Reunion has been around for a long time and has, like most of us, gotten better with age. It is a lineage-oriented program (you put people with their families and note the sources) rather than an event-oriented one (you search for the parties to an event). The key items to keep in mind here are that it uses thoughtful design and elegant implementation to work with the user to accomplish the storage, presentation, retrieval, and output of genealogical information.

Reunion comes on a CD and is installed from there. The manual is on disk–it installs onto the hard drive and can be used within the program.

System requirements are modest in these days of "bloatware." Data storage takes about 400K of space for every 1,000 people. It takes about 10 MB of hard-drive space for the program and all its ancillary files; memory requirements are only about 2 MB. With most new machines far exceeding those specs, most users should have no problem.

For older computers, one should know that it is now a Power Mac native application. It will not run on 68K chip systems, and it requires at least System 7.6. It was tested on a Revision D (November 1999) iMac 400 MHz G3, with 196 MB of RAM.

The developers have designed the software so that you hardly need to refer to the manual except for specific items you want to accomplish. You won’t have to rack your brain getting the program to work or navigating in it. It’s easy to get started, and you can use more features later on.

Reunion also is a looker. My personal preference is to have a program that gives me confidence clues and intuitive operations rather than a mostly text-based interface. By including entry boxes in various shapes by gender; by allowing color coding of data (adoptions, natural children, multiple births, etc.); and by showing parents, couples, and offspring on a nicely designed page layout, Reunion makes it easy to see your data at a glance.

Linking data is done on a form that looks somewhat like a file card. These cards are linked (easily) in a useful and logical manner. You can add events, facts, notes, citations, and sources; the same source can be used for multiple people or events. You may also search on and create new "flags," such as a specific occupation, status, or decade of birth–the choice is yours.

The display is customizable–choose which sources and events will be seen or suppressed–and the screen colors may be changed to your liking. Users can enter the data they have acquired, document it, produce charts, displays, or reports, and choose other information to display from a series of menus. This could be pictures, movies, or sounds.

Family information can be edited as new or corrected information is found. Data about persons can be compared and merged, as can sources. Also, the user can calculate common ancestors and in-family marriages (very useful when a family has been in the same geographic location for hundreds of years and there are intermarriages of distant cousins), print questionnaires or calendars, and make graphical charts with a new built-in charting program.

Several pages of the manual describe the new features, but some new items include the ability to open multiple files and easily suppress selected data (such as information on living people) for reports or Web pages and feasibility checking–where ages at childbirth and marriage can be filtered for logical sense or other categories, such as extreme age or number of children. Virtually all the reports you can generate can be opened in various word processors, databases, or spreadsheets, or on linked-for-you Web pages. This removes the tedious task of linking all of your data correctly and designing backgrounds (you can choose from prepackaged items or paste in your own design). With the increase in posted information to the Internet, having a program do the coding and linking for you–and have it look nice–is a decided plus.

How is data entered? Apart from GEDCOM import, you open a person "card" and tab through the fields, entering what data you know. You can set auto capitalization, and the program gives children the default name of their father. The Soundex code for the surname is automatically generated and tucked onto the family card and person edit screen. Sourcing can be done at any time. You can choose to add male or female children, and if you are unsure of gender, "unknown" can be selected.

Documenting your research with source citations is comprehensive, yet easy. This means you can add numerous types of source materials and references and reuse sources common to different people, edit these sources, and cause them to be presented in various ways on screen and in printed reports. You can also enter footnotes to events, record reference footnotes, and cite specific sources.

Reunion has a nice feature I didn’t find in some competitors’ offerings: the capability to search for and replace all levels of "place," whether case sensitive or not, thus eliminating the necessity of retyping entries that might have been typed in incorrectly. It also can be set to auto-capitalize the first letter entered in a field, and to capitalize the surnames on screen and in printed output.

The program will also print family group sheets, pedigrees, ancestor lists, and a list of persons in the database, by number or alphabetically, including ID number, gender, birth date, and name. When changes are made to the data file, the program automatically saves the changes and reindexes before you quit. You can also print a listing of all individual records that have notes attached to them, or individual or family records that have footnotes attached to them, including the footnotes and the associated legends.

The pros of this program are continued, well-thought-out feature adding, ease of use, elegant design and customizability, a thorough manual, and various methods of support and contacting the developers. Cons expressed by some users I talked with include the drawback that the manual is not in printed form. One person also noted that sources from a prior version did not import.

Reunion functions easily and reliably, meaning that when you go to start up the program, it operates without a hitch. When all is said and done, Reunion still remains ahead of its rivals.

Should you buy this program? Yes, if you’re a Mac user. It has many very useful features that are well implemented. The publisher is very responsive and is committed to making continuous timely improvements in the program. You have a good selection of reports, speed, and provisions for source documentation. And if you have Internet access, there are updates and a very good mailing list support group.

Information
System Requirements:
Power Macintosh, iMac, or iBook with a CD-ROM drive,
Mac OS 7.6 or newer, and 12 MB hard disk space
By mail or direct order, cost is $99
Order from Leister Productions
PO Box 17055
(717) 697-1378.

Larry Naukam is head of acquisitions at the Rochester, New York Public Library and also works the genealogy/local history reference desk there. His interests include Internet genealogy, German research, and the Macintosh computer platform.