jFamily History System Reports and Charts

FHS - Sample Reports and Charts

When the Family History System was first made available for public use in 1985, it could produce three types of reports (Family Group, Ancestor Report and Descendant Report), and a single style of chart (4 Gen Ancestor Chart). Over the years, the reporting capability of FHS has been enhanced to the point that it now has more than 40 separate report and chart types with options that provide hundreds of variations. Rather than try to describe here the various types of FHS output, I am providing sample pages from many of the reports and charts for you to see for yourself.
Reports which present detail information from a family file are of two different styles: "Fixed Format", in which information has an assigned location in the report, and "Free Format" in which information is presented in a "paragraph" style. Fixed Format reports require a fixed minimum number of print positions for each line depending on the types of information included in the report and typically require a compressed character size for printing on standard size forms. The free format style adjusts to the number of printable characters on a line and allows using larger character sizes.
The following sample reports and charts are grouped by function. First are the "Family Group" Reports which are used to show information in the file concerning an individual. These are followed by the "Relationship Reports" which are designed to help display information about related groups of individuals. The third group of "Lists" provide detail information for selected records in ID sequence.

Family Group Reports
"Family Group" reports or worksheets are probably the most important working documents for genealogists. They are used to record information about a "Family Unit" and are frequently organized by the "head" of the family unit or by a code number that is assigned to the family unit. Although the FHS Group Reports are styled after the traditional Family Group Report, it might be more appropriate to call them "Individual Information Reports" as they are intended to present all information in a family file concerning a single individual, called the SUBJECT of the report. This might include information about several family units in which the subject of the report has participated as one of the Heads of Family.

FGRP01.pdf - Blank Group Form or "Individual Information" Worksheet- for gathering information about an individual; the types of sections included in the form, and the number of occurences of each section are specified by the user
FGRP02.pdf - Fixed Format Group Report - a filled in worksheet
FGRP03.pdf - Free Format Group Report - Information concerning an individual, in "paragraph" style - allows fewer characters/line of print. It only shows types of information that have been entered into the file for the individual and that you request be shown in the report.
FGRP04.pdf - Merged Free Format Group Reports - Multiple group reports combined into a single report -

Relationship Reports and Charts
There are several approaches to the study of Family History. Some prefer to concentrate on their own or another's ancestry, attempting to locate all persons from whom the Key individual (or Subject) has a direct line of descent. Others attempt to identify all descendants of a single important or Key individual, while still others are intent upon finding all individuals to whom they are related in any manner...that is they are attempting to find all descendants of any of their ancestors. The Family History System includes reports and charts which are designed to assist in each of these efforts.
(Note: Typewriter symbols are used to draw the lines in the printed charts to accomodate browsers that may not include the standard box drawing symbols in their supported character set. You may optionally use the graphical box symbols if your chosen font supports them.)
ANCESTRY
The "LNUM" in these reports is what I call the "lineage number" of the ancestor. It is "1" for the subject, "2" for the Father, "3" for the Mother, and, in general, the LNUM for a father is 2* the LNUM for the child among the Ancestors and the LNUM for a Mother is one more than that for the Father. Among genealogists it may be called the "Ahnentafel number" of the ancestor. AGL is the "Ancestor Generation Level" relative to the subject or "Base" record.

ARPT01.pdf - Fixed Format (Columnar) Ancestor Report.
ARPT02.pdf - Free Format Ancestor Report
ARPT03.pdf - Life Line Style Ancestor Report
ACHT01.pdf - 4 Generation Ancestor Chart. Complete sets of these charts can be printed, all linked together by references to a "5th Generation".
ACHT02.pdf - 5 Generation Ancestor Chart. These can also be printed in "sets", linked by references in the "6th Generation".
ACHT03.pdf - All Generation Ancestor Map
ACHT04.pdf - Vertical Box Chart - The ancestors in a generation are arranged in Vertical Columns.
ACHT04b.pdf - Vertical "Box" Chart without box outlines (also called a "drop down" chart)
ACHT05.pdf - Horizontal Box Chart (mini style) - The ancestors in a generation are arranged in Horizontal Rows. The number in each box is the LNUM for the ancestor. The base individual can be placed at the bottom or top of the chart.
ACHT06.pdf - Horizontal Box Chart Summary Report - This report gives an overview of the basic appearance of a Box Chart and indicates how many "strips" a very wide chart will require for printing
ASUM01.pdf - Ancestor Summary Report - This is not a "detail" report like the others, but summarizes certain types of information for all ancestors in a "generation". It can also be printed in a Vertical format.
DESCENDANCY
The grouping of descendants in a Descendant Report can be done in two different ways. That is, they can either be grouped by generations or they can be grouped by families. The latter grouping will list all of the children of a descendant before listing the next younger sibling of the descendant.

