One of the best-kept secrets of The Master Genealogist (DOS and Windows) is the “Distribution of People” report—a report which has so much power and flexibility that this short article can only scratch the surface of its possibilities.

The “Distribution of People” report will identify all of the variations of a particular type of data in your data set and the number of people represented in each category. For instance, the sample report of this type (generated when you choose “Distribution of People” from the Report menu) will count people in your data set according to the state in which they were born.

Using the sample data set, the report produces this table titled “Distribution of All People by Birth State”:

State            Frequency


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(empty)           28
Tennessee        10
Virginia             9
Pennsylvania    2
Delaware           1
Florida               1
Maryland          1
Missouri            1

But this is just the beginning. Since you can specify the field or characteristic by which to distribute people (e.g., birth state in the example above), and you can sort the resulting list alphabetically or by frequency, there are lots of other ways to put this report to good use.

A common question is, “How can I generate a list of unique surnames in my data set?” Not only will the Distribution of People report produce such a list, it will even tell you how many times each surname has been used. On the Report Definition Screen, select the “Output Column” tab and change “Column/Field Contents” to “Name* Surname.” The resulting report will list each primary surname and the number of times it is represented in your data set.

In these examples, everyone in the data set is counted once. But the real power of the Distribution of People report is revealed when you filter the report so that it considers only certain people. For example, you can get a frequency distribution for: surname spelling variations for the descendants in a certain line; the number of males versus females who descended from your ancestor; deceased ancestors according to their age at death (or living relatives by age today); relatives who were casualties of the U.S. Civil War, grouped by their place of death; candidates for a certain census sorted by the frequency of their surname Soundex; distribution of immigrants by place of birth (or point of entry) . . . I’m sure you can think of lots more!

For a more complete discussion of the “Distribution of People” report and the appropriate filters for the examples above, see Allen Mellen’s TMG Resource page.

In addition to being the developer of The Master Genealogist and president of Wholly Genes Software, Bob Velke has been a family researcher for approximately 10 years. His particular research interests are the Civil War and Southwestern Virginia. He can be contacted by e-mail at tmg@whollygenes.com.