program option F4 requests the printing of reports for the selected
individuals. When printing reports for ID's in a list (either entered
individually or read from a file) you may specify whether to print the
reports in ID# sequence or in the order specified by an INDEX file.
(Creating an INDEX file is one of the extended options for the system.
It may be either a SORTED Index or one which sequences a group of
ancestors, descendants or relatives in the order that they would
appear in one of the relationship reports.) Further, you may request
that the reports be printed separately or that they be merged into a
single report with a line of asterisks separating individual reports.
In the merged report, pages are numbered sequentially and line number
indicators may be placed in the margins (when the margin is >4) to
assist in locating the source of references in the report indexes
produced by one of the system's extended options. The merged family
group report is intended to simplify the task of producing booklets of
family information.
a. Identifying Group Reports to be Printed
Group reports that are to be printed are identified by giving the
program the ID # of the primary subject of the report. Program
option: "F3 Change SELECT Type or ID's" allows you four ways
of entering these ID's. When you press the F3 key you will be
asked to:
Select: 1)Single ID 2)List of ID's 3)Select File 4)Relative File
If you choose "1", you will be asked to enter a single ID (in the
middle of the screen where it says: "Processing ID #:"
The Name record corresponding to the ID # will be retrieved and
the name found there will be displayed to confirm your selection.
This option was the only one provided prior to Oct 87. When using
this mode of selection, the printing of the reports is handled just
the same as it was prior to Oct 87.
If you choose SELECT option "2) List of ID's", the bottom line of
the screen will be formatted with an "option line", and the
blinking cursor will appear near the middle of the screen to the
right of the label "Processing ID #:". You can enter a list of
individual ID numbers by typing each one on the screen and pressing
the enter key. After entering an ID#, the corresponding name
record will be retrieved and the name found in the record will be
displayed to the right of the ID#. You can enter a range of ID #'s
by pressing the F2 key and following the prompts that appear on the
bottom line of the screen. Pressing the F3 key will delete the
40
currently displayed ID from the list. All ID #'s entered are kept
in a list in ID# sequence and you may use the PGUP and PGDN keys to
move up and down the list to review previously entered ID's. The
CTRL+PGUP and CTRL+PGDN key combinations will move you respectively
to the lowest and highest ID #'s in the list. Near the right
center portion of the screen the number of ID #'s currently in the
list and the total number of name records in the file are shown.
You may press the F10 key to SAVE the list in a SELECT Work file
for later reuse. After you have finished adding all the ID #'s to
the list that you want, press the F1 key to terminate the process.
You can return to change a previously entered list of ID #'s by
pressing the F3 key and then the SPACE bar.
If you choose SELECT options "3" or "4" then the SELECT work file
or the relationship work file, respectively, (identified in the
File name section of the screen display) will be used to determine
the ID #'s for which family group reports are to be printed. The
name record for the first ID in the resulting list will be
retrieved and the individual's NAME displayed. The number of
reports selected for printing and the total number of name records
in the file will be displayed at the right center part of the
screen. You may then proceed to change the list just as described
in the previous paragraph.
b. Printing Family Group Reports
When you use function F4 to print family group reports for a list
of ID#'s or for ID #'s in a work file, you will be given the
choice of printing the reports in ID # sequence or in INDEXed
sequence (described by the INDEX File in the File name section).
Creation of an INDEX file is one of the functions provided by the
extended protion of the system. Using an index file, it is
possible to print the group reports in SORTed order (for instance
in "Surname" sequence), or in RELATIONSHIP order (that is, in the
order that the individuals would appear in an ancestor, descendant
or relative report).
