Today I was working on a family from my husband’s tree and
went to print out the Family Group sheet and the children were not in birth
order but the order I had keyed them into the software program. Family Tree
Maker 2014 allows you to view the family in birth order by clicking a small
sort button, which I usually always have clicked. It is the one selected in the
picture.
The first step I always do when I have a question is to
Google my question and see if anyone else has or had the problem. I knew I
could not be the first person to have this problem.
Well I did find that others were having this problem. What I
discovered was this is the way the software was designed and thus they stated
there was no solution. I beg to disagree on this matter. So I went back to my
family view and using the up and down arrows located just to the left of the
sort button, I manually moved the children in my family to the proper birth
order. Then when I went back to the report, the children now print in the
correct order.
However, this could take a long time to manually sort each child in each family. An easier method is to select Tools from the menu, then select "Sort all Children by Birth". A popup box comes up and informs the user "Sorting all children by birth will remove any manual sorting from all families in this tree. Note: Before sorting all children, it is a good idea to backup your file." and then there is an option to check the box to Backup file before sorting.
I never really noticed before today, that the children were
not in birth order. However, I do know that a lot of times, I key in the
children in birth order, because I am using a census record as my guide for
keying in children names. This is especially true on co-lateral lines but not always
on direct lines since it is the direct ancestor that I find first and then
based on that fact, I will find siblings of my direct ancestor and start typing
them in and not necessarily by birth.
Lesson learned, check the report before printing and perhaps run the file sorting of children on my database once in a while.