DRPT01.pdf - Fixed Format Descendant Report - Grouped by Generations - The "Descend" column shows the number of the child at each generation level that is an ancestor of the individual on the line.
DRPT02.pdf - Fixed Format Descendant Report - Outline Style - Grouped by Families - the descendancy here within the "Family" is emphasized by the "outline".
DRPT03.pdf - Free Format Descendant Report - Outline Style - Grouped by Families
DCHT01.pdf - Descendant Vertical Box Chart
DCHT02.pdf - Descendant Horizontal Box Chart (mini chart version of chart below), still requires 2 pages to print. The number in the box is the "Child Number" in the family.
DCHT03.pdf - Descendant Horizontal Box Chart (Full Size Chart) - requires 8 pages to piece together
DSUM01.pdf - Descendant Summary Report - This is not a "detail" report like the others, but summarizes certain types of information for all descendants in a "generation". (Also in "Vertical" format)
RELATIVES
The Relative Report combines the Descendant Reports for each Ancestor of an individual into a single report. If an individual appears in an earlier descendant report, then a "backward reference" appears in the relationship column in the format ">5 24" meaning the next earlier reference to the same individual can be found on page 5, line 24. The individual's descendants (if any) will be shown only for the first appearance of the individual in the report.

RRPT01.pdf - Fixed Format Relative Report - Grouped by Generations
RRPT02.pdf - Free Format Relative Report - Outline Style - Grouped by Families
RSUM01.pdf - Relative Summary Report - This is not a "detail" report like the others, but summarizes certain types of information for all Relaties in a "generation". (Also in "Vertical" format)
RCHT01.pdf - Family Path Chart - This chart shows the "path" of relationships between two relatives.
RCHT02.pdf - Family Path Chart - This chart includes the siblings of those on the Path.
RTAB01.pdf - Relationship Summary Table - This summarizes the numbers of relatives of an individual in each relationship category

Register Reports
The FHS Register Report is actually a specially formatted "Merged Free Format Group Report" which uses conventions that are commonly employed in family publications. The following samples show the three styles of Register reports that can be produced by FHS.

Ancestor Register - an (partial) Ancestor Register for Prince Charles
Descendant Register - a (partial) Descendant Register for Charlemagne
Register Index - an index for the previous 2 reports combined. The "relationships" shown in the index are relative to Prince Charles.
Table of Contents - "Table of Contents" for the last 3 reports combined
Relative Register - Ancestor Section - Pages from the Ancestor Portion of a Relative Register for Queen Elizabeth (only for 4 generations of Ancestors)
Relative Register - Descendant Section - Pages from the Descendant Portion of a Relative Register for Queen Elizabeth (all descendants of 4 generations of ancestors)
Relative Register Index - this is an Index for the two previous Reports. The relationships shown are relative to Queen Elizabeth.

Lists of Selected Records
The Search/Select/LIST program allows you to print lists of detail information about selected records in your family file. The selection criteria can be based upon relationships or upon conditions placed on individual names, birth/death dates and places. The lists can be in ID number sequence or in sorted sequence (e.g. Surname, Birth date, etc.) These lists can be printed in the same styles as the Ancestor, Descendant and Relative reports: Fixed Format (columnar), free format, and timeline.

Fixed Format List - some relatives born before 1880
Free Format List - same report, with comments
Decade Summary Report - for those born in decades from 1780-1880

Miscellaneous Reports

Family File Setup Table - a List of all Family File Setups from the Main Menu "File/Family File Setup" option.
Family File Setup Summary - a List of information from the "Current" Family File Setup
Printer/Page Setup Table - a List of all Printer/Page Setups from the Main Menu "File/Printer-Page Setup" option.
Printer/Page Setup Summary - a List of information from the "Current" Printer/Page Setup
MailMerge Export File Listing - a List of information in a MAILMERG.CSV file produced by the Main Menu "Utilities/Export-Import/MailMerge" option
Tiny Tafel Report - a report that Expresses Interest in Searching for more information on Surnames in your family file, produced by the Main Menu "Utilities/Tiny Tafel" option