The viewing area in the lower right corner of the screen will be
reformatted with a Menu of Family Group Report options and you will
be asked if you want to: Change Report Options? (Y/N)
If you respond "Y", you will be given an opportunity to change the
following Menu:
N (Y/N) Print ID Numbers
Y (Y/N) Fill Blanks with Underlines
N (Y/N) Print Subject Lineage
N (Y/N) Line Between Children
N (Y/N/S) Print Brkt Comments
B (C/W/B/N) Use Bypass Logic
Y (Y/N) Print Line Ref
Y (Y/N) Print Page Numbers
1 = First Page Number
If you choose "Y" for "Print Subject Lineage", then the file
described by the RELATIVE file description among the FILE NAMES
41
will be used to create a relative table. While the group reports
are being printed, the relative table will be used to determine the
RELATIONSHIP (g3gFather, 3C4R, etc.) and LINEAGE (lineage
number+bloodline) of the subject of the report, if the subject is
among the individuals included in the table.
The option for "Line Between Children" allows you to request that a
blank line be inserted between children in the group report. This
came at the suggestion of a user who felt that it would make it
easier to read the child information. I agree with her, but it
also takes extra paper, so you are given the choice.
Beginning with the Sept 1988 update, you were given the option of
enclosing the text of certain comments with braces or "curly
brackets" ("{" and "}"), for instance to isolate sensitive or
conjectural remarks that you might not want to make generally
available. If you enter "Y" next to "Print Brkt Comments", then
bracketed comments will be printed along with the rest and the
brackets will be replaced with spaces. If you enter "N", the
bracketed comments (including the brackets) will be replaced by a
single space. If you enter "S" (for "Show") then the bracketed
comments will be printed along with the brackets.
When printing family group reports from a list of ID's, you are
given an opportunity to eliminate the printing of certain reports
whose information duplicates that found on another report that is
being printed. This is done by entering "C", "W" or "B" next to
the "Use Bypass Logic" option.
A value of "C" for "Use Bypass Logic" tells the program to
eliminate the printing of a report for a "C"hild whose parent's
group report is being printed and for whom there is no information
being printed in the child's report beyond that which appears in
that of the parent(s). For instance, if you are printing family
group reports for all descendants of an ancestor this option would
allow you to skip printing Family Group Reports for the many
persons (including minor children) who have simply been listed as a
child on one Family Group Worksheet but for whom you have never
received or had need to create a separate Family Group Worksheet of
their own.
A value of "W" for "Use Bypass Logic" tells the program to
eliminate the printing of a report for a "W"ife if the husband's
report is to be printed and her own group report would have no
information on it beyond that that appears on the group report of
her husband.
A value of "B" for "Use Bypass Logic" instructs the program to
employ the rules for eliminating "unnecessary" group reports for
"B"oth Children and Wives.
Line REFerence indicators are line numbers that are printed in the
margin area, when Margin >= 4, to assist in finding the location of
individuals referred to in a report index. Producing report
indexes is one of the extended options provided to registered
42
users.
Being able to set the value with which page numbers are to begin
allows you to print several different reports with continuous,
sequential numbering of the pages.
You are given two format options for printing family group reports
from a list of ID's. In particular, you will be asked to:
Select: 1)Separate Reports 2)Merged Reports
If you enter "1" then separate Family Group Reports will be printed
for each ID in the ID List that has been created (who is not
Bypassed as described above) just as if you had printed them
separately and individually. Any other response will result in all
family group reports being printed continuously with a line of "* *
* *" separating them. The pages in the "merged" report will also
be sequentially numbered. In effect, this provides you with still
another type of report...one which can show ALL information in the
file for each individual.
In the "Fixed Format" reports the MINimum counts of the types of
information to be included will be assumed to be zero (sections
will be shown for information of a given type only if it is to be
INCluded and there actually is information in the file for the
individual whose family group report is being printed).
One of the options in the extended part of the system allows you to
produce a printed index for these reports with the page and line
numbers for each reference to each individual in any of the family
group reports printed.
When printing batches of family group reports, you will be asked
whether to: Start at Beginning of LIST? (Y/N)
If you reply "N" then if you are printing separate group reports,
you will be asked to:
Enter Starting ID=xxxx
or if you are printing a merged family group report, you will be
asked to: Enter Starting Page=xxxx
This allows you to restart the printing of a batch of family group
reports without having to reprint those that have already been
successfully processed.
