Charting Question

[bd7643]

I am not currently using Reunion, although I have some experience with it. I hope to receive some solid feedback before making it my primary software package. Thank you for your thoughts and ideas.

I have what might not be a unique situation, but it is one that is increasingly common, and it is one that my current package can not handle.

I have an ancestral couple and 4 generations of descendants – so parents, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and some great-great grandchildren now appearing.

Each of the ancestral couple’s children married, and produced offspring (grandchildren).

Several of the grandchildren have married, divorced, and re-married – one going through the cycle 4 times, so far.

With each marriage within the grandchild group, there have been ‘legitimate’ children born (so bloodline great-grandchildren of the ancestral couple).

As well, with several grandchild re-marriages there have been ‘step-children’ brought in to the fold (who, within the family for charting purposes, are also to be considered as true great-grandchildren of the ancestral couple). There have also been and some ‘legitimate’ children born in some of the grandchild re-marriages.

Children of these great-grandchildren, both ‘legitimate’ and ‘step’, are now starting to produce children of their own (so great-great grandchildren of the ancestral couple, each of whom is to be considered as a true descendant of the ancestral couple).

My goal is to produce a ‘left to right’ chart which shows:
the ancestral couple;
each one of their children and their spouses;
each one of their grandchildren and each one of their sometimes several spouses;
all of the great-grandchildren, both ‘legitimate’ and ‘step’; and
all of the great-great-grandchildren and spouses
of each of the ‘legitimate’ and ‘step’ great-grandchildren.

Is this a chart that Reunion can build?

[ttl]

Re: Charting Question

The short answer is yes, the Reunion chart editor can do this.

The longer answer is that it depends upon how you have the people entered into the family file--the chart editor will simply follow what it finds there, unless you want to get into manual editing (a mode in which the Reunion chart editor excels above the competition).

I think most people who deal with this situation will take advantage of Reunion's ability to link a person to more than one set of parents. For example, a step child will be entered into the family file, and linked to his biological parents. Since this isn't necessarily representative of how he is raised and lives his life, he can also be linked additionally to his adoptive parents.

When a descendant chart is created for his (step)grandparents, he, his spouse, and his children will show up in the chart under the parents that fall in the line of descent from the grandparents.

There's some other small points that apply, but again, the basic answer is yes, it's possible to do what you want.