Is Reunion right for me?

[Brooke]

I am thinking about buying Reunion 8, but have some questions after I used the free demo. Any help would be most welcome.

• Is there a problem with entering multiple families who may or may not be related?

• I need to be able to print out all the information I have collected on each person, family etc. (including the sources). I used the report function on the Reunion demo, and my information was there but it was buried in extraneous numbers and words, slashes, dots etc. Obviously impossible to use. Perhaps this is just the demo (I couldn’t get the graph to work either), but is there a function that allows me to print out these kinds of reports?

• From what I have read, it seems that some people have a program (like Bygones) for taking their research notes and citations, and a family tree program to put together their families. But with Reunion it seems that these two functions are combined. Is that true? Can you share your experience?

• Along this line, does Reunion have some kind of “research journal” component to help keep track of research still to be done.?

Any help on these questions would be most appreciated.
Brooke

[ddcathca]

I haven't got the answers, just more questions. I am wondering too if Reunion is right for me. I have several detailed family trees which I created in Family Tree Maker (FTM) which I maintain at Gencircles.com. I downloaded that tree gedcom to Reunion 8 and can't find my source notations and a lot of the facts e.g. a great deal of census info which I post into FTM. It seems I lost info from the gencircles tree when I loaded the gedcom into Reunion 8.

Detailed source info and notes are important to me so that other researchers will know what is the basis for my tree. And it's important to me to be able to share that info at gencircles.com. I am worried about losing data from my tree at gencircles.com when I download my old trees as gedcoms into Reunion 8, and about not being able to upload all the soure info etc. to gencircles from Reunion 8.

Do any of you share these concerns? I want to share my research info. I have put years into it and I don't want it to die with me. I would like to be able to maintain and update a detailed family tree with source information at some website such as gencircles.com so others can benefit from my findings. Can Reunion 8 do this? Is there another mac genealogy program that will? Or should I go back to FTM and the PC?

[Mary Arthur]

I haven't got the answers, just more questions. I am wondering too if Reunion is right for me. I have several detailed family trees which I created in Family Tree Maker (FTM) which I maintain at Gencircles.com. I downloaded that tree gedcom to Reunion 8 and can't find my source notations and a lot of the facts e.g. a great deal of census info which I post into FTM. <snip>
I would like to be able to maintain and update a detailed family tree with source information at some website such as gencircles.com so others can benefit from my findings. Can Reunion 8 do this? Is there another mac genealogy program that will? Or should I go back to FTM and the PC?No software will download a gedcom correctly - try putting the gedcom into an empty FTM file and you will have the similar problems. If you start using Reunion, you will have to enter some information, most notes and many sources again, then you will be able to upload a ged com to gencirles.com (or other web pages). It is a great program, and is very flexible, (in my opinion, beter than FTM) but switching programs is always difficult at first. Using a Mac gives you more time to work on genealogy as there is less down time than with a PC. :-)

Mary Arthur

[Mary Arthur]

I am thinking about buying Reunion 8, but have some questions after I used the free demo. Any help would be most welcome.

1. Is there a problem with entering multiple families who may or may not be related?

2. I need to be able to print out all the information I have collected on each person, family etc. (including the sources). I used the report function on the Reunion demo, and my information was there but it was buried in extraneous numbers and words, slashes, dots etc. Obviously impossible to use. Perhaps this is just the demo (I couldn’t get the graph to work either), but is there a function that allows me to print out these kinds of reports?

3. From what I have read, it seems that some people have a program (like Bygones) for taking their research notes and citations, and a family tree program to put together their families. But with Reunion it seems that these two functions are combined. Is that true? Can you share your experience?

4. Along this line, does Reunion have some kind of “research journal” component to help keep track of research still to be done.?

Any help on these questions would be most appreciated.
Brooke

1. it is easy to have unrelated people.
2. there are lots of formats for reports that allow you to print everything.
3. I tend to use Reunion, but admit many people feel the need of more details and more prompts.
4. yes . . . but . . . it is primitive compared to dedicated programs for research notes.

Try to find someone who has a copy to show you. Mac users group? genealogical society?

Mary Arthur,
Alberta Family Histories Society,
Reunion Users Group Leader

[martha]

I am thinking about buying Reunion 8, but have some questions after I used the free demo. Any help would be most welcome.

• Is there a problem with entering multiple families who may or may not be related?

• I need to be able to print out all the information I have collected on each person, family etc. (including the sources). I used the report function on the Reunion demo, and my information was there but it was buried in extraneous numbers and words, slashes, dots etc. Obviously impossible to use. Perhaps this is just the demo (I couldn’t get the graph to work either), but is there a function that allows me to print out these kinds of reports?

• From what I have read, it seems that some people have a program (like Bygones) for taking their research notes and citations, and a family tree program to put together their families. But with Reunion it seems that these two functions are combined. Is that true? Can you share your experience?

• Along this line, does Reunion have some kind of “research journal” component to help keep track of research still to be done.?

Any help on these questions would be most appreciated.
Brooke

In answer to your first question, absolutely no problem. There is a function under "edit" in the title bar that allows you to add unrelated people. I have done it many times, since I am also writing the history of a particular town where all the Jews were murdered and I cannot be sure to which family some of them belong.

The answer is also yes to your second question. Really, REUNION is the very, very best of all genealogy databases, and I should know because I have had to work with all of them. You can print out a family sheet or a person sheet etc. as you wish.

Regarding the journal, you can use the built-in logs which are limitless and located under "edit" in the title bar, or you can flag unfinished families, or work it out however you wish. There is no end to the flexibility of Reunion.

In addition, the customer service in Reunion is unique and wonderful. I have encouraged people to buy Macs just for Reunion, even if they can't figure out all the other advantages to owning a Mac!

Martha Lev-Zion, Israel

[SVass]

I haven't got the answers, just more questions. I am wondering too if Reunion is right for me. I have several detailed family trees which I created in Family Tree Maker (FTM) which I maintain at Gencircles.com. I downloaded that tree gedcom to Reunion 8 and can't find my source notations and a lot of the facts e.g. a great deal of census info which I post into FTM. It seems I lost info from the gencircles tree when I loaded the gedcom into Reunion 8.

Detailed source info and notes are important to me so that other researchers will know what is the basis for my tree. And it's important to me to be able to share that info at gencircles.com. I am worried about losing data from my tree at gencircles.com when I download my old trees as gedcoms into Reunion 8, and about not being able to upload all the soure info etc. to gencircles from Reunion 8.

Do any of you share these concerns? I want to share my research info. I have put years into it and I don't want it to die with me. I would like to be able to maintain and update a detailed family tree with source information at some website such as gencircles.com so others can benefit from my findings. Can Reunion 8 do this? Is there another mac genealogy program that will? Or should I go back to FTM and the PC?Let me suggest that as has been said that nothing will accept all of your data.
You should save your gedcom. Realize that you can open it with a word processor and manually copy and paste from it into Reunion or another program. Do not lose your original gedcom. Create a copy and perhaps edit it. Sharing data is presently best accomplished by creating a book or other kind of hard copy. Electronic copies will cease to exist as will FTM. sam

[ddcathca]

Thanks for the replies and good ideas. I am encouraged by the responsiveness of Reunion Talk. I will come here again for help. It's really great to get speedy input to ones frustrations.

DD Cathcart
My Second Day with Reunion
Learning my way around thanks to RT