Finally, when printing batches of family group reports, you will be
asked before printing each report:
Print Report for ID=xxxx (Y/N/A)
If you reply "N" then the next ID to be printed will be looked up
and a similar message will be shown for it. If you reply "A" then
this report and all succeeding ones will be printed until you
terminate a report by pressing the SPACE key to pause it, and then
the ESCape key to cancel it. If you cancel a report, then you will
again be asked whether you want to print a report for the next ID.
If you press the ESCape key when this prompt is displayed, then the
entire print process will be terminated.
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5. ANCESTOR CHARTs and MAPs (Main Menu option F2-C-1)
The system also produces ANCESTOR CHARTS for an individual in the
traditional `horizontal tree' format, with an individual appearing on
the left (center) of the page and the parents appearing to the right
above (father) and below (mother) the line on which the individual is
identified. You can print either "formal" ancestor charts, showing 4
generations of ancestry on each chart, or an Ancestor MAP with up to
53 generations of ancestors in a single continuous chart.
FOUR GENERATION ANCESTOR CHARTS
Because only 4 generations of ancestors (comprising 15 individuals)
may appear on a single "formal" chart, several charts may be required
to show all ancestors on file for an individual. The Family History
System has been designed to produce as many `subcharts' as are
required to show all recorded ancestors. In doing so, it is necessary
to employ some scheme to show how to proceed from one chart to the
next in a set. I have chosen to assign a `chart-ID' to each of the
charts produced. This chart-ID consists of the generation level of
the ancestor appearing to the left on the chart, and the number of
that ancestor within that generation level. Some chart-ID's would be
0-1 (the first chart of a set), 4-1, 4-2, 4-3,...,4-16,8-1,8-2,...,8-
256, etc. This method of identifying charts has the advantage that
charts which are not printed, because they are empty, can be printed
at a later time (when information does appear on them) and they will
have a natural place in the sequence of charts, without affecting the
previous Chart ID's.
Charts will be printed only if an ancestor has been recorded on the
chart. If an ancestral line may be continued beyond one of the charts
in the series, then the chart-ID for the appropriate continuation
chart will be shown on the right side of the chart to be continued.
Individual entries on the chart may be numbered from 1 to 16 on each
chart, or you may choose to label each entry with the lineage number
of the ancestor recorded on the line.
If you have decided to identify adoptive relationships as indicated in
Appendix C, the adopted parent will be noted on the ancestor chart
with an "*" in the first position of the NAME field.
The "Spouse of Entry #1" appearing in the lower left corner of each
chart is the most recent spouse of the individual listed in entry #1
and may not be the "paired" ancestor on the chart.
Blank ancestral charts may be produced for recording ancestral infor-
mation prior to entering the information into the system's files.
ALL GENERATION ANCESTOR MAP
You may also print an ALL GENERATION Chart which, though not as
formally presentable as the 4 Generation Charts, has the advantage of
providing a complete overview or MAP of ALL (up to 53 generations) of
the recorded ancestors for an individual in a single report. The
format of this report is such that:
the information for each ancestor occupies a single line
44
no lines are produced for "missing" ancestors
the line for the father of an individual on the report is above
the line of information for the individual
the line for the mother of an individual on the report is below
the line of information for the individual
the information for ancestors is offset 4 spaces to the right for
each generation level
all parent-child relationships are graphically represented by
lines connecting the child to the parent(s).
The information shown for each ancestor includes:
The lineage number of the ancestor
(Optionally) the ID # of the ancestor, within parentheses
The ancestor's NAME
(Optionally) the birth/death dates and age, in the format
b. 7 Apr 1863,d.10 Feb 1937 at age 73
(the age is shown only if both birth and death years are known.
