Best Hard Copy Save Option-Entire DB

[M McLane]

I have over 1500 people in my reunion family file. While I have a number of electronic backups, I'm looking for the BEST way to same a hard copy of all/a majority of my data in hard copy format so descendants who are not computer saavy (or maybe computers will change in 50 years - do you think?) but paper will always be there to fall back on. Any suggestions of which report or reports would be best to save the entire database in a human-readable format?

[donworth]

Re: Best Hard Copy Save Option-Entire DB

I would say a Register report with all fields included and all sources.

Of course, you would have to do one for each of your tree-top couples.

[Bob White]

Re: Best Hard Copy Save Option-Entire DB

I would say a Register report with all fields included and all sources.

Of course, you would have to do one for each of your tree-top couples.

I have done this a couple times in the past few years. I found the easy way to identify those tree top couples was to do a fan chart with self and spouse as the center.

[ttl]

Re: Best Hard Copy Save Option-Entire DB

Another option would be to print a family group sheet for every family. It would be redundant and likely voluminous, but if you're looking for something decipherable to others, it might be worth evaluating.

In any case, I'd strongly recommend printing a relative chart with one of your descendants as the source person as a roadmap to all your other data. Nothing puts things in perspective like the graphical representation of a wall chart can. (Yes, I'm biased, but justifiably so. )

Here's a past discussion on the forum on the subject of saving things for posterity:

http://www.reuniontalk.com/showthread.php?t=8544

[Bruce Christopher]

Re: Best Hard Copy Save Option-Entire DB

Another option would be to print a family group sheet for every family.

A limitation of the Family Group Sheet report is that it only includes the Preferred photo for each person. You could try the Book report, using the Family History format, which can be set to include all photos attached to each person, however, it still seems to omit photos that were attached to the Couple. I don’t know of any report format that includes every photo.

[ttl]

Re: Best Hard Copy Save Option-Entire DB

A limitation of the Family Group Sheet report is that it only includes the Preferred photo for each person. You could try the Book report, using the Family History format, which can be set to include all photos attached to each person, however, it still seems to omit photos that were attached to the Couple. I don’t know of any report format that includes every photo.

Yeah, every option is going to have some compromises. I do maintain the photos in Reunion separate from Reunion, and they'll be available to whoever finds them, and they're annotated with names.

On a separate note, one of my greatest frustrations is my treasure trove of photos I've compiled with no indications of who's in them. The original owners of the photos knew who they were looking at, so why bother writing it down?

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

Re: Best Hard Copy Save Option-Entire DB

On a separate note, one of my greatest frustrations is my treasure trove of photos I've compiled with no indications of who's in them. The original owners of the photos knew who they were looking at, so why bother writing it down?

In my family, it seems that I'm the last one alive who can name most of the people in our photos. I've begun working through them in Adobe Lightroom, which has facial recognition capabilities that are moderately helpful. It's still a lot of work if you have a considerable number of photos. And it's very frustrating knowing that those I can't identify could have been ID'd by the others in the photo if we'd thought to ask them and write it down.