By Dale Farris, Secretary
Golden Triangle PC Club
April 2005

Overview

Have you always wanted to create box charts, fan charts, and wall charts from your Ancestral Quest (AQ) family database? This full featured charting product is the answer you have been waiting for. Compatible with Ancestral Quest version 3.0 and Ancestral Quest 2002, Charting Companion is an essential add-on for anyone running the Ancestral Quest software program.

Note that Charting Companion for Ancestral Quest is but one of three (3) charting companion applications from Progeny Software that are designed to add still more functionality to existing ancestry software. Progeny Software provides these three (3) chart product options to choose from:

1. Ancestral Quest Charting Companion
2. Legacy Charting Companion
3. Personal Ancestral File Companion (PAF 5.2 also included)

For a review of Ancestral Quest 11, from Incline Software, LC, click here.

To read more about Incline Software's program, click here.

About Ancestral Quest Charting Companion

Do you want to do more charting from your genealogy program? Try a charting companion add-on from Progeny Software. Progeny Software offers charting solutions for PAF, Legacy and Ancestral Quest.

No data entry and no GEDCOM is required when using Charting Companion. Progeny's charting companion products read your family database directly.

Charting Companion is also very simple to use. Open your database, choose your subject, select your chart, and print! Or, to share with family and friends, choose the new publish to PDF option and send your chart by email.

If that is not enough, there are many ways to customize your charts. You can choose the number of generations, the events to include, the content of your box charts, date format, photos, etc… With Progeny's "cousin smart" option you can even avoid duplicate individuals on charts.

For international users, Progeny's charting companion products also accommodate different paper sizes (e.g. A4, B3 …), metric units of measure, and western European characters with diacritics.

On top of all that, Progeny's charting companion provides extensive search capabilities to find elusive information you may have stored in your family database.

Using Ancestral Quest Charting Companion 1.1

Using Progeny Software's Charting Companion 1.1 requires that you first record your family information in a genealogy software program, in this case Ancestral Quest, before proceeding to use Charting Companion. (Names, birth dates and places, etc.)

If you use any of the following genealogy programs, there is a special version of Charting Companion software available to match it: Personal Ancestral File (PAF), Legacy, Ancestry Family Tree (AFT), Heritage Family Trees Deluxe.

You start by opening your data file in Charting Companion. For help finding your genealogy files, try the Scan files option. See the help file for more details if needed.

Select a subject from the Names List. You can create charts right away or you can go to the Family View to see the information. You can navigate through family links by double clicking on spouses, children or parents.

For further help using the program, there is an online manual you can download: www.progenysoftware.com/chartingcompanion_manual.html

If you cannot open your family tree files, be sure you have the correct type of Charting Companion to match your data entry software. Charting Companion can only open files created by the software program. There may also be a problem with your data file. Open your genealogy program and have it check your file for errors. If you find any, fix them and try Charting Companion again. For example, in Legacy, click on File, File Maintenance and then Check/Repair.

Emailing reports to family is very easy to do. You can share a chart created in PDF format with anyone. You can also share the Register and Ahnentafel report files. Here's how:

1. For charts and reports: Select your chart options. Click on Publish and save the file in a place where you can find it later, such as My Documents.

For Register and Ahnentafel reports: Create the file, edit the document if necessary, insert the index if applicable, and save it in a place where you can find it later, such as My Documents.

2. Open your email, create your message and send the file as an attachment. Find the attachment feature (usually a paper clip icon). Click on it and browse to your saved file.

3. Send.

You can also cut and paste your charts, and you can copy and paste portions of a PDF chart. You can copy as a graphic, or as text and paste to email, word processor or an image editor, such as MS Paint.

You can also preview your chart in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
As a graphic: Note: The scale and portion of the page that you are viewing in Adobe is what will be copied to the clipboard. Choose the Snapshot Tool on the toolbar. (You can also find it via Tools, Basic, Snapshot Tool.) Paste into the desired location in your email or word processor.

As text: Choose the Text Select Tool and copy/paste as text instead of graphics. The drawback is that any indenting or tabs that may exist in the report will not paste with the text.

Cousin Smart is a neat feature in the program. When distant cousins marry, they may appear in more than one place on a chart. Duplicate persons on the chart are highlighted in grey boxes in each location. However, the lineage is only continued on one branch from that point on the chart to conserve space. This is Progeny's Cousin Smart option in action.

You can change the text at the bottom of the reports. There are two methods:

1. Change the information in your data file. By default, Charting Companion takes the information from your genealogy data file. There are various terms for the various genealogy files, but in general, look for Compiler Info, Submitter Information, or Author Information.

2. Change it temporarily while the file is open in Charting Companion. Click on File, Preferences, Author. You can see what the current author information is in the file, and change it there.

Tip: You must have “submitter” box checked in the report options to see this print out.

You can also make a wall chart. All box charts can become a wall chart using the various options for the chart. For wall chart printing tips, go to: www.progenysoftware.com/wallchartprinttips.html

Price

$24.95 - CD ROM
$19.95 - Download

The download version is offered as an electronic download only. A registration key along with download instructions will be e-mailed to you within 24 hours of placing your order. No CD-ROM will be shipped unless you specifically order the CD-ROM version.

System Configuration Requirements

Pentium processor
Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000,  XP
32MB RAM
12MB free hard disk space
VGA or better monitor
Windows compatible printer
Adobe Acrobat Reader (required for preview and publish to PDF)

About Progeny Software, Inc.

Progeny Software, Inc. is a privately held software company incorporated in 1995 in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. Founded by principal owners and partners Pierre Cloutier and Bob Thomas, Progeny’s mission is to develop useful and easy-to-use software tools for genealogy enthusiasts.

The company currently has two primary product lines:

• A line of Windows-based “companion” software that offers a complete solution for printing high quality genealogy charts and reports, including a book format for publishing and historical timeline charts.

• A series of specialized genealogy research databases on CD-ROM that incorporate Progeny’s charting and search engine technology for viewing, searching and printing.

Since its beginning in 1994, Progeny has established a reputation for quality and integrity, and enjoys amicable relationships with both large and small players in the genealogy marketplace. Progeny’s software has been bundled with or incorporated into products published by such high-profile companies as Corel, Mindscape, The Learning Company, as well as the LDS Church. Progeny's products are also distributed internationally by a network of genealogy dealers in the US, Canada, and overseas.

Corporate Head Office for Progeny Software is located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. In order to deliver CD-ROM products and better serve US customers, Progeny Publishing was established in 1997 with a business office in Buffalo, New York.

Contact

Stephanie Preston
Media Relations
Progeny Software, Inc.
360 Main Street, Suite 14
Wolfville, Nova Scotia
Canada B4P 1C4
902-542-0665
FAX 902-542-0562
stephaniep@progenysoftware.com
www.progenysoftware.com