If either date's month and day are unknown an "?" will appear to
the right of the age)
This ALL GENERATION Ancestor Chart or MAP is printed continuously
in a single long report with no breaks at page boundaries. Up to 20
generations of ancestors may be printed using compressed print on
8 1/2" wide paper. Reports which exceed the width of the available
paper can be printed out in 2 or more strips using the OFFSET Printer
parameter. For example, suppose you wish to print a report that would
require a 150 character print line but you are using a font and form
which only allow 80 printed characters. You can print the report
first with a Form Width of 80 and OFFSET=0 to get the left most 80
characters of each print line and then print it again with an OFFSET
of 80 to get the right most 70 characters of each print line. The two
strips can then be joined together along the side to produce a
complete ancestor Map.
6. DESCENDANT CHARTs (F2-C-2)
The Family History System can also produce graphical charts of descen-
dants with information in "boxes" connected by "relationship lines".
A descendant chart may include up to 99 generations. Large charts can
be printed in 'strips' which can be joined together to make a "wall
chart" or you can print the full chart to a file for special
processing by any printing utilities you may have.
The chart format groups descendants by "generation levels" with
information on individuals in the same generation level recorded in
boxes which are in the same column of the chart. The first child of
each descendant is recorded in a box to the right of the parent and in
the same row of the chart. Children are sequentially numbered and an
adopted child is denoted by an "*" to the right of the child number.
You may request that the descendants of each individual in the chart
be printed before the row containing the next sibling or cousin, or
you may permit the program to "nest" the families together whenever
possible, producing a more compact chart.
45
The information shown for each descendant may include name, birth and
death dates and places, marriage dates and places, spouses' names and
spouses' birth and death dates and places. All boxes of information
are the same width, which you may specify. If the width is not
sufficient to show the information that is to appear on a line, the
data will be truncated to the size of the box. To help minimize this
truncation without requiring excessively large boxes, the program will
adjust the format according to the box width as follows:
If datawidth is less than 27 characters, then birth and death
dates will appear on separate lines; if place information is
included and the box width is less than 35 characters, then
dates and places will be shown on separate lines.
In addition you may request that names be shown on 2 lines, with
surname and given names on separate lines. (You can request either
surname or given name be first, and you may ask that the surname be
capitalized for emphasis.)
As with other relationship reports, 'crossed' family lines are noted
and the descendants of the children of related individuals will only
be shown under their earliest appearance in the chart. Subsequent
chart entries for the same individual will have a back reference of
the form: (Same as GL=xxx, line=yyy)
where xxx is the generation level of the earlier occurrence and yyy is
the line number. Please note that the left most 'generation level' is
the '0' level, the next is '1', etc.
Realizing that it may be difficult to locate particular individuals on
a large chart, you can create a REFERENCE file which identifies the
generation level and line number on which each individual's name
appears. An extended option can then print a Chart Index from
information in the REFERENCE file.
PRINTING DESCENDANT CHARTS
Before printing a chart, you must identify the individual whose
descendants are to be "charted". This is done using the chart program
option F3 and entering the ID number of the individual's name record
in the FHS family file. This process does not build a "work" file, as
the descendant report program does, but just verifies that the ID # is
valid and displays the name from the chosen record.
Charts are printed using chart program option F4. You will be asked
whether you want the output to go to the SCREEN, PRINTER or FILE. If
you choose file output, you will be prompted to enter the name of the
output file which is to be created. Screen output is limited to 79
characters and printer output is limited to the "forms width" given in
the Printer Parameters, but file output contains the entire chart...
When printing to the screen or printer, if a line of the chart extends
beyond the right side of the strip being printed, then after the
printing of the strip is completed, you will be asked if you want to
continue printing with the next strip.
When printing a chart, you are also asked to select the format for
names from among:
1. Last, First 2. LAST, First 3. First Last 4. First LAST
Therefore you can have the surname either precede or follow the given
46
name, and you may request that the surname be converted to all capital
characters (options 2, 4) for visual emphasis.
