NGS Digest November/December 1997

Software Review - Legacy 2.0 by Bill Mumford
Alberta, Canada

For all those genealogists presently searching for a new program the choice has just become a little more difficult. In June of this year Millennia Corp. of Duvall, Washington released Legacy 2.0, a comprehensive family history program with enough features to provide something for everybody.
 

Program Installation and System Requirements

Legacy comes on six 3.5" discs and will soak up the best part of 10 Megs on your hard drive. Installation is handled by the Install Shield Wizard and is straightforward. An Uninstall feature is part of the installation so, should the user desire, the program may be removed. Any user created files, the Windows DLLs, and the directory structure remain however. Millennia initially suggested a 386 or better, 8Megs of RAM, and Windows 3.1 or Win 95. While the program will run on a 386 most users would find the performance unsatisfactory. A 486 with 8 Megs is satisfactory, but on a Pentium 133 with 32 Megs of RAM the program really flies.

Being a one finger typist I chose to import a GEDCOM 5.5 file created by The Master Genealogist rather than enter all new data. I used the default settings and, with a few minor exceptions, the import proceeded smoothly including the import of most of the source data. The exceptions were a few items that are not supported by Legacy, however all of these were recorded in the general notes fields. Like many of today’s programs Legacy comes with a sample database and a tutorial which, when used in conjunction with the sample database, gives the user an excellent overview of many of the program’s features. Most experienced computer users will find that program usage is straightforward and intuitive. They will need to refer to the context sensitive help only in respect to the more advanced features.

Data Views

The user has the option to display either the family view or the pedigree view which can be set to show either four or five generations as the opening screen.

The family view displays husband and wife side by side with the parents below. In either view above and children simply will bring up the data clicking on a name entry provides the access to screen. This screen the various data entry options including notes, photos, addresses and the calendar/date calculator. The surname fields are each 120 given and characters An unlimited number of in length. alternate names entered. The fields may be available for name and suffixes can hold prefixes up to 50 characters. may be entered in any Dates format and will automatically be converted to the format specified by the user. The various prefixes such as, before, after, etc. are all supported. Four events, birth, christening, death, and burial are predefined on the data entry screen. An unlimited number of additional events may be added as required. A predefined list is provided but the user may add additional events. Each event has a name, date, location, and the comment field. Events may be edited, sorted, added or removed. Location fields use auto completion which permits the user to enter a few characters and the program will complete the entry if the location is in the location list. Date fields are 45 characters in length and locations are allotted 120 characters. There are fields for reference numbers or ancestral file numbers. A cut and paste feature using the Windows clipboard is also available. If chosen as an option, clicking on the LDS button provides access to the LDS ordinance fields.

Entering Sources

Sources are entered and linked to events from the individual entry screen. Users might find it more convenient to add a new source to the master list prior to entering the individual events to which it refers. The source definition screen has fields for the following information: a source name, generally an abbreviation of the source title; the source type, book, church, etc; a source description, usually the full source title; the author; publication facts, i.e. where, when, by whom; and the repository.  Legacy provides a source assistant to aid the user here in order to insure consistency. A text field is supplied to record comments that might have been present in the original source. A comment field is available for user remarks. These two fields are each 64K in size. The user links the source to the event at the time of entry and may enter up to 255 characters of source detail such as page number, film number etc. The surety level value is entered at this time. An event may be linked to any number of sources. One rather unique feature is the source clipboard. This clipboard holds a copy of the source citation presently in use, thus repeat entries can be made with a single mouse click.

Multiple Note Fields, Rolodex and Calendar

Available from the data entry screen are the three 65K notes fields, general, research and medical. The program can be set to jump to these notes fields on completion of data entry if desired. The address Rolodex is available from the data entry screen as is the calendar function. The calendar covers the years from 1700 to 2099 and has an option for calculating birth date, death date, or life length given any two of the three.

Charts, Reports, and Census Forms

Legacy offers four charts among its report selection. All have several options available for determining content and appearance. The Ancestry chart is a simple pedigree chart with names and dates only. The Lineage chart displays the direct line including siblings and spouses. The Descendant chart displays names and dates only. The Pedigree chart is a cascading type chart showing names, dates and locations.

Six of the reports support the printing of graphics. These are the Ancestry and Descendant charts, the Family Group sheet, the Individual report, the Ahnentafel report and the Modified Register report. All have numerous options. The Modified Register and Ahnentafel are book type reports having the ability to generate a title page, index, and table of contents. The Ahnentafel report has enough options so that it may be structured to resemble a reverse register report.

Other reports include a Timeline, a Relationship report, a Surname summary, an Ages report, and a Name list report. Of special interest are the Potential Problems report and the Source Citation report. The criteria for the potential problems report may be set by the user and can reveal some of those common errors often made in the data entry phase. The source citation report not only lists all the sources but the individuals linked to those sources. Finally, for LDS Church members, there is an Ordinance report.

The program will print blank census forms for all the US Federal census as well as for the Canadian 1851 and 1901 census. A customized questionnaire form for requesting family data can be created as well as a research log form. Add to the foregoing the ability to create an individual photo album, or a slide show complete with sound, and you have a very representative collection of the various types reports found in today’s genealogy programs.

