LoriBragg writes...

Reading an article today on inventory-ing(?) records for an ancestor and thought of GenSmarts. I have tried to use Excel for this and I realize that zeroing in on a single person or family in GenSmarts would also show what was needed to some extent. However, it would still be visually useful to have a report that show all the different kinds of records you could search for (as rows perhaps) and person or people across as column headings with checkmarks or something for the boxes where records had been recorded and blanks for not found and/or NA for ignore...

Does this sound feasible? Is it more of a software report, like for TMG or FTM? Or am I just out in left field?

Lori Bragg

Lori Bragg

On 2006-05-31 6:18pm GenSmarts replied...

Interesting...

Is it a paper report or an interactive screen?

At first blush, I don't see it being all that more useful on paper than existing reports. But as an alternative interface for drilling into GenSmarts suggestion data, it might be pretty cool.

I guess it's the need for scrolling that is making me think online/interactive - hard to imagine there being enough width on paper to make it work as a report.

What you do in Excel... do you work with it primarily online, or do you print it?

On 2006-06-01 4:13pm LoriBragg added...

I was thinking of a paper report but to be honest I would probably never actually print it! Interactive sounds interesting - especially with a drill down. Mostly in Excel I just check off those records I've found, the blanks providing a visual for where I should continue searching.... maybe it's just a penchant for wanting to be able to fill in all the blanks, like a crossword puzzle or something!

The width would be an issue if too many people are on the report - I prefer one family at a time. Even that can get large. If you limit it to two or three generations though you can narrow down some of the records to be searched, especially census'.

Lori

Lori Bragg

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Tags:  TMG  Family Tree Maker  

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