bigpigeon.us webpage Home > Project Mgt - Public > Reunion Use, edited by RAC 3 Feb 2020.
The Reunion Use webpage might help a future bigpigeon.us webmaster utilize the St. Paul’s database, which I built using the Reunion software starting in 1998. 
  • Reunion is a Macintosh-specific genealogy database application created and supported by Leister Productions Inc. of Pennsylvania. I currently use the most-recent version of Reunion, namely 11.0.10.
  • This webpage contains no sensitive information and thus is not password-protected.
— Robert A. “Bob” Christiansen, 2 Oct ’17

Section 1 - Using Reunion, access St. Paul’s to create a cemetery file to add to Big Pigeon.

A cemetery file consists of some basic cemetery information followed by data for those buried in that cemetery who also appear in my St. Paul’s database.

Case Study - Create a cemetery file for St. Bridget Cemetery in Boomer Township. (St. Bridget is a small cemetery in the core Big Pigeon area.)

Outline:
  1. Create a Macintosh folder for St. Bridget Cemetery. 
  2. Standardize the St. Paul’s Burial Place and Birth Place field content for St. Bridget burials.
  3. Copy the records with St. Bridget Burials into a MS Word table containing five columns, namely last name, first & mid name, birth date, birth place, and death date.
  4. Create a MS Word cemetery file for St. Bridgets Cemetery that includes the above table. Save a .pdf copy.
  5. Use the Weebly editor to incorporate the St. Bridget .pdf cemetery file within bigpigeon.us.

Notes:
  • Building a cemetery file such as described herein involves many steps. It might help you understand the following material if you first went to my website page, Local History > Big Pigeon Area, and looked at the results of this case study for St. Bridget Cemetery. 
  • Some key or large cemeteries have both a cemetery file and a second file specifically for the burial records table.

Step 1 - Create a cemetery folder for St. Bridget Cemetery on your Macintosh. In this case, create the folder History | History - Big Pigeon Area | Big Pigeon Area Churches & Cemeteries | Boomer St. Bridget Cemetery.
 
Step 2 - Within the St. Paul’s database, standardize the Burial Place field and edit the Birth Place field content for St. Bridget Cemetery burials. 

To standardize the St. Paul's Burial Place field, proceed thusly:
  • I wish the Burial Place field for individuals buried in St. Bridget Cemetery to contain St. Bridget Cem., Boomer T., Pott. Co., IA.
  • Back up the St. Paul’s database.
  • Use Reunion to open the St. Paul’s database. You should see the default Family View Reunion window.
  • Use the Find option in the left Family View menu to find all records where the Burial Place field contains bridget. A list of hits appears in the right column. Some of these hits will be left unchanged, as they refer to burials in other cemeteries named St. Bridget. 
  • Under this list, click the orange List Window option to open a List - Results Reunion window.
  • Click the orange Column Options at the bottom and click on the resulting pop-up menu to add a blank fifth column.
  • Click the right blue column heading box above the fifth column and select the Burial Place field.
  • Adjust column heading boxes to view Burial Place field contents.
  • Use the Burial Place field results shown to edit nonconforming individual Burial Place cells in St. Paul’s. Keep the List 
  • Keep the List - Results window open. As you toggle to the Family View window, make the changes, and toggle back to the List - Results window, you will see your changes taking effect.
  • Once all Burial Place fields have been corrected in the List Results window, exit Reunion.
  • Again back up St. Paul’s.

To edit the St. Paul's Birth Place field, proceed thusly:
Preliminaries:
  • Back up the St. Paul's database if you didn't just do so.
  • Use Reunion to open the St. Paul’s database.
  • As above, use the Find option in the left Family View menu to find all records for individuals buried in St. Bridget Cemetery and again use the List Window option to open the List - Results window.
  • Assuming the List - Results window already includes the Birth Place field, click on the blue Share icon in the bottom window.
  • Follow the instructions and create a MS Word file named St.BridgetCemBurialsxxx.docx in the Boomer St. Bridget folder. Here xxx is a date stamp, e.g., 2Oct’17.
  • Use MS Word to open St.BridgetCemBurialsxxx.docx.
Editing: Use MS Word's Spelling and Grammar feature to find possible problems in St.BridgetCemBurialsxxx.docx, and especially in the Birth Place field. For each possible problem, use your judgment as to what course to take:
  • Add a new word to MS Word’s vocabulary.
  • Edit the St. Paul’s database file to fix a problem. Do not edit St.BridgetCemBurialsxxx.docx as it will be replaced in Step 3 below.
  • Take no action.
Wrapup:
  • Once you are satisfied with your editing, exit Reunion.
  • Again create a St. Paul’s backup.
  • Your editing might take several iterations.

Step 3 - Create a burial table containing the St. Bridget burials from the St. Paul’s database.
  • Again find all records for individuals buried in St. Bridget Cemetery and open the List - Results window.
  • Then instead of adding the Burial Place field to the List - Results window, add the Death Date window. You should now have in order the five desired fields Last Name, First & Mid Name, Birth Place, Birth Date, and Death Date.
  • Again click the blue Share icon in the bottom menu, follow the instructions, and reopen St.BridgetCemBurialsxxx.docx.
  • Select the list of records in St.BridgetCemBurialsxxx.docx and use MS Word’s Table | Convert | Convert Text to Table option to createe a five-column table and place the data, including a heading line, within this table.
Now adjust the table thusly:
  • Font to 12-point Arial Narrow.
  • Row height to at least 0.25”.
  • Field widths to roughly 1.25”, 1.50”, 1.75”, 1”, AND 1”.

Step 4 -  Build the St. Bridget cemetery file.
  • Within the folder Boomer St. Bridget Cemetery, create an empty MS Word file named St.BridgetCem.docx.
  • Add the heading information from a previous cemetery file to the new St. Bridget cemetery file.
  • Edit the heading information to reflect St. Bridget Cemetery.
  • Add a first page footer (e.g., St.BridgetCem.docx   2 October 1917) and a page footer for subsequent pages (e.g., St. Bridget Cemetery   2 October 2017   page x).
  • Within St.BridgetCemBurialsxxxx.docx, select and copy the burial table.
  • Paste the burial table into the end of St.BridgetCem.docx.
  • Add other data such as the number of records to the St.BridgetCem.docx heading information.
  • Using MSWord’s print feature, create St.BridgetCem.pdf.

Step 5 - Incorporate the St. Bridget cemetery file by editing the Big Pigeon website.

Before editing Big Pigeon:
  • From your computer, access the bigpigeon.us website at weebly.com (when logging in, use the E-Mail rachristia@aol.com and the password you have been provided).
  • Create a Big Pigeon backup.
Edit bigpigeon.us making the following changes:
  • Create a title-commentary pair in the appropriate area of bigpigeon.us. Here add to the Local History > Big Pigeon Area webpage the string St. Bridget’s Cemetery in Boomer Township - (added 28 Sep ’17).
  • Link the title to the file St.BridgetCem.pdf.
  • Add an entry to the Home > Website Log webpage and perhaps to the Briefly Noted area of the Home webpage.
  • Add an entry to the Resources > Pigeon Central > History Index webpage.
  • Remember to update the webpage title date whenever editing a webpage.
After editing Big Pigeon:
  • Publish.
  • Test the website bigpigeon.us to ensure that all is as desired.
  • Create another Big Pigeon backup.