Family tree template?

Hi Naomi,

If you think there is any chance that you will get serious about your family tree research, consider purchasing Reunion for Macintosh.

When you look in the rear view mirror a year from now, you will be glad you purchased the proper software and spent your time doing research rather than trying to do a family tree in a spreadsheet program.

I speak from experience...

Jerry

Hi Naomi,

I'd add my agreement with what Wayne and Jerry have said—Numbers (or any other spreadsheet) isn't the best tool for this job. Reunion is a mature, well-developed piece of software designed for Family Tree research and recording. Producing Family Tree diagrams is built in.

Regards,

Barry

My question is very similar except..... I'm looking for a template to organize and manage all of my family tree photographs, documents, and media that has been searched along with the positive or negative results.

Hi Mama,

I checked with the resident Reunion expert. Reunion can do some, but not all, of these tasks. She knows of no family tree software that can do them all. You are probably looking at several separate applications—one to manage photos, one for the document manangement and ± results, and a family tree application (such as Reunion) to manage your actual findings.

Regards,

Barry

I guess I should have been a bit more detailed in my post. I have Reunion and iPhoto. What I'm looking for... I want to be able to itemize what books, or documents, or databases I have found or not found information in, so I'm not going back over the same ground again and again. As far as the photos, most are in iPhoto, but some are on disc and some older ones are on paper. I want to be able to say.... "GGGrandmother MInnie.... yes... on paper" "GGGGGrandmother Mary... none" "GGGrandmother Emily... yes... paper... iphoto"

I found where Microsoft has a template for Excel just for this. The place I bought my computer put MWord and Excel etc. on here and I downloaded the template, but it will not open. I don't care for microsoft products anyway. I know I have Numbers...... but I see no template that would do what I want and I've never even opened it before today and have NO CLUE how to use it.

I would have thought that for what you want, a spreadsheet, used as a database, would be ideal. Columns for date of object,date of search, title, document type, comments, link to object. Date codes as yyyymmdd, so that they can be sorted. You may want to have a code to sort on - maybe ffffttttnnnn, where ffff is Family, tttt is type (phot, cens, docn, etc) So smitcens0023 would be the 23rd census record for the Smith line of the family

I use Family Tree Maker for Trees. Works on Mac, iPad, iPhone and PC, as well as synchronising with internet.

Can't comment on reunion, as I've never tried it.

Documents could be kept on the disk, an external disk, or dropbox / iCloud.

Bob

Thanks everyone. And Bob... back in my PC days I had Family Treemaker, then Ancestry bought it and STOLE all my info, putting it online as "anonymous" including ALL my private notes. It took me 3 months of phone calls and threats before they finally took it off, but much had been copied. When the PC's died we were given a Mac.... now I wouldn't go back. I use Reunion. There are many things I like about it, and there are things FTM has that I wish Reunion had.

I came to this question because the template I downloaded for Excel wouldn't open. I have Numbers, but I've never used a spreadsheet in my life, not even in college data processing for non-majors, which is why I've asked if there's a template.... something a spreadsheet neophyte could manage to figure out?

Hi Mama,

Numbers will open and import Excel documents (with some flaws, but we can find a way to work around them).

I can open an Excel document in Numbers by:

double clicking on it in Finder, or

single right click (or control click) and Open With... > Numbers, or

dragging the Excel document to the Numbers app icon, or

with Numbers open, go to Menu > File > Open.

If none of these methods work, I think the Excel template is corrupted.

Anyway, if you want to follow the spreadsheet approach, please reply with a description of how you want to organise your data (for example, what column headings, do you want the data grouped in some way) we can help.

Regards,

Ian.

Hi Mama,

Have you tried opening the Excel templates using Numbers? If the files are really templates, you may have to change the filename extension from .xlt to .xls or from .xltx to .xlsx to allow Numbers to recognize them as files it is able to open.

Numbers does not support Visual Basic or Excel macros, so if the templates have used either of these Excel features, those parts will not be available. The same is true for any Excel functions not also supported in Numbers. Numbers should present warnings regarding these on openign the file.

Regards,

Barry

Hi Mama and Naomi

Looking at the various Excel templates, the useful ones capture Gedcom data and then create a tree. However that makes extensive use of VBA, which as noted above won't work on numbers.

If all you want is the sort of thing I described above, as a record of data, searches, pictures and documents, then numbers will do it. If you wish, I will create one and send it to you - but it won't be exciting, just a working example 🙂

Regards

Bob

MW,

I would put all that stuff in a Reunion Note field, if it didn't fit any Source or Citation field. Reunion 10 has such great tools for managing sources and citations, I'm having trouble trying to get a feel for what is missing. That said, I imagine that you are a much more advanced at all this than I am and I'm hoping to pick up some tips here.

If you want to send me that Excel template, I'll take a crack at opening it.

Jerry

Sorry for not replying sooner. After going to bed at 3 a.m. hubby wakes me at 6 and needs me to take him to the ER..... from which he's been admitted. Not sure exactly what the problem is yet, bronchitis? pneumonia? Other? So this girl is beat and home for the night. Gotta feed and walk critters.... then going to bed!

Anyway.... thanks for the answers and suggestions.

Jerry.... I truly think the template may be corrupt, but I also think there's some problem with the microsoft programs he put on here because any time I have to open a word document I have to go through a window that wants a product code or click 'use office to view files for free'. Never had that with the G4 that died. I have Reunion 9 on here and no money to upgrade anytime soon.

Bob... if you could do that I would be so grateful, but like I said, I've never used a spreadsheet before 😕, but I'm willing to try almost anything once.

Thanks,

Debbi

Did you get an email from Ancestry stating that they are discontinuing Family Tree Maker? They did that to MyFamily.com also. All the work I put into the MyFamily page and it is gone from Ancestry. I found another site that put all my stuff from MyFamily on it's site, but it is not nearly as good as MyFamily was. Ancestry is the pits. They are a money hungry organization and I wouldn't join it for anything, but free, which will never happen. I did get free 2 weeks when I had to upgrade FTM due to upgrading to Yosemite. Of course I got the email about them discontinuing FTM after I paid to upgrade..

I was replying to BobHallworth who was trying to help the lady asking about Family Tree Template. He mentioned using Family Tree Maker for years and I was telling him the Ancestry was discontinuing FTM.

Doesn't Reunion have a place for Sources. FTM does, but I haven't used it much, except for the stuff that I downloaded from Ancestry when I had a free trial. What I did with my sources is I created a husband named Sources by Surname and in the notes section listed a surname and put in all my sources. I did this for each surname I was researching. Then in the wife's space, I put in Sources by Source name. In the notes I put the source person's name, and all the surnames I got from that person.