Thursday, February 25, 2016

Stuck gender toggle

It appears I've inherited my father's genealogy database. My mother had spent years on the basic research (though she wouldn't meet the documentation requirements of current researchers). She created four binders for the major branches of the family, some lines going back as much as 12 generations. At some point Dad taught Mom how to enter it all into computer (once there was a home computer). I think since then it has been migrated to at least one, if not two, other genealogy systems. The most recent one is the Legacy program.

In cleaning out Mom and Dad's bedroom I found the four binders. I also found many slips of paper onto which Mom had written some detail to be added to the database, such as her sister's new grandchild. I don't know yet if all those slips got entered.

And now the database is up to me (unless a sibling wants it, though I don't hear any clamoring). The last entry Dad made was in 2011 and there have been several great-grandchildren born since then, including three born in the month before he died, and a wedding two days after his death. So I added those, though I don't have all the details, such as place of birth.

There was also the marriage of my sister and her wife to add. I went to my sister's record. Her info was on the right side of the screen and space on the left for a husband. I clicked on "add person" and filled in the form. But... the gender toggle was firmly at "M" and the program would not allow me to change it.

So I backed out of that and created a record for an independent person and filled in my sister-in-law's info. I went back to my sister's record and clicked on "marriage." It asked, "Add Husband: add New person or link to Existing person." I chose the existing person button and selected the record I had just created. I got the message "You cannot link a female as a husband."

I did some web searching and finally found a page on the company's website. The page, updated last September, says:
The way the Legacy database is structured, Legacy cannot support same-sex relationships at this time. We are working on this for the next version of Legacy. In the meantime, there is a work-around.
That work-around includes buying a Microsoft database program and using it to flip a couple fields (one for my sister, one for a niece). Otherwise I wait for version 9, no release date given.

At the moment I have the basic version of the program. I can enter data, but I can't do most of the interesting stuff, like the chart functions – and compare two databases. That last is of interest because a cousin-in-law of Dad has also been doing significant research, which includes Mom's family. His database is about ten times the size of mine. Though I don't want all of it, I'm sure he has some important records I don't have (and I have some he'll want).

But that means I'll have to buy a product that discriminates against my sister. Or I wait. Maybe years.

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