My Report Dilemmas

General discussion of iFamily for Leopard and Genealogy
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Kirsten
Posts: 87
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:58 pm

My Report Dilemmas

Post by Kirsten » Mon Jul 18, 2011 5:42 am

I am sorry that this will be a rather lengthy forum entry.
I have struggled with its issues for a long time without posting because I couldn't figure out how to formulate my struggles.
Now I just plunge in and hope you will stay with me. The issue is complex - has several parts to it and they interconnect.

I have been experimenting with how to best share information on individuals while corresponding with family members.
I report to some older members and correspond also with younger genealogy-active family members who are interested in source references to go with the story line. (We are at a give and take collection stage and GEDCOM isn't a solution, not to mention how that would do nothing for the older family members without computers or certainly without genealogy programs.)

I do not mind writing my own story from the materials I have gathered. I use Pages for that and add charts from iFamily diagrams. Works wonderfully.
To provide an outline and reference, this story report is accompanied by an "Events List" (= Events Section) from "Report" on "Selected Person Only".

The problems come in with this Events List.

I will start with the least important issue. It is a minor inconvenience which it would be nice to remedy:

Report Format:
Each time I call up a report to see latest event sequence created I have to change font size and color - that small blue stuff just doesn't do it for my eyes or for those of most of my readers.
Since I do not use the rest of the Report, just the events section, it doesn't need such large margins either, so I change that - it helps cut down on the number of lines.

Is there a way to change default font size, color, margin on this report?

Event Report Contents:
I experience two shortcommings in this area:

1) I can have birth and death of children and parents listed, but the notes are not included. For me that means that important information about the main person (in connection with that event) is missing from the report (whereas notes pertaining to all other events in his/her life are included).

2) Important missing factor, siblings
In the events list on this report I can chose to include birth and death of children and parents, and I do most of the time include those because they are important events. However, so are births and deaths of siblings...

If birth and death of siblings could be included (WITH notes!) I would be able to show right on the person's event list something important about his/her childhood - after all it seems to me that the event of a birth or death of a sibling is a pretty significant event in one's home and life.

Is there a way in the Events Section of the REPORT on Selected Person to get notes included for parents' and children's births and deaths?

Could births and deaths of siblings be added to the report as an option?

Explanation of Significance to Me of Notes field
For me the sources list is fine and I like the way sources function as a whole.
However, the way they appear on this report isn't very helpful. The way they are listed says something like this: "These are the volumes I consulted and on page this I found this event and on page that I found this other event".
I expected an event reference to be next to each event on the event list so that source reference would say: "The information for this event was found in such and such location".

No matter, the sources list is good for me as is.

As for providing for my readers a handy source reference, I solved that by by placing a parenthesis at the beginning of each note. In the parenthesis I write abbreviated, yet very clear version of source reference. Following the parenthesis I then write whatever notes I was going to write anyway.

This all shows up wonderfully as I look on a person's life events on screen, but as soon as it is a report, it changes and the notes for birth of children for example are no longer present.

Example:
In my story I might write about a person’s life and the 13 children he/she had. The Events Lists to accompany my story and provide a kind of outline would (in the notes) give source reference to all events except the births of the 13 children. As far as my readers are concerned I might have just invented them! If their notes would be included in the report, my sources would show that I didn't invent...
As it is, I solve this by adding a family report which lists the children and their birth and death notes.

However, it becomes a bit cumbersome to keep three different reports together for one person's life story. And of course this still does nothing for parents' notes or the inclusion of siblings...


A very long post as I feared from the start, but I think I have successfully explained my dilemma(s)...

Comments...?

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