* Ribbons in Diagrams

[Bill Deverell]

I am confused by what seems to be an unnecessary use of ribbons.
See attached PDF.

I would like to recombine the common ancestors in this diagram.
The treatment as duplicates seems unnecessary.
It might be possible to eliminate the ribbon if for one couple the man and wife were reversed.
I don't know if this is possible and whether it would do the job.

Bill

[tatewise]

It is not possible to reverse either couple.
Even if that was possible I suspect both couples would reverse, because they are the same couple in the same Family record.
That is what the duplicate ribbon signifies - a duplicate Family display.

It is another one of those cases where, to the human eye, in this simple subset of all the possibilities, that the boxes could be diagramatically merged.

BUT remember these FH Diagrams are not static.
They dynamically redraw when Individuals are added.
So add some Ancestors to say William FISHER, or more siblings to the duplicate Family, and the redrawn Diagram would not be able to merge the duplicated Family.

The extra softare to attempt to simply these simple subsets would be very complex for little gain.

I presume you know the ribbons can be hidden?

[LornaCraig]

Hello Bill,

I agree that in cases like yours where the duplicated couple are close to each other it would look simpler if they were only shown once, but FH can only work ‘mechanically’ and in many cases the linking ribbons are the best way to show duplications within a large diagram. There are other reasons why showing them only once would not be easy: for example in your case the couple appear in different generations in the two places. If the program only displayed them once, how would it know which generation you wanted them to be aligned with?

However there are ways of manually adjusting the diagram to achieve a layout to your own liking. In your example the couple does not have any ancestors showing, but if they did you can ensure that their ancestral branches are not duplicated, by clicking on the expansion buttons to close duplicated branches. (If the expansion buttons are not showing in your diagram, click the icon in the diagram toolbar which has a small cross inside a circle).

In your diagram you could also click the expansion button immediately above either John Peach or Mary Peach to hide the parents, and then insert a line into the diagram linking them to the other instance of their parents. (Right-click in the background of the diagram and select ‘Insert into Diagram’> multi-segmented line). Bear in mind that this won't work if you intend to add more people to the diagram, as the relative positions of the boxes will change but the inserted line will be static.

[Bill Deverell]

Thanks Mike and Lorna

Just have to deal with each case on its merits I suppose.

Bill