Support for Digitized Sounds and Images

An unlimited number of graphics may be linked to each individual. A large number of formats are supported and images may be rotated, flipped, converted to gray scale, adjusted for brightness and contrast, or converted to an alternate format. There is no scanner support however. Fields are available for captioning, dating or describing each graphic. The option is available to print graphics on selected reports or a photo album may be assembled for each individual. The graphics and sounds may also be output as a slide show.

Convenience Items

The following aspects of the program, which, for lack of a better term, I term convenience items, covers those items that may often determine a programs suitability for many users. While Legacy does a good job of data recording and presents some very nice reports, what sets it apart form similar programs are the features found in this area.

To begin with there are those little help balloon's that pop up when the cursor rests on an icon for a moment. For the beginner these can be a great help. They may be disabled for the experienced user. Similarly, info boxes for family members can be set to pop up in either family or pedigree view. The individual data may then be edited if desired. The right mouse button has been enabled so that clicking it while on an element in the family/pedigree view screen a menu with the current options will pop up. Up to 160 bookmarks may be set. A list of these is available for selection purposes. The program also maintains a record of the last 160 individuals displayed. Arrow keys allow the user to move through this record. Almost every aspect of Legacy may be customized from the initial screen display, data entry procedures, date formatting, auto backup, and file locations to the location of the button bar. In addition all fonts and background colors may be changed as desired.

A tagging feature is available allowing the user to tag individuals or groups of individuals for various reporting or exporting purposes. There are three levels of tags available for both individual and marriages. These tags can be accessed from the data entry screen. A similar focus feature is also available from the export or family report screens. It does not require the use of the tags although it has the option to include them. The search function in Legacy presents the user with numerous options. It is possible to Query by Example wherein the user selects the data to check. A detailed search allows the user to specify who, where, how and what to search for and adds two additional levels to further define the search by using an and/or function. The Miscellaneous search allows the user to create focus groups and set tag levels. Using these tags and the Legacy export option the user can effectively split the database. All search results may be printed which adds considerably to the reporting capabilities.

Multiple Document Viewer

For those folks who keep separate databases, e.g. one for the husband’s family and one for the wife’s, you will love the opportunity to open as many as seven family and/or pedigree views in the same or different databases simultaneously. Data may be either viewed or copied from one file to the other. For those unfortunate souls suffering with a 15" or smaller monitor you will have to cascade the windows to benefit from this feature.

Merge Feature

Another feature that will be greeted enthusiastically by users is an elegant merge feature. A fully definable search function may be run first, if desired, to locate possible merge candidates and the results tagged. A manual merge can then be run on these individuals. When merging the user has the option to examine all data and determine exactly which information to combine or delete.

LDS Support

Full LDS support is available and may be selected from the options menu. This includes Ordinance Dates and Temples, Temple Lists, Ordinance Reports and the ability to create a Temple Ready submission file.

GEDCOM Support

GEDCOM support is a rather difficult subject at the present time. First, GEDCOM 5.5 hasn’t solved the data transfer troubles. Secondly, the new programs contain considerably more data than previous versions. With each developer’s database being unique to some extent, complete transfer of all data simply isn’t possible. Legacy has attempted to compensate for these difficulties several ways. The user may choose from the following six GEDCOM export options:

A basic BMD GEDCOM without notes. (2) A PAF type GEDCOM which inserts all sources into the notes fields. (3) An Ancestral File GEDCOM which is similar to the PAF version. (4) An LDS Temple Submission GEDCOM. Contains only that data required for Temple Ready. (5) A Legacy GEDCOM. This contains all the data plus pictures, sounds etc. It uses Legacy defined tags, some of which are not compatible with version 5.5 of GEDCOM. This choice would be used to transfer data to be exported. It should be noted that all of these options may be customized if desired.

Legacy provides a number of options when importing via GEDCOM. The file is checked for errors and unrecognized or non standard tags. Unrecognized tags may be put into the notes field or they may be remapped to a standard tag. Date formats are also checked and may be corrected if required. The formatting of names and places can also be modified on import. The program will also import PAF 2.31 files directly and has the ability to extract sources form PAF notes if they have been kept in the recommended format.

As I mentioned earlier, I imported a TMG GEDCOM file for this review. I then modified the data and exported a Legacy GEDCOM file to TMG. Some data was lost in both directions but nothing that might be considered vital. The basic source data transferred both ways and the user defined events I created in Legacy were exported with the EVEN tag and imported as miscellaneous events in TMG. Of course none of the Legacy specific tag items transferred but that was to be expected. I tried importing Brother’s Keeper GEDCOM in order to see if Legacy could handle BK’s unstructured source field. It could. The BK sources were imported into Legacy’s sources as text notes.

Direct Import of Personal Ancestral Files

With Legacy’s ability to import PAF 2.31 files directly PAF users desiring a full featured Windows program with LDS support should take this program for a test drive. I don’t think they will be disappointed.

Availability and Purchase Information

A demo version of Legacy is available from Millennia’s online site, http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com, or, as it is over 8 Megs, by mail from Millennia for $5.00. The demo version is fully functional with the exception that changes made to any entries over and above the first 50 individuals will not be retained. This permits a potential user to import a complete database with GEDCOM and properly evaluate the program features. The full registered version of the program may be purchased online, by fax, mail or phone. The address is Millennia, PO Box 1800, Duvall, WA 98019. Fax 425-940-1610, ( 1-800-753-3453. Price is $US 49.95 plus mailing charges.

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