need software to include to all spouses and all children in ancestor report and import irregular dates

I am currently using PAF, PAF Companion, and Roots Magic. As far as I can
learn, none of these programs does one very obvious thing that I need it to.
Most genealogical software won't do something else as basic.

Neither PAF, PAF Companion, nor Rootsmagic, will prepare any sort of book,
web site, or narrative report, of ancestors, that includes all the spouses
and all of their children for each ancestor. Why in God's name the makers
of these programs think we wouldn't need that - takes half a brain in my
opinion.

Eagle...

Seems to me like you might want to take a closer look at the
definition of ancestor which is defined as one from whom you are
descended..

If a man and his wife are your ancestor, then his second wife is not
your ancestor nor are her parents.

I am dealing with French Canadian families, and most of thsoe ancestors
married more than once, and had large, close knit families. Not, a couple
of them, but two thirds of 3500 of them. I do NOT want to list only spouse
and the children of the spouse who is the direct ancestor! Why in Chr___

the_verminator...

Half siblings are easily dealt with in descendancy reports.. and are,
unless incest is involved, completely absurd in ancestor reports.
Remember- there are NO "indirect" ancestors.

Steve Hayes...

That's just playing with words.

No one is claiming that there are such things as "indirect" ancestors.

But what the OP wants is quite clear -- a report that shows ALL the ancestors
of a person, with their spouses and children.

Just because the extra people are not ancestors, but spouses and siblings of
ancestors, does not mean thagt one ought not to want to include them in a
report that shows all the ancestors.

Eagle...

There is no problem wanting such a report. The problem is that it is
not genealogy which is essentially about bloodlines - and in the
header of each news group above.

Steve Hayes...

So would you exclude your brothes, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins from
your genealogy because they aren't in your "bloodline"?

Eagle...

If I had brothers and/or sisters why wouldn't they be in my bloodline?

Steve Hayes...

That's what I was asking you -- you were saying that a report that included
brothers and sisters etc was not genealogy because such people aren't in your
bloodline.

Eagle...

Point me to where I said that. I doubt that I ever said people in my
bloodline were not in my bloodline.

Steve Hayes...

See above, in the text you yourself have quoted, but I repeat:

I said:

Steve Hayes...

You replied:

Steve Hayes...

I mentioned a report that included spouses and siblings of ancestors and you
said that that was not genealogy, because those are not bloodlines. Perhaps
you were confused by the word "sibling" - it is a word that means brothers and
sisters.

And, my descendant report includes all my brothers, sisters, uncles,
aunts and cousins. It doesn't include the ancestry of any people who
are not my bloodline.

Steve Hayes...

That's irrelevant to the original poster's question, which was whether any
genealogy program produces a report that includes all ancestors of a given
person, with the spouses and children of each of those ancestors. A good one
would include parents of spouses as well.

Eagle...

Precisely. And I said what she asked for was not genealogy. And I gave
illustrations.

To object to having such a report on the grounds that not every person on it
is an actual ancestor seems silly to me. Many "descendant reports" include
non-descendants like spouses and parents of spouses, so why shouldn't ancestor
reports include non-ancestors like spouses and parents of spouses and their
children?

As I understood she wanted to include people where the only
relationship, if any, was legal.

Steve Hayes...

Yes. So what?

What is wrong with that? Why are so many people objecting to the very idea of
having such a report?

Eagle...

I said there was nothing wrong in asking. You are not reading very
carefully. I said it was not genealogy.

Why are you out of step with so many people?

On another thread I believe it was explained to her that she misled
respondents with her explanation.

Eagle...

My great great grandfather had 3 children by 2 ladies who were not his
wives The ancestors of those two ladies are no relation to me - nor
are the 2 ladies. It would be as genealogically reasonable to include
them as it would for me to include Marie Antoinette or Jean D'Arc ot
Tokyo Rose.

Steve Hayes...

If your grandfather had children by them, however, those children would be in
your bloodline, and those ladies would be in their bloodlines. So it is still
genealogy.

I don't include Queen Victoria in our family tree, even though my wife's gggg
grandmother had an affair with her father, and though some members of the

Sir Creep...

Wow....that's funny. MY gggg grandmother had an affair with QV's
father! Are we related?
SC

Steve Hayes...

Who was she?

My wife's ancestor was Eliza Green, but a number of family members believe she
was Julie de St Laurent or some such thing.

K0BBE...

If you are related is not the question...

I'm making a "name genealogy". All Van Coilge'es (and variations
of that name), from the first, the second or the third spousse
have to come in my output. AND THEY DO !

Use Pro-Gen, Genealogie à la carte.
Dutch programm, also available in English.

Click on "stamboom" and then on "Rouger", and see ALL the
descendents of that Rouger with variants of his surname Van
Coilge!

family claim (erroneously) that my wife's ggg grandfather was the offspring of
that union. But I include my wife's ancestors because they are my children's
bloodline, even if they aren't mine. Is that not genealogy?

I have no problem if people include whoever they wish in their family
history - I just have a problem if they call it genealogy when it is
not by any official definition.

Steve Hayes...

Who prescribes the "official" definition?

And the discussion is not about official definitions, but about software to
produce a report.

If an ancestor had 5 wives I am the product of 1 of those wives, not
all 5. Each of my step first cousins X times removed has a different
ancestor report, albeit ending at the same papaw.

My wife has a step-brother - his father married her mother. My wife is
not related by blood to him or his ancestors thus is not genealogy.
I'll agree that it is family history.

Sir Creep...

