Three Cheers for Reunion 10

As an avid Mac user, I have anxiously awaited a major upgrade of Leister Pro's Reunion software.  At last it is available.  I am not disappointed in the least.  There are some things they could have added, such as conformity to Elizabeth Shown Mills' sourcing in Evidence Explained.  Some researchers use her sourcing and some do not.  However, most of the commercial genealogy software, if not all, have the benefit of using her methods an styles.

Reunion 10 - Family View

Tree View Pedigree - Reunion 10

There are so many new features in Reunion 10 that your head will be spinning.  After downloading Reunion 10, I began converting my existing Reunion 9 family files.  This appeared to go without a hitch, but took some time since I have many family files.  Once I opened a file, I was greeted with photographs and photographs.  If you have a photograph for a person, whether the parents, grandparents or children, it will appear on the Family View.  The Tree View allows you to see the information in a pedigree or hour glass format.  It is great for understanding the pedigree of a person.

What used to be a menu bar across the top is now the Sidebar on the left of the Family View.  Clicking on any of the features, such as Tree View, Charts, Find, Change, etc. will bring up a more extensive menu.  In addition, you can navigate to other important menu items such as Multimedia, Relatives, Places, Bookmarks and Clipboard, all of which appear to the right of the Family View.  You can open and close that area as needed.

Reunion 10 - Places 

Two features I enjoy are Places and Web Searching.  After clicking on Places in the sidebar, all of the places you have entered will pop up to the right.  You can then locate them or GEO code them.  Reunion uses either Google Maps or Bing to show the location.  You can correct locations directly from the Place list.  In addition by clicking on one of the locations, you will learn who has that location within your family file.

Where relatives lived - Aylesford, Kent, England.

In the rectangle showing your ancestor there is a small inverted triangle on the top right side.  Opening that produces a number of options, such a showing all of the places for that individual and locating the map.  Under Search the Web you van determine the areas you wish to search.  Some of those listed are Ancestry.com, FindAGrave, World Connect, World Vital Records and Fold3.  Experimenting with this produced some records I did not have, probably because I had not gotten around to checking Fold3.

If you have used Reunion in the past, this should not produce a learning curve.  However, it does take time to explore all of the option and features, then put them to use.  It is helpful to watch the three videos available on their web page.  They are The Top 10 New Features in Reunion 10, Changes in Reunion 10 and Installing Reunion 10.  If you also have an iPad, you do not need to upgrade the software as it will continue to upload from either Reunion 9 or Reunion 10.

Thanks Leister Pro for upgrading Reunion!