Hi,

I'm doing research about my wife's family in Kenya. She's from northern Kenya with a largely pastoralist family history. That means almost no written family data.

I am considering using RootsMagic for my research, but I'm wondering if it's the right software for my purpose, and if I'll use it, how to enter data such as the following:

• Tribe, clan & sub-clan. These mean a lot for family affiliation. Someone from the same clan is often referred to in a similar way as uncle/aunt.
• Age group/age set. People don't count years in the way people to in the Western world. But very important is the age group that a person belongs to. In my context there is a new age group every 14 years, as they go through the initiation. By knowing the age group it's also possible to estimate year of birth etc.
• Men with several wives. It's common with men to have several wives simultaneously. In reports I'd like all children to show up together, as they consider themselves brothers and sisters even if mothers are different.
• Historical events. I'd like to connect individuals' life stories to historical events, and to add multiple stories from individuals in the family tree to a historical event. That way I can both add info about the event from external sources and see how family members experienced this event.
• Sorting facts without knowing the year. I know I can sort by "sort date". But if I have no clue as to the years, but only the order of the facts? For example a person (or family) who has resided in different places, but I don't know when. Maybe I will get those details later, but for now I only want to sort them in order.

I've been looking at MyHeritage Family Tree Builder as well, but you might be able to convince me to use RootsMagic instead

Thanks,
Daniel (from Sweden, but married to a Kenyan)

I'm not yet using the paid version. But I suppose historical events are US- and Europe-centric? I'm doing research about my wife's family in Kenya and would ilke to add particular events to the region where they come from, and to relate that to the family members' stories of those events. I suppose that is not possible if the RootsMagic history database is internal?

Thanks for reply. Yeah, I have looked a little bit at the limited version, although wanted to confirm with more experienced users how to go about the specific needs.

I suppose tribe, clan & age group can be added as custom fact types. A good thing is also that date & place can be left out of certain fact types where this information is not eligible.

Several wives can be entered quite easily, although only siblings from the same mother show in the family tab to the left, which makes it a bit more difficult to find half-siblings.

Historical events seems to not be editable, but I've written about this as a reply to another thread.

Sorting facts: as far as I can see, custom sorting by drag and drop or arrows is not possible?

But so far RootsMagic feels more appealing than other options that I have looked at.

Our desire is to have it world-wide. Most are United States and European specific but there were some in China and Brazil and other places world-wide. If you have a list of people in Kenya you wish to add please send it to support so we can include them.

support@rootsmagic.com

Thanks. However, I would like to add quite detailed history of a particular region in Kenya. Many of those historical events are not in any history book about Kenya as a country, but only in more specific history about that region. So if we could add our own historical events then it would be great. Could be to add another "layer", personal historical events, that can also be added to your internal db once you've moderated them and adding what you think is of general interest, so that others can use them as well.

These are some of my ideas of how you might set up the database in the purchased version. You would want to experiment to see what works best for you.
Tribe, clan & subclan. You could create a person(s), [Tribe name, using the tribes name]. If there are different tribe names, link them to a person, All tribes, as children. Then create clans as children of Tribe and Sub clans as the children of the different clans.
All tribes (if needed)
Tribe
Clan
Sub Clan
Parents
Children

Thanks a lot for a well thought-out answer. I'm trying to grasp what you are saying, but have some questions to help me better understand.

You mean [all tribes] as the "roots person"? And then going back in "generations" with tribes being children of [all tribes], clans being children of a tribe etc? Or perhaps rather the other way around, that [all tribes] is a "person" from a long time ago, with tribes, clans and sub-clans as the generations following. But then I must know how far back in time I would like to go? Or any parent that I don't know becomes sub-clan/clan, and when/if I get to know their name I move sub-clan/clan up one generation? But how can a tribe and clan then be "parent" to "children" in different parts of the tree?

Age group/age set. You could perhaps create a user defined fact, Age group, with the description enabled. Enter a generation number in the description. Maybe also enable the date and enter a range of dates in the date. You would have to decide if tribe, sub tribes, orlan would be generation 1 and figure 14 years for each generation fom that person to the person you are entering. Counting the generations down from !st generation on the Pedogree view would give you the generations.

"Generation number" would be the name of the generation? In Samburu age groups are called Lmetili (initiated from 2004, Lmeoli (from 1990), Lkiroro (from 1976) etc. The year that is known to each age group is the starting year of the initiation of boys in that age group (+ 14 years until the start of the initiation of the next age group).

And each generation in the RootsMagic sense is not necessarily corresponding with the age groups. A father could have sons in several different age groups, and those sons in turn children in different age groups. So one generation as in parent-child could be anything from around 25 to 60+ years, depending on the age of the father when he got the child. But a child always belongs to the age group that is current when he's born (normally a boy is around 14-20 years old when going through the initiation together with his peers).

Perhaps I'm confusing things, but I like this idea, but only need to understand it a bit more.

Historical facts. Create a user defined fact, Historical. Enable the date and place and description. Enter the date and place with the name of the historical event in the description. Put any notes on what happened to that person n the fact note. Or, you could use the program defined Miscellanous fact.