Hugh, how in the world did you confuse the original question (re:
half-siblings) with the example you gave (re: in-laws). My half-sister
is my sister, and my mother's 'blood flows through her', so all her
offspring are.....that's right....RELEVANT relatives. Now, my
half-sister's father is NOT my relative, and apart from mentioning him
in my tree (after all, he wsa my mother's husband onee), what he did
subsequent to my older sister's birth and/or his 'genealogy' is truly
of no importance to me, and to that end I suspect we agree (unless one
is creating a 'One World Tree' LMAO) that wanting to produce a report
that shows all that background noise is, well, um....[can't think of a
nice way to put it]. But the original post was asking about
half-siblings, not in-laws, as you seem to suggest. Half-siblings are
as much a true and legitimate relative as one can imagine. In-laws
outer shell families are anything but.

Sir Creep

Eagle...

This is from the original post...
"Neither PAF, PAF Companion, nor Rootsmagic, will prepare any sort of
book, web site, or narrative report, of ancestors, that includes all
the spouses and all of their children for each ancestor. Why in
God's name the makers of these programs think we wouldn't need that -
takes half a brain in my opinion."

Note "of ancestors" and "all of their children for each ancestor". In
an ancestor report you list your ancestors and the parents of those
half-siblings are not your ancestors. In fact your own words agree
with me, "...what he did subsequent to my older sister's birth and/or
his 'genealogy' is truly of no importance to me,...". The half-sibling
comment was added by another poster and I never really addressed it
except by reference to their ancestors.

Steve Hayes...

Note that the original poster did not say "ancestor reports" -- that is your
misinterpretation.

Your quibble seems to be that she called it an ":ancestor report", but she
didn't -- YOU did.

She asked why programs did not include ancestors and their spouses and
siblings. That's all.

Note two things that she did NOT do:

1) She did not call it genealogy.

2) She did not call it an "ancestor report"

So why do you go on (and on and on) berating her for doing things that she did
not do, but which you have unfairly imputed to her?

Please, let's not have another of those interminable "fight" threads.

Once again another thread indicated that the original poster misstated
what she was looking for. If someone can't ask the question properly
it's not easy to give a proper answer.

One son's father-in-law has been married 8 times. Our d-i-l has more
steps than a staircase.

Can you imagine what the report Dora wants would look like for a
descendant of King Solomon? As far as descendants, concubines and
hanky pankys do not require the legality of marriage. And think of the
job security for a programmer.

Isn't the only thing missing from a descendant report the
non-genealogy of relatives by marriage but not blood?

Please note that I add family history to my genealogy so I am not
averse to the idea. I just think we should keep the distinction
between genealogy and family history.

I have found the creators of Legacy. RootsMagic and TMG to be very
receptive and attuned to the needs of users. Perhaps others can say
the same for the parade of owners of FTM - I can't.

Now let me go download the recommended program - it may be the only
one I've never tried.

If I'm wrong, be gentle. 8-)

anyone would think I would want to do that. Why do genealogy programs
even accept multiple spouses and their children if you aren't supposed to
want to list them on reports?!!!

No, I do not want to prepare a mess of umpteen disorganized descendant
reports. (Roots Magic people thought they could talk me into doing
something else totally different that makes no sense.) I want a single
ancestor report . With all spouses and all their children for each
ancestor.

Eagle...

I suspect RootsMagic people told you how to print a descendant chart
that would show all spouses and all children. If you printed umpteen
disorganized descendant reports it was not the fault of RootsMagic.

Probably the reason no program will do what you want is because no one
else wants to do what you want. The descendant chart works fine for
them.

The program also needs to be able to import irregular dates and dual dates,
which PAF Companion and Roots Magic can do, but most programs, including
Family Tree Maker, cannot. In 12 or more versions the makers of FTM just
don't get it. I ahve a large database, 14,800 people, and anway, if I did

Eagle...

You certainly diagnosed the problem of FTM.

not ENTER the exact date, it is because I do not HAVE teh exact date!
Don't anybody do like the FTM customer service person and tell me to enter
my data over again! (Probably explains FTM's shortcomings - they don't
listen and never heard a word you just said to them.)

I need to create descendant reports in narrative formats and a web site with
all the individual pages linked to a central chart or index.

What genealogical software meets my criteria?

Eagle...

Most programs will print narrative descendant reports with an index
but now you are talking about a descendant report. Before you were
talking about an ancestor report. Legacy, RootsMagic and TMG will do
that. I suspect they will help with web sites - I don't know because I
never plan to have one.

If I didn't understand your problem, perhaps you could state it
differently.

the_verminator...

You should check out TMG (The Master Genealogist) and SecondSite. When
used together I'm pretty sure you'll find they can give you exactly
what you are looking for.

singhals...

First, let's sort out what your criteria ARE.

Do you want a report on YOUR ancestors?
/or/
Do you want a report on the Descendants of X
/or/
Do you want a report of everyone in the database.

Then, Reassure us that you understand the difference between genealogy
and family history. The people you want to include are neither your
ancestors nor descendants of a common progenitor, but they *are* family.
(My grandmother's grandfather's 3rd wife's first husband's kids aren't
related to me, after all.) And because they're not genetically kin to
you most programs won't include them in ancestor/descendant reports.

Since they have no genetic relationship to you, very few programs will
include your grandfather's 4th wife's kids by her first husband. The
only one I know that will is FTM.

You don't like FTM (fair 'nuff, I'm not wild about it either).

So, if you really and truly want all that mess, you're going to have to
do it the hard way: first generate the report of all your genetic
ancestors; then generate separate reports on everyone left out of the
first report, and cut'n'paste those into your master. *THEN* publish as
HTML. I do this for webpages, but if I didn't speak HTML, I'd pick
door-#-2, below.

Or blindside the computer, and lie to it: tell it all those kids belong
to your genetic ancestor. Use a duplicate database which you delete
IMMEDIATELY so as to preserve the "true facts". (g)

Either will work.