GenealogyTools

Genealogy Software Tutorials for Mac & PC

Mac Software

Routine Photo Management Tasks in MacFamilyTree

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The gorgeous graphics in MacFamilyTree make great use of photos of your relatives. This screencast will help you bring your family history data to life whether you’ve already added some photos or not. In it, I cover editing photos and adding them to MacFamilyTree. Since MacFamilyTree is tightly integrated with iPhoto I show you how to use it to:

  • crop photos
  • correct fading
  • remove discoloration
  • sharpen images

Once edited, I walk you through adding the photos to MacFamilyTree and selecting the photo that will be used for a given person in the family assistant. Please open MacFamilyTree and the following video, “Routine Photo Management Tasks in MacFamilyTree”, and follow along. After doing so you will have the knowledge and experience to move beyond just having photos. You’ll be ready to improve the quality of your family photos.

Please note that in the video I recommend that you buy a current copy of iPhoto if you don’t already have it. I suggested looking for it in the recommended products list in the sidebar, but didn’t mention that it is part of Apple’s iLife ’11,
suite of applications. iLife ’11 is the package to look for, not iPhoto.

Family Assistant

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The family assistant is a view in the Mac genealogy database software, MacFamilyTree. It consists of three panes:

  1. Person Chart
  2. Person Information
  3. List of Persons

The person chart is a graphical representation of the relatives of a focal person. The focal person is indicated graphically by a rotating, multi-pointed star aura. Related people are connected by arcs. The arcs are labeled with joined rings if the joined people are partners. Those rings will indicate a divorce by having a black circle with a slash. There is also a selected person which may or may not be the focal person. The selected person is indicated by a rotating, dashed line aura. The selected person has a plus sign icon that can be used to add connected people (partner, sibling, or children).

The fields in the person information pane populate with the information for the selected person. Those fields can be edited. The pane also includes the ubiquitous arrow which, if clicked, will take you to the edit view for the selected person.

The list of persons pane is just that. The focal person in the person chart is the focal person in the list of persons. There is a search box in this pane that can be used to quickly move the person chart to a different part of the tree.

The following configuration options exist for the family assistant view:

  • Number of ancestors to include in the person chart (0, 1, or 2)
  • Number of descendants to include in the person chart (0, 1, or 2)
  • Person coloring by generation or gender
  • Include people not in the same genetic lineage
  • Show photos for people when present (instead of the man or woman icons)
  • Speed of animation

This screencast video, Mac Genealogy Software MacFamilyTree Family Assistant, demonstrates all of the above features.

Routine Photo Management Tasks in Reunion 9

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Having photos in your Mac genealogy database program helps bring your family history to life. In the first article and screencast in this series I showed you how to add and remove photos. With that knowledge and experience in place we can move on to performing some other photo management tasks, namely:

  • cropping photos to include only the part we want
  • removing discoloration
  • minimizing fading colors
  • making a photo “preferred”

Launch your copy of genealogy software Reunion 9 for Mac then follow along with this video from the MacGenealogist Archives: Routine Photo Management Tasks in Mac Genealogy Software Reunion 9. After doing so you will have the knowledge and experience to move beyond just having photos. You’ll be ready to improve the quality of your family photos.

If you have any questions about photo management or manipulation please ask. I’ll use your input to add to this series.

How to Add Photos and Other Media in Reunion 9

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Having photos in your Reunion 9 family file does more than make them available for reports and charts. It also adds flavor and context when looking at family cards. As you can see from the image below, seeing photos brings a family card and one’s family history to life.

In this first screencast in a series, I walk you through the different ways of adding and removing photos in Reunion 9 for Mac as well as giving some background information, pointers, and a solution to a common problem. So grab some family history photos and scan them if they aren’t already, launch Reunion, navigate to the appropriate family card, then play this video from the MacGenealogist Archives: How to Add Photos and Other Media in Mac Genealogy Software Reunion 9, and follow along.

Treetops

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Treetops are a concept in the genealogy software, Reunion 9 for Mac. The term refers to the earliest known ancestor of a given person. They are useful for locating and quickly navigating to brick walls and ancestors on which to focus research. It is also a handy way to move to likely targets for a descendant report or chart. This screencast video from the MacGenealogist Archives, Treetops in Macintosh Genealogy Software Reunion 9 for Mac , demonstrates the use of the treetops feature.