A small problem with the Problem List.

Rootsmagic will run a Problem List for you and based on basic criteria, which you can alter, will report anomalies regarding your database. Things like a mother being a little old to be having children, events out of logical order and births out of marriage are all reported by running the problem list.

A change in the program layout between Rootsmagic 3 and Rootsmagic 4 meant that the program no longer displays the family basic birth information that a user would need to make an informed decision as to where corrections need to be made. It's also true that this information may be correct and Rootsmagic will allow you to mark this as "not a problem" so it doesn't flag in future.

I find the majority of problems reported are family based and need you to look at the family as a unit in order to easily see where the incorrect data lies. In Rootsmagic 3 the example of the Problem List above tells us that Emily’s father was 80 years old when the Emily was born?. So is Emily’s birth year incorrect or is it her fathers birth year, or is the data correct? Clicking the Edit Family button will give us a few more clues.

Now we can not only see Emily’s birth date but also that of her mother and father and in this example the father would appear to be 60 years older than the mother. We can also see Emily’s birth date is precise whereas the mother and fathers birth dates are not and likely approximated. In this case clicking the Edit father button would be my first choice to checking the data and making possible corrections.

As I said earlier things changed a little in Rootsmagic version 4 which left resolving these family issues a lot less informative. Clicking the Edit Family button in Rootsmagic 4 in the same example brings you up the following screen for you to choose which person you would actually like to edit. Unfortunately no information regarding birth years is presented and I would suggest should be in the area I have highlighted.  Without that basic information users have no real clue as to where the problem might lie.

Since the problem was indicated as the fathers age we will choose to edit the father in the hope that things will become a little more clear on the next screen.

Unfortunately not we now have a further screen which does not display the family event information to help us in any way to further resolve this problem.

Really the only way to see the complete picture and where things might be incorrect would be for Rootsmagic to present a view which displays the basic family facts of Emily, her parents and siblings. Looking back at the Edit Family screen shot that would appear to be easiest done in the highlighted area alongside the family names.

This issue got some attention in version 4.0.6 and I am hopeful that it gets closed out in a future update.