[mariemeyer3000]

Please can someone tell me what's the difference between these 2? Thanks so much, Marie in Tucson.

[aplucinik]

There isn't any particular report in RootsMagic that is called a "Book Report". But it is a generic name for basically any type of narrative report you might generate in Rootsmagic or it is a "book" that is created using RootsMagic's Publisher tool which can contain several types of reports combined into one published report.

The definition of Ahnentafel is:
a list of a person's ancestors in a particular order. It is a construct used in genealogy Genealogy is the study and tracing of family pedigrees. This involves collecting the names of relatives, both living and deceased, establishing the relationships between them based on primary, secondary and/or circumstantial evidence or documentation, and thus building up a cohesive family tree.

The best thing for you to do is run an Ahnentafel report in Rootsmagic and then you'll see what it looks like and what it contains.

[mariemeyer3000]

But Allen...
...when I go to the drop-down list <Books> and pick <Ancestor Book> it prints something that looks just like my Ahnentafel report: is this is *fact* the SAME THING or am I missing somethinG?? Thanks for your patience-

[aplucinik]

What Genealogy program are you using? I'm beginning to think you are talking about Family Origins not Rootsmagic. This is the RootsMagic forum. RootsMagic replaced Family Origins. If I remember correctly, Family Origins had something called a book report. I'll have to reinstall it to refresh my memory.

[mariemeyer3000]

Allen, I apologize, I just saw that I have my Family Origins program open and not RootsMagic;-{{ BUT the question stays the same, you just have to go to <Narrative report> in Rootsmagic (whhich I bought today, BTW) to get the <Ancestor Book> option. And I've noticed one difference so far: the Ancestor Book lists page numbers in the Index; whilst the Ahnentafel list the Ahnentafel numbers. Is there anything else?

[aplucinik]

The Ahnentafel will also have an index IF you select the option to print an index.

But the main difference between a narrative report and an Ahnentafel is that the Ahnentafel contains only basic vital information about each individual such as birthdate, death date, marriage date, place of birth etc.

All the narrative reports include any and all facts types you entered for individuals and narrative information that comes mostly from narrative data you entered in Notes.

I could go on summarizing the differences but as I said before, the best way to understand the difference between the two is to run a report of each and compare them.

[mariemeyer3000]

Oh boy, I HAVE printed them both out and AM comparing them, but besides the index having ahnentafel numbers vs page numbers, and the ahnentafel just printing short facts, I don't see any difference... Ok, let me rephrase a little: they are basically the same thing, right??

[aplucinik]

I wouldn't call them the same thing. A narrative report contains a lot more fact type information than the ahnentafel report and also a lot more narrative information, especially information from the notes section of each individual.

But then if you haven't entered a lot of text into the notes section of individuals and haven't added many fact types besides the basic fact types found in the Ahentafel then you might not see a big difference between the two reports.

[RootsMagician]

[mariemeyer3000]

I'm not sure of protocol on these forum's, but let me say 'why, thank you sir';-) I appreciate you taking the time to explain. Regards, Marie in Tucson.

[CLapsley]