Before the printing of the chart begins, you will be asked whether you
wish to create a REFERENCE work file. This file will contain an entry
for each name in the chart, identifying the generation level and line
number on which the name appears. The report index option of the
extended system can then print an index from information in the
reference file.
If you are not sending output to a file, you will be asked if you want
to: Start at beginning? (Y/N)
This permits you to continue printing an interrupted chart at a line
below the top of the chart. If you reply "N", then you will be asked
to: Enter Line number to begin printing: ____
If you choose this option then the printing of the chart may appear to
be delayed because the program must still process the unprinted lines
in order to "find its place". (Please note that starting the print
with a 'strip' after the first or leftmost one is accomplished by
using the Printer OFFSET field among the printer parameters in the
upper right corner of the screen. For instance, if you have a forms
width of 132 charactres and you want to begin printing the 3rd strip
of a chart, you would set the OFFSET to 264.)
You can pause the printing by tapping the space bar. You can then
terminate the printing by pressing the ESCape key, or continue it by
pressing any other key. If you continue the printing by pressing the
PGDN key, then the program will pause at the top of the next page.
This can be useful if you see that your printer is running low on
paper and want to pause at a convenient place for adding a new supply.
Several options for formatting descendant charts are shown in a
viewing area in the lower right corner of the screen. Program option
F5 permits you to change these options. Your changes will be
'remembered' throughout a FHS working session but the default values
will be restored at the beginning of the next session. These options,
together with their default values are:
15 Data Area Width
Y Print Name on 2 Lines
N Show ID Numbers
Y Show Birth/Marriage/Deate Dates
Y Show Places
Y Show Marriages
N Show Line Refernce Index
Y Allow Nesting
Y Continuous Forms
The 'Data Area Width' is the number of characters that can be placed
on each line of an 'information box'. Each generation shown in the
chart actually requires 5 more characters, for the sides of the box
and connecting lines. The minimum value for the data area width is 0
and this is really only suitable for seeing the basic structure of the
chart. The default value of 15 allows viewing four generations on the
screen but would probably not be suitable for a printed chart because
of the amount of truncation. A width of 25 would allow places to be
shown without truncation. If places are not shown, a width of 27 will
47
permit birth and death dates to be placed on a single line of the box.
If places are included, a value of 39 will permit date and place
information to be placed on the same line. A value of 32 is the
smallest box width that would guarantee no truncation of any informa-
tion (assuming names are placed on 2 lines). In many cases, a value
smaller than 32 will be sufficient to avoid truncation, even with the
full name on a single line. Whatever value you choose for the data
width, the full chart can be printed on any printer, though it will
likely be necessary to print it in several 'strips' that can be joined
together to produce the full chart.
The option 'Print Name on 2 Lines' allows you to request that the
Given name and Surname appear on separate lines in the information
box. When you begin printing a chart, you are allowed to request
whether the surname (the last name) or the given name will occur
first. The name that occurs first in the chosen format will be placed
on the first line when the name is placed on 2 lines. The purpose of
this option is to permit you to print a chart with a smaller data
width without having any truncation of a person's name.
If 'Show ID Numbers' is chosen as a chart option, then the ID number
of each name record will appear, within parentheses, at the beginning
of the formatted name. If marriages are also to be shown then the ID
number area of each descendant who has another parent recorded will be
in the form: (xxx:yyy) where the first number is the ID for the
child's record and the second number is the ID number for the parent
that is NOT among the descendants charted. This may be one of the
spouse's of the parent on the chart (this may be determined by looking
at the information box for the parent) or it may be the ID number of
someone who was never married to the parent. If the ID of the other
parent is shown, then an "*" will appear to the right of the ID if it
is an adoptive relationship.
The 'Show Line Ref' option controls whether or not a 'line index' will
be printed in the leftmost 5 characters of the chart. This line index
can be useful for locating a particular information box from a
reference in the chart index that can be printed using one of the FHS
extended options.
