Legacy Charting

Millennia Corporation recently announced the availability of time limited trial access to a charting add-on for Legacy Family Tree 6. I've been experimenting with Legacy since obtaining a copy at the Quebec Family History Society Roots 2007 conference last year, thanks to a namesake who won it in a draw but already had a copy.

As a long time user of Family Tree Maker I found the lack of a good charting capability in Legacy a marked disadvantage, one which has now nearly disappeared with this addition.

After installing the software the program asks to go searching for databases on your system in Legacy, GEDCOM, PAF, Family Tree Maker and Roots Magic formats -- you can specify one or any combination. From there on producing a chart on the screen is a three step process. You select the database you want to chart, then click on NEXT to select an individual, which you can do by scrolling through a list, entering first and last names in a search box, or navigating to relatives of the person selected by default. Details of the person selected appear in a panel. Then you click NEXT to select the type of chart you want. The choice is from six versions of an ancestor chart; two of a descendant chart; four versions of DNA charts showing which descendants would have inherited the principal person's Y-DNA, if a male, or mtDNA if female; four types of fan chart; and one type each of hour glass and bow tie charts.

You have an amazing number of choices for changing the appearance of each chart. Theme, colour, box content, borders, size, background and title can all be specified. The implementation is superior to Family Tree Maker's.

You can print, email, export to file, or send a chart for printing by a service bureau, useful if that requires a large format printer. I did encounter one problem when charts which printed fine did not export to file the way they appeared on the screen -- part was missing. This happened with various file formats.

This charting is supposed to be standard in Legacy Family Tree 7 expected this spring. At the moment it's not as convenient having to go a separate program as the integrated capability in Family Tree Maker. With this addition I'm seriously considering switching to Legacy 7 when it comes on the market.

Those in Ottawa will have an early chance to learn about the new Legacy in detail when Rick Roberts from Global Genealogy, who has been involved as a tester for this software during its development, presents a BIFHSGO pre-conference seminar starting at 10am on Friday 18 September. Check the BIFHSGO web site for details coming soon.