Ok. But then several persons cannot be related to the same historical fact? In case I would like to search all who have shared experiences of a particular drought for example.

Sort dates. The sort dates are for arranging the fact in the order you want them. That is their only purpose. You can enter any sort date regardless of the date or no date in the Date field. You could even sort each fact as 1 or 2 or 3, etc. if desired.

Yeah, I will use them as "weight" (behind drag-and-drop sorting there's a number anyway), and then update the sort date in case another fact needs to be sorted in between, or if I get to know the real date.

Thanks a lot for insightful answers!

/Daniel

Confirming enhancement request is in our tracking system.

Thanks! I'd suggest to change the wording to something that is easier to understand for people not familiar with what a tracking system is. Something like "Thanks for your suggestion. We have added it to our todo list, although we can't say when it may be available".

Not "todo list...", rather "to review list" period.

Yeah, anything that is easy for beginners to understand.

Yeah, I don't know which is the ideal way to reflect tribe, clan, age group etc. in genealogy software. But I think simply using custom facts is good enough for now. Can I create groups based on custom facts and have every person sharing the same clan as a custom fact be automatically added to that group? Then I would have what I need for now.

Hi,

I'm getting closer to choosing RootsMagic for my research about my Kenyan wife's family. I still, however, have a few remaining questions:

• In MyHeritage Family Tree Builder there is an hour glass view, where I zoom in and out to see more relatives, and I can see all relatives, not only parental descent as in the pedigree view. I find the pedigree view a bit difficult to navigate to get an overview of a person's uncles/aunts, cousins etc. Is there any hour glass kind of view in the pipeline for easier browsing?
• Group reports. Say I create a group of all the ancestors of a person, including parents siblings for each generation. Can I print a report of that group? I'd use that to send to selected people, for them to fill in details about their own relatives.
• Search index by given names. When I search for a person I almost always want to search by one of their given names (most people in the context I'm working with have two names, a traditional and a Christian name, either of which are used as "first name", depending on the context where it's used). But the search index only gives me the opportunity to search by family name (most have the same family name) and to search by given name(s) I have to do several steps to do an advanced search, so that even scrolling the index list is faster. Will search index by given names be included soon?

The other main contenders I have looked at are MyHeritage Family Tree Builder, Legacy and Disgen (the most common genealogy software in Sweden, although seriously lacking a modern interface).

Thanks for replies!

Yeah, I can create an hour glass view with a secondary tool, although it would be easier to be able to browse through people in that view. That would be my preferred view to find people and who they are related to, at least in this early stage of collecting information.

About groups etc. I kind of have found what I was looking for with your help! However, I can't seem to be able to print based on color code, but rather on group. But dragging and dropping to a new db sounds ok for now.

I'm working with my uncle on a particular branch. He is using a different tool, that to a large extent is not compatible with RM. Since he has 15 000 entries, and this branch only has 300+ entries, he doesn't want to risk anything by doing a GEDCOM import.

What we do now is I print a narrative report and he adds what he needs based on that. Sometimes I use custom facts, but he may use another way to enter that same fact.

Is it possible in any way to only include data changed after a chosen date/time in a report? That way it would be very easy to print only what has changed and he can then easily go through that, now a lot smaller, report and copy/paste to his database.

I used to use "N" for an unknown name, whether given or last name. But am now trying "?". That way, when I print a report for others to go through and update, it is easy for them to see where there is a name missing that they need to add if known. Maybe "______" would be just as good.

However, I am working almost exclusively with oral data for a Kenyan family.

You could just export people whose data has changed but it would include all their unchanged data, too. Either he imports into a temp database or you generate reports from your temp database. Former and changed persons could be compared, best done using Individual Summary reports and software that can compare the two report files. You should experiment with the file types. For RTF, you will need to use MS Word while you can find a free text editor that will compare TXT files.

How do I export only those that have changed since the last export? That is, without having to select each individual manually. Exporting all their data is ok, since my uncle wants to double-check everything he enters into his db anyway. Or you mean I simply export another Individual Summary report and compare the two? Although it is not possible to include all people in the db in an Individual Summary report?

If I could simply select individuals by the last edit date, that would be enough for me. But that is not possible?

Yes, that's possible. When you export a GEDCOM, you can select who to export and your criterion can be by last edit date.

Jerry

Ok, but only with GEDCOM? Since my uncle will import manually (he doesn't want to import a GEDCOM, since it means losing control of the data he adds to his db), I would need a printed report using the same criteria (last edit date). But I haven't found such an option.

He can import the GEDCOM into a new temp database and run both master and new side-by-side or generate Individual Summary reports from both for comparison. Or you generate the baseline Individual Summary reports from the last version you sent him and again after the revisions for comparison. In RM, you can selectively generate IS reports using the Select People From a List option in Report Settings.

He is not using RootsMagic, which is why GEDCOM is not working. But maybe I can export to GEDCOM and import to a new db with only the people that have updated.

There is no way to get an Individual Summary report for all people in the db? The only report that could include everything in the db seems to be the narrative report, although that is more difficult to use when copying to another application.

Excellent! Thanks a lot.