Relationships! We are related to all our DNA matches, somehow. The question I had was how many of my different cousins have I already tested, how many are deceased, and how many of those remaining should I try to “guilt-trip” into taking a DNA test?
Easy question to ask…. All I gotta do is run a report…. Humm, what report? Who has this report? Ancestry and MyHeritage doesn’t have a report that I need, neither does Rootsmagic. My problem is that when they tell me I can’t do something, I am like the teenage boy who says he will do it just to prove he can!
The DNA part is easy. All the companies who do DNA testing for genealogical purposes sort your matches by relationship. What I need is a relationship report from my tree! Not a one-to-one relationship chart, but a list of all my blood relatives. RootsMagic has a report that lists Name and Relationship. But no dates! I need dates, especially death dates. It is hard to get DNA from a deceased cousin! I need something like this:
Warbis, Maude 1881-1928 3rd cousin twice removed
After a short session with Google, I discovered that the PC program Legacy has a report that does just what I need! The report it builds has the dates included as part of the name field, which is really weird. But a quick run in Excel using formulas to reformat the name into did the trick. I now have 3 columns, Name, Dates and Relationship. Sortable!
To run this report, load your current data. In the Family View, navigate to yourself. Then Click on Tools, then Click Set Relationships. Now go to Reports in the main toolbar. Find the Relationship button in the Other section and run your report to CSV file. Or preview it!

My mother and father were about the same age. But my mother was the youngest of her eleven siblings, and my father was the oldest in his family. So, 11 of my 12 maternal first cousins are deceased! The only living one isn’t talking to anyone any more. And of my 11 paternal cousins, they are all living, but only one has tested! I had better start sucking up to my paternal first cousins!
In looking at the rest of my people, I suddenly have lost interest in doing a comparison. I have so many 1st cousins xx removed and 2nd cousins of all relationships, that I give up. Thank heaven for Thrulines! But, I did prove that I can produce that report!
”Success is where preparation met opportunity.” – Neil Armstrong