The 'Continuous Forms' option determines whether the chart is to be
printed continuously across perforations of 'fan-fold' paper, or
whether it should be stopped 2 lines from the bottom of the page,
followed by a form-feed to the top of the next page. This option is
primarily for those who are using laser printers or other cut sheet
printers.
The 'Allow Nesting' option controls whether or not the chart entry for
a younger sibling can be placed in the chart before all the descen-
dants of an older sibling have been charted. See the diagrams on the
following page for a comparison of nested and un-nested charts. In
the charts that I have tried, nested charts require 20%-30% fewer
lines than unnested ones for the same group of descendants. Of course
this is very much dependant on the pattern of relationships being
charted.
48
An UNNESTED Chart A NESTED Chart
+----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
---+ +-+-+ +-+-+ ! ---+ +-+-+ +-+-+ +
+----+ ! +----+ ! +----+ +----+ ! +----+ ! +----+
! ! ! !
! ! +----+ ! +----+ ! +----+
! +-+ + +-+ + +-+ +
! +----+ +----+ +----+
!
! +----+
+-+ +
+----+
+----+ +----+ +----+
---+ +-+-+ +-+-+ +
The chart at the right is the same whether +----+ ! +----+ ! +----+
nesting is chosen or not. The second ! !
child in the first generation cannot be ! ! +----+
placed on the chart earlier because of the ! +-+ +
space required for his/her own child. ! +----+
!
! +----+ +----+
+-+ +---+ +
+----+ +----+
B. Report Program Parameters
Each report program permits the operator to change several 'para-
meters' that control the information going into a report as well as
the format of the output. This includes the names of system input and
work files as well as printer destination and `setup', and form size.
Changes to the report parameters are made by selecting the type infor-
mation to be changed using the appropriate function key, changing the
information on the screen (using TAB and SHIFT+TAB to move between
updatable fields just as in the file maintenance program) and pressing
the F1 key when all desired changes have been made.
Printer destination can be LPT1: or LPT2: (parallel printers), COM1:
or COM2: (serial printers), or SCRN:. In the case that the destina-
tion is set for SCRN:, you will not be prompted to identify whether a
report is to be sent to the screen or printer.
The report programs will also permit you to route your printer output
to a file. Some users have taken advantage of this feature to print
reports with a longer print line than is normally allowed for their
printer and then using a sideways printing utility to process the
report output file. You may want to create a separate printer table
just for this process.
The printer "SETUP"s selected must previously have been created (using
MAIN MENU option F3-C). If you change the SETUP number, the program
will attempt to read the printer table from the FAMILY.DAT file on the
"default" drive (the one on which you started the programs). If it
doesn't find the FAMILY.DAT file there, it will ask you to:
Place diskette with FAMILY.DAT in default drive...
49
This should only happen if you are running the programs from diskettes
and have removed the STARTUP diskette from the default drive. If you
replace the STARTUP diskette in that drive and press any key, the
program will again attempt to find the FAMILY.DAT file to retrieve the
desired printer table SETUP.
The `MARGIN' parameter allows you to indicate the left margin offset
in numbers of blank characters. This is to allow room for binding or
punching holes for inserting the report in a notebook. (Note that
when printing the Ancestor, Descendant, Relative or "batched" Family
Group reports, use of a margin >3 will result in the placement of
"line number" indicators in the margin area. These are useful when
locating a reference from the report index, which may be produced as
an option of the extended system.
The `Form OFFSET' parameter may be used to print a report (in more
than one pass) when a selected printer or printer font is unable to
print an entire report line. For example, if you are using a font
which allows only 80 characters across a page but the report line
requires 132 characters, you could print the first eighty characters
of the line with an OFFSET=0 and print the report again with OFFSET=80
to pick up the last 52 characters of the report line.
The ancestor/descendant/relative report program, when printing "fixed
format" reports, will print each individual's information on two lines
in the case that birth and death places are to be shown and the form
size is too narrow to put all information on a single line. When
individual record ID's are also being printed, these may appear on a
2nd line if the form is too narrow to include the information on a